The Unification Chronicles

16: No Harbor

Jack was stand­ing in the Bal­ti­more Police Chief’s office when his phone rang. He excused him­self and stepped out into the squad room.

“Go.”

“I’ve got good news,” Dante said.

“And bad news?”

“Nope, just good news this time. I know we can’t track Frankel’s spend­ing now that they’re using cash, but we can track other things. And one of those other things is boat rentals. Even if you’re pay­ing cash, you have to use an ID for those, and guess who just popped up.”

“Why in the hell would they rent a boat?”

“No idea, but they just pulled out of [what­ever the hell name of that cove was] a few min­utes ago.”

“I’m on it. Call the har­bor mas­ter and but out a BOLO on the RV from the video.”

“Yes sir.”

Jack hung up the phone and stepped back into the Chief’s office. There was no way they were get­ting past him this time.

#

Batarel stood on the pier and looked out over the water. The sun had almost set to the west, and the har­bor was black and still. He knew Cho was out there, and he could think of only one rea­son why they would have gone out for a plea­sure cruise, at night, in eel infested waters. They were try­ing to lure him out to them. Try­ing to make him chase them. Why else, after so care­fully mask­ing their move­ments, would Frankel sud­denly rent a boat in his own name? It was a trap.

Batarel smiled. This was actu­ally turn­ing into an enter­tain­ing hunt.

He stepped onto the boat the Arch­bishop had pro­cured for him, a small speed­boat, black and nearly invis­i­ble against the dark water. He didn’t know what they had planned for him, and he was sure it would be sim­i­larly inef­fec­tive to that stu­pid stunt with the sword, but that didn’t mean he had to lead with his face. He would play their game, but he would play it his way.

And he would win.

#

Daniel sat at the gun­wale the small deck of the skiff, scan­ning the water with the night vision gog­gles Jeff had come back with. So far, he’d seen noth­ing. They were drift­ing in the mid­dle of Bal­ti­more har­bor with their lights on, clear of the ship­ping lanes but still a good dis­tance off shore. They expected Batarel to find them, but they didn’t know how long that would take, or how he would approach. All they knew for sure was that he wouldn’t be able to shoot through the sand­bags lin­ing the gun­wales of the boat, and would have to board them if he wanted to kill them. And as soon as he did that, they’d have him.

“How’s it look, Danny?” Jeff said. He was sit­ting down on the deck, and couldn’t see over the gun­wales to the water. Susan sat next to him. They were straight­en­ing out a large cargo net, and rig­ging the cor­ners to long fiber­glass poles. The plan was sim­ple. Wait for him to board, cover him with the net, fill him full of lead, and then while he was heal­ing tie him up, attach the anchor and heave him over­board. But it only worked if Batarel made him­self vul­ner­a­ble by board­ing their boat.

“Noth­ing so far, Jeff” Daniel said with­out tak­ing his eyes off the water. “Are you sure he knows how to find us?”

“Danny, the immor­tals have agents every­where. They have their fin­gers dug into every aspect of human life, and noth­ing hap­pens with­out their notice. If they wanted to, they could have found out what you had for break­fast the morn­ing before the accident.”

Daniel looked back at Jeff and Susan, and caught Susan’s gaze. He knew about her doubts regard­ing Jeff, and to some extent, shared them. So far, every­thing Jeff at told them about the demons was true. But the guy ram­bled on with sim­i­lar con­vic­tion about Big­foot, gov­ern­ment con­spir­a­cies, alien abduc­tions and every­thing else Daniel remem­bered from The X-​​Files. And appar­ently there was a whole net­work of “seek­ers” out there. It couldn’t all be true. So where was the line? Was Jeff crazy or not? So far, they hadn’t fallen vic­tim to one of his delu­sions, but it was prob­a­bly only a mat­ter of time.

He con­tin­ued his scan of the water. The water was a dark green in the gog­gles, grainy and more choppy because of the dig­i­tal image than the water actu­ally was. It was hard to fil­ter out the dig­i­tal arti­facts from actual waves that might be the wake of Batarel’s boat. He didn’t hear any­thing, no tell­tale buzz of a motor, but he wasn’t sure he knew what to lis­ten for in the first place. And every so often, they were passed by a com­mer­cial freighter that churned up the water and drowned out every other sound.

Right on cue, Daniel saw another freighter com­ing their way, this one mak­ing it’s way in from the Atlantic towards one of the myr­iad piers of Bal­ti­more Har­bor. It was a big con­tainer ship, not nearly the size of an oil tanker, but stacked five high with ship­ping con­tain­ers stem to stern. It would miss them eas­ily, but the wake would rock them a bit. “Here comes another one,” he said.

Jeff and Susan put down the poles and braced them­selves. With their engine off, they were at the mercy of the cur­rents, and the wake of a big ship was an inter­est­ing ride. The ship passed them, and Daniel said, “Hang on.”

The first wave hit them just as they heard the growl of a motor. Daniel tried to raise his night vision gog­gles to see, but the boat was rock­ing too hard. Then they felt a sharp crack across the bow that left them all sprawl­ing on the deck. Some­thing had actu­ally hit them.

Daniel looked up to see Batarel stand­ing on the bow of their boat as the waves from the ship’s wake started to sub­side. “He’s — ” he shouted, then Batarel leaped over the wind­screen and landed admidst them, step­ping solidly on one of the fiber­glass poles.

“Did you really think this was going to work?” the demon said. “You humans are even more pathetic than I thought.”

“We’ve beaten you once already,” Susan said, lev­el­ing one of the hand­guns at Batarel.

“You what?” Batarel laughed. “You igno­rant cow. I’m here, aren’t I? About to end your igno­rant life?”

Susan fired.

The bul­let grazed the demon, but he reached out, grabbed the gun out of her hand any­way and tossed it over­board. “That was your one insult I’ll allow,” he said. “Now it’s time to end this and get on with my busi­ness. You’ve dis­tracted me enough.”

“I don’t think so!” Jeff said as he, hav­ing edged back behind Batarel, chucked one of the sand­bags into the small of the demon’s back. The demon went down to one knee, and Daniel leapt on top of him.

They wres­tled for a bit on the deck. Holy shit, this guy is strong, Daniel thought, as Batarel strug­gled to kick, punch or throw Daniel off of him. It was every­thing Daniel could do just to keep him—

“Arrggghhh!” the demon growled, and Daniel saw one of the K-​​Bar knives stick­ing through his tem­ple, Susan’s hand still on the haft.

“Why won’t you die?” Susan screamed at the demon.

Just then, they were bathed in white light. “What the — ” Jeff said, wheez­ing by the gunwale.

“This is the Bal­ti­more Police Depart­ment!” some­one bel­lowed over a bull­horn. “We have you sur­rounded. Every­one get to your knees with your hands behind your heads.”

“No,” Batarel growled. “I won’t have this. I will. Not. Have. This!” He abruptly stood up, and Daniel was too star­tled by the appear­ance of the police to stop him.

#

Jack was stand­ing in the wheel­house of one of the two Bal­ti­more PD patrol boats, one on either side of the skiff Frankel had rented, and what was left of a small black speed­boat that had appar­ently crashed into the skiff. The skiff was tak­ing on water from a ragged hole in the bow, and there looked like a strug­gle going on down on the deck. They didn’t seem to notice they were sinking.

“What the devil’s going on down there?” asked the police pilot.

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “They were all sup­posed to be together.” Was Frankel an unwill­ing hostage? That’s not how it looked on the video.

Sud­denly one of the sus­pects on the skiff stood up, and, what the hell? He had a K-​​Bar knife stick­ing out of his head. Jack didn’t rec­og­nize the ma—

No, he did rec­og­nize him. It was Hen­driks. The dead guy. Well, that explained the knife. If impale­ment and behead­ing didn’t kill him, what was a hunt­ing knife to the brain going to do?

Appar­ently, make him really angry. Hen­driks started to run and vaulted off of the skiff, bounced off the float­ing wreck­age of the speed­boat and on to the other patrol boat. One of the offi­cers opened fire on him, and—

And Hen­driks punched his fist through the officer’s chest, spray­ing the wheel­house with blood.

“For­get the skiff!” Jack shouted. “Take him out!” Offi­cers on his patrol boat brought their guns to bear and unloaded.

It didn’t even slow him down. Jack watched, futilely unload­ing his pis­tol at the man as he snapped the neck of another offi­cer, scaled the lad­der to the wheel­house in two strides and lit­er­ally ripped the head off the pilot. Then he jumped over the wind­screen onto the bow.

Where the machine gun was mounted.

Jack tried to match him, but landed badly, sprain­ing an ankle at the very least. Hendiks opened fire on his boat in long straf­ing slides, and it was all Jack could do to tilt his machine gun at the engines of the other patrol boat and fire off a quick burst before he was forced to dive off the deck into the chilly har­bor water.

#

Jeff swung the skiff around, painfully aware of its increas­ing list to star­board. They’d be lucky to make it all the way to shore, and he wasn’t sure how far could swim with one leg. He kind of blew his wad on that sand­bag, and was going to be hat­ing life in the morning.

Assum­ing, you know, he was still alive.

They had their lights off, mak­ing them harder to see, and they were run­ning the engine as light as they could. Jeff thought it took a stray bul­let some­where back there, and it was limp­ing along as it was. But Daniel wouldn’t let them make a bee line for shore.

“Almost there,” Daniel said.

The kid was reach­ing out into the water with one of the poles, the net still attached to its tip. He was try­ing to reach the FBI agent, who was float­ing in the cur­rent in a life jacket.

“Grab the net!” Daniel hissed into the dark. “We’ll pull you aboard.” They were nearly a hun­dred meters from Batarel, who seemed to be adrift on the one patrol boat that wasn’t sink­ing. Still within range of his machine gun, but he was still shoot­ing the sink­ing ship and hadn’t found them yet. Jeff had to squint, and sure and hell looked like the demon still had the knife in his head. Note to self, he thought. Stick­ing a knife in an immortal’s tem­ple just makes them really mad. Have to tweet about that.

Daniel started pulling on the pole, and Jeff cut the engine. He grabbed some of the rope and waited. Daniel kept pulling, with Susan steady­ing the pole behind him, until the kid reached over the gun­wale and grabbed the guy. He strug­gled to haul him over the gun­wale, and then they both fell down to the deck, the FBI guy cough­ing and sputtering.

Before the FBI guy could get up, Jeff leaned in and tied his hands behind his back. The fed tried to strug­gle, but he was clearly exhausted from keep­ing his head above water. Jeff had been depend­ing on that.

“Search him,” Jeff said. “I’m going to try to get us to shore before we sink.”

#

Susan watched as Daniel pat­ted down the FBI agent. He pulled out a think leather wal­let and tossed it to her. She caught it with one hand, film­ing with the other. She opened the wal­let and read the ID inside. “Spe­cial agent Jack Har­ris,” she said.

The FBI coughed again. “Yes, that’s me, and you peo­ple are com­mit­ing yet another felony by kid­nap­ping a fed­eral agent.”

“Oh, we’re not going to keep you long, Agent Har­ris,” Daniel said, now check­ing the man for injuries. “But my Hipo­cratic Oath kind of demanded we pull you aboard, didn’t it?”

“Why are you doing this, Cho?” the agent asked. “Why not just turn your­self in?”

Daniel laughed. “Are you seri­ous, Agent Har­ris? Did you see what Batarel did back there?”

“Who?”

“The man you know as Hen­driks. The man you now know isn’t really a man.”

“I know no such thing.”

“Please, Agent Har­ris. You’re an intel­li­gent guy. You have to be, in your job. And you just watch I guy you know should be dead three times over rip some cops apart with his bare hands and sink your boat. What part of that do you need me to explain to you?”

“Hen­driks isn’t my prob­lem,” Har­ris said. “You are.”

“Well, we should all have such prob­lems, Agent Har­ris,” Jeff said. “Right now, our prob­lem is try­ing to get to shore with­out sink­ing, and then try­ing to get out of here before Batarel remem­bers who he was really there to attack.”

“We impounded your camper, you know.”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I fig­ured as much. That’s why I moved every­thing of impor­tance to our alter­nate trans­porta­tion before we set out on the water.”

“You were busy today!” Susan said.

“I’m an old hand at this, Susie. I’ve had to stay one step ahead of these gov­ern­ment jack­booted thugs for a long time. I have con­tin­gen­cies on top of contingencies.”

“So what are you going to do with me?” Har­ris asked.

“We’re going to leave you safe and sound on the dock,” Daniel said, check­ing the ropes to make sure Har­ris wasn’t try­ing to keep them dis­tracted while he escaped, then start­ing to tie up Harris’s legs. “Really, Agent Har­ris, we’re not the bad guys.”

“That’s for the courts to decide,” Jack said. “Right now you’re fugi­tives and per­sons of inter­est in a ter­ror­ism inves­ti­ga­tion. You’ve already done enough that I could drop all three of you in Gitmo and for­get about you forever.”

“You’re not exactly help­ing your cause, Agent,” Jeff said.

“We’re not mur­der­ers and we’re not ter­ror­ists,” Daniel said. Susan was get­ting it all recorded, and just kept think­ing about how amaz­ing this was going to look online tomor­row. “I’m just a reg­u­lar guy try­ing to get back to my reg­u­lar life, and Susan and Jeff were both kind enough to throw their lives out of whack to help me. I already owe them a debt I can never repay. But we can’t turn our­selves in. You saw what we’re up against, what’s hunt­ing us. We’re safer left to our own devices, try­ing to kill it, than we would be with you. We know this, and if you think about it, you will too.”

Susan could see the pier. “We’re almost there,” she said.

“In more ways than one,” Jeff said.

Susan panned the cam­era to look out over the gun­wale, and was shocked to see that the water was only inches away from over­flow­ing into the pas­sen­ger compartment.

“Susie, put down the cam­era, hon, and start pad­dling,” Jeff said. “This is going to be close.”

“You could untie me and let me help,” Har­ris said.

“I don’t think so, Agent Har­ris,” Daniel said. “We’ll take our chances.” He grabbed the other fiber­glass pad­dle strapped to the gun­wale and they both pad­dled as hard as they could while Jeff coaxed every­thing he could out of the motor, which had begun to sput­ter badly.

Susan felt the boat bump up against the dock just as water started spilling over the sides.

“Every­body out!” Jeff said. He scram­bled onto the dock and helpded Daniel man­han­dle the agent onto the dock. Then Daniel turned, took her hand and guided her up just as the water went from a spill to a pour.

Susan pulled up her cam­era and cap­tured the boat’s last moments as it sank into the black water. “Good­bye, Mary Anne,” she said. “Thanks.”

“All right, let’s not get maudlin,” Jeff said. “Danny, check the ropes one last time.”

Daniel knealt down. “They’re tight, but I think he’ll keep the hands,” he said.

“Is that your pro­fes­sional opin­ion, Doc­tor Cho?” Har­ris said.

Daniel smiled, some­thing Susan didn’t see very often. “As a mat­ter of fact, it is,” he said. “Keep in mind what I said, Agent Har­ris. We’re just try­ing to sur­vive. You’re bark­ing up not only the wrong tree, but you’re not even in the right forest.”

“We’ll see about that,” Har­ris said.

“Good­bye Agent,” Daniel said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again.”

And with that, Susan ran with Daniel and Jeff into the night.