by Steve Richer
“You got it, boss.”
Chapter 3
It was almost two o’clock when Rogan stepped off the plane – a turboprop Dash 8 – on Kodiak Island which was an hour south of Anchorage. The air was cool but the wind was surprisingly mild. It was in the low 40s which wasn’t bad for this time of year.
He spotted a police cruiser downrange and headed toward it. As he walked, his hands free because he had no luggage, not even a briefcase, he looked around. The place was busy.
Kodiak Airport also was home to the Coast Guard Air Station, the largest of its kind on the Pacific side of the US. There were red helicopters in the distance along with various types of fixed-wing aircraft.
As he got closer to the white police car of the Kodiak Police Department, a woman in a dark blue uniform came out. She had to know who he was with his black trench coat, Brooks Brothers suit, and silk tie. The Alaska Native woman was about 40 and her hair was held up in a tight bun.
“You must be the Uber I called,” he began.
She opened her mouth to respond but then changed her mind. “Uh, I…”
“Sorry about that, I let my mouth get away from me sometimes. Special Agent Rogan Bricks.”
He offered her his hand and she shook it.
“I’m Sergeant Lelana Abeita, KPD. Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise. So you’re the one dealing with the Pirates of the Caribbean?”
“Something like that. Since the Coast Guard is involved and we’re talking about something that happened in high seas, we figured we should contact the FBI directly and not the state troopers. The guy wanted us to call the feds anyway.”
“Awesome,” Rogan said. “Have any residual heat in that car?”
“Oh yes, sorry. Please get in. I’ll take you to the hospital right away, it’s a short ride.”
Rogan smiled graciously and rounded the car. He took an opportunity to gaze at the island before him. It was a luscious green, a rain forest by definition, and snow hadn’t blanketed the area yet. It was beautiful.
The cop got behind the wheel and within moments they were driving off the airport lot.
“So what do you know? Why am I here?”
“We have a man in the hospital and…”
“Sarge, why don’t you start at the beginning? I hate coming midway through the movie and missing the credits.”
She nodded and smiled. “Okay. There was a distress beacon last night and the Coast Guard sent out a Jayhawk, about 300 miles north of Adak. They rescued one survivor and he was brought back to Kodiak suffering from severe hypothermia.”
“Floating in the Bering Sea? Just another synonym for chilling out.”
“He’s been out of it since last night but this morning he woke up. He said his fishing boat was attacked by pirates – well, he said terrorists but I figured he meant pirates, high seas and all.”
“So here I am.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir? Paul McCartney is a sir. Call me Rogan.”
“Lelana then.”
“You got it.”
She was beaming and Rogan got the sense that she wasn’t often taken on friendly terms. It probably had something to do with her being a woman in a man’s world, a high-ranking Native-American to boot.
The drive to the hospital was short, only a couple of miles. Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center was small by mainland standards – about the size of a small high school – but Rogan had gotten used to everything being different in Alaska.
They parked and he followed Lelana inside. She spoke to a nurse and learned that the guy had been moved out of the intensive care unit. He now occupied a room on the second floor.
“What’s his name?” Rogan asked as they made their way up.
“Rusty Brandt.”
They entered the room. There were four beds but only one was occupied. Under several blankets was a young man in his 20s. He had a short blond beard and his cheeks and forehead were marked from frostbite.
Lelana shut the door and they came closer to him. Rogan flashed his badge.
“How are you doing, Rusty? I’m Special Agent Rogan Bricks, FBI. I’ve been told you wanted to see me.”
He nodded without much strength. The kid looked tired but not at death’s door at least.
“It was awful, man.”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened.”
Rogan looked around and spotted a couple of chairs by the next bed. He brought them both over and sat down as Lelana did the same.
“It was so cold. I never been this cold before. Water kept hitting me in the face while I floated. It stung, it burned. I wanted to die after a while.”
“You didn’t, that’s the important thing. But you wanna talk about cold? I went out with this girl once, Alice. Damn, I tell you…” Rusty smiled. “Talk to me, buddy.”
“The chopper appeared like an angel in the night. I saw the searchlight going brighter and brighter. They were sweeping the beam all around me, I thought they would miss me altogether.”
“But they didn’t, you’re here.”
“That’s right. This Coast Guard guy, he jumped into the drink and swam to me. They said I was in cardiac arrest during the flight back. I was dead and they brought me back.”
“I hear they’re good at that,” Rogan said.
“Frostbite, hypothermia, I guess it wasn’t my day.”
“About that, Rusty. Why don’t you tell me more about why you were in the water in the first place?”
The young man looked past Rogan, staring at nothing. It was like he was gathering courage to say something that would change his life forever.
“It was terrorists. We were attacked by ISIS.”
Chapter 4
Rogan leaned back into his chair and crossed his arms. He knew he shouldn’t be skeptical right out of the gate but he couldn’t help himself. ISIS terrorists on the Bering Sea? That sounded plausible, all right!
On the other hand, he had recently been in charge of the investigation after the President of the United States had killed his wife in the Capitol building, which had led him to uncover a warped international conspiracy. In this light, anything was possible.
“Rusty, tell me a little bit more about yourself. How did you wind up in the middle of the ocean in the first place?”
The first rule of interrogating someone was not to judge their story but the person itself.
“I was tired of Portland. If you can’t brew craft beer or sell kale smoothies on a bike path, you don’t have much of a future there.”
“Ever tried kale craft beer smoothies?” the FBI agent asked with a smirk. “There might be a future in that.”
“Anyway, I heard about those crab fishermen, how they can make 30 grand over a couple of weeks. So I headed up to Seattle.”
“How did that work out?”
“Not good. Nobody would hire me on account I got no experience. After almost a month there, I finally hooked me up with this fishing crew. The boat was the Crystal Goose.”
“And the captain?”
“Poehler. Samuel Poehler. I had to agree to kick back 25% of my share to him but he hired me. There were six of us in total. We left Seattle on September 30 and went to Dutch Harbor. Then we took off west to fish golden king crab.”
“Those are delicious,” Rogan said. “I’m a little bit of an amateur cook myself. So what happened next?”
“Nothing, just fishing. We didn’t catch much. I knew on the second day this had been a mistake coming along. I got seasick something fierce and all the guys hated me. They always hate the greenhorn.”
“And then out of the blue ISIS terrorists show up?”
“Yeah. I was on the foredeck practicing putting on my survival suit when I saw this boat speeding toward us. It was almost like a racing boat, man.”
“A racing boat?”
“I don’t know how else to put it,” Rusty said with a shrug. “I never seen anything like it.”
“Describe it to me.”
“It was half the length of our fishing boat, so maybe 75 feet? It was all black, no markings on it. It reminded me of a slipper?”
Lelana shifted on her chair and frowned. “A slipper? Like a bathroom slipper?”
She then glanced at Rogan and he understood her suggestion. This kid was losing his marbles.
“I know I sound crazy but that’s what it made me think of. It was flat in the back but the front part was covered, tapering forward. Really sleek, almost futuristic. And it was so fast, cutting right through the waves as it came over.”
“Then what?”
“They started shooting at us. They had this gatling gun mounted aft.”
“Were you in the service, Rusty?”
“No.”
“How do you know it was a gatling gun?”
“I saw Terminator 2 at least a dozen times, man. That’s what Arnold uses.”
“Fair enough. Go on.”
“Neeson got shot, they killed him. All the other guys ran away but the boat came closer. They threw ropes at us and pulled themselves alongside the Crystal Goose. That’s when they boarded us, about seven or eight of them. I was hiding in front of the pilothouse.”
Rogan closed his eyes for a moment, putting images to the kid’s narration. It always helped him to pretend he was there in order to understand the chain of events.
“What did these terrorists do?”
“They started shooting at people and they went below deck. I wasn’t thinking by that point. Hell, maybe I was thinking too much. I figured if they were shooting then they meant to kill us. I was in my yellow Gumby suit, I couldn’t fight them off or nothing. So I jumped into the water.”
“They didn’t see you?”
“No,” the patient answered, once again getting that faraway look in his eyes. “I floated away but I heard the gunshots, I heard the guys scream. It was a slaughter. I did my best to swim back and the current took me away from the black boat, on the other side of the Crystal Goose.”
He stopped talking and reached for a glass of water on the nightstand. Rogan leaned forward and gave it to him.
“Here you go.”
Rusty nodded in acknowledgment and drank through the bendy straw. Rogan set the plastic cup down again.
“I don’t know how long it took for the terrorists to come back out. Felt like an hour but it was probably shorter than that. I couldn’t wait for them to leave because that’s what I was waiting for to turn on my emergency beacon.”
“Why?”
“Because I figured if they were sophisticated enough to have this racing boat, then maybe they could locate me through the radio signal. It was obvious they didn’t want to leave before everyone was dead.”
“So they eventually left?”
“Yeah. They got back on their boat and took off. It was a few more minutes before I heard an explosion. It wasn’t huge or nothing but the fishing boat kinda jumped, buckled. Wasn’t long before it started sinking.”
Rogan nodded and looked at Lelana. “The Coast Guard didn’t say anything about a beacon going off, did they?”
“No, just his. Normally fishing vessels have EPIRBs – an Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon. They go off whenever they start sinking or capsize. Not this time. These men must have deactivated it before leaving. The rescue team didn’t see any debris either. They’re still searching.”
“It’s a miracle I’m still alive,” Rusty said. “I think I’m gonna start going to church. It’s a real miracle.”
Rogan wanted to get back to these pirates. “And you saw them? The terrorists. They were Middle Eastern?”
“Well, no. They were wearing ski masks.”
“They were speaking Arabic, Farsi, Pashtun?”
Rusty shook his head. “They were speaking English, but with an accent. I figured with all the bunch of Americans and Westerners going over there to join it made sense that they would speak English, you know?”
“Sure, I’ll buy that,” Rogan replied.
“But I got something better. I know what one of them was called. I know his name.”
Rogan tightened his grip on his pen. “What is it?”
“Bru. One of them called him Bru.”
Rogan wrote it down but something didn’t quite register. He was about to speak when the door opened and a nurse came in. She was carrying a full saline bag.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to cut this visit short,” she said. “Mr. Brandt needs to rest now.”
“I’m FBI, ma’am. This is an official investigation.”
“Honey, I don’t care if you’re the Queen of England. You need to leave, now.”
Rogan knew better than to argue with a head nurse. He stood up along with Lelana and left his card on the nightstand, telling Rusty to call him if he thought of anything else.
Walking down the hall, Lelana turned to him. “So you really think we have ISIS terrorists operating in Alaska?”
“No,” Rogan replied. “This Bru thing doesn’t add up.”
“Why?”
“It’s not a name, it’s how they say bro in South Africa.”
Chapter 5
It was raining by the time they reached the parking lot. Rogan raised the collar of his coat in a vain attempt to fight the cold.
“That was unsatisfactory.”
“What was?” Lelana asked.
“I went to the hospital and didn’t get a box of chocolates. I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
“You don’t take much seriously, do you?”
“What’s the point? We’re all gonna die in the end anyway.”
“So what’s next? Do I drive you back to the airport?”
“I suppose so,” Rogan replied with a sigh.
None of this was making sense. A fishing boat getting attacked in the middle of the ocean? Everyone getting murdered?
“So you think these guys were from South Africa.”
“That’s my theory.”
“Don’t they have ISIS sympathizers in South Africa? I mean, the man mentioned it before, there are tons of Westerners going over there to join. And that’s not counting all these lone wolves attacks.”
Rogan shook his head. “That wasn’t a lone wolf attack. A sleek speedboat in the middle of nowhere? A target as unimportant as this? No way.”
“What are you thinking then?” Lelana asked while they both got into her police car.
The speedboat, that bathroom slipper, there had to be something there.
“Special Agent Bricks?”
He ignored her as something occurred to him. He pulled out his smartphone and went to Google. He clicked furiously, making several mistakes and having to start all over again.
“Jesus…”
“What is it?”
“That boat,” he mumbled under his breath. “It’s got to be it.”
“Rogan, what’s going on?”
He didn’t even acknowledge her. Instead he left the car again and jogged through the rain back to the hospital. He didn’t bother flashing his badge as he came in, figuring they would remember him, and just as he thought no one stopped him.
He climbed to Rusty Brandt’s room and hurried to it. The nurse from before was just outside, coming from working on another patient.
“Hey! You can’t go in there!”
Rogan turned and pointed a finger at her. “I’m just gonna be a minute.”
“But he’s sleeping, I gave him a sedative.”
“Lady, I once killed three men before jumping out of a private jet as it was crashing. I think I can handle some sleeping kid.”
That shut her up and he barged into the room. The guy was asleep, the bed completely flat.
“Hey, Rusty. Wake up.”
The kid was out like a light.
He was about to speak again when he noticed a plastic bag under the bed. This had to be his personal effects. Rogan crouched and went through the bag.
He found a pile of clothes which reeked of rotting fish an
d it made him gag. Still, he rummaged through the pockets and pulled out everything he found. There was a knife, some bubble gum, a wallet, and a matchbook.
He opened the wallet first. It was light, containing $37, a Visa card, and an Oregon driver’s license. He shoved the wallet back into the bag and turned to the matchbook. It read Pink Octopus Room and the word Mandrake was scribbled on the inside flap.
Rogan pocketed the matchbook and then produced his phone. He searched online and discovered that the Pink Octopus Room was a strip club in Seattle. There was no official website, just an address and phone number.
He would check it out later but for now he was more interested about the special black boat. He replaced the belongings under the bed and straightened up.
“Yo. Look at me, Rusty. I need to talk to you.”
Again, he didn’t even stir. He was in fact snoring.
“There’s a naked supermodel here to see you.”
Still nothing. Not finding a better alternative, Rogan grabbed the glass of water from the nightstand. He yanked out the straw and dumped the water directly into Rusty’s face.
“Oh!”
“Rise and shine, buddy.”
“What the hell, man?!” the young guy sputtered, thrashing as if he was drowning even though only a couple of ounces of water had been splashed on him.
He was groggy, not especially alert, but sufficiently awake for what was needed of him.
“I need you to look at this picture, Rusty.”
Rogan pulled out his phone again and put it in front of the patient.
“Leave me alone, I told you everything I know.”
“This is important, look at the picture. Is that the boat you saw?”
Rusty opened his mouth to cuss him out but then his eyes made contact with the small screen of the phone. He furrowed his brow and lifted his head to get a closer look.
“Yeah… yeah, I think so. I think that’s what it was. How did you know?”
“That’s a Mark V Special Operations Craft.”
“So?”
“That’s a boat used by Navy SEALs.”
This was becoming surreal, Rogan thought as he walked out of the room again a minute later. South African guys in an American special ops boat attacking a fishing vessel off the coast of Alaska. What the hell?
