Joint Task Force #2: America

by David E. Meadows

  He felt the line near his hand and grabbed it. He opened his eyes and started pulling on the line. The effort moved him along it. A hand appeared, flapping at the wrist in the water. The line was wrapped around it. Tucker reached down to his ankle for his knife. His fingers searched for several seconds before he recalled strapping it to his waist earlier. He pulled his survival knife out and with a couple of quick slices cut the sailor free. The man’s face was back there somewhere in the murky water. Tucker’s lungs ached.

  Tucker pulled the man to him, flipped him around, and wrapped the sailor’s neck in the crook of his arm. Tucker swam toward the surface, kicking his boots as fast as possible, aware of the water filling them, weighing them down and threatening to drag both of them down. He released a few bubbles of air. Then, just as suddenly, Tucker was above the water, gasping for breath even as he pulled the sailor over, freeing the man’s face from the water. Several life rings bopped around him. He grabbed one, looped his free arm through it, and then turned, lifting the sailor’s face further out of the water. A wave washed over them, disrupting his paddling and causing his boots to drag downward. The edge of the life ring pulled down for a second, then Tucker felt the tension on the life ring as those on the pier pulled him in.

  He reached forward and pulled the sailor’s face to his. He opened the young man’s lips. In that brief moment, Tucker took in the freckles and glazed eyes. The eyes were always the first thing to go in death. One moment they sparkled and shined with vitality, and the next, a fine dull gray clouded over them like someone closing a door on a party. The sailor couldn’t be more than nineteen or twenty, he thought. He pushed the drowned man’s lips apart and began a makeshift CPR, forcing air into water-filled lungs. Tucker quit trying to stay afloat, depending on the movement of the life ring to do the job. He had to keep up this happenstance CPR until the man was ashore where proper medical attention could be administered. Where Sam waited. She could save him.

  His head bounced lightly against the ladder at the end of the pier. Hands reached from above, grabbing and hastily pulling the drowned sailor onto the pier. Tibbles-Seagraves’s face appeared above Tucker’s. The SAS’s hand reached down and gripped Tucker’s wrist. “I say, my friend, time for you now.”

  With Tibbles-Seagraves holding his left wrist, pulling upward, Tucker climbed back onto the pier. Water spilled from his boots as he stood atop the cement pier, the wind whipping around him. Ahead of him, Sam knelt beside the man. One of her knees positioned between the man’s legs with the other to the victim’s left, she pushed with both hands on the sailor’s diaphragm; down and up; forcing air in and out of the lungs. The wind drowned out her counts. Riding the winds came the faint sound of an ambulance approaching. Tucker sat down on the pier, looking up at the tower. Down the steps came the Commodore in his soaked khakis, the rain giving them a dark, dirty color. Behind the mustang Captain walked the French Special Forces officer Captain Marc St. Cyr, his head moving from side to side as if he was a spectator of some morose event to be assessed and weighed.

  Sam rolled the young sailor onto his side. From the drowned man’s mouth, water rushed out, followed by a cough. Sam shifted her knees to one side of the man, quickly rolled him onto his back. She put her head against his chest for a moment, mouthed the word damn, and recommenced CPR.

  Across from Tucker, staring helplessly, Lieutenant MacOlson stood on the deck of the boat. On the pier, Jenson and another sailor dropped a new line around the bollard, singling it up until they could get a second out and around it. Tucker watched as the Surface Warfare officer took his eyes off Sam and her ministrations.

  “Boats!” the lithe skipper shouted. “I want two more lines across the Mark V’s berthed at the end of the piers. The hell with six lines, I want eight. And, if we have anyone else who is so new they don’t know to never wrap a line around themselves, then put them with someone who has the experience to train them.”

  Jenson gave a half-hearted salute to show he heard.

  Against the dark sky, the rotating lights of the ambulance joined the cascading noise of the storm. The siren picked up in intensity for several seconds before it stopped. Tucker looked toward the tower. A minute later, two corpsmen with a stretcher and a female doctor scrambled over the rise, slipping on the grass for a moment before they reached the concrete dock.

  A movement to his left caught his attention. The Commodore put his hand out and leaned down to where Tucker sat. “You okay, Commander Raleigh?”

  Tucker reached up and took the man’s hand, surprised at the firm grip. The slight buldge around the Commodore’s waist belied the strength in the man’s arms. Tucker allowed himself to be helped up.

  “That was a brave thing you did.”

  Tucker nodded, not in the least thinking it was brave. It was just something that needed doing, and he was trained and confident enough to know that he could do it.

  He looked over to where his girlfriend—was that what he thought of her? His girlfriend?—Sam shifted the man’s head, shoving it back to align the mouth and neck into as near a straight line as possible. Sometime during the CPR, she had shifted her knees and was now leaning back on her haunches. The young sailor he had rescued was heaving. Meant he was breathing again. The boy would live, he figured. Sam tilted the sailor’s head to the side. Vomit spewed from the unconscious sailor into the rainwater being shoved by the wind across the pier.

  The two corpsmen pushed through the sailors, shouting several times, “Make a hole,” as they maneuvered the stretcher beside the victim. Sam pushed herself up to talk with the doctor. The woman nodded several times as a corpsman strapped the man to the stretcher. The other took a portable oxygen bottle, put a mask around the sailor’s mouth, and laid the bottle in the crook of the man’s arms. The doctor motioned them to go, and the three took off back up the hill. Tucker winced as the corpsman holding the rear of the stretcher slipped on the wet grass, falling to one knee for a moment before regaining his footing. In that fraction of a moment, Tucker had a vision of the poor sailor rolling back down the hill.

  He looked over his shoulder. Sam was standing several feet away, watching the ambulance crew carry her patient away. He walked over and touched her on the shoulder. Her hair was matted across her head, over her ears, and down her neck, splayed along her shoulders. “Good job, Sam.”

  She pulled him to her and held him close. He nearly pushed her away, thinking of the Commodore behind them, but then his hands reached around her and he pulled her close as she rested her head on his chest. She said something. He pushed her away slightly so he could look down into her face. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

  “I said, I thought I had lost you.”

  This was the time he would usually make a smart comeback, but words escaped him. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her head back against his chest. They stood in the rain as the sailors returned to their business. He glanced up, his eyes meeting those of the unsmiling Commodore, who stood halfway up the steps leading back to the tower. St. Cyr and Tibbles-Seagraves waited at the end of the pier, watching. Well, so much for public displays of affection, but in crises a little PDA could be comforting. Even her wet hair smelled nice.

  “DID YOU SEE THE LOOK ON THOSE TWO FACES?”

  The other deputy laughed. “Yeah, you’d think after all these years word would get around that this ain’t the place to park and neck. It ain’t as if we didn’t use it ourselves.”

  Josiah Henry opened the door to the sheriff’s cruiser, laid his arm across the top of it, and placed his boot on the bottom of the door frame. “Have to admit it beats hauling drunks out of Maude’s at this time of night.”

  The radio beeped, followed by a quick radio announcement, and several seconds of static as the transmission finished. One thing about Janet, she never let those on patrol go to sleep. She stayed on that radio even when there was nothing to share. She had a hell of a voice. Rumor had it she worked part time for one of those 1-900 numbers. Damn good thing she
had a voice, because she outweighed him, and he was two hundred fifty pounds. Being six foot two and lifting weights every day, along with jogging, kept those pounds firm.

  “I think, Josiah, if we had waited another few minutes, it might have been more than a little heavy kissing we broke up,” Harry Johnson chuckled, pulling a crumbled pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. “Now, that would have caused both of those kids to give up sex.” He shook out one, used his fingers to straighten it, and then lit up before leaning against the hood of the Ford Crown Victoria.

  “Man, you ought to do yourself a favor and toss those coffin nails away. Ain’t no good coming from polluting your lungs with that shit.”

  The sounds of heavy surf rode the stiff breeze coming off the Atlantic. The overcast from the storm northeast of Florida hid what little light the moon and stars could have provided.

  “Look, Josiah, do I say anything about your vice?”

  “What vice, man? I ain’t got no vice.”

  “You don’t call getting up at six every morning to go running a vice?”

  “Man, that ain’t a vice. That’s called keeping healthy.”

  “Did you know more people died jogging last year than smoking?”

  Josiah’s brow wrinkled for a moment before the big man laughed. “Man, you’re lying. Where in the hell did you get a fact like that?”

  “It’s a well-known fact. It was all in the newspapers. Even Rush Limbaugh commented on the enorm . . . enoman . . . Ah, he was just as surprised as you.”

  “Well, I don’t believe you. I enjoy the morning run, and I intend to keep doing it.”

  “I call it habit. I may smoke, but you have become one of those health do-gooders who spend all their time trying to convert those of us fighting for our rights.”

  Josiah shifted his foot off the door panel, shut the door, and walked to the top of the dunes. He put his hands on his hips, staring at the small paved parking area used in the early mornings by dedicated beach combers. Many a time he had spent a few hours in darkness parked there, but that had been many years ago when he had been in his teens and before it was paved. He met his first wife, Gloria, there. Well, not exactly. He met her in high school, but he really met her there. That meet resulted in marriage at the early age of nineteen and being a father six months after the wedding. If he didn’t do anything else, he probably saved a few young men from the same fate, though he doubted any would recognize how much they owed him.

  He looked back at Harry. “Don’t see anyone else down there.”

  Harry looked at his watch, reading the glowing hands. “It’s getting on about eleven, Josiah. There’ll be a fresh wave between twelve and one.” Even in the dark, Josiah saw his friend and partner flick the finished cigarette. The glow of the butt flying through the air traced the path over the slight dune in front of them, disappearing from view before hitting the white sand on the other side.

  “One of these days, you gonna start a fire, my friend.”

  “Well, not tonight. Not with this on-again off-again rain we’ve been having for four days. Besides, what’s going to burn here? The sand? You’re just giving me a rough time.”

  “If getting you to quit smoking is giving you a rough time, then so be it.”

  Harry walked up to the crest of the dune where Josiah stood. A break in the clouds exposed the moon, lighting up the darkness below them. For a half mile each way, white sand shined in the reflected moonlight. Heavy waves crashed ashore, rolling up the low beach before losing their momentum and pulling back out to sea. A line of washed-ashore seaweed wove along the beach where high tide had deposited it. A light mist fell as they stood there silently, watching nature paint a tableau with choppy seas, rolling mist, and white beaches. Josiah reached up, lifted his dark deputy sheriff’s hat, and ran the back of his hand across his forehead, clearing away the water.

  Harry craned his neck forward, staring out to sea.

  “I think we should go and do a drive around the county. Maybe stop at Maude’s and see who’s injured tonight. I think if we keep standing here, we’re going to be one pair of soaked puppies.”

  “Josiah,” Harry said, reaching out and tugging his friend’s sleeve. “You see that?” He pointed to the right, out to sea.

  “See what?”

  “Look where I’m pointing, about a hundred yards off shore. Looks to me like a boat.”

  “What would a boat be doing out on a night like this?”

  Harry shook his head. “I don’t know, but it sure looks like something floating out there.”

  Josiah moved forward a few steps, raising his hand to shield his eyes from the rain. “Get me my binoculars.” Behind him, he heard his partner open the door to the cruiser.

  “Here,” Harry said, returning with the binoculars.

  Josiah lifted the binoculars, twisted the knobs to improve the focus, and scanned the edge of the water, working his way out to sea in the direction that Harry had pointed. Wouldn’t be the first time they’d stumbled on refugees trying to enter the United States illegally. The bad thing about it was the two of them would have to go down there and round them up before they scattered in fifty-eleven different directions and disappeared into the vast expanse of America. The good news was the CIS would take them off their hands. The bad news was you never knew when the CIS would show up to do it. Sometimes they were there within an hour. Other times, they got to house and feed them in the county jail for a couple of days—without compensation for the expense, as the sheriff was fond of pointing out.

  Josiah shifted the binoculars right to left and then back again, continuing to inch his way out to sea. He saw nothing. Then, suddenly, a dark shape rode over the crest of a wave, catching his attention as it broke the monotonous bounce of the sea. He jerked the glasses on the spot, which was nearer the beach, twisted the knobs to regain focus on the dark area, and as it became visible, a flash of lightning on the horizon lit up the area. Josiah had seen enough.

  “Looks as if we got us a boatload of refugees, Harry.”

  “Damn! Why don’t we just call the CIS and have them come down and take care of this?”

  Josiah laughed. “Man, you know the CIS are home in their warm beds with their cute blondes, cuddled up in a cocoon of air-conditioning while us country boys are out here communing with nature.”

  The rain increased in intensity, coming down heavy now.

  “This pisses me off. Why couldn’t the refugees come earlier, when it wasn’t raining?”

  “Get on the horn and tell Janet what we got here.”

  “You want me to tell her to call the CIS and let them take it from here?”

  “Give it up, Harry.” Unseen in the dark, Josiah shook his head and sighed. “Naw, bro, I’m like you and would surely love to give this to them, but we gotta see who they are first. I only got a glimpse, and it may not even be a boat. What I saw was too dark to be a boat.” He paused a moment. “Maybe it’s capsized and that was the hull. I mean I didn’t see anyone, but I didn’t get a clear view before that flash of lightning near destroyed my night vision.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “Yeah, we gotta go down. You got those plastic thingies?”

  “Yeah, I got those plastic thingies. And I even have two sets of handcuffs if we need them.”

  Josiah gingerly stepped over the lip of the dune, planting his foot in the wet sand on the other side. With a hand raised to keep his balance, the Florida deputy started down the dune toward the beach. A moment later, Harry was beside him. “Don’t use the handcuffs if you can avoid it, Harry. Last time we used handcuffs, those old boys at the Bureau of Citizen and Immigration Services didn’t return them, and the Sheriff wanted me to pay for them.” Josiah stumbled, falling to a knee before he recovered himself. The rain was coming down fast, limiting their visibility. He was soaked now. It was bad enough they were going to have to round up a bunch of illegals, but to have to do it in this weather even pissed his stoic self off. “Damn.”

&
nbsp; “See! I told you. If they’d come earlier or waited until our shift was over, I might be better inclined toward them.”

  “Harry, you’re so full of bullshit your eyes are brown. Aren’t you the one still flying the Confederate Flag on the back of your pickup?”

  “That’s heritage, man. Ain’t got nothing to do with racism, regardless of what you think. If it did, you’d think I’d be working with you?”

  The wind blew off the sea inland, hiding their voices as they talked. It never dawned on the two to silently approach the drifting boat, edged toward the beach by the wind and incoming tide. They had done this many times and knew the refugees would be tired and dispirited when they hit the shore. Even though Josiah knew Janet would have already sent other cars their way, the two of them could handle any group of refugees small enough to fit into the small object he had seen.

  The two men reached the edge of the beach where the slant of the sand dunes stopped and the slight decline of the beach to the sea started. Off to their right, the black shape rode a wave onto the beach. It was one of those rubber crafts. Didn’t look like one of those wooden boats the Haitians always used.

  The sound of someone talking reached their ears. Josiah reached out, touched Harry, and the two deputies drew their revolvers. They hadn’t run into illegals who were willing to fight or kill like they’d heard about, but there was no reason to take chances. This high up along the Florida east coast, most likely they were Haitians—rich Haitians if they could afford one of those rubber boats—and most likely they were Haitians who had tried to land at another time and been caught. Usually they got up this high along the Florida coast on their second or third attempt to land in America. Josiah moved along the edge of the beach, using the perimeter of dune plants to shade his approach, blending with the dune behind; whereas if he skipped across the white sands, even in the darkness the movement would have been detected.