Submerged

by Alton Gansky

  Perry yanked the steering wheel to the right and pressed the gas pedal. He reminded himself that speeding through a parking structure was unwise and illogical. He didn’t want to be wise or logical; still, he reigned in his urge and focused on finding a parking place. The structure was packed. In the past Perry would find the most distant parking place, believing that it provided him some exercise and a little extra protection for a car he had possessed for a mere three months. This time he took the first spot he found.

  With head down, his pace just a stride less than a trot, Perry walked toward the hospital. The image of his father came to mind: gray hair combed back in easy waves; sun-browned face that wore new wrinkles well; and a mouth that preferred smiling. Two inches shorter than Perry’s six-foot-two, Henry Sachs was still broad in the shoulders and strong in the back. Sixty-three years of life had bleached the color from his hair and lined his face but had not been able to touch his spirit, resolve, or drive.

  The parking structure gave way to an open, planted courtyard. Trees, bushes, and flowering plants reached out from their planters as if driven to touch each passerby. Perry knew the hospital well, not because he had worked on it—he had been absorbed in another project overseas—but because he came here every year for a physical. All executives of Sachs Engineering were required to take annual physicals paid for by the company. As the vice president of the firm and the director of field operations, Perry fell into that category.

  He marched through glass doors that opened as he approached and entered the realm of the sick. The smell of antiseptic cleansers assaulted his nose. He passed the main lobby and turned left down a wide, pale green corridor. His sneakers squeaked on the polished floor. Plastic engraved signs told what lay behind each door. Perry ignored them and headed for the area where he was certain his father would be—the emergency room.

  Uncounted steps later, he pushed through a pair of doors and entered another waiting room. Light blue paint dressed these walls, and pastoral landscapes hung unnoticed by a dozen people waiting their turn to see the ER docs. Some slumped in chairs, their eyes closed, fighting off whatever pain or discomfort had moved them from their homes or jobs to come here. A few watched a small television mounted high on one wall. It was Saturday, and some home improvement show was on.

  To Perry’s right was a window with a view to another room. The room was barely larger than a closet and seated inside, behind the pane of glass, was a young man with a shaved head and a patch of beard on the end of his chin. He appeared bored. A sign above the window read: Triage Nurse. A round hole in the glass allowed conversation between attendant and patient.

  Perry approached. “My name is Perry Sachs. My father was brought in by ambulance.”

  The young man looked up. He had weary brown eyes and an expressionless face. Pain and illness and worried family members no longer affected him. “Patient’s name.”

  “Henry Sachs. He would have arrived within the last twenty minutes—”

  “One moment, please.” The young man turned to his computer and fingered a few keystrokes. A second later he shook his head. “I don’t show him in the computer.”

  “Not here?” Had he heard his mother wrong? Had the ambulance not arrived yet? That didn’t seem possible. “That can’t be. Henry Sachs—S-A-C-H-S.”

  “He’s not in the computer.”

  Perry noticed the man was chewing gum. For some reason that irritated him.

  “Are you sure you have the right hospital? Sometimes when people panic they get confused.”

  “Panic?” Perry resisted the urge to tell the pup that in the last year and a half he had been lowered through two miles of Antarctic ice and left afloat in an under-ice lake or that a year ago he had almost been buried alive in the Tehachapi mountains of California. There had been no panic then, and there was none now. Perry leaned closer to the opening in the glass window. “Perhaps you’re too young or inexperienced to distinguish between a panicked man and determined one. Your computer is wrong, so I would like to suggest that you haul your skinny fanny out of that squeaky chair and walk back to the ER and check for yourself. And when you find my father, you will tell his doctors that Henry Sachs’s family is in the waiting room.”

  The man stopped chewing. Anger flared in the male nurse’s eye but evaporated a second later. Without a word, he rose and left the security of the cubicle.

  An eternity of seconds chugged by before the nurse returned. His attitude had softened, and some of the color had drained from his face. He cleared his throat. “A nurse was just posting your father’s admittance into the computer. That’s why I couldn’t find him. I, um, I told the doctors you were here. I can’t let you back there. It’s against hospital policy, but the doctor said he would be out to talk to you just as soon as he can.”

  Perry had expected this. There was nothing to do now but wait and pray. He was used to doing both. He started to turn away but stopped. “We okay?”

  “Yeah,” the young man said. “We’re okay. I had it coming.” It was clear he was upset.

  Perry nodded. “Thank you.” He then moved to the corner formed where corridor met lobby and leaned against the wall. He crossed his arms and bowed his head, pushing back emotions that threatened to burst free with Krakatoan intensity. Minutes oozed by at glacial speeds. Seconds seemed like hours and minutes like days. Perry tried to lose himself in prayer for his father, but intercession was crowded out by memories of Little League games with his father in the stands telling him to choke up on the bat; of birthday parties; of trips taken overseas while he was still a boy; of hearing his father tell him that hard work built character as well as muscles.

  Did recollections count as prayer? He hoped so.

  “Perry?”

  He glanced up and saw the normally smiling face of Jack drawn tight with concern. Next to him was Perry’s mother. Jack had his big arm around her shoulders. His eyes met hers, and silent words were uttered through their gaze.

  Anna Sachs was a stout woman with dark hair that gray had avoided and blue eyes that could dance the tango when joy filled her heart. Today her eyes didn’t dance. Instead, they radiated fear like an oven pours out heat. “Oh, Perry.”

  She stepped to him, and he took her in his arms. He said nothing. Their communication was beyond the scope of words. They spoke the language of souls. Anna—as strong a woman as Perry had ever met—crumbled into tears, and her tears became sobs. Perry could feel her shaking in his arms. A moment later he was holding her up.

  He needed to be strong for her, needed to be her pillar of support, but his own foundation was cracking. He closed his eyes and lowered his head until his forehead rested on her hair.

  In the light of the lobby, in the middle of the day, darkness descended, engulfing them. Perry didn’t know what had happened to his father, but his mother’s words and the look on the male nurse’s face told him that it was bad.

  Something wrapped around Perry shoulders, drawing him and his mother in. Something strong. Something thick. Jack had encircled his friends with his arms. Soft words were spoken. It didn’t take long for Perry to recognize a whispered prayer.

  Chapter2

  Carl Subick bit back a curse as his Ford Escape SUV hit yet another pothole in the unnamed narrow dirt road that led to the east of the San Antonio Mountains. He had already been on the road for longer than he wanted and knew that the next few miles would be worse than what he had already experienced. The road, little more than a path, had never seen asphalt and never would. Almost no one came up here.

  He hit another dip. The Sam Browne belt he wore dug into his back, and his holstered gun chewed at his side. Subick had wanted to be a police officer all his life. It was a dream born when he was six, and it had persisted through high school and junior college. Now, after three years with the Nye County Sheriff’s Department and driving through hills that once held silver for miners to harvest, he was ready to trade it in. Endless days or nights in a patrol car, chasing calls that were an
hour’s drive away or more, had tarnished the luster of the job. Yet somehow his love for police work always won out.

  That love had its work cut out for it today. Once again Carl had drawn the short straw. Actually, no straws had been drawn. He was chosen for this assignment because he knew the back roads better than anyone at the Tonopah substation. He should. He had grown up wandering most of the hills and valleys.

  After he earned an associate degree in criminal justice, he had been certain some police department would gobble him up. He’d applied everywhere in Nevada and California but was passed over time and again. His short stature and thin frame made him look too fragile for major police departments to take him seriously. There were others who were bigger, had more experience, or had bachelor’s degrees. The irony of it was that he possessed a bigger heart, a stiffer spine, and greater determination than most of the others who were awarded the slot he felt should have been his.

  It took four years of applying, testing, and interviewing before he was hired on at the Nye County Sheriff’s Department—the same county he had grown up in, as the son of an alcoholic father who was seldom home and a mother who had never wanted children. “You’re an accident boy,” his mother had told him time and time again. “You’re just one big oops.” Then she would laugh.

  Since he had no comfort at home, he sought it in the desert mountains, following paths that few knew existed, roads laid down by silver miners a hundred years earlier. Now he was back in the same county, living near the same town, and driving up one of those long forgotten paths.

  He was here for a purpose, he reminded himself. A man had gone missing, and a distraught wife had been calling several times a day to make sure that the authorities had been out searching. Carl had been on such expeditions before. Every once in a while a hiker or some nature lover would wander off the path and become lost. Most of the time people disappeared because they wanted to disappear. Whatever the case, it had fallen to him to drive to the place where the missing man told his wife he would be fishing. He was three days late. He had told her that he would spend a day driving to the lake, two days fishing, and then return. But she had been out of town with the kids and just discovered that he had not come home when she returned two days after he was due. Four days was a long time to be lost in these mountains.

  “You missed one.”

  Carl turned to see the deputy seated next to him. She was one year younger than his twenty-six years, had blond hair, blue eyes, and stood a couple of inches taller than him. He hated being small. “You want me to go back and try again, Deputy Novak?”

  “Uh-oh, I must have hit a nerve. Deputy Novak? What happened to Janet?”

  “I didn’t want people to think we were getting chummy.”

  “What people? And we are chummy.”

  He eyed her again and smiled. He had been working with Janet for almost a year, and a romance was budding. Out of professional concerns, they both had fought it, but their resistance had worn down. They had started dating, discreetly, last month.

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

  “You better not forget. I’m armed and looking for a reason to fire my weapon.”

  “That’s what I like—a beautiful woman who packs heat.”

  “Please, no more flattery, I may swoon. How much farther?”

  “I haven’t been out here for ten years, but if I remember correctly, we should see the lake in another two or three miles.”

  “I can’t believe you’re the only one on the force who knew this place existed. If it’s everything you say it is, it should be a tourist trap.”

  “Not necessarily,” Carl said. “You ever fly in a commercial airliner?”

  “A few times. Why?”

  “I flew across country once to interview for the Asheville Police Department. I had a window seat and passed the time watching the terrain from thirty-five thousand feet. Big lakes and reservoirs are easy to spot. I was surprised how many of them had no buildings around them. You can’t see detail from that height, but you can tell if there has been significant development. I imagine there are a lot of man-made lakes that don’t attract attention.”

  “So I shouldn’t expect a McDonald’s?”

  Carl pushed the accelerator to drive the SUV up another grade. At least they were in the newest vehicle at the substation. That was a plus. “You should expect to see a reservoir—” Carl hit the breaks as they crested the grade. The car stuttered to a stop, the tires kicking up loose dirt into a cloud. “What . . . Where . . .”

  “It’s a barricade.”

  “I know it’s a barricade, but what’s it doing on this road?” Carl peered over the hood at the red-and-white-striped wooden barricade. A no trespassing sign hung from the cross beam. Carl put the vehicle in Park and opened his door.

  “Where you going?” Janet unsnapped her seat belt and opened her door.

  Carl didn’t answer. Instead he crossed the distance from the Escape to the barrier. Something wasn’t right. He stopped and studied it. It was made of wood and looked new. The sign below read:

  No Trespassing

  by Order of the U.S. Government

  Offenders Will Be Prosecuted

  Janet whistled. “Looks like they mean business.”

  “This isn’t government property. Not by a long shot.”

  “Maybe we wandered into Nellis Air Force Base territory. They’re kinda particular about who walks on their dirt.”

  “That’s to the south of us. We couldn’t have wandered that far off.”

  “Maybe Groom Lake is gobbling up some more property.”

  Carl shook his head. “I’m not buying it. This barricade is new. It can’t have been on this spot more than a couple of days.”

  “Is that a fact, Sherlock? How did you deduce that?”

  Reaching forward, Carl ran his finger along the top of the wood beam. He felt the smooth surface of the paint. He held the finger up. “Just a touch of dust. How much dust do you have in your house?”

  “That’s kind of personal, don’t you think?”

  “I dust on a regular basis, and by the end of the week I have enough dirt in the house to plant corn. This is open land; we get dust and dirt and wind to carry it. This should have a good bit more dust than it does. I doubt the military sends out housekeepers to tidy up signs and barricades. Look at the paint.”

  Janet leaned forward. “It looks fine. What am I supposed to see?”

  “If this thing had been here very long, the paint should be faded and cracked.” Carl squatted and studied the ground. “Footprints. Look like boots. Several pairs.”

  “Well, the thing wouldn’t have walked here by itself.” Janet paused. “Okay, I get it. The tracks are fresh, is that it?”

  “On the nose, my dear deputy, on the nose.” He stood and studied the area. “No fences. If the military wanted to protect this area, they would have put up at least a token fence. No sir, something ain’t right.” Stepping to the side of the barrier, Carl took hold of one end and lifted.

  “Is this wise?”

  He moved it a few feet, then set it down. “This is heavier than it looks.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  Carl saw not fear, but caution in Janet’s eyes. “I’m telling you, we’re not on government property. We’re here to find a missing man. That’s our assignment. I plan to carry it out. Besides, it’s not like we’re tourists. We’re uniformed officers. Now, are you going to help me or not?”

  Again Carl lifted and an instant later his load was made lighter by Janet’s added strength. Together they moved the barricade to the side of the road.

  “We have to put it back when we leave,” Janet insisted. After Carl agreed, she added, “And if a helicopter comes over the hills and shoots me in the head, I’ll never speak to you again.”

  “Are you sure you’d know if you were shot in the head? After all, you are a blond—”

  “Finish that sentence, and I’ll slap you so hard your grandpa
rents will bruise.”

  Carl laughed. “I love a tough woman. Get in.”

  The tires slipped as Carl pressed the gas pedal but gained traction a half second later. Steering past the barricade they had moved to the side, Carl drove on, down a slight grade, then up a longer, steeper hill. He was glad the vehicle had four-wheel drive. It took another ten minutes and several twists and turns before they crested one more incline and saw what they had come to see.

  “Wow,” Janet said. “It’s huge.”

  Carl stopped the car and studied the blue lake that ex-tended before them. “There are many that are larger, but this reservoir has nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t know this place existed.”

  Carl directed the vehicle forward again, easing down a grade that led to the lakeshore. “I checked a couple of maps this morning. It’s been years since I’ve hiked these hills, and I wanted to make sure we didn’t get lost. This doesn’t appear on any of them.”

  “You have a woman with you. There’s no chance you’d get lost.”

  “Cute. There are no gas stations to ask directions.”

  “Yeah, as if a man would stop and ask directions.”

  Carl shook his head. “That’s an unfair stereotype.”

  Janet cocked her head. “Have you ever asked for directions?”

  “I see a truck up ahead. We better get out and see if it belongs to our missing man.”

  “That’s what I thought. Never asked for directions in your life.”

  They exited and started for a dark blue, well-used Chevy pickup that was parked near the shore fifty yards ahead of them. The missing person’s report described a similar truck. As Carl approached, he could see a homemade boat rack, sitting in the pickup’s bed and stretching over the cab. There was no boat. He looked out over the lake again. It was flat and blue and empty of boats.

  “This guy came up here to fish?” Janet asked. “This is a long way to come to snag a few trout.”