below, the looming walls, the ceiling overhead—it was like an undersea cave. Only the walls and ceiling were metal.
The actual docking area for the fishing submarines, complete with cold storage vaults, was hidden down in the back, in a fish-reeking labyrinth of passages, conveyor belts for seafood processing, and offices—like the wharf master’s office. The wharf master was Peach Wilkins—Fontaine’s man. So far, Wilkins had stonewalled Sullivan when it came to the smugglers.
Reaching into the pocket of his trench coat to feel the reassuring grip of his revolver, Sullivan descended the switchback ramp to get closer to the water. The briny water lay quiet as a sheet of glass. But something splashed off in the shadows close to the wall.
He drew the pistol but kept it low, thumb ready to cock the hammer back. He bent down, glanced under the pier, thinking he saw a dark shape moving back there in the dimness.
Sullivan squatted a little more, trying to peer into the darkness under the pier, but saw nothing but the glimmer of water. Nothing moved. Whatever he thought he’d seen was gone. But then he saw it, bobbing back there, close to the corrugated metal walls. Someone had been pushing a floating crate along. He wished he had a flashlight.
A distinct splashing sound came from back near the crate. He raised the revolver and shouted, “Come out of there, you!”
He was distantly aware of a creaking noise on the ramp behind him. But his attention was fixed on the darkness under the pier, where that splashing had come from…
“You in there! I’m going to start opening fire if you don’t—”
He broke off, hearing the creaking more distinctly behind him, and turned—in time to see the silhouette of a man against the dim light of the ceiling, leaping down at him from the higher wharf ramp—a monkey wrench in the stranger’s hand poised to bash Sullivan’s skull.
Sullivan just had time to twist himself to the right so that the monkey wrench came whistling down past his left ear, thumping painfully into his shoulder—then the man tackled him.
Sullivan was slammed backward, hand convulsively firing the pistol. He heard the man grunt as they both splashed into the shallow seawater. Sullivan twisted as he fell, coming down on his left side. Salty water roared in his ears and choked him, big rough hands closed around his throat, a great weight bore him downward. He struck out with the gun butt, felt it connect with the back of the man’s head. The two of them thrashed; then Sullivan got his feet under him and managed to stand, thigh deep, water streaming off him. The other man was getting up, staggering, blood dripping from a head wound. A big square-jawed, ham-fisted man in a pea jacket glared at him with one little brown eye through black hair pasted down by water. He’d lost the monkey wrench in the water.
The man swung a bunched fist hard at Sullivan—Sullivan jerked back so that the blow missed, but he was sent off-balance. He tried to fire the gun, but water had gotten in, and it misfired. Sullivan was staggering back to try to stay upright. The man grinned, showing crooked teeth, and sloshed toward him, big hands outstretched.
A flash from up on the wharf—a gunshot—and Sullivan’s brawny assailant grunted, gritted his teeth, took one more step, then fell on his face in the water. He thrashed for a couple of moments—then went limp, floating facedown.
Sullivan steadied himself and looked up to see Karlosky smiling coldly down at him from the wharf ramp, pocketing a smoking pistol. The air smelled of gunsmoke.
“Nice shot,” Sullivan said as blood welled from the hole in the left side of the stranger’s head. “Assuming, that is, you weren’t aiming for me!”
“If I shoot at you,” Karlosky said in his Russian accent, “you already die.”
Sullivan pocketed his own pistol, grabbed the dead man by the collar, and dragged him to the lower ramp, laboring in his water-heavy clothing. Pulling the thug onto the ramp, he bent over—aware of the pain from a deep bruise in his left shoulder—and turned the corpse over. There was just enough light to make out the face. He still didn’t recognize him. Or did he? He reached out and wiped wet hair away from the dead man’s face. He’d seen that face in a photo, in the Rapture admissions records. A maintenance worker. “The guy tried to brain me with a wrench,” he said as Ivan Karlosky joined him.
“I heard you shoot,” Karlosky said. “But you miss.”
“Didn’t have time to aim. You see anybody else on the other side of the wharf?”
“Da! Running away! Could not see who!”
“I’ve seen this one’s file. Don’t remember his name.”
“Mickael Lasko. Ukrainian! All sons of bitches, Ukrainians! Lasko, he work maintenance, then do something for Peach Wilkins. I heard in a bar, maybe he knows about smuggling—so I follow him this morning. The bastard lose me down in the docking maze. Some hidden passages down there…”
“Seemed like this particular Ukrainian son of a bitch wanting to do me in…” Shivering with the chill from the water soaking his clothing, Sullivan went through the dead man’s coat pockets—and came up with an envelope full of Rapture dollars and, in another pocket, a small notebook. He opened the notebook. It contained a list, blurred from the water. He read it aloud:
“Bibles—7 sold
Cocaine 2 g sold
Liquor 6 fifths
Letters out, 3 at 70 RD each.”
“Looks like he’s smuggling,” Karlosky said.
Sullivan shook his head. “Looks like Fontaine or Wilkins don’t have much respect for me. Like I’m supposed to believe this guy is behind it all. He’s not going to keep a notebook listing cocaine and Bibles. I doubt he knew how to spell ’em. The envelope with the cash in it was payment to this knucklehead to try to take me down. They were okay with it if he got killed. Make it look like the smuggler was all done for, take the heat off them…”
He tossed Karlosky the envelope. “You can have that—for saving my life. Come on, I’ll send someone down to pick up this patsy.” They started back up the ramp, hurrying into better lighting. “Shit, I hate walking with salt water in my pants. It’s rasping my ball sack, goddammit… let’s get a drink. I’ll buy you a vodka.”
“Vodka is good to get smell of rotting fish out! And smell of dead Ukrainian—even worse!”
“Absurd, Tenenbaum!” Dr. Suchong jeered as he walked ahead of Frank Fontaine and Brigid Tenenbaum.
“This discovery is very great,” Tenenbaum retorted confidently. She seemed to simmer with subdued excitement. “Mr. Fontaine, you will see!”
Frank Fontaine’s deal with Dr. Suchong and Brigid Tenenbaum hadn’t quite paid off yet. Maybe, he figured, as he followed her and Suchong into the laboratory, today was the day that particular roll of the dice was going to come up lucky sevens. Tenenbaum’s excitement—which she almost never showed—seemed to hint she’d stumbled across something explosive.
Tenenbaum led the way to a sedated man in a hospital gown lying on a padded gurney in the most secretive inner chamber of the laboratory complex. She looked the unconscious man over with analytical coolness as she spoke. “Germans, all they can talk about is blue eyes and shape of forehead. All I care about is why is this one born strong, and that one weak—this one smart, that one stupid? All the killing, you think the Germans could have been interested in something useful? Today—I think we have found something very much useful…”
The sleeping man on the gurney was bound to it with leather restraints. He was quite an ordinary-looking man of medium height, brown hair, blotchy skin. Fontaine had seen him playing poker in Fighting McDonagh’s— Willy Brougham. On the white metal table beside Brougham was an enormous syringe with a thick red liquid in it.
