Storm Surge

by Rhoades, J. D.

  “Senator from Alabama. They think he might be a potential Presidential nominee.”

  Mercer nodded slowly. “And those people in the photos with him?”

  “Let’s just say they’re people Currant doesn’t need to be seen with.”

  “And the figures in the ledger at the back of the book would be…don’t tell me, let me guess. Payoffs.”

  Dawkes nodded. “And even better, the ledger’s in Currant’s own handwriting.”

  Mercer laughed sharply. “You’re shitting me. He kept records?”

  “Currant’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He needed notes to remember who’d bought him.”

  Mercer shook his head. “Definitely not cut out for a life of crime.” He snorted. “Amateurs. So, when Buchan got the ledger, Buchan owned Currant.”

  Dawkes nodded again.

  “And, instead of turning him in,” Mercer said, “your boss decided to use the book as leverage. Nice.” He leaned forward. “Well, looks like neither of you ended up with the little black book, Dawkes. Looks like I’ve got the juice. I got the goods on both Currant and your boss, seems to me.”

  Dawkes looked up at him miserably. “What do you want?” he said. “We can pay you…”

  “I’m fixed for money,” Mercer said. “I put some away for retirement.”

  “So….”

  “I’m going to give you a list of my own, Dawkes. Three names. Are you listening?”

  Dawkes nodded again, his eyes fixed on Mercer’s cold blue ones.

  “Sharon Brennan. Her daughter, Glory. And a deputy sheriff named Bohler. You have those names?”

  “Yes,” Dawkes whispered.

  “Tell the names to me.”

  “Sharon Brennan. Glory Brennan. And Deputy Bohler.”

  Mercer smiled. “Very good. You’re a fast learner, Dawkes. You’re brighter than this guy Currant, for sure. How come you’re not the Senator?”

  Dawkes opened his mouth, but Mercer cut him off. “Skip it. I really don’t care. Now, I want you to tell your boss something. And get the word to your friend Currant. These people are to be left alone. Anything happens to them, and I mean anything, I drop this bomb. On both of them.”

  “I’ll tell them,” Dawkes said.

  “I’m not finished,” Mercer said. “I’ll drop this bomb. But that’ll be just the beginning. It’ll be war, Dawkes. War to the knife. The knife to the hilt. Do you understand?”

  “You’re crazy,” Dawkes said. “These are powerful people. You can’t go up against them.”

  “You may be right,” Mercer said, “But it seems to me I’ve done all right so far.” He walked to the door. “Don’t get up,” he said. “I’ll let myself out.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  The man sat alone in a booth at the rear of the restaurant. It was after 3:00 P.M, the lunch crowd already gone, the early birds not yet drifting in. The pretty Hispanic waitress kept coming by, refilling his Diet Coke, pointedly asking for the third time if he wanted to see a menu. “No,” the man said. “I’m meeting someone. Maybe then.” The waitress scowled and walked away. The man at the table sipped his drink and looked nervously at the front door. The harsh light of the lowering sun sent spears of light across the floor of the entranceway. Even in the cool dimness of the deserted restaurant, the sunbeams reminded everyone that outside was a fierce unrelenting desert heat.

  The door opened, a string of crude metal cowbells hung on the knob jingling to announce the new arrival.

  It was a tall man in a baseball cap and sunglasses, dressed in jeans and a faded blue T-shirt. He was carrying a leather briefcase that looked incongruous with the rest of his ensemble. The waitress walked up to him and they exchanged a few words, until the waitress pointed back at the table where the man sat. The man in the baseball cap walked over. “Mr. Donovan?” the man in the ball cap said.

  “Yes,” Donovan answered. “And you are…?”

  “I’m the guy that called.”

  “Well, yes, I figured that,” Donovan said. “Do you have a name?”

  “Not really,” the man said. He smiled in a way that made Donovan feel uneasy. “It’s kind of a long story.”

  “Look,” Donovan said. “I know you said on the phone you had a story for me. Something big. But the Phoenix Sun is a reputable paper. And, I’m sorry, we have rules about totally anonymous sources.”

  The man took off his sunglasses and looked at Donovan without speaking. “No offense,” Donovan said quickly.

  “None taken,” the man said. “A man’s got to have rules to live by. Else we’re nothing better than animals.”

  “Right,” Donovan said. Oh, god, he thought, another nutjob. They were an occupational hazard. He only hoped this one wouldn’t start yelling about 9/11 or Area 51. “You can call me Mercer,” the man said.

  The waitress came. The man in the ball cap ordered coffee. Donovan declined another soda. At the rate he was downing caffeine, he’d be after midnight getting to sleep. He wanted to humor the nutball just long enough to avoid setting him off, then make his getaway.

  “So, Mr. Mercer,” Donovan said, “What do you have for me?”

  Mercer reached into his briefcase and pulled out a black notebook. He slid it across the table to Donovan without speaking. Donovan turned it around, flipped it open. He studied the pictures for a moment.

  “Hey,” he said, “that’s…”

  “Currant, yes.”

  Donvan flipped through the book some more. “Do these mean what I think they mean?”

  Mercer nodded.

  “So tell me, Mercer, where’d you get this?”

  “Took it off a guy who was trying to steal it back.”

  “What?”

  “This was in the safe of Senator John Buchan.”

  “And you caught somebody trying to steal it.”

  “Right. Just call me a concerned citizen.”

  The coffee came. Mercer smiled at the waitress. “Thanks,” he said.

  “You’re welcome,” she smiled back.

  “Holy shit,” Donovan said as she walked away. “This could be huge.”

  Mercer took a sip of his coffee. “It gets better.” He told Donovan the rest of the story.

  “Holy shit,” Donovan shook his head when he was finished. “But I can’t use this. Not yet. I don’t have enough…”

  “I know. You have rules. I like that. But it’s a string. Pull on it and see what happens.”

  “Okay,” Donovan said. He narrowed his eyes. “So how much do you want for this?”

  “Nothing,” Mercer said.

  “So what’s the catch?”

  “No catch,” Mercer said.

  “Sorry, friend,” Donovan said. “I’m not buying it. Everybody wants something.”

  “Oh, I want something,” Mercer said. “I want you to print that story.”

  “Because you’re a concerned citizen.”

  “Yeah,” Mercer said. “And because someone broke his word to me.” He stood up. “Pull on the string, Donovan,” he said. “See what unravels.”

  “Tell me one last thing, Mercer,” Donovan said. “Why this paper? I mean, this is the sort of thing the New York Times or the Washington Post would love to have. Why come all the way out here to Phoenix?”

  “I’m not going near an ocean for a while,” Mercer said. He walked toward the door. The waitress was on her way over to the table. Mercer stopped her, spoke to her, handed her something. She looked down at the object in her hand, then looked back up with an expression of total shock. She started to say something, but Mercer was already out the door.

  Donovan looked down at the notebook. This was the kind of story that, if it panned out, could make careers. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. But he was going to pull on the string and see where it led. He looked up. The waitress was standing beside the table, a look of amazement on her face.

  “Can I get the check, please?”

  She looked back at him and smiled. “Your friend th
ere got it,” she said. “He gave me a hundred dollar bill and said ‘keep the change.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  He hadn’t been inside long, but the interior of the Ford Taurus was already so hot that Mercer had to step back after opening the door to let the wave of heat go past him. He got in and drove away. “It’s a dry heat,” people kept reassuring him. “Yeah,” he always thought, “so is a pizza oven.” The air conditioner was just beginning to make headway against the heat inside the car when he pulled into the parking lot of the strip club. He parked the car and got out, leaving a couple of hundred dollars on the seat to pay for the damage he’d done to the ignition when he’d hot-wired the vehicle. As he reached the edge of the parking lot, a Saturn Aura pulled up to the curb. He opened the door. “Need a lift, cowboy?” Sharon said.

  The interior was blessedly cool. Mercer leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes.

  “Back to the motel?” Sharon said. Mercer just nodded.

  They drove through the sun-blasted streets until they pulled into the parking lot of a shabby motel. The asphalt was cracked and the paint faded by the sun. It wasn’t an impressive place, but it was sufficient for their purposes.

  “Wait here,” Mercer said. He got out of the car, briefcase in hand. He mounted the metal stairs to the second floor and let himself into the room.

  The man was still there, shackled to the bed by a chain around one ankle. His hands were cuffed behind him, and a black hood covered his head. Mercer took a small automatic pistol out of the briefcase, walked over and yanked the hood off.

  Mercer had never seen the man before yesterday. He was short, nondescript like most in his profession, dressed in khaki pants and a golf shirt like any tourist. Only the hard look in his eyes betrayed him as something more. He had a cut across his left cheek where a blunt object had laid it open.

  The man looked up at him defiantly, his mouth bound tightly with duct tape. His eyes narrowed as he saw the gun.

  “None of this had to happen,” Mercer said. He was screwing a silencer onto the barrel of the weapon.

  The man didn’t answer, nor did he try to get away. Mercer admired that.

  “I told Dawkes I didn’t have any interest in whatever game he and his pals were playing. I just told him to leave us out of it.”

  He stopped and considered that word. Us. It wasn’t something that he was used to saying. He shook his head and went on.

  “But I guess he thought maybe I’d go back on my word. That’s why he sent you after us. He should have known better.” He raised the gun. “I was going to leave you alive, to send a message back. But I think this will get the message across.” He hesitated, then he smiled.

  “Don’t worry,” Mercer said. “I won’t tell anyone the person who knocked you out and took your gun was a teenage girl.”

  That got a reaction. Mercer couldn’t hear it, but he figured he had the gist of what the man was trying to say.

  “Guess you didn’t see that one coming, huh?” Mercer said. “I figured something like this might happen, so I’ve been working with her and her mom. Little girl’s a fast learner.”

  The man was still swearing. Sweat beaded on his brow.

  “You should be thankful I didn’t give you to her mom. She’d have made this last a lot longer.” Mercer said, and fired.

  “War to the knife,” he said. “And the knife to the hilt.”

  Afterwards, Mercer undid the chains and the cuffs, stuffing them in the briefcase. The gun he laid on the floor next to its owner. He carefully wiped down all the surfaces he could remember touching. He closed the door quietly behind him as he left.

  “Where to now?” Sharon said as he climbed back in the car.

  “I don’t know. Someplace dry.”

  “This place is pretty dry,” Sharon observed.

  “Yeah, but I hear there’s a monsoon season.”

  “Huh,” Sharon said. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Besides, we need to move.”

  Glory spoke up from the backseat. “How about Vegas?”

  Mercer smiled. “Works for me.” He leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes again.

  He needed to rest. It was going to be a long war. And a lot of people who needed killing.

  THE END

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Many thanks to:

  Professor Orrin Pilkey of Duke University, for information about hurricanes and islands;

  LTCMDR Daniel Molthen of the U.S. Coast Guard for information about SAR and for not even missing a beat when I told him what I was intending to do to one of his helicopters.

  For sharing true hurricane experiences: Stacy Alesi; Keith Cronin; Howie Modell; Robert Lambert; Sarah Pomeranz Layne; Thomas O’Callaghan; Pat Mullan;

  Thanks to the Honorable Companions, Kristy Kiernan and Tasha Alexander, for talking me down off the ledge, not once, but several times. Thanks also to Kristy for line editing above and beyond the normal call of duty for a first reader. You rule, K.

  First readers also included CJ Carpenter, and of course my wife Lynn.

  Cover ably designed by the brilliant Jeroen ten Berge.