Rogue Justice (36 page)

Freeman paled, his knees buckled, and his entire body began to shake. He could not comprehend the messages his eyes were sending to his brain. There, less than two hundred feet away, a monstrous creature soared upward into the heavy mist, Tradd locked in its jaws. "Help me! Help me!" Tradd bellowed. "Oh, sweet Jesus, please help me!" For one brief, terrifying moment, man and beast hung there, suspended in midair, before crashing back to the surface. They hit with a thunderous boom that sounded like the roar of a giant avalanche... then disappeared into the depths.

An instant later, two guards came running over the berm of the hill, weapons drawn. They skidded to a stop, staring in wide-eyed disbelief. "What the hell..." the taller one gasped, a flash of fear streaking through his eyes. "Did you see the size of that goddamn thing?"

Freeman stood still as a statue, waves of nausea churning through his stomach. He was disoriented, his hands were shaking violently, and he could barely think. But he knew he must pull himself together, take charge of the situation. Walking purposefully toward the stunned guards, he shouted, "Listen, I'll deal with this. You two need to get out of here. Now! Do you understand?" His voice seemed distant somehow, like it was coming from some other person.

The guards didn't move at first, still paralyzed by the shock and horror of what they had just witnessed. Finally they looked at one another, did an about-face, and scrambled up the hill.

Freeman watched after them, disconnected from all sense of time and space. Seconds, maybe minutes passed, before he tentatively made his way back down to the spot where Tradd had been standing. He shuddered at the thought of retrieving the body, assuming there was anything
left
to retrieve.

Still,
it seems like the good Christian thing to do.

Freeman's father was a non-practicing Jew, his mother, a devout Catholic who had dragged her son to mass twice a week as a kid. As an adult, he had never wavered from that routine and he could certainly use a touch of the Divine now. Stepping toward the water, an eerie quiet descended over everything, absolute, nerve-shattering quiet... and spooky as hell.

The first shock nearly stopped his heart—Tradd's legless, bloody torso popped to the surface, bobbing aimlessly on the water. "Good God!" Freeman gasped, the cold rush of air burning his throat and lungs like hellfire. His knees buckled. His stomach heaved. He felt lightheaded, thought for a second he would pass out.

Then the second shock—a gigantic dorsal fin, barely visible in the misty haze of the spotlights.

Before Freeman could move a muscle, a rush of water came crashing down with the force of a tidal wave. His next sensation was one of flight. The impact sent him barreling head-first into the sea, wrapping him in the fiendish cold. Dizzy with fear, he clawed his way back to the surface, only to see the monster swimming full-bore toward him.

The speed was astonishing.

One hundred feet... fifty feet... then twenty-five.

Freeman gaped in horror, violent shivers coursing through his body. He said a silent prayer, held his breath, and waited for his life to flash before him.

It didn't... instead, the speeding beast veered right, heading on a collision course with the enclosed sea-pen. Its immense body then rocketed out of the raging waters like a ballistic missile, landing with earthquake intensity. BOOM! The steel support trusses collapsed under the animal's enormous weight, causing the entire structure to implode. Chunks of debris came raining down from all directions at once. The screeching peel of twisted metal made a terrifying, unholy sound—and the pink, early morning sky became charged with electricity.

Amid the noise and chaos, Freeman managed to pull himself ashore, sickened by the acrid smell of smoke and smoldering canvas. An instant later, he caught flashes of the captured whale. Was he hallucinating? The giant creature had torn through the sluice gate, freeing its much smaller cousin from the rubble. Seconds later, they disappeared into the open sea. Then a second wall of water hit. Freeman felt a shock of cold, followed by a white hot explosion as it crashed down. His lungs screamed for air. His head felt like it had been crushed by a heavy stone. Stars exploded behind his eyes.

Sirens, he thought he heard sirens.

Then... nothing.

Chapter 38

4 April, 5:30 AM PDT

Kingdom of the Sea Oceanarium,

Seattle, Washington

Within minutes of the attack, an awesome armada of emergency vehicles converged on the scene, light bars flashing, sirens howling. Police, fire, arson, and bomb squads were all there, followed by a parade of ambulances and a team of nervous-looking suits from the Department of Homeland Security. Next to arrive was the SWAT team. Then the K-9 unit, the bomb-sniffing dogs deployed to search the devastation for possible explosive devices. Finally, the stars and bars rolled in, led by the chief of police himself. A command post was immediately set up and a perimeter of yellow police tape cordoned off the entire area, banks of portable lights casting an eerie glow in the still lingering fog.

The place was pandemonium.

Cops were waving guns and shouting orders and heavy equipment was being hauled off trucks. The K-9 unit conducted a thorough search and only after officers declared the area free of explosives did the full contingent of emergency personnel move beyond the police line. In the middle of it all, the television vans showed up and soon the pink-hued morning sky was congested with media helicopters.

By 6:00 a.m. rumors were circulating that a Muslim extremist group based in British Columbia had orchestrated the attack. A reporter from
On the Scene
, a syndicated tabloid TV show, claimed the real target was the Space Needle, that KOS had been merely an elaborate decoy intended to distract the cops. The rumor had people all over Seattle in a panic, scrambling to get out of town before catastrophe struck. The mayor ordered all schools, businesses, and retail operations to close their doors. Even the airport shut down.

Detective Cloyd Steiger was informed by dispatch of the alleged terror plot as he rolled up to the chaotic scene, the first of his seven "Proverbs" spinning around in his mind:
We will solve no crime before overtime.
The investigation, interrogation of witnesses, and report writing could clock him as much as ten hours of OT. He flashed his creds to the officers at the outer perimeter and walked into a scene that reminded him of Dante's Inferno. It smelled of death and looked worse. He stood stoically for a long moment, surveying the floodlit carnage, barely able to hear himself think above the roar of the choppers.

The devastation was total and complete, the entire area rocked to its core. Steiger met briefly with his captain, received his marching orders, then proceeded down the hill toward the crime scene. As he moved past the administration building, he glanced at the police spokesperson setting up shop. He knew the drill. She was prepping for the first of what would surely be many press briefings, a job more about controlling information than disseminating it.

The machinery of spin
is gearing up for an all-out media assault.

Nearing the water, Steiger could see a team of gloved-up crime scene techs going about their business, thoroughly and methodically, bagging and tagging as they went. They had fanned out from what appeared to be the torso of a body, making notes, taking measurements, checking the immediate area. A police photographer moved among both living and dead snapping photos.

The corpse, of course, was the responsibility of the body snatchers from the coroner's office. The detective's job was to work backward from the victim to the incident to the circumstances and finally, in the case of a homicide, to identifying the offender. At least that's the way it usually worked. But this case, Steiger knew, was hardly routine. He nodded at the other investigators, pulled a pair of latex gloves from his jacket pocket, and slipped them on. He then squatted down next to the torso. The victim had one arm, no legs, and eyes that were blank, bottomless, empty. Steiger gently closed the lids and lifted the man's chin, turning the head to one side. Deep gashes in the neck still oozed blood. His mouth was partially open, most of the teeth either gone or broken.

Hell of a way to go. I hope it was quick.

As Steiger stood up, he turned his back on a bracing wind and zipped his jacket. He was about to speak with one of the crime techs when another supervisor approached him from behind. He said he'd assigned two other detectives from the homicide unit as lead investigators. They were expected shortly. Steiger had no problem with that decision. During his long career, he had attended to countless scenes of violent death, each with its own particular kind of silence—and this one was especially unnerving.

Who needs this shit anyway!

Steiger called his partner, heading him off at the pass. He then headed back up the hill, his thoughts now shifting to Zora Flynn and their guarded conversation over lunch just three days earlier. He could not put his finger on exactly how her story tied to the turmoil surrounding him here, but he knew there had to be some kind of connection. As those thoughts swirled around in his head, he noticed an ambulance parked just beyond a vast pile of rubble. An EMT was attending to an injured man sitting inside the open back door, a man who looked ghostly pale, his eyes red and puffy. Even so, Steiger recognized him immediately.

Colby Freeman!

He seemed nervous and rattled, hardly the picture of confidence Steiger had observed on the KOS website. He'd checked it out immediately after his meeting with the boat captain—and came away impressed with Freeman's bio: business degree from Michigan State... family man... active in the local Kiwanis Club... big cheese in the theme park world. What light could he shed on this sordid affair?

As he approached the ambulance, Steiger flashed his badge, identified himself, and then asked, "You okay, Mr. Freeman?"

Freeman flinched, looked closely at the shield. "I'll live. What can I do for you, detective?"

"I'd like to ask you a few questions."

The EMT took a step back, turned to Steiger. "This man has suffered some serious trauma here. I need to get him to a hospital, stat."

Steiger's eyes lit up. "And
I
need a few minutes of his time."

"It's okay," Freeman said, his voice trembling. "I'm fine."

The EMT growled something incoherent, finished wrapping Freeman's wrist with an ace bandage, then disappeared around the side of the vehicle.

Steiger edged closer, tugged on his collar. "You know something, Mr. Freeman? I've worked double homicides, triple homicides, robbery, rape, and just about every other violent crime known to man. And I've never seen
anything
that compares to this. So why don't you tell me what the hell went down here?"

Freeman sighed. "To be honest with you, it's all kind of hazy. It happened so fast."

"Yeah, I hear that a lot, don't even write it into my reports anymore." Steiger reached into his pocket, pulled out a pad and pen. "Just do the best you can."

"Well, Samson Stadium is getting a complete makeover," Freeman said, his face dead-pan. "Bolder colors, better sight lines, a fresh new feel. Not to mention several state-of-the art safety devices. Anyway, see that big crater over there? Up until an hour or so ago it was a big steel and canvas structure that covered a large sea-pen—a home away from home for our star performer, Samson. We'd moved him there during the renovation. Anyway... my colleague had never seen an orca up close before, so we came outside, walked around to the viewing window."

"In the middle of the night?"

"We were working late. The project is running behind schedule and—"

Proverb number seven: Everybody lies.

"Okay, you and your colleague were working late. What happened next?"

"Samson was resting. In that state he slows down, becomes very quiet underwater, his dives highly irregular. It's how he sleeps."

Steiger scribbled a note. "Sleeping, you say?"

"Yes," Freeman replied, rubbing his temples. "Then everything went crazy." Over the next several minutes, Freeman described the terror he'd witnessed and experienced, pausing now and then to take a sip of bottled water. After he'd finished, he slumped against the side of the ambulance. "The size and power of those creatures... I'm telling you, detective, there just aren't any words."