Читать книгу The Shimmer - Carsten Stroud - Страница 8
ОглавлениеAn afternoon in late August, a Thursday, four hours and sixteen minutes left on Day watch, cruising down the A1A twenty miles south of St. Augustine in an unmarked shark-gray Crown Vic, Sergeant Jack Redding of the Florida Highway Patrol and his rookie trainee were watching a black Suburban with heavily tinted windows and Missouri plates. They were watching the black Suburban because it was lurching across two lanes of heavy traffic like a wounded rhino.
Far out over the Atlantic a tsunami of storm clouds was filling the horizon. An onshore gale gritty with beach sand was lashing at the rusted flagpoles over the tired old lime-green and pink stucco motels—Crystal Shores, Pelican Beach, Emerald Seas—the gale fluttering their faded awnings. The air smelled of ozone and sea salt and fading magnolias.
Redding looked over at his trainee, a compact sport-model blonde by the name of Julie Karras. Since she was fresh out of the Academy and this was her first day on the job, she was on fire to pull the truck over and carpet bomb the driver’s ass.
“What do you think, boss? Can I hit the lights?”
Redding went back to the truck. It had eased up on the lurching. It was now more of a wobble. Maybe the driver had been fumbling around in the glove compartment or checking his iPhone and had finally stopped doing that. Or maybe he was totally cranked out of his mind and had just now noticed a cop car riding his ass. Whatever it was, the guy was slowing down, doing a little less than the 60 per allowed.
“Grounds, Julie?”
He could see her mentally running the Traffic Infractions List through her mind. She was too proud to check the sheet on her clipboard. Although he’d only met her at 0800 hours, when Day watch started, Redding liked her. She had...something.
Style was the wrong word.
No. She had bounce.
“I Five,” she said, after a moment, “Improper Change of Lanes.”
Julie Karras was in Redding’s unmarked cruiser because her regular training officer—who had been born in Chicago, the frozen attic of the nation—had confused Canadian ice hockey with a real American sport, such as football, and had gotten all of his upper front incisors duly redeployed. So the CO had handed her off to Redding for the week.
“Try not to get her killed on her first shift,” said the CO, whose name was Bart Dixon but everybody called him, inevitably, Mason, often shortened to Mace. “It’s bad for recruitment.”
Dixon, a bullet-shaped black guy with a shaved head and bullet scar on his left cheek, had grinned at him around an Old Port cheroot that smelled like burning bats. The part about not getting her killed wasn’t entirely irrelevant because Redding’s main job wasn’t Patrol.
He worked Serious Crimes Liaison with the State Bureau of Investigations. He’d killed five men and one woman while doing that because, while he didn’t go looking for gun fights, he didn’t do a whole lot to avoid them either. And in a hellhole city like Jacksonville, gun fights were always on the menu.
Redding didn’t mind taking on Julie Karras. She was crazy pretty, it was a fine summer day—or had been up until just now—and late August was slack time for the SBI, with most of them off on vacation. So if you were a career criminal and you desperately wanted to get your ass busted you were going to have to wait until after the end of the month.
Karras was from up North he remembered her saying. Charleston or Savannah so she had that sweet Tidewater lilt in her voice. She had the infraction number wrong though.
“I Six, you mean,” he said, but gently.
I Five was Improper Backing. Both infractions, but when he’d been in Patrol that’s where you started off, with a possible infraction. It hardly ever stayed there, but you had to have probable cause before you could make a stop. Otherwise everything that flowed from the stop—drugs, guns, illegal transportation of underage gerbils across state lines—would get thrown out of court.
“How about you run those plates first? Let’s see what we’re getting into here.”
Karras swiveled the MDT display around on its base, punched in 407 XZT, hit the search tab.
The Suburban had steadied and was now doing the speed limit. Exactly the speed limit. Redding’s unmarked was several cars back, in heavy traffic. Maybe they’d been seen and maybe not. But something was going ping in Redding’s cop brain.
He didn’t like big black SUVs with dark-tinted windows. Most cops felt exactly the same way. Big Black Boxes packed with Explosive Situations.
A gust of wind blew a cloud of beach sand across all four lanes of A1A and everybody’s brake lights flared as the drivers reacted. Grains of sand were peppering the glass at his shoulder and he could feel the car rocking. He looked east past the roofs of the beach houses that lined the coast, and there it was, heading their way, a white squall.
Karras looked up from the computer screen.
“Comes back with a Gerald Jeffrey Walker. DOB November 10, 1971. Address of 1922 Halls Ferry Road, Florissant, Missouri. No Wants No Warrants.”
Redding started to back off, letting his ping fade. Not every black Suburban was full of—
“Now this,” said Karras, giving him a puzzled look. “It just popped up on the screen. A ten-thirty-five? What’s a ten-thirty-five?”
Redding kept his eyes on that black Suburban. It had suddenly become much more interesting.
“That’s the code for Confidential Information.”
“What does it mean?”
“You’ll see in a moment,” he said, letting the Suburban drift farther ahead, falling back out of the guy’s rearview, if he was watching the cruiser at all. Which he sure as hell was because everyone did. A cop car in your rearview was like a scorpion in your martini. People noticed. He heard the MDT chirp, and Karras read off the radio code.
“It says ten-seventy-six?”
Redding was expecting that.
“It means switch radio channels,” he said, leaning over to click the channels controller to Tactical and picking up the hand mike.
“Central, this is Jax 180. Come back.”
“Jax 180, this is Six Actual.”
Six Actual was Mace Dixon.
“On that Suburban you just posted, St. Louis PD is asking for a ten-seventeen on that. Can you give us your twenty?”
Karras was getting a little bug-eyed but Redding didn’t have time for that right now. A 10-17 code meant maintain surveillance but do not stop the vehicle.
“Roger that, Central. Our twenty right now is southbound on A1A at Cedar Point Road. What’s up, Six? Plates come back No Wants No Warrants.”
“Roger that, Jax 180, wait one.”
Silence on the radio, and outside the windshield the weather was building up fast, the way squalls do along this coast. The traffic had thinned out, people looking at the skies and running for cover. In this part of the North Coast the A1A ran right along the shoreline, the ocean maybe a hundred yards away, booming and roaring.
On the west side, sprawling residential blocks, a few gated but mostly not, and beyond them, scrub forest, swamp and wetlands and then the Intracoastal Waterway, the inland canal that ran all the way from the Chesapeake to the Florida Keys.
The Suburban was speeding up, starting to pull away, which was okay with Redding. There was nowhere for it to go but south on the highway or turn off onto a side road, and they were all dead ends, either into the swamps to the west, or turn east and drive into the ocean.
“What’s going on, Sergeant Redding?” Karras asked in a tight voice.
“Call me Jack, okay? Dispatch is asking us to monitor that truck but not to spook them. St. Louis cops are following up for some reason we don’t know yet.”
Redding could feel Karras’s adrenaline rising. She had her hand on her sidearm and her skin was getting a tad pink.
“Are we stopping it later? I mean, what’s—”
“Not sure yet, let’s—”
“Jax 180, this is Six.”
“Six.”
“Yeah, look, Jack, what we have here is that the St. Louis PD is listing Gerald Walker and his wife and their three daughters as Whereabouts Unknown. Relatives up in Florissant have been trying to contact them for over ten days now. They were staying in their condo on Amelia Island. Management checked the condo and there’s nobody there. Signs that the departure was sudden. Clothes all over, dishes in the sink. Security logged the truck out of the north gate at 2013 hours ten days ago. Guard couldn’t confirm the occupants of the vehicle because of the tinted windows. Gate camera’s no help either, wrong angle. Family is not answering their cells. Can’t GPS them because their phones are turned off.”
“Roger that, Mace. Not getting the urgency. So they went for a shore drive, didn’t call the relatives. Maybe the relatives are all pains in the ass. I know mine are. Are they using their cards?”
“St. Louis says yes. Gas and motels along the coast. They were in the Monteleone in New Orleans seven nights ago. Then east along Ten... Ruby Tuesday and Holiday Inn and Denny’s along the way.”
“Any security video at the check-ins?”
“Not yet.”
“So we’re ten-seventeen on it until when?”
Dixon respected Redding’s gut feelings. He thought it over.
“Okay. Take your point, Jack. Just watch the truck for a while, see what develops.”
“Well, we maybe had an I Six on him. But he’s stopped doing that.”
Silence from Dixon. The CO was telling him to use his own judgment. Redding put the mike down, keyed it off. Thought it over. Stop or not.
Decided.
“Okay, Julie. Got an assignment for you.”
She came on point.
“Survey that truck. Gimme a plausible reason for making a stop.”
They were now in much thinner traffic. In this part of the coast, A1A ran on a kind of elevated levee. The palms and scrub brush along the shore were bending and whipping in the wind. The sky was closing down like a lid.
The Suburban was running straight and steady at 65 per. Staying in the curb lane. They were now about fifty feet back, and holding, with no other cars in the way. Karras was staring hard at the truck’s tailgate. She went on staring. Redding felt her pain, because she was about to say...
“I got nothing.”
Redding gave her a grin.
“Me neither. Maybe you could shoot out a taillight. That would give us an E twenty-one.”
She gave him back a look and a fake-perky tone.
“I think you should be the one doing that, you being, like, the responsible adult and all.”
Redding smiled.
“Hell, I probably couldn’t hit it from here,” said Redding. “I suck at rolling fire. Why don’t—”
And then the Suburban went full jackrabbit, a sudden growling roar from the engine, the rear end dropping, a burst of smoke from the exhaust as the driver just jammed it, accelerating, racing away up the highway, going away fast.
“Hit the lights,” Redding said, checking his side mirrors as he jammed the accelerator down, “and tighten your belt!”
“Fuck yes,” said Karras, as the roof rack lit up and the siren started to wail. “And on my first day too. Fuck yes! Thank you, Jesus!”
“Call it in.”
She snatched up the mike.
“Central, this is Jax 180—we are ten thirty-one in pursuit southbound on A1A at Flagler Beach of a black Suburban, Missouri marker four zero seven x-ray zulu tango. We have just crossed Eighteenth Street—”
She glanced at the speedometer.
“Speed ninety, Central.”
“Roger that, Jax 180, we have a unit northbound on A1A at Ocean Palm. Jax 250, come in.”
“This is Jax 250. Ten-four lighting up now.”
“Jax 180, we have County units available too.”
“Tell him no thanks,” said Redding.
Karras clicked the button, said, “Negative on County, Central.”
“Roger that.”
Karras wanted to know why they didn’t call in some Flagler County Sheriff cars on this pursuit.
“Because so far this is containable, and highway pursuit is our thing, not County’s. They’re good folks, but in a car chase they go all squirrelly because they don’t train for it. We do.”
“Got it,” she said.
What little traffic there was veered right and left out of the way as Redding closed in on the Suburban, which was whipsawing as the heavy truck lurched in and around other vehicles.
A pickup truck popped out of a side road, almost T-boning the Suburban before the driver wrangled his ride into a ditch, the guy getting out to shout something at Redding as the cruiser flashed by. Karras stayed on the mike, calling the cross streets—Nineteen, Twenty-One, Twenty-Three—as the Crown Vic’s Interceptor motor rapidly overtook the Suburban, the siren howling.
Gusts of wind were lashing the highway, and now the white squall hit, sideways rain and clouds of sand, shredded palm fronds and scrub branches tumbling across the highway, flying through the air.
Redding put the wipers on full but they could hardly see the truck through the rain. The truck was not slowing down, although visibility had dropped down to twenty yards. Karras strained to read a street sign as they powered past it, keyed the mike again.
“Central, this is Jax 180. We are southbound A1A at Twenty-Seventh still in pursuit—”
The Suburban’s brake lights flared on, bright red smears in the driving rain, the truck tilting wildly to the left as the driver bulled it into a right-hand turn. The right side wheels of the truck actually lifted off the road for a second, and Redding tapped the brakes, falling back, waiting for it to roll, but it didn’t.
The wheels came back down with a thudding impact, the truck wobbled and weaved as the driver fought for control, got it back, and now the Suburban was accelerating down a residential street lined with ranch-style summer homes and palm-shaded yards.
“Central, vehicle made a right turn onto Twenty-Eight.”
“Roger that. Copy that, Jax 250?”
“Jax 250. Ten-four copy we are a half mile out.”
The Suburban almost took out three kids in wetsuits walking in the street, carrying surfboards, shoulders hunched, heading home to beat the storm. They dropped the boards and dodged as the Suburban blew by them. It struck one of the boards, smashing it into shards, and one of the larger pieces flew up and smacked into their windshield, making them both flinch away. The truck reached an intersection—South Dayton—veered hard right again, accelerated away, now headed back north.
“Shit,” said Karras. “He’s going to kill somebody. Should we back off?”
Redding flashed a sideways look at her.
“You wanna?” he said. “Remember we have a dash cam. This goes south we might be in the barrel.”
“We? Or just you?”
Made him smile.
“Me. I’m the one in charge.”
“Then fuck no,” she said, looking back at the truck, her right hand braced on the dashboard.
She keyed the mike again.
“Central, target is now northbound on South Dayton—we have just crossed Twenty-Seven.”
“Copy that.”
South Dayton was a long residential street that ran along the edge of a shallow slope covered with trees, a few large summer homes on the east side, no one on the streets now that the storm had hit and hit hard, the branches on the trees thrashing in the gale, the undersides of their leaves showing silvery white. A palm frond struck their windshield, got jammed into their wipers.
Redding swore, jammed the car to a stop, jumped out and tore the frond away, leaped back into the vehicle before it stopped rocking, accelerated hard, the tail end sliding on the slick tarmac.
“Ask Jax 250 where they are,” said Redding, fighting the wheel as they hit a pothole in the road and the Crown Vic slammed through it, bouncing crazily, the rear end coming loose.
Karras keyed the mike again.
“Jax 250.”
“Roger, Jax 180.”
“What’s your twenty?”
“A1A northbound crossing Twenty-Eight.”
In this section South Dayton was a straight run, and the truck pushed it to a flat 100 miles an hour. Jesus, thought Redding, this is not good.
“Ask Jax 250 to go to afterburners, get north of us and turn left. If they really punch it, they might be able to block the guy off there.”
“Roger, Jax 250, can you shoot up to block at Nineteen and South Dayton?”
“Ten-four, Jax 180.”
“Roger that.”
The truck blew through stop signs, almost nailed a van pulling out of a driveway, braked crazily and spooled it right back up to 60...70...
The Suburban’s brake lights flared up and beyond it they could see the flicker of red and blue lights and the glare of headlights as Jax 250 squealed to a skidding halt that blocked the intersection. The truck slid to a stop, sat there for a brief moment, wavering.
They were almost on it.
The brake lights flicked off, the truck swung a hard left and punched it, racing west toward the swamplands and the Intracoastal.
“There’s nothing down there but South Palmetto,” said Redding. “It’s a crescent, no way out. Nothing west of that but swamplands. Guy’s trapped.”
“Unless he breaks into a house along here, takes a whole bunch of hostages.”
Redding shot her a look. She was having the time of her life. Hell, so was he. Who didn’t love a totally batshit car chase? Was this a great country or what?
“Jeez, Julie. Don’t even say that.”
“But wouldn’t it be, like, a teachable moment?”
In the middle of all this vehicular insanity the kid still had her bounce. He was still grinning when the truck powered away down a short block, wheeled crazily right around the curve onto South Palmetto, big ranch homes, maybe a dozen of them, spread out on the east side, and on the left, dense forest, broken ground down a slight slope—the only kind of slope Florida had—and then the driver hit the brakes.
Hard, the truck slewing around crazily, correcting and then skidding to a stop in the middle of the road. The driver’s door popped open and a woman—not young, but lean and solid-looking in tight jeans and hiking boots and a black leather jacket—hopped out, nothing in her hands, which were the first thing you looked at.
She sent them one quick glance. They got a glimpse of a tight hard face, no fear at all, even a fleeting defiance, strong cheekbones and wide eyes, maybe green, black hair flying in the wind as she ran. Something in Redding’s memory flickered like a goldfish in a pond. He knew that face. Then she was gone, racing across the street, running like a wolf. She vanished into the trees, a flash of blue, and then the forest folded her in.
Redding slammed the brakes hard as Karras got onto the radio, telling Jax 250 what had just happened. Then they were both out of the cruiser, doors still open, running toward the truck, which was idling in the street, engine rocking the frame, windshield wipers still ticking, rain steaming off the overheated engine hood.
As they reached it, Jax 250 came rushing up and stopped on the far side of the truck. Two troopers got out with their guns drawn, LaQuan Marsh and Jim Halliday.
“A runner, LQ,” Redding shouted to them. “White female, black hair, black jacket, blue jeans, no visible weapons. She went into the trees.”
Marsh and Halliday broke right like a pair of pulling guards and went flying into the forest after her. People were popping out of their houses, standing on porches, on lawns. Redding shouted at them, warning them off, gave a go sign to Karras, and she moved in, her gun up and trained on the passenger-side doors of the Suburban. The windows were closed, dark as black ice.
The truck engine was running hot and loud, the rain hammering on its roof. Water was running down Julie’s face and she blinked it away, wishing she had put on her Stetson.
Redding was going left, and he came to a stop about ten feet off the left rear wheel, his gun up. Karras had taken the same position on the right rear side. They could smell scorched rubber and overheated metal steaming in the rain.
The driver’s door hung wide-open, the seat belt dangling. From the interior of the truck, someone crying, a woman’s voice.
“In the truck,” said Redding in a voice of brass, “show me your hands. Do it now!”
Faint, from deep inside the truck, a shaky female voice, young. “Don’t shoot us. Please.”
Karras moved up a yard, reached for the rear door. Redding told her to stop. He stepped up to the left-side rear door, leveled his gun and jerked the rear door open.
Two teenage girls were lying on the rear bench seat. They were cord cuffed to the front-seat floor struts. They were crying, beyond hysterical.
“Help us,” said one of them, dark haired, possibly the older one.
“Please. She’s crazy. She kidnapped us.”
Karras popped the other rear door, put her gun on them, wary, tense, her finger almost inside the trigger guard. Both girls were in jeans and boots, T-shirts, hair every which way, eyes red from crying, faces flushed and frightened.
In shock, scared to death.
“Who are you?” he asked, in a softer tone.
“I’m Rebecca Walker. This is my sister Karen. Help us please? That woman kidnapped us!”
Redding looked at Karras. She looked back, and they both did a quick check of the interior. Luggage scattered around. Remnants of a Happy Meal, candy wrappers, water bottles. No one else. Just the girls, cuffed to the floor.
Redding lowered his weapon and after a moment Karras did the same.
“I’m gonna go after the runner. Can you take care of these two?”
Karras said she would, lips so tight they were blue.
“You go, Sergeant. I’ll get EMT in here.”
“Search them first, Julie. Before you cut them loose. You never know.”
“I will. Go get her.”
Redding took one last look at the girls, showed them his teeth, a quick smile that was supposed to be comforting and wasn’t even close.
Redding turned away and raced down into the trees, a big lean rangy guy who could move like a linebacker when he had to. He pulled out his portable.
“LQ, I’m coming in.”
“Roger that, Jack.”
Redding jogged into the trees, ducking under the dripping branches, feeling the mossy ground squelch under his boots. He had his Glock out, down by his side, and every nerve on redline.
The stand of scrub trees was dense, maybe a hundred feet deep. When he came out from under them after a paranoid two-minute jog-trot during which he checked out every treetop he passed under, he could see Marsh walking the shoreline, gun out but down at his side, his back to Redding. He was facing out across the swamps and reed beds toward the Intracoastal, head turning back and forth. Halliday was down the shore about fifty yards.
Marsh heard Redding sloshing through the seagrass, even with this rain lashing down and the wind ripping through the trees.
“Jack.”
“LQ. Got anything?”
“She left a trail all the way down,” he said, his face slick as patent leather in the rain, a puzzled expression in his eyes.
“You can see it over there, that silver streak in the grass. Comes right down to the shore here, stops dead.”
Redding looked out over the swamp, sort of a mini Everglades, clumps and islands of sawgrass and reeds and cattails, all of it bending down under the rain. The sky was shredding, wisps of lighter gray showing through the cover. The wind was backing off but it was still raining hard.
Halliday walked up the shoreline toward them, staring down into the shallow murky water that ran in curving channels under and around a thousand little islands of seagrass. He was a big blond Panhandle kid who had played two years as a starting DB for the Gators. He did a 180 to check the tree line one more time, and then came back to them, his face as blank and confused as Marsh’s.
“Sure she’s not back in the woods?” Redding asked. Halliday and Marsh shook their heads in unison.
“Not back there, Jack,” said Marsh. “We were close, we could see her going through the forest—”
“She ran like a fucking gazelle,” said Halliday.
“Yeah, she could move real good,” said Marsh. “Faster than us. We lost her in the rain here, and the branches were in our faces like whips. By the time we cleared the trees all we could see was that.”
He tilted his head toward the silver track in the tall grass.
“Ending at the water,” Halliday finished. “Broad just flat-out vanished. Fucking weird, Jack. Like into thin air. Too fucking weird. We walked the shore up and down, looking for a ripple where she coulda gone in. Mud bottom kicked up. Nothing.”
“That’s right, Jack. Vanished.”
All three of them turned back to the swamp.
It was about two hundred yards wide at this point, running for about a mile along the shore. On the far side of the marsh was the Intracoastal. The Intracoastal was like a marine version of I-95. In the summer it was as crowded as an interstate, although the squall had driven everyone except a few crazies into the marinas.
“How deep do you figure this is?” Redding asked, meaning the swamp.
Marsh, who was a bass boater, shook his head.
“No more’n two maybe three feet. But the bottom is thick muck, just like quicksand. You think she had a boat waiting? Why she came down this way?”
“You see one?” Redding asked.
They both shook their heads, water running off the brims of their Stetsons. Redding looked back at the muddy water and the reeds bending in the rain.
“What do you figure lives in there?” he asked of no one in particular.
Marsh laughed.
“Nothing you’d want to take home to the wife.”
Marsh immediately regretted that comment, considering what had happened to Redding’s wife and their little girl last Christmas Eve, but it couldn’t be unsaid, and Redding didn’t react. So Marsh went on.
“Snakes. River rats. Leeches. Every kind of biting, stinging, itching bug you can think of. I’ve seen gators around here, but not real big ones.”
Redding smiled at him.
“Define ‘not real big.’”
Marsh just grinned back at him.
“Could even be monitor lizards,” said Halliday, trying to be helpful. “They been finding huge ones—two, three feet long—down in West Palm. People had them as pets till they got too damn big. Let them go into the rivers. Monitors. Smart as dogs too. They got these monster mouths full of huge backward-curved fangs, sharp as needles. But huge.”
“And don’t forget the giant anacondas,” added Marsh, just to complete the picture.
Neither man had any intention of letting Sergeant Redding order either of them into the swamp to start searching. If Redding did, Marsh had already decided he was going to push Halliday into the water instead and say he stumbled into him. Which Halliday was already braced for, because he knew Marsh only too well, and he wasn’t going in there either.
Redding, aware of all this, and thankful that they hadn’t thrown in mutant vampire unicorns, looked up at the sky. The storm was starting to break up. The rain was coming down hard.
“Can the dogs follow a trail in this weather?” Halliday was asking, mainly to distract Redding from the whole “into the swamp, boys” idea. Redding had run a K-9 car for a couple of years.
“A light rain will freshen up a scent, but heavy rain and wind, that’s a lot more difficult.”
“Been done,” said Marsh. “Remember that case last year, prisoner goes into the Glades, in a hurricane, but the dogs found him anyway?”
“Because he was half eaten by a gator,” said Halliday, “and he’d started to stink. My mom coulda found him.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Redding. “Worth a shot. Let’s get the dog cars down here. And I want some Marine units out there. And let the Flagler County deputies know what’s going on too. I want a tight perimeter—lady could sure as hell motor—”
“Damn straight,” said Halliday. “She was going away so fast I thought I had stopped to pee.”
“So where the hell is she?” Redding said, a rhetorical question.
“Gotta be here somewhere,” said Marsh.
“LQ’s right, she’s still around. Have Flagler County set up a cordon around these blocks.”
“All this for an F thirty-seven?” said Marsh.
“I know. A lot of overtime. I just...”
“Got a feeling she’s worth chasing?”
“Yeah. I do,” he said, thinking about the expression on her face, cool, defiant, not frightened at all. And he knew her from...somewhere. “She got my attention.”
Marsh was reaching for his portable to make the calls when they heard two sharp flat cracks close together, a brief pause and then one more.
“Gunfire,” said Halliday, but Redding and Marsh were already running back toward the trees.
