“I’ve been around boats since I was in diapers.” The skipper chuckled. “Piloted my first tug at fifteen. The chop doesn’t bother me none.”
“You’re lucky.” Decker reached out and gripped the rail.
“Luck has nothing to do with it.” Seth spun the wheel to the left, turning the boat toward the dock. “Just takes time to get your sea legs, that’s all.”
“I don’t think I have any sea legs.” Decker felt his stomach lurch as the boat rode a particularly large swell. He doubted he would ever get used to this. “My legs are definitely happier on land.”
“You’re doing okay.” Seth pulled the throttle and slowed the boat. “I remember one guy, spent the whole trip with his head over the side, heaving. I tell you, I thought he was about to go and die on me, he looked so ill. Weren’t near as bad as it is today either.”
“Lucky me.” They were coming alongside the dock now. Decker noticed a figure in a thick raincoat waiting there. He could tell it was a woman despite the hood that was pulled up over her head, obscuring her features. Apparently he had a welcoming committee.
“Here you are then.” Seth turned to him. “This is where you boys get off.”
“Right.” Decker reached down and grabbed his travel bag, which was sitting like an island in a pool of brackish water. He was thankful that the bag was waterproof, or his clothes might have been ruined, and he doubted there was a mall close by.
“Son?” The skipper raised an eyebrow. “Are you going or not, because I don’t know how long I can hold us steady like this.”
“Sorry.” Decker reached up and took hold of the dock, heaving himself from the boat with less grace that he would have liked. Just as he stepped up, the vessel bobbed sideways, threatening to deposit him into the swirling, freezing waters, but somehow he managed to keep his balance. The woman on the dock held her hand out. Decker took it and allowed her to pull him up, grateful to exit the boat.
He turned around and offered his hand to the spectacle-clad stranger, helping him out of the swaying boat. No sooner had the man’s feet touched the dock than he pushed past Decker, mumbling an apology as he did so, and hurried toward a black pickup idling on the quay.
“Nice guy.” Decker watched his travel companion climb into the passenger seat of the truck without a backward glance and slam the door.
“Indeed.” The woman smiled, the wind whipping at her hood. “John Decker, I presume?”
“The one and only.” Decker watched the boat pull away, a little concerned that his only escape from this barren plot of land at the end of the earth was chugging into the distance.
“I’m Hayley Marsh.” The woman introduced herself. “The town administrator.”
“Town?” Decker glanced around. All he could see were two tall buildings that looked like dilapidated office blocks and a smattering of boat sheds and workshops clustered near the water. Further away, on the other side of the bay, were two more docks, these much larger than the one he now stood on and made of concrete instead of wood. Beyond that was a marina, with several boats docked within the shelter of a sea wall that stretched out around the berths like a protective arm, and a smattering of low buildings that were nothing more than a scattering of restaurants and shops, and what looked like a motel. “Where does everyone live? I don’t see any houses.”
“Right there.” Hayley pointed toward the nearest tower.
“That’s the town?” Decker said, surprised. “It looks like an office building.”
“I can assure you, it’s much more than that.” Hayley steered him along the dock. “Ten floors of apartments, one hundred and twenty in total. The first, second and fourteenth floors are commercial. We have a grocery store, a movie theatre, even a health spa. We have a school on the third floor. There are a few restaurants and a bar near the docks, but we’re mostly self contained.”
“Must be convenient. Everything under one roof.”
“Exactly. But why don’t you come and see for yourself?” She motioned for him to follow and set off along the dock. “Follow me.”
Decker fell in behind her, taking in the scene as he walked. When the wind dropped enough to speak again he pointed at the second tower block, which looked bleak and empty. “What’s the deal with the other building?”
“We don’t use the north tower,” Hayley said over her shoulder, raising her voice so that he could hear her. Even then he needed to strain to hear. “This whole place used to be a Navy base, at least until the late seventies when the military pulled out. Our building was used as personnel quarters, while the other one was administrative. We looked at using it for housing several years ago, but it would cost too much to convert it for our needs. Lots of asbestos and stuff.”
“I see. What about the docks?” Decker pointed to the twin concrete arms that stretched into the bay.
“At one time there would have been military vessels, destroyers and escorts moored there. Now the cruise lines use them. We have six different ships that stop here at various times during the summer months. If it weren’t for the tourists who come ashore to take tours of the glacier, this town would be long gone. Half the residents make their money off the cruise ships.”
Hayley pointed to a large expanse of blue-white ice nestled in a ridge between two mountains. The river of ice weaved down to the ocean, where it ended in a breathtaking wall of white. All along the coastline of Baldwin Bay there would be many other such tidal glaciers carving their way toward the sea, but only this one had a town in its shadow. The twin peaks, and the great sheet of compacted snow they bordered, loomed over the two tall buildings that made up the majority of the town of Shackleton, dwarfing them.
“Must be a lonely existence,” Decker said as they reached the end of the dock, his eyes still fixed upon the spectacle of ice and the insignificant town below.
“Not really.” Hayley stopped at a battered red truck and unlocked it. “You get used to it. Most of the residents value the solitude. They find it cathartic.”
“Each to their own,” Decker said, pulling the door open and sliding into the passenger seat, happy to be out of the howling gale and unrelenting icy drizzle.
“Okay.” Hayley glanced toward him, starting the engine as she did so. “Let’s get you someplace warm.”
3
The black truck moved slowly through the town of Shackleton, sticking exactly to the fifteen mile an hour speed limit. In the passenger seat Dominic Collins warmed his hands against the dash vent, the hot air finally bringing some feeling back to his numb fingers. The boat ride from Anchorage had been brutal, and a few times he feared he might lose the contents of his stomach. Still, at least he didn’t look as bad as the other passenger, who actually appeared to turn a shade of green.
He glanced through the rain-streaked window at the bleak, mundane town beyond and sighed. He hated field assignments, loathed them, in fact, and if it weren’t for the insane amount of money he was paid for such work, he would not even consider them. Still, he couldn't complain. Many of his peers, men and women whom he went to college with and studied alongside, were not making anywhere near the kind of dough he was pulling in. He was lucky to be recruited straight out of MIT, targeted for his particular skill set, and also because he matched the behavioral profile his employer required. He was a loner, with few friends and no family to speak of. Everything he achieved was with the sweat of his brow. There was no silver spoon, no old money trust fund to bankroll his path through higher education. He earned his degree with a partial scholarship and a handful of part time jobs. After that, when the money ran out, he sold his soul to the devil, or at least the organization that he now worked for, and allowed them to fund his master's degree on the condition that he come to work for them right out of school; nothing was ever really free. He also agreed to keep his mouth shut about the sometimes-dubious activities of his employer. He even let them erase his identity, and remove him from circulation, so to speak. He had no credit cards, no mortgage, and no car payment.
He travelled under assumed names and used assumed lines of credit. Wherever he went, he left little to no paper trail. Just like everyone else in the organization, he was a ghost.
He removed his spectacles and pulled a napkin from his pocket, wiping the lenses to remove the thin sheen of moisture that had beaded there during the boat trip. As the truck moved past the squat, low buildings that clustered near the docks, he spoke for the first time in hours.
“So what’s the deal here, are we looking at a contagion situation?”
“No. There is no contagion.” The driver of the truck, a burly man with short-cropped black hair and a square jaw, named Adam Hunt, glanced over at him with cold, emotionless eyes. “This situation is a little more unique than you might be used to.”
“So what then?” Dominic hated the compartmentalized structure of his job. There was a strict need to know policy that trickled down from the highest ranks to the lowliest operatives, and briefings were always, without exception, carried out on site. That way if anything went south, if an asset were to fall into the wrong hands – and there were plenty of those – there could be no damage done. Even under torture you couldn't talk about things you didn’t have any knowledge of. “Biohazard?”
“Not that either.” Hunt was tight lipped. “It’s rather more complicated.”
“You could be a wee bit more informative,” Dominic said, doing his best to keep the frustration out of his voice. His curiosity was piqued. If it wasn’t a contagion or a biohazard, then he was not sure what use he would be, being that his specialization was in infectious diseases. Sometimes he wondered if he would have been better suited to a job with a more transparent outfit such as the CDC or the World Health Organization. “You might as well tell me. I’m here now.”
“All in good time.” Hunt turned left, onto a road that led away from the docks, toward two drab concrete towers that rose like eyesores, blocking out his view of a majestic mountain range and the stunning glacier cutting through it.
“Fine.” Dominic lapsed into momentary silence. He would have pressed the matter further, but he had a feeling his companion was not one to succumb to pressure. When Hunt deemed it necessary he would, presumably, be briefed. Eventually he spoke again. “Can you at least tell me where I will be sleeping while I’m here?”
“I can do better than that.” Hunt maneuvered the truck around the two towers, circling to the rear of the closest building, and came to a stop. He applied the parking brake and turned to Dominic. “Why don’t I show you?”
4
Decker relaxed into the seat next to Hayley Marsh and observed his new surroundings. There were only a handful of roads serving the town of Shackleton. They passed a souvenir shop, a place that rented kayaks by the hour and also offered tours of the glacier, and a couple of restaurants, a bar, and a small motel that looked like it had seen better days. Decker half expected Hayley to pull up into the parking lot, but instead she kept going.
“We don’t use the motel for official town business,” she explained. “We have room in the tower, so we maintain guest quarters there.”
“I see.” Decker nodded.
“It costs less to put official visitors up in our own accommodations. The budget gets tighter each year, so we save where we can,” Hayley said. “The motel is primarily for the few tourists and other out-of-towners who stop here. I hope you’re not disappointed.”
“No. Not at all.” Decker’s gaze drifted back to the window, his eyes settling on a café that advertised all day breakfast and also served as the town pizza joint. A couple of curious locals looked their way as the truck passed, one of whom, a tall man leaning in the café doorway, raised his hand in greeting when he saw Hayley’s truck. She beeped her horn and waved back.
“That’s Jack Mason,” she said by way of explanation. “He runs the Rest-A-While Café. It’s the only place to eat outside of the tower, at least in the winter months, and even then he closes up if there’s a storm coming in or the snow gets too bad.”
“I see,” Decker replied, his gaze wandering over the buildings. Finally, he turned toward Hayley. “Tell me about the murders.”
“I sent you the reports,” Hayley replied. “It’s all in there.”
“I would like to go over them again, first hand.” Decker had received some information via email, which he’d read on the flight, but he wanted to hear it from her.
“Alright. There have been five so far.” Hayley drew in a deep breath. “It started with the disappearance of two construction workers working on the tunnel project. They went out for a night on the town and never came back. We haven’t found the bodies yet.”
“So how do you know they were murdered?”
“It’s not like they could just drive out of town, Mr. Decker. Initially we thought they might have gotten roaring drunk and fallen into the docks, figured we would eventually find their corpses floating in the bay. But then another worker was killed in the tunnel several days later. Lastly, a young couple went and got killed out by the glacier. That was not a pretty sight.”
“A bear?” Decker repeated the conclusion entered into the official report.
“That’s what our town sheriff says. He thinks we are dealing with a spate of animal attacks.”
“And you?”
“I don’t believe it’s a bear.” She lapsed into silence and steered the car toward the tower.
Decker nodded.
He wanted to press her further, ask her why she had decided to contact him, of all people, but they were nearing their destination. Decker craned his neck to look up as Hayley pulled into a parking space near the main doors and killed the engine.
The building looked just like something the government would erect. Boxy and functional, it was built of smooth concrete. Rows of single pane windows were the only relief to the towering edifice, which had been painted a mix of tan and powder blue, no doubt in an attempt to make it look more inviting. It hadn’t worked. In a word, the structure was ugly.
Next to it, separated by an expanse of icy asphalt, the north tower was even worse. Although both buildings had, presumably, been built to match, the abandoned tower was showing signs of age. Dark black stains crept down the unpainted concrete façade, starting at the roofline and edging lower like rotting fingers. Three wings jutted back from the structure, their windows oblong black voids. Between the wings a few trees had grown, their branches free of leaves, limbs twisted and gnarled.
Decker shuddered. He could not imagine living in a place so bleak, surrounded by nothing but ice and enduring months of perpetual darkness each year. His mind drifted to Nancy, back in warm, sunny Louisiana. He wished, not for the first time, that she had been able to make the trip with him. But perhaps it was for the best that she hadn’t. He had been hard to live with lately. Bad dreams still plagued him at night, and then there was the State investigation into the Annie Doucet affair, which had not gone well. He took a deep breath and pushed the maudlin thoughts from his mind. It did no good to dwell on the past, and besides, he couldn't change what had happened. Right now, right here, he had a job to do, and the quicker he did it, the sooner he would get back to Nancy.
“Mr. Decker?” Hayley spoke, breaking his train of thought. “Are you ready?”
“Yes. Sorry.” He reached out and took hold of the door handle. He was about to open it when Hayley stopped him.
“Wait a moment.” She gripped his arm. “Before we go inside, there is something else.”
“Alright.” Decker turned to her, perplexed. “What about?”
“It’s nothing really, hardy worth mentioning, but I just want to give you the heads up.” Hayley looked uncomfortable. She adjusted herself in her seat and met his gaze for a moment before continuing. “Some of the town folk are a little put out that we brought you up here.”
“Ah. I see.” Decker nodded. He’d wondered if there would be a conversation like this. “My reputation precedes me.”
“Exactly. We might be stuck up in the middl
e of nowhere, but we still see the news, still have Internet, at least most of the time. You were quite the celebrity for a while.”
“Tell me about it.” Decker remembered the headlines, the news segments. Local Sheriff Shoots Werewolf. Only that wasn’t the worst of it, because instead of a grotesque monster, he had to explain an old woman riddled with bullets. It didn’t matter that there were witnesses, or that the town mayor looked like he’d been pulled through a meat grinder. What mattered was that Decker could not explain things. He especially could not explain how a frail old woman managed to commit such atrocious crimes. In the end the only thing that saved him from jail was the DNA pulled from the mayor’s body. DNA that supported the idea that Annie Doucet was the killer. He felt the familiar rush of anger that always accompanied thoughts of what the media had done to him.
“I was a laughing stock.”
“Which is why there was some resistance to the idea of having you here.”
“If people feel like that, why did you contact me?”
“Don’t get me wrong, most people are glad you are here, but…”
“But not everyone.”
“Right.” Hayley looked away, perhaps embarrassed. “A few people have expressed concerns that your presence might exacerbate an already tense situation. They think…”
“They think I’m a nut job?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but yes.”
“And you?”
“Me?”
“What do you think?”
“I think we have something very strange going on here, Mr. Decker. A few weeks ago I would have scoffed at the idea of bringing someone like you in, but now…” Hayley peered through the windshield, a faraway look crossing her face all of a sudden, as if she were remembering something terrible. But then, just as quickly, she shrugged it off and changed the subject. “Look, forget I said anything. Most of the town is happy to have you here. Why don’t we get you inside? You look dead on your feet.”
Cold Sanctuary (John Decker Series Book 2) Page 3
