Fissure

He forgot his name. As the police chased him down the dark aisles of the warehouse, he was perplexed. Blood thickly trickled down to his collarbone from his brow. It was red, confused fury. He forgot his name, and he was running. He didn’t know why. He just knew he had to get the fuck out of there.

“I can hear ‘em”, screeched between the cardboard boxes in the aisle. LED flashlights glimmered and shuffled down through the end of the aisle, peaking from up and around the cardboard boxes. He turned and kept going, one foot in front of the other. The blood was going deeper down his shirt, and seemed to flow chunkier. I must’ve hit a fucking vein, he thought, cause it’s really coming out of there.

“He’s through there, keep going dammit,” he heard the voices say.

A whiz hissed past his ear, followed by light, and thunder. The crackle of muzzle flash, spearheaded by the slug of a Glock 19. No wait a sec, that sounds like a Beretta. These were cops, not FBI.

He reached the end of the aisle, grabbed the shelf railing and spun himself to cover. Two more slugs hissed into the concrete wall in front of him, leaving splashes of crème-colored puffs.

Wait a fucking second, he thought. How the hell do I know this? How do I know that that’s a Beretta?

The steps were clunking down closer. They were hurried, but more sustained. They had cornered the dog into a corner for the kill.

He saw writing covering his wrist. Right on his ulna was a broken crown, like the Maseratti symbol chipped in two. Don’t know how that got there, he thought. He felt his brow with his middle and index finger. Instantly he retracted. The pain was too much. Though he couldn’t inspect the biting, bleeding wound, he could sure feel the hole in it: it was almost perfectly round.

“Oh shit,” he uttered, “I’m hit.”

The lights were getting brighter and brighter as his heart raced faster and faster. He was hit. He was shot in the head, but for some reason, he felt more than alive. He’d never been more present in his body. His nerves were splaying violently, and the only thing he couldn’t recollect was his identity.

The lights were seconds from his person. It was about time they caged the beast, put him in shackles, chain him up in the nut house and lock away the key.

“No.”

He belted his body around, tucked his feet into the ground, grabbed the back of the shelf with his arms and flexed. The shelf started to tip. He was about to push it off its balance when the first of the fuzz arrived.

“Freeze you fucker,” the pig screamed at me. He was a gorilla of a cop, one of those pigs that look like they might have gotten caught doping in the Olympics and decided to join the police to carry a gun. That was my misfortune. “On the ground! On the ground.”

The pig fired a round square into his ass.

The nameless fugitive squeezed his back into a menacing hernia. The shelf was falling. The cop tried to fire another round, but he was already hit with a box. The slug whizzed away and shot somewhere into the concrete ground.

The fugitive jerked, pulling about every muscle in his back, wanting nothing more than to keep his ass unshot. Life was tough like that sometimes. He dropped to the ground, then was hit with a torrent of dust. It was followed by a loud clank.

He closed his eyes, shielding the particles that cascaded through the air. It was a giant cluster of boxes and light beams and screams. The cops were hidden under the many boxes of the shelf. It sounded to him like three trapped baboons. One of them was alive. Another one was dead, or maybe unconscious. Then, there was the one who shot him in the ass. That dead motherfucker who shot him.

His whole body was buried under the shelf, except for his gun hand, still gripping his black Beretta. The fugitive writhed on the ground. He wasn’t sure how much of his body still worked.

The gun hand, the only thing he could see, was wiggling around, trying futilly to free the rest of the body. He came up to his good leg, back destroyed, and rose up, clumsily. He was fucked, but not as fucked at this cop who put a slug into his ass. He put weight on his bad leg, and instantly dropped to the ground. He cracked his knee on the concrete, and the pig heard it. The gun pointed wildly in the direction of his knee and fired off some more rounds. They missed, but it was enough to make the fugitive juke for cover.

What am I doing? What is this shit, he thought. How am I afraid of this piece of shit when I got him caught?

He got back up on his legs, remembering his wound this time, and fell on the shelf. The cop let out an, “oof” as the fugitive came down on him. Then he reached for the gun. The hand put up a fight. It didn’t want to give it up. That was his mistake, cause the fugitive was irate. He pulled, and heaved, and the pig still wouldn’t just let go. He kept thrashing, shooting off rounds.

The fugitive, with great ease, twisted his hand a full 360. He couldn’t tell if he broke his index finger or his wrist, but there was a crunch, and then he had the gun.

And then he let off three slugs through the boxes of the shelf.

The movement stopped.

“I killed a cop,” left his lips.

The blood from his forehead started to come out again as he made that realization.

“Francis. My name is Francis.”

Holy shit. It all came back to me. In that moment, it all came hurtling back, little by little, like a backed up stream.

Francis… Francis Car.. Francis Carlone.. No, Not Carlone… Francis Carnal… No. It’s Car something. It’s Carter? No, that’s too cliché. Francis Car... Carsomething. Francis Carsomething: Cop Killer.

Okay, it wasn’t coming back as quickly as I hoped, but now I know. I know that I’m the dude who can kill a cop on command. How did I get to that. It was reflex, but I didn’t remember ever having that.

Then he heard the shuffle of the other body, and realized everything he was thinking he whispered out loud. Whoever was tucked under the bookshelf had heard it all.

Francis wiggled around, on top of the bookshelf, until he was on top of this other pig. He could hear him tensing, crunching under his weight, and the weight of the boxes.

Still clutching the Beretta, Francis put it up in the air.

He let it sit there in silence for a moment. He could hear to light jamming of flies trying to escape a glass window, and the buzz of the fluorescent bulbs and water through PVC pipes. He listened for sirens. He listened for the heart beat of a cop.

BOOM!

Francis let a round rip through the air. The sound bounced around the warehouse like an electron. It was followed by deceitful silence.

“I killed your friends,” he said. “I have a gun pointed right on top of what I think is your stomach. Now listen up. I don’t know what’s going on, okay? I think I’m shot in the head, and I don’t know why you’re chasing me. Well, why you were chasing me. I can’t… Look, I have this gun, and I’ll kill you if I want to, but I want to know what you’re up to. First of all tell me who I am. NO tell me who you are… No wait, the first one. Tell me who I am.”

Silence.

Cold, eerie, unrelenting silence seeped out of the faceless pig under his knees.

He heard shuffling like the ebb and flow of breath.

“I’m going to pump you full ‘a lead if you don’t say anything. Do you understand that? I’m going take your friend’s gun, it’s a Beretta 9mm, and I’m going to empty 5 of the remaining 14 rounds into you, if you don’t… See I don’t know how I know that. How do I know that your friend was shooting at me with a Beretta instead of a Glock? Do you know who I am? Can you tell me why you shot my ass?”

Something slid down out beneath the shelf. It was a blue and white card. It looked like a badge. It was a badge. Franics could make out “FBI” from the logo.

Then a snap shot out from one of the boxes. Then another. Officer Soon-to-be-gutless was trying to shoot me through the boxes. He lunged back as the box started to rip open. Flares of green goop smattered with every bullet. The pig must have been shooting through a box of detergent.

The bullets were whipping through, but the cop must have had a small angle to shoot from cause he couldn’t seem to change his aim. Francis reached his hand over to where they were coming out, pointed down and let out a slug.

“Ahhhieee” roared from beneath.

“You’re really gonna toy with me now? I was gonna spare you. What, you think these guys had you’re back? They’re meatbags now? You could have left this alive.” The cop grumbled in awful pain and horror.

“Now I’m giving you 3 more seconds. Tell me who I am.” Blood started to spill again from his head. “Ah, Jeez!” Franics yelled, getting real pissed off at this head wound. he didn’t have time to bleed to death.

“You” the officer said, shuddering the pain, “You can…”

“What? Come on? What were you looking for?”

“You… Fuck you. You fucking cop killer.”

Francis sighed heavily. He was even going to call 911 once he left.

Francis relieved him of his pain. He hobbled off the shelf and shuffled to the name badge.

He picked it up and saw a picture of himself. At least he thought it looked like him. It looked familiar enough, but he hadn’t seen a reflection yet, so who could really know. He just wasted three people that might have been able to tell him.

Francis Carlyle.

“CARLYLE That’s right Carlyle. Jesus Christ, how did I get that one wrong?”

As he started to remember, another wave of blood rushed out, and another pang of pain rang through his skull. It sent fiberglass shivers tumbling down his face. Wherever he was, whoever Francis Carlyle was, he needed to get help quick. No cellphone, no wallet, no keys; just a guy with one working ass cheek and a hole in his head.

He ripped off a piece of his shirt and wedged it into the hole.

A few blocks away, with the Beretta in the back of his pants, he could see the Morrison Bridge standing tall in front of him. Then the memory flushed in hard. Every pang of recollection made the wound weep. He had business on the bridge. Time to get on that sucker.

Earlier That Night…

Julia was once again at Dig-A-Pony. She loved it every other night, but Saturdays weren’t her night. The dance floor was littered with white suade slippers, cheetah print long sleeve dresses, too much Giorgio Armani choking the bits of oxygen that were breathable, and hair gel. Good grief, too much hair gel. Julia being a child of the Beatles and Joan Jett, found herself drowning in this crowded dance “hell”.

She was in good company. Her friends Andy and Gabby were by her side. Andy was the teddy bear that she could always trust, and Gabby… well Gabby always found a way to have fun. Always the bride’s maid, and never the sober one, Gabby found happiness in making sure that no relationship lasted longer than a month, no week held any less than three hangovers, and no night found it’s way home without a few smokes and a scrawny, tattooed punk around her shoulder.

Julia also had Sava. With a silver chain, a simple blue coat, and a blank and eyeing stare on his face, Sava sat, silent, with his hand around Julia’s hip. She held his right hand in her lap, and only let it go slightly for him to grab a sip off of his IPA.

“So what are you doing back in town?” yelled Andy, trying to make teatime conversation in the middle of the revelry. “Last I heard you went to DC. You didn’t come all the way out here just to see Natalia.”

“Hey screw you Andy,” Julia squirmed. Sava chuckled out of his blank gaze.

“No seriously, what brings you here? It can’t be the naked Bike ride. I’m sure they have that in D.C.”

Sava took a stoic sip from his beer. “No, they don’t have anything like that in D.C. I just came to visit, nothing funny about it.”

Julia had to pee… kind of.

“Gabby. Bathroom.”

Gabby took the cue, and got up, leaving the gentlemen at the booth. They waltzed through the sea of debauchery and into the bathrooms.

“So is Sava gonna hump you into a closet again tonight.” Julia blushed and smiled.

“I have different plans for him.” She pulled out some lip gloss and started to apply it. “You wanna know a secret, but you CAN’T tell anyone.”

Gabby jumped and clasped her hands together. “Oooo a secret! Tell me more. Whatever could it be?”

“Sava’s an FBI agent.”

Gabby started laughing. She then calmed down. “Wait… like. That’s why he’s been in D.C.?”

“I don’t know. He can’t tell me all of that… Until tonight. Mwahaha.” Julia started to head out.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you can’t just throw that into me and then go about your way. Is he, here on a mission or something?”

“Oh my God, calm down Gooby, it’s just a booty call. Why else would he come to Portland for one night?”

Julia and Gabby waltzed out of the bathroom, holding hands, laughing, and then a very stern and serious Sava approached her.

“I have to go,” he told her.

She pouted. It was her usual pout. “No no no, you’re not allowed to.” She put up her hands like car ears, whimpering like a dog.

“You don’t understand,” he said, and looked at her more seriously. “I have to go. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He could hardly finish his words. Julia sighed, and pulled out her phone to text. Almost immediately Aryn showed up. Julia saw him out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t engage. He did.

A lackluster, thin framed guy, with baggy taste in clothes, and a flat-billed Trailblazers ball cap swung to the side. This guy was a winner in every sense of the word, and to top it off, he had a face like the Jolly Green giant. Julia had the misfortune of waking up next to him one night. He hadn’t forgiven her for it. Without skipping a beat, he slunk his sagging khakis over to Julia and Sava.

“Excuse me, but I seen that ass, and I had to come over an holla at ya,” he said. He wasn’t quite as sly after his 6th shot of Captain Morgan’s.

“Excuse me, sir, we’re having a conversation,” said Sava.

“Who the fuck is this, your dad?” said Aryn, whipping his curly hair off his face. Sava didn’t respond. He just looked at Julia. His eyes were sunken like lead pool balls. “Hey, SIR, I’m talking ta YOU.”

“Aryn, don’t. Just get out of here.”

Aryn walked his face an inch from Sava’s. He breathed heavily into his ear. “I said, turn around and answer when I talk to you.”

Sava grinded his molars. He had managed his anger really well with the help of the FBI training. It didn’t work. Sava kicked his head back, square into Aryn’s nose. He turned, grabbed Aryn’s curls and his right wrist and gave him three blows to his knee. Each blow with a little more “flavor” and manners than the preceding. He then turned the poor bastard around into an arm bar and held his neck up to Julia.

“Now you’re going to apologize to this pretty lady for ruining her night and speaking ill of her, and to avoid a serious hospital bill for your arm that I’m not sure you can afford.”

The music cut out. Sava turned and looked around as the lights came up. Julia was looking at Sava very bitterly, shaking her head.

“…Sava” she said with steady disapproval. The FBI agent felt large hands upon him.

FEMA DISASTER PREPAREDNESS THINK TANK REPORT – ISSUE IV634.ii PDX

CODENAME: Pequod

In the fallout of the eruption and collateral damage caused by Mt. St. Helens, FEMA grows more concerned with other natural disaster prone sights in America. While the Easterly winds sent the debris gracefully away from Portland and other major port cities in America, there grew a concern over the immediate water supply in the Willamette Valley. Portland itself was reliant on the Willamette River, as a water supply, a trade line and a contamination route. This river reaches hundreds of miles into Oregon.

In the very likely case of Mt. Hood erupting FEMA purposes solutions for natural quarantine. The extraneous debris would turn the Willamette river into ash, which would flow straight into the heart of Oregon.

The first Bush administration had coercively set a plan in action to control the river. Portland is located on top of many layers of shale, and their river is no exception. Underneath the delicate ecosystem of the deciduous rainforest was an Aquifer layer of rock. If penetrated, any water source would drain directly down into the mantle of the earth.

FEMA proposes funds of $12,094, 100 for the installation of 39 charges along the bed of the Willamette River on the Portland waterfront. With each charge containing a half-megaton of plastic explosives, the detonation would successfully crack a 500-yard hole in the bottom of the Willamette River bed. Once the air was pushed out of water, an intensified bubble would rise out above the Ross Island Bridge. The effect would drag most loose debris down to ground level.

FEMA also proposes the classification of these security details to TOP security clearance. Like Homeland Security, FEMA feels that any public attention might endanger the installation of Pequod and the National Security.

Later that night…

Sava held up his Glock 19. He had the sights trained on the bloody figure on the bridge. He could see pedestrians fleeing left and right, wailing about “the gunman” on the bridge. He could feel the piles of paperwork stacking up on his desk once this was all over. The figure stood on the edge of the Morrison bridge.

“Special Agent Katz, FBI. Sir, step down from the bridge.”

Carlyle stepped down from the bridge, but he wasn’t cooperating. He was intensely focused on the river. He looked North down the river, then walked back to the edge. He was trained on something.

“Sir, you are under arrest. Step away from the edge, put your hands in the air and turn around slowly.” Carlyle did not comply. In fact, he just blatantly ignored any requests.

Police sirens started to ring in the distant whirl of traffic. Off the Naito Parkway, and off of MLK, lights and Hemis started to rev through the dusk night air.

Sava was growing impatient. His finger trigger started to itch. He didn’t like non-compliance.

He whizzed a shot down the bridge.

“Get your ass on the ground or I’ll light you up.”

This got Carlyle’s attention. He didn’t put his hands up. He just stopped and turned towards Sava. He took off his ball cap, revealing the wound that was plugged up with his shirt.

“Are you crazy,” he uttered calmly. “This isn’t some pony show, Agent. I just killed 3 cops. Put that in your report. There’s a terrorist act that’s in progress right now, and you’re interfering with an operation. I’m…” he paused, putting his hands in his head. “ I’m undercover. I’m FBI too, and that boat down there,” he pointed. There was a Seaqueen tugboat steadily coasting through the river. He couldn’t see what was underneath him and the bridge. “That boat is gonna execute it.”

“You’re talking about Pequod?”

“That’s… shit, yes, Codename: Pequod. That’s the one.”

Sava still had his gun aimed Carlyle. He approached slowly. The sirens were growing like a dust storm. “I just got some info from a seg’. He said it’s going down off the Ross Island Bridge.”

“and the final horse crosses the finish line. Look, the bomb is on that boat, I don’t know where, but we gotta find it, and neutralize it.” Sava lowered his sights, keeping his wrist pointed straight at his target.

“That may be true. Were you gonna jump?”

Carlyle was not amused. He put his cap back on and turned to the edge again. He put one leg up on the edge. Sava retrained his weapon, then noticed Carlyle’s limping butt cheek.

“Agent, step down from the bridge. We need to assess the situation.” Carlyle now stood up, quivering. He squatted, looking smarting horridly. He knew something stupid was about to happen to him. Sava was ready to load him full of lead. Carlyle turned back at the Agent, noticed the Police Charger speeding in to create a perimeter, and shot a glance at Sava.

“Oh by the way, the police are in on it. Some of them. I think… Do your duty, Agent,” he said, then turned and dropped off the bridge. Sava ran after him. Peering off the side of the bridge.

Moments Earlier…

Sava kept Aryn’s elbow locked under his shoulder blade. He man-handled him, keeping his steps quick and short distanced, into the alley behind the club. There was a couple making out heavily against a dirty wall. Perfect, thought Sava. He dragged Aryn’s sorry ass to the wall, and let the couple notice the two coming in hot. They quickly unlatched from each other and ran in separate directions.

Sava threw Aryn face first into the grimey brick wall. He unhanded him, letting him free to catch himself. Aryn didn’t, and promptly busted his nose, again. He went down hard, hands to his face, and Sava opened into a horse stance. He stroked his hands over the handle of his Glock, nestled in the back of his waist band. He wanted to make sure he wouldn’t lose it in the ass kicking that would ensue.

Aryn stood up, leaning against the black, crumbly wall. He had flakes in his hair. Aryn flew down his hands, and cocked back his elbow then went to swing a punch at Sava.

The agent took a step back to let Aryn through a heavy whiff of a punch. Sava side stepped around the idiotic drunk and got ready for the second phrase. The curly haired buffoon, stunned and light from his miss, reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a Taser.

Sava should have checked him.

Aryn swung his hand in a back club. Sava leaned away from the punch and let it swing around. It was followed hard by an electric blue fist. Sava dropped to his butt. He missed the Taser by millimeters, and Aryn went swinging again. He was angry now. The drunk kind of angry that turned into blind fury.

Sava kicked his legs up. The rest of the battle would be fought on the ground. Aryn swung full around to find his opponent on the ground, just waiting for him, motionless. He spun the Taser around in his hand, so he could bring it down in a stabbing motion. Aryn then jumped up over him, and brought down the Taser, colored with a brilliant flash of stunning light.

Sava brought a foot hard into Aryn’s bicep, then with his other leg, caught Aryn hard off balance. His body started to fall lopsided. He avoided the Taser, but settled for Aryn coming hard down onto his crotch. Sava let out a wail. He was out for a few seconds.

When he came back into the engagement, Aryn was already throwing round two of the Taser stabs. Sava, reacting, rolled his hips, twisting his outstretched legs, into Aryn. The stab missed again, and Aryn was now tangled in a mess of Sava’s limbs. The two were now fully wrestling.

That’s when Sava remembered that he had a gun in his back pocket. He reached into the heap of the fight, and pulled Aryn into him by his shirt collar. He then freed his legs, and climbed to the side of Aryn, twisting his forearms over Aryn’s neck. They both fell with great force on their sides.

He saw it then. The Glock was laying on the ground, right next to Aryn’s hand. He pulled his head up, shielding his vision from the gun. If he was going to kill Sava, he would have to figure that out blindly. Sava pressed his bicep firmly into Aryn’s throat. He thought he was surely going to break his Adam’s apple, and then, in desperation, Aryn grabbed it.

Sava heard the electric hiss, then saw as 20,000 volts of electricity when straight into his tricep, the one nuzzling Aryn’s throat. The current when straight into Sava, out in Aryn, and fried both of them into a deep deep unconsciousness.

The two bodies lay there, motionless, for a little under a minute.

Sava opened his eyes. He took in a breath of life, and realized he didn’t have a body on him. He blinked, then kicked his feet out. He didn’t hit anything, cause Aryn woke up before him.

He cocked his head up, and saw him staring down the barrel of his own Glock. Aryn had a shit-eating grin on his face. Sava never took this kid for a cold-blooded killer. He wanted to talk him out of it, but he loathed pleading. He’d rather die than do that. Aryn cracked his neck, showing the tattoo on his neck. It was the broken crown tattoo. It was the SouthEast Grind. The one he was on assignment to find.

“You’re a Seg’. You little shit.”

Aryn smiled even more, showing a little tooth on his left side forming from a rather severe dimple. “SouthEast about to GRIND you into the ground,” spouted Aryn. Sava wanted to rip his skin off just for hearing this idiot talk to him like he was some kind of thug. He then clenched his hands into a damn tight fist for being so stupid as to let this little shit get a hold of his gun.

Aryn then shot a slug out of the piece. Gravel sprinkled onto Sava’s face. In a resounding miss, Aryn managed to repave the ground a good foot from Sava’s head. That’s right, thought Sava, my sights are off. They’re adjusted to my weird eyesight a good millimeter and a half to the left. Calibrating his angle, and using the moment for Aryn to realize he missed, Sava rolled right. He rolled and rolled, hearing shots whizz off, and then reached Aryn’s feet. Sava, losing no time, wound his thigh up, then pushed a kick straight into the side of Aryn’s knee. It was a move Sava liked to call, “The Career Ender.”

Aryn let out a harsh wail, harsher than anything you want to hear, and dropped. He shot the pistol one last time. The slug went right in between Sava’s shoulder and throat. Fuck Me, thought Sava. The drunk went down, and Sava immediately disarmed him.

Regaining the battle, he put Aryn back into an arm lock, face on the ground, and jumped on top of him. Aryn was done.

“Alright dirthead, you’re gonna start talking, real fast, or you’re gonna enter a whole new world of pain.” Aryn was moaning. He was in no mood to talk. “You’re buddies, the Segs, I know you’re doing something’s soon. Something with Pequod. You’re gonna tell me what that is.” Aryn just wailed. He was hardly listening. Sava stretched his arm a little further back.

Aryn was in a mountain of pain. “Fuck off,” He said.

Sava pistol whipped his head and repeated, “You’re gonna start talking. Who, what, where, I want to know what’s happening.” Aryn tried to spit in his face, but couldn’t reach the angle. Sava whipped him again.

“It’s on 52nd street. We’re going up there to meet Deanda for detail.”

“Deanda who?”

Aryn laughed like a prepubescent idiot.

“De-enda- my dick.” He let out a roar of painful laughter. Sava chuckled. He lifted some weight off Aryn’s back, then gently took his foot and with no more than half an ounce of pressure, moved Aryn’s broken leg to the left. Aryn hurled out screams of laughter.

“Is that helping you?” asked Sava.

“Ahhh, I’m not saying nothing.”

Sava even more gently started to push the leg a little further. “You sure about that?” Aryn kept clenching. His whole body was one giant squeezed muscle. Sava gave one final, painful tap of his leg, then let the pressure off of his leg. Aryn released some of his bodies tension and immediately burst into tears.

Sava got close into his ear. “Look friend, you’re already under arrest, and I doubt you’ll be playing soccer any time this decade, so here’s the deal. If anyone dies tonight, you’re going to be an accessory to murder, on top of numerous counts of attempted homicide, terrorism, deployment of weapons of mass destruction. Those look great on a permanent record. You’re looking at few decades to life as it is.” Aryn snorted some tears back into his nose. Sava put his foot back onto Aryn’s leg, letting him know he was done playing games. “So you tell me what you know, and where I can find whatever you’re little “crew” is up to, and I’ll forget that you fired 5 rounds at an FBI agent. If all goes according to plan, I’ll see to it that they don’t immediately give you the death penalty.”

This got Aryn’s attention.

Later that Night…

Sava splashed into the Willamette River. He made sure to jump in gun-in-hand. He couldn’t afford to lose it twice in one night. He swam to the surface, finding resistance swimming with a loaded service pistol in his shooting hand. He eventually saw through the black murky water a tow-line that was in the water. It was dragging something deep, cause the line was taught shooting straight into the dark abyss of the river. He grabbed onto it, and began to pull himself up to the boat. The drag from the speed of the Seaqueen was heavy.

After he got above the surface, he swam to the side of the boat. There was a taught cable going across the hull. It was just enough to pull him up. He pushed himself over the top. There were Police lights flashing above from the bridge, and he could see three or four officers looking over the sides. This amount of attention was sure to piss off the Segs on the boat.

Sava swung around and checked his pistol. He had 7 rounds left in the clip, one in the chamber. “Make ‘em count, idiot,” he said to himself, thinking how dumb it was to lose his pistol to Aryn, and how much dumber it was to fire a slug at Carlyle.

Carlyle! That’s right. Find him.

Sava exhaled, then propped himself above the crate he was hiding behind. He checked his corners. No one in sight, but he could hear the rustle around the boat there were at least two people on this rig.

Gun outstretched he began to search the corners of the deck. He looked around the crates and tarps, and then found Carlyle. His eyes didn’t close. He was lying on a tarp covering hose equipment. He didn’t survive the fall. There was a rather serious amount of blood extruded from his head wound.

That’s a hell of an agent, he thought, Shot in the head, and still going on with the mission, but I’m wasting time. He checked Carlyle, and found his Glock. He pocket the weapon in his waistband and continued searching.

He got to the Helm, and crouched down behind it.

“Well check it out!” heard Sava.

Someone was coming, fast. He poised, finger on the trigger. A man came running out past the bridge, not noticing any crouching FBI agents. He had a Tech-9 in his hand. He might have been Aryn’s cousin with the amount of ill-fitting Trailblazers gear he wore.

Sava didn’t want to deal with this idiot. He shot up, and sprinted full force at the Seg. He dropped his shoulder, hitting the guy at the right hip. Sava, in full football stance, rushed him to the edge of the Seaqueen, and dropped him off the edge of the boat. The Seg didn’t have enough to time to process what direction the thing was coming from before he was drenched in the Willamette.

Then the shots rang out. Sava turned to see another right off the helm. The person was shooting rounds blindly at Sava. He returned three rounds and then dove behind a crate. It was the same one Carlyle bought the farm off of. The figure emptied the clip, hitting Carlyle two or three times, then paused to reload.

“FREEZE, FBI!” yelled Sava, jumping up to disarm the assailant. He noticed now that the figure was a woman. In the light beaming off the helm, he could see this Kemba look-alike, with straight jet black bangs, make up that really nailed the 90 degree angle, and red, red lipstick. She was the kind of girl he would get into when he was off duty. Even on duty. She was actually the kind of girl you might find at Dig-A-Pony that night.

“Shit,” he said, “Julia?”

She wouldn’t stop reloading her gun, but he lowered his. “Julia, what the hell are you doing?” he said, approaching her, not as an agent, but as a former lover, as a forlorn weasel of a man who had almost died that night. She wouldn’t stop loading the gun. Something was jammed in her Chinese knock-off AK-47. “Hey, what the hell are you doing, listen to me. This isn’t you. Why are you on this boat?”

The gun clicked into place. She must have had her finger on the trigger, because, with barrel aimed straight into the deck, she began to fire rounds wildly into the boat, then into the air, like a magic wand of bullets. The stock went into shoulder like a jack-hammer. She gained control and sprayed some more bullets like wild horses.

Sava went down. He clenched his thigh, then pointed and fired away. At first he fired looking onto the wooden slats of the deck then resumed his focus. Instinct being a puma on the hunt, he fired. His target was the muzzle flashes of the AK. As his clip emptied, so did the AK’s. That wasn’t 30 rounds, he told himself, then promptly reloaded.

He looked down and saw blood leaking from his thigh. It was the inside gracilis. Damn. He turned and checked downrange. The beautiful figure was on the ground. Her chest was rising and falling, more rapidly with each breath.

“Aw hell, no… no why,” said Sava. He managed to get up on his legs and balance on the pain. He limped over to Julia. She had a few holes in her, mainly in her chest, a droplet of blood leaking from her mouth. She had the primp of a Hollywood vampire. He thought, maybe, just maybe he actually loved this woman, because he didn’t want her to die. She’d almost killed him, and he didn’t want her to die. His gun was trained on her, but only with half a soul. He calmed scooted the AK away from her hands and then cradled her up into his arms.

“Hey.” he whispered coolly.

“Hey,” she replied.

“You, uhh, you tried to kill me there.”

She laughed. “I think you actually did kill me.” He laughed. “I told you stay at the club. You never listened to me.”

“So that’s why you wanted me to stay. Were you playing me from the start? Wait… was Aryn a setup?”

“Oh dear. Don’t think of it like that. It doesn’t matter how it happened,” she said, coughing a little more blood, “I… I guess I could say I love you, but I’m just not that kind of girl. As you can see, darling, I’m bleeding to death.”

He smiled. “You really are a bitch, you know that?”

She laughed again, spurting blood on his wet jacket, “I know… But you’re an asshole.”

“Am not,” he said smiling.

“Umm, you just killed me, and you love me.”

“You started it, terrorist.”

They both laughed. She put her hand limply on his cheek, the life slowly leaving her.

“Will you do me one favor?” she murmured, “hold me ‘til I go.”

He sighed. Were he the crying type, he would have shed a tear, but the Academy beat that out of him.

“I will, but only if you do something for me. Tell me where that charge is.”

“Oh sweety… You know I can’t do that. You kill me all you want, you still won’t ruin my plan.” He started to drop her. “Wait. It’s not on this boat.” She sneezed a painful iron cloud, “Ohh that doesn’t feel right… Don’t waste your time”

He pondered, holding her a little firm. Should he drop her and go on. Should he smother her and search the rest of the boat. The tug was lazily gliding closer to the Ross Island Bridge. He was running out of time.

In the moments where he thought of what to do, Julia passed. She died with a bloody smile on her cheeks. He laid her down.

The rest of the deck was fruitless. Crates containing nothing more than safety gear, small arms, replacement bulbs, anchors, rope, sea rope, nylon rope, thick rope, thicker rope. God damn, is this whole boat made of rope, he thought. He was getting frantic as the boat was idling under the Hawthorne.

He’d lost the time to prattle around like a recruit. He had to either find the explosive charges, or call in Home Land Security for air support, cause the river was about ready to burst.

“Damn you Julia,” he muttered, “you cotton candy wench. You could’ve at least told me what…” He saw light peaking out of the bullet holes in the deck. He quickly walked into the helm and knocked open the hatch.

The small hull had one crate in it. He cautiously turned every corner, leading with his Glock. There was more rope, go figure, and a crate. He saw a pair of shoes around the crate. Brand new, brown leather church diplomat shoes. They weren’t moving an inch. He checked his corners again, then proceeded to neutralize the feet, and the person attached to them. It was useless. Julia had already done that.

A fair skinned male, dressed in khakis and a dress shirt was lying face-up. He seemed very well at peace for a man who took several blows to the head, neck, and chest. This guy looked like a dad, and a boring one at that. He in no way resembled the Seg-dregs of society that were crawling all over this case.

“Who the hell are you?” he said. The guy was clutching a computer bag. Were Sava in training, he would have gotten 4 points off for not investigating the crate he was next to, but this wasn’t training. This was real-world. He went to the computer bag and revealed a laptop, a tablet, and an external hard-drive.

“Shit.”

This wasn’t good. The whole scheme could be hidden deep inside the confines of these machines. It could take IT Security up to 30 minutes to find the right file. Sava was fucked. Very fucked. Portland was goin’ bye-bye. Pocketing the hard drive into his pocket, he took the tablet and turned it on. He was use to his iPad, so it took him 4 seconds to find the ON button, 3 more than he had.

As soon as the screen popped up, it revealed a timer.

1:31:659.

The milliseconds were pounding away. Less than 2 minutes.

He let out a hard expletive, then stood absolutely still. His mind was the Kentucky Derby. He had to call it in. There wasn’t anything more he could do. It was compromised.

He ran upstairs, hardly checking his corners. The boat was squarely en route to blowing up right at the target location. He could try to swing the thing a shore, but it wouldn’t matter. The Codename Pequod chargers were lined against the edges of the river. Anywhere this ship went, there was going to be a national disaster. A great day of infamy, and a city of suffer and sundry. There was going to be a holocaust.

He hopped on the helm and immediately listed the craft starboard towards the SW. He was headed straight for the OHSU Health Center. He looked at the tablet.

1:02:253.

If only he could prevent the boat from the explosion, but it wasn’t on the boat. Maybe it was the boat… no wait.

How could he be so stupid. The line. THE LINE!

The line he swam in on. It was going down deep into the river. It must have been the charge.

He spun himself like a hurricane and ran to the back of the ship. There, against an aluminum reel, was the line. The handle was still attached. He started to pull on it, but it was stuck stiff and immobile. He looked around it. There must have been a break, a latch, something. SOMETHING! He saw the stopper. It was held down with a lock.

Shit!

He took his glock, pinched it in between the metal latch and the lock and blew the latch open. The reel went berserk. It sank low, the line casting sharply further into the river.

SHIT!

He pushed his gun into the moving gears of the reel. It jammed and stopped the line. Okay, he thought, okay. Okay. The line’s about 20 meters, and by calculation, you have around 45 seconds left. Okay.

He grabbed the metal cable with his hands, put his feet up against the bow, and heaved up in a squat thrust. At that moment he remembered that he’d been shot in the leg. Why the hell did he have to be shot in the leg now, now when he needed them. The cable started to come up, moist with the river dripping from it. He heaved again, and again. Each press, he dug his hands harder into the cable, praying to whatever god would listen that his grip be tight.

He kept pushing, kept reeling the line in further and further. Kept getting lost in the menagerie of this lost gang of terrorists. This beautiful femme fatale who played him. This. God. Damn. Heavy. Wet. Explosive. Charge.

By my calculations, he thought, I have at least.

The cable went loose. All at once. The metal seemed to come at him. He something emerging from the water. It was brilliant and white, reflecting the police blue and red along the bridges. Then it came at him with a vengeance.

Like Moby Dick, a great white bubble burst right in his face. The air was warm like a Nevada summer. It was followed by a subsequent blast of water. All the waterparks in America combined couldn’t produce this effect. The boat, like a Styrofoam block, went up on its stern, and it sent rope, guns, lights, and bodies flying into the cool Portland night air, and like a firework it settled back into the abyss it came from.

Sava’s body washed onto Ross Island. It lay there, blood trickling loosely from the cuts on his face and scalp. It was littered like the rest of the debris. The police sirens echoed through, and a light from the helicopters were shining dead on him.

Like the rest of the SouthEast Grind, Sava lay, face up, on the shores of a foiled terrorist attack.

He gasped.