by Matt Lincoln
“How long have you taught here?” I asked as I looked at the photos pinned to the wall behind him.
Most of the photos were of mountains, deserts, and forests from different climate zones. Assorted people appeared in the photos with and without him. He noticed my gaze, and a smile softened the fatigue in his expression.
“Not long enough,” he mused and gestured at the photos. “A few of those were trips with students. The sophomores and juniors are planning a trip to Greenland next summer to see Jakobshavn Glacier. They’ll gather samples from the surface to help track soot levels.”
I frowned. “Soot? How the hell does soot get onto a glacier?”
James’s smile turned sad. “Wildfires in Canada and northern states, pollution, you name it. We track how much and where it comes from.”
Holm frowned. “I heard of this,” he told me. “Soot makes the surfaces darker, and the ice and snow melts faster, right?”
James nodded. “Close. Soot changes the reflectivity of the ice, so it absorbs more heat and reflects heat. That’s why Jakobshavn has had record calving events.” To me, he added, “That’s where entire sections of the glacier drop off within seconds.”
“I know,” I said in perhaps too testy a tone. Holm seemed to think it was funny, but James merely dipped his chin in acknowledgment.
“As to your first question, I’ve been here since I began studying for my master’s degree.” He pointed to where the framed diploma was half-hidden by maps and charts hung on the wall behind us. “I’m working on my dissertation for my Ph.D. I might get a raise when I get to add those letters to my name.”
“You’ve come a long way since your activism days,” I observed.
“I’m still an activist,” he countered. “I’m proud of everything I did back then. I didn’t hurt anyone, and I brought attention to important causes.” He sighed. “These days, I find different ways to do my work. Teaching the next generation is one of those ways. Writing is another.”
“Like writing letters to Shawn Zhu?” Holm asked casually.
“Yeah, I wondered when you were getting to that.” He leaned back in his high-backed desk chair. “Look, they’re making that project out to be the wave of the future. They’re not addressing the downsides to that kind of building.”
“From what I hear, you did a lot to get those concerns aired.” I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. “It takes a little more than letters to the editor to get a judge to sign off on a restraining order.”
James scoffed. “I ran into Zhu one day as he was leaving the building. I was there watching the crews work on it and taking photos of the process.” He reached for his laptop and turned it on. “He got mad and tried to make me erase the photos. When I wouldn’t, he grabbed at the camera. All I did was push him away. He left in a huff, and the next morning, the order arrives here just in time for my first class of the day.”
“That was the ‘harassment’?” I watched James peck at the laptop’s keyboard. His movements were awkward and sluggish. “Are you feeling okay, Mr. James?”
A bitter smile flashed across his face as he turned the laptop to face us.
“Ironically, I feel better today than I have in a while.” He got up and came around to the front of the desk. “Here are some photos I took from the site. If you want to arrest me for trespassing, fine, but you should see this.”
The photo was taken during a rain shower. Zhu stood under an overhang at the rear of the Dragon Tide with a man who looked vaguely familiar. James clicked through a series of photos in which Zhu and the other man appeared to exchange a messenger bag from Zhu for a thick manila envelope from the other man.
“This was last month,” James told us as he closed the laptop. He went around to his seat and dropped into it. “The other guy was Marlin Watts. He’s one of the county’s building inspectors.”
There were rumors that Watts was on the take, but nobody had caught him in the act. If these photos were what they appeared to be, the prosecutor’s office would want a good, long look.
“Do you have any idea what that was about?” I asked.
“No, not anything specific.” James fidgeted in his chair. “There are a lot of reasons a developer might pay off a city inspector. I wouldn’t be surprised if Zhu cut corners to save money on the job.”
“Why do you say that?” I watched the man fiddle with an unsharpened pencil. “We like to have evidence before we jump to speculation.”
“Of course not.” James took a long, shallow breath and wavered in his seat. “I… give me a minute, please.” He fished an inhaler out of a drawer and took two puffs.
“Asthma?” Holm leaned forward. He had a close friend who almost died from a severe asthma attack when they were in high school.
“I wish,” James said. He coughed a few times and then sagged in his chair. “Lung cancer. Of all the stupid things that could happen to me, it’s lung cancer.” He met my gaze. “I never smoked a day in my life, but my dad did until he got cancer.”
“Wow, man, I’m sorry to hear that,” Holm told him.
“For what it’s worth, the letter writing, weekly photos, and exactly one protest I attended have been it.” He coughed again. His face was at least two shades paler than when we arrived. “I don’t know if I’m gonna beat this cancer, but I’m not letting it stop me from doing what I can.”
“This explains why you stopped going to protests,” I mused. “A guy named Steve was there. He said you stopped because Zhu threatened to sue you.”
“Well, he wasn’t entirely wrong.” James cleared his throat a few times. “Sorry. Anyway, yeah. That was about the order of protection. I’m not allowed near the building, so I haven’t been around since those last photos.”
I looked over at Holm and wondered if he was thinking the same thing. This James guy was too damned sick to annoy a fly, let alone detonate the Seascape Tunnel. If this was an act, it was a good one.
“What, exactly, is the environmental concern with this specific hotel?”
“It’s a symbol of capitalism’s refusal to take responsibility for causing the ongoing climate crisis.” He took a huge breath and barely held back another coughing fit. “I’m sure some of the people on the project have good intentions, but the reality is that Florida is going to go underwater over the next hundred or so years. If we’re lucky, we might have two hundred years, but it all depends on the rate of glacier melt.” He stopped to steady his breathing.
“Isn’t it a good thing to using their new tech to allow people to adapt to the sea level rises?” It felt strange to defend a technology that I found unsettling. “They’re talking about diving tourism and, basically, sky cities. That seems like some pretty advanced thinking.”
James nodded. “For sure. We need that.” He closed his eyes for a moment as if searching for something, maybe words, maybe strength. “The problem with Adapta-Build is that they’re looking for solutions in the wrong places. This tech isn’t bad. In fact, it should be used in places like D.C. or New York, where the bedrock is solid and fresh water isn’t being salinated like here. The other thing is that millions of people depend on those cities.”
“Why not Florida?” Holm wanted to know. “Millions of people need to go somewhere.”
“They need to go somewhere else. Eventually, Florida will run out of fresh water.” He sat forward and rifled through some papers on his desk. When he found the one he was looking for, he handed it to me. “Saltwater intrusion is already happening in more than half of the state. It’s only going to get worse.”
Holm scooted over to get a look at the printout. It was a map of Florida. Large chunks were colored in red and orange-red, many in orange and yellow, and some northern areas in green. The key showed the danger of saltwater intrusion according to the colors on the map.
“It shows that we’re already in bad shape,” I said as I handed the paper back to him. “We all know it’s an issue, but the city has wells out to the west.”
“
As long as people refuse to leave Florida, freshwater sources will be endangered. All these wells out west? That pumping just makes the incursion faster. It’s a vicious cycle.” James rubbed the top of his head, and it looked like his scalp moved. He must have seen my eyebrows rise. “I’m getting used to the wig. I got my hair cut off before I started treatment, and some friends it to make this for me.” He made a face. “It doesn’t feel like my hair anymore, though. Anyway.”
As someone who usually knew what to say, I had nothing at that moment. Cancer didn’t mean a person couldn’t commit crimes, but when you put that with his demeanor and position at the university, it was a hard sell. I’d keep him on my list, but I had serious doubts about his involvement.
“I’d like to have our people look through your photos,” Holm told him. “They’ll tell a more complete story than corporate releases.” We might run into issues if they were all taken while trespassing, but that didn’t mean looking at them wouldn’t help.
“For sure.” James fished out a USB stick and popped it into his laptop. “This machine is old, so give it some time. I’m sending the RAW images so that they have the absolute originals.”
I cleared my throat, which came out a little louder than I intended. “Mr. James—”
“Please, call me ‘MJ.’”
“Okay, MJ.” I nodded, even though the nickname was too much like Michael Jordan’s. “You said there were other concerns. Since we have a few minutes, tell me about them. We’ll get some research on those situations.”
James took a deep breath, but this one seemed more emotional than from his illness. “Imagine Venice, but with highway bridges connecting the cities like in the Keys. Even assuming efficient desalination plants can be built, basic utilities will be strained, like storm drains and sewers.”
“We already have some vile stuff flooding neighborhoods around here,” Holm pointed out. “The sewer systems can’t handle high tides right now.”
“Like the king tide that killed my car a while back,” I grumbled.
“Exactly.” James sat straighter. “Imagine that on a citywide scale, only the entire water treatment system is under sea level. A breach in that will pollute the waters more than they’ll already be. Even worse, think about all the chemicals and toxins that will take decades, if not centuries, to dissipate as people abandon buildings, vehicles, everything to escape the water.”
“And they want to attract diving tours,” I muttered. James’s points were making more sense than I liked. “I see where you’re coming from,” I admitted. “Do you know anyone who might take more aggressive measures against Dragon Tide?”
James shook his head. “No. The ELF groups pretty much died out in the nineties to early aughts after they got backlash for the arsons and shit.”
His face turned red, and a massive coughing fit overtook him. The convulsions forced him forward and almost off of the chair. His lips darkened, and I went over to him.
“Do you need an ambulance?”
He shook his head and gasped. The coughs lessened but still wracked his body for another minute or two. His lips colored up again, and I helped him to lean back in his chair.
“My ride home will be here soon,” James rasped. “Email if I can help.”
“We’ll do that,” I said as Holm and I moved toward the door.
I took another look in his direction. Michael James might be physically out of the game, but that didn’t mean he was innocent. Even men at Death’s door could burn the world down.
CHAPTER 12
Later that afternoon, Holm and I met at his parents’ new home. A portable storage unit sat in the driveway with the top brushing against the lowest limbs of a palm tree. The house was small compared to what they left in the Tampa area, and Linda Holm had gone through two purges cut down on four decades spent in the same location. Now that they were in Miami, Holm and I were close enough to help unpack.
“I hate this,” Holm told me before we went inside. “I don’t blame Ronnie, but at the same time, if she hadn’t gone on that mission, this wouldn’t be happening.”
Months earlier, we learned the hard way that his sister’s mysterious absence in the past year was due to her role in a CIA investigation. Be it fate or dumb luck, we arrived in Hawaii soon after she was captured by the man she was investigating. Even though she was rescued and our team knew the truth, Robbie and Ronnie’s parents were on a need-to-know basis. In this case, need-to-know meant telling them they were at risk for reprisals against Robbie Holm from at least one New York City syndicate. They had no idea that their daughter was involved, and we had to keep a lid on it. As far as they knew, Ronnie had undertaken a nomadic life, and we’d met up in Hawaii.
“At least you two worked out a way to get letters to them,” I reminded Holm.
“Only because we have connections.”
He leaned against his electric-blue 2015 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. He was about twenty years too old for a street racer, but he put as much love into it as I put into my much, much older 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1… whenever I had a chance. That baby spent a lot of time parked in the garage at the marina where I lived in my houseboat. That’s what happened when a guy like me had a busy career.
“Are you boys shooting the breeze, or are you coming inside?” Ben Holm called out from the front door. “We still have a lot of boxes to unpack and furniture to sort.”
We joined Ben in the white-tiled living room. The movers had left the furniture all along one wall and boxes along the other. They hadn’t bothered to separate the living room and front room, so it was all piled in one place.
“Where’s Mom?” Holm asked his dad.
Ben looked down and then forced a smile. “She’ll be out in a little while. She’s taking a nap. Migraines, you know.”
Holm nodded, but I wasn’t sure he’d caught that his father was fudging the truth. Then again, it wasn’t as though we could change anything, and we knew his normally strong mom was struggling with the heaviness of her new reality.
We settled into moving furniture and boxes to the rooms where they belonged. Holm looked toward his mom’s room every time he passed the hallway and then to other rooms. Over the past few weeks, it had grown clear that Linda Holm was in a bit of shock, and while she didn’t want to place blame on her son, she couldn’t escape a simmering resentment every time he and I visited. The warmth was there, but it felt like a veneer.
“Pizza and beer?” Ben offered once the dining room was unpacked. “I heard your stomach rumble, Ethan. What about you, Robbie?”
Holm nodded. “Got some Sam Adams?”
Ben sighed. “You disappoint me, son, but yes, I have that cherry wheat brew you like for some godforsaken reason.” He smiled at the tease, but when Holm didn’t rise to the soft challenge, Ben deflated a little. “I’ll order the pizzas, guys. Robbie, see if you can talk to your mom.”
Holm nodded and went to the hall without a word. I heard a knock, followed by an opening door. The door clicked shut.
“It’s going to take time,” Ben told me. “Linda isn’t buying your story any more than I am, but we understand some questions don’t get answers. That’s how it is.”
“I wish I could do more to help you.” I toed at the foot of their heavy mahogany dining table. “If I had an excuse to deal with those families in New York, I’d do it in a hot minute.”
“I know.” Ben patted my shoulder as he walked past behind me. “We appreciate all you and Robbie are doing to keep us as safe as possible. Really, we do.”
“But?”
“Linda.” He sighed. “She’s scared for us, scared for the kids, just plain scared in a way she’s never experienced. We’ve lived a charmed life, we have. At this stage of the game, it’s hard to handle a challenge this big.”
I nodded. “The threat won’t last forever,” I promised. “Other agencies are working on the situation. They’re outside our purview, but we’re staying informed as much as possible.” That last bit was part bullshit
tery. The CIA hadn’t told us shit in months. The FBI had leaked us a little intel about dealings between the Cullen and Mezzanotte families and their dealings, but not enough to zero in on specific threats.
“I hope so,” Ben whispered as he glanced toward their bedroom door. He went to the kitchen for a beer, came back, and knocked back several gulps. He forced a smile. “On a lighter note, I heard something that might interest you.”
“Yeah?”
“A friend of mine went to help some folks he knows on Grand Bahama.” Ben pulled out his phone and opened Google Maps. “His friend was flying over the island to see where they could help the most, and he thinks he saw a new shipwreck site.”
A major hurricane had blasted through a while back, and cleanup was going to last a long time, possibly years. Sometimes the bigger hurricanes uncovered long-lost wrecks. If that pilot actually saw something, that would’ve meant the wreck was plenty big, and the pilot plenty lucky.
“Where did he see it?”
Ben zoomed in on Grand Bahama. He pointed to a spot east of the Mantanilla Shoal. It was in the north of the Little Bahama Bank, which was a tricky area to navigate due to coral and sand reaching near the surface.
“You told me that you and your gramps thought the Dragon’s Rogue went down between the Bahamas and Florida.” Ben took a sip from his beer bottle. “You might want to check this out before treasure hunters beat you to it.”
My lifelong dream of finding the Dragon’s Rogue was closer to fruition than it had ever been, thanks to discoveries that occurred over the past year.
“Did Robbie tell you we think we found where Captain Grendel’s wife lived?” I tried not to feel overly excited, as actual site leads had always been a bust… and because of the tragedies wrought by the hurricane.
