The Ocean Dark

65

The Kodiak had been commissioned out of Alaska, but reassigned to port in Charleston, South Carolina, three years ago. A Hamilton Class cutter, she ran three hundred and seventy-eight feet at the waterline and had a fifteen-foot draft. With nearly one hundred and seventy men and women on board, a seventy-six-millimeter cannon, two twenty-five-millimeter chain guns capable of firing two hundred rounds per minute, and an automated missile defense system, the ship wasn’t about search and rescue. The Coast Guard prided itself on that reputation, but they served the people of the United States in many capacities.

Josh had learned all of this from Lieutenant Commander Cornelius Sykes — one of the ranking officers on board the USCGC Kodiak. They had crossed paths before, as Josh’s squad had often cooperated with the Coast Guard on ocean interdiction, and had an amiable enough acquaintance. Sykes had visited sick bay during the blood-loss-induced haze of the night before and then again this morning, in an attempt to keep Josh company. He didn’t have much by way of a sense of humor, but Sykes was a good guy, intelligent and purposeful, and took obvious pride in his work.

While Dr. Dolan cleaned and dressed the bullet wound in Josh’s shoulder, Sykes had taken it upon himself to educate Josh about the Kodiak and about the Coast Guard, and had picked up on the theme this morning. Josh had actually found the information about the ship interesting, and reassuring — especially considering there were two Island Class cutters and a two-hundred-and-seventy-foot Medium Endurance cutter in what Josh had started to think of as their “fleet.” But when he stepped out onto the deck of the Kodiak and spotted Sykes, he hoped the lieutenant commander had lost interest in lecturing.

“Hey, Josh,” Sykes said, eyes narrowed with his usual intensity. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Good, Cornelius, thanks. Listen, have you seen Agent Turcotte? One of your guys told me he was out on the deck.”

Sykes nodded. “With the captain, just down to starboard. But do you really think you should be—”

“Thanks, man.” Josh clapped him on the shoulder and strode away.

Sykes mumbled something but did not call after him. Josh hurried aft and quickly came in sight of a small gathering at the starboard railing. He shielded his eyes from the sun — it was another pristine blue Caribbean day — and could make out all six of the figures up ahead. His partner, Rachael Voss, stood with Ed Turcotte and Dan O’Connell from the Counter-Terrorism squad. They’d been joined by the Kodiak’s captain, Bud Rouleau, and a couple of his officers.

Two hundred yards off to starboard, the Antoinette loomed on the water, silent and apparently abandoned.

“Agent Turcotte!” Josh called as he hurried up. His shoulder ached and he blinked the sun from his eyes, craving caffeine.

Turcotte saw him and knitted his brows in disapproval, but Josh had no interest in pleasing him.

“Good morning, Agent Hart,” Captain Rouleau said.

“And to you, sir,” Josh replied, before focusing on Turcotte. “No disrespect, Ed, but what the hell are you doing?”

O’Connell scoffed. “No disrespect, huh?”

Voss glared at O’Connell, then turned a warning glance on Josh.

Turcotte raised his chin. “Shouldn’t you still be in Dr. Dolan’s sick bay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Josh snapped. “Which is a lot more than I can say for the poor bastards you sent over to the Antoinette. I told you the whole story, and still you’ve got a team boarding her with, what, sidearms? If any of those things are still on board—”

“First of all,” Turcotte interrupted, “this isn’t your case, Agent Hart. You’re out of it. Second, even if these things are real—”

“Real enough to kill the whole fucking crew!”

“Boys,” Voss said, trying to pacify them. O’Connell just rolled his eyes, but Captain Rouleau studied Josh intently.

Turcotte held up both hands. “Okay, okay. They’re real, whatever they are, but you said they burn in the sun, and that they only come out at night. The others we pulled out of that lifeboat said the same thing. If you haven’t noticed, it’s pretty sunny out here. If they run into anything out there, they only have to retreat to sunlight—”

“If they get a chance,” Josh said.

“Christ’s sake, Hart, two seconds ago you said ‘if’ any of them are still on board! You don’t even know. And if they are, we’re the FBI, not the damn Cub Scouts!”

Voss sighed. “Ed. Cut him some slack. He’s lucky to be alive.”

What surprised Josh the most was not the almost friendly tone with which Rachael had addressed the leader of the squad that constantly attempted to snatch their cases, but that Turcotte actually relented. He gave a small shrug and a nod.

“Go on, then. Talk to him. I don’t have time for this shit.”

Voss led him a few steps away from the others, then stopped to study Josh. “You really okay? You did get shot last night, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“The bullet went right through. Now are you going to tell me what’s going on, or do I have to ask Pavarotti what you’ve let slip during pillow talk?”

She flinched. That irked her, and Josh was glad. He loved Rachael, but she needed to stop treating him like something fragile.

“You want to say that again?” Voss asked, the warning clear in her tone.

“Let’s move on,” Josh said. “Maybe start with, ‘Hey, partner, I’m glad you’re alive.’”

“Jesus, you’re needy. I freakin’ hugged you last night, and that’s all the love you’re getting. If you’re on the job — which I want you to know I’m against — then you’re on the job.”

Josh smiled. “You missed me.”

She rolled her eyes and glanced away. There had always been an intensity between them, but they had agreed early on to direct those feelings into their professional relationship. Voss tended to find distractions in short-lived romances, and Josh had gone through a numbing divorce. Now he had a new fascination, and new feelings — and though he would have to report it himself to avoid worse censure if it came out later, he still did not want Rachael to know about what had developed between him and Tori. She would tell him how stupid he had been, and she would be right.

“Seriously,” he said. “You want to tell me what Turcotte’s thinking, because this is incredibly stupid.”

“He’s thinking that, anytime now, this whole mess is going to be taken away from us and might just blow up in our faces,” Voss said. “And if the guns the Rios were smuggling are on that ship, he wants to lay claim to them for the Bureau, and at least get that win on the books before the DOD starts hunting monsters.”

Josh nodded. He did not agree, and knew that Turcotte would soon regret his choice, but he understood the motivation.

“Fine. But what’s the DOD got to do with anything?”

“We’re in a holding pattern right now,” she said. “Turcotte and Captain Rouleau made their reports and in both cases — FBI and Coast Guard — we’ve been told to secure the area but otherwise stand down and await the arrival of some Navy ship. The ICE ships that were along with us on the hunt for the Antoinette have been called away. They’re out of it. The Department of Defense is taking over.”

Just a few feet away, Turcotte and the Coast Guard captain seemed to be commiserating on that very subject. Josh couldn’t help but note the irony that someone had finally done to Turcotte what the Counter-Terrorism unit had so often done to everyone else in recent years. But he knew now wasn’t the time to revel in that — not when he could see men moving on the deck of the Antoinette just a couple hundred yards away.

“That’s good,” Josh said. “If it was up to me, I’d order them to bomb the shit out of the island and be done with it.”

Voss’s expression softened and he saw a rare glimmer of fear in her eyes. “Me, too. If it’s anything like what you said—”

“It’s exactly like I said. You’ve got to get Turcotte to recall that team. Get those people off the ship.”

She shook her head. “Look at him, Josh. That’s not going to happen.”

“Then people are going to die.”

“Have a little faith,” Voss chided him.

Josh sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re not listening, either. I lost my faith last night. We should sink that ship. Better yet, blow it apart.”

He glanced at the Antoinette again. His shoulder throbbed and he wondered if it was too soon to take another Vicodin. He tried to pull together stray thoughts, to make sense of what he’d heard.

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” he said. “We’ve got FBI, Coast Guard, and ICE on the case, but the DOD says, ‘screw Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, we call dibs’? And nobody argues?”

“We don’t know if anyone argued, Josh. But you know if the Department of Defense wants in, they’re in. All anyone has to tell the Joint Chiefs is that it’s a matter of national security.”

“How is it a matter of national security?”

“I wondered the same thing.” Voss lowered her voice. “And I’ve wondered why, if Homeland Security pulled out ICE, they didn’t pull out the Coast Guard as well. Not that I want them to abandon us out here, but still, it’s odd, don’t you think?”

Josh turned that one over for a moment. “No. Think about it. What does this Coast Guard ship have that the ICE guys didn’t bring to the party?”

“You mean besides a helicopter?”

Josh nodded, turning to survey the deck of the Kodiak.

“Yeah.”

Voss looked to see what had caught his attention. “Ah. Of course. A big fucking cannon.”

“Not to mention pulling ICE away from the scene limits the number of people and agencies who will be exposed to the truth of what’s on that island, once we have our marching orders.”

“They’re moving fast,” Voss said. “Like they’ve got a plan.”

“Maybe they do, but don’t be surprised if it changes when they get a look at the things down there. It isn’t going to be as simple as doing pest control.”

Josh nodded toward Turcotte, Rouleau, and O’Connell. “What about this? If we have orders to secure and wait, where does Turcotte get off boarding the Antoinette?”

“Orders were to stay away from the island, but no one mentioned the Antoinette.”

“And he’s trying to use that loophole to close the case before the new boss shows up.”

“That’s about it.”

Any other time, Josh would not have been surprised. Really, he wouldn’t have blamed Turcotte at all. But the usual parameters did not apply here. FBI standard operating procedure had to be completely thrown out the window, and so did any concern for individual cases. They had discovered a new and deadly species. The things were smart enough to have used the Mariposa as bait, and Josh had to wonder if they had purposely let the lifeboat escape the night before for the same reason — to lure more prey back to the island. How many had they killed already? How many people had been on board the derelict ships that had been sunk in the island’s shallows?

How did one gun-smuggling case matter in the face of that?

But Turcotte hadn’t seen the creatures — the things Tori had called sirens — up close. If he had, he would have understood.

“He’s got to call them back,” Josh said.

“Wait,” Voss replied.

Josh went to the railing and stared across the span of water that separated the Kodiak from the Antoinette. The small Coast Guard launch bobbed beside the massive container ship, waiting for the FBI team to return. No one moved up on the deck. Turcotte’s people had either gone into the accommodations block or belowdecks.

“This is a huge mistake,” he said.

O’Connell’s radio crackled. “Come in, Dan. We’re in.”

“This is O’Connell,” the older agent said into his handheld. “Any sign of survivors?”

“Nada. It’s quiet in here.”

“Do a room by room search for the contraband. If you don’t come up with anything, we’ll start checking the containers out on deck. Check in every fifteen minutes.”

“Will do.”

At least he asked about survivors first, Josh thought. He watched the deck of the Antoinette expectantly, but after they had all stood in silence for several minutes, he began to breathe easier. Maybe the things had all retreated to the island before dawn, once they had gotten what they came for. Once they had fed.

“Maybe—” Voss started to say, but her words were interrupted by gunfire.

“Shit,” Turcotte snarled.

O’Connell barked into his radio, but the only replies, amidst the static on the handheld, were screams.