Fast
They were just about to see the octopus when she received a text alerting her that two hundred people were going to die in two hours.
Kathryn Dance rarely received texts marked with exclamation points—the law enforcement community tended not to punctuate with emotion—so she read it immediately. Then called her office, via speed dial three.
“Boss,” the young man’s voice spilled from her iPhone.
“Details, TJ?”
Over their heads:
“Will the ticket holders for the one-thirty exhibition make their way inside, please.”
“Mom!” the little girl’s voice was urgent. “That’s us.”
“Hold on a second, honey.” Then into the phone: “Go on.”
TJ Scanlon said, “Sorry, Boss, this’s bad. On the wire from up north.”
“Mom…”
“Let me talk, Mags.”
“Long story short, Alameda was monitoring this domestic separatist outfit, planning an attack up there.”
“I know. Brothers of Liberty, based in Oakland, White supremacists, antigovernment. Osmond Carter, their leader, was arrested last week and they threatened retaliation if he’s not released.”
“You knew that?”
“You read the statewide dailies, TJ?”
“Mean to.”
“… the Monterey Bay Aquarium is pleased to host the largest specimen of Enteroctopus dofleini on exhibit in the Northern California area, weighing in at 121 pounds! We know you’re going to enjoy viewing our visiting guest in his specially created habitat.”
“Okay. What’s the story?” Dance persisted into the phone as she and her children edged closer to the exhibit hall. They’d waited forty-five minutes. Who would have thought octopuses, octopi would be such a big draw?
TJ said, “Everybody believed they were going to hit somewhere up there, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Fran, but maybe there was too much heat. Oakland PD had a CI inside the group and he said two of their people came down here, set up something. And—”
She interrupted. “ ‘Set up something.’ What does that mean?”
“An attack of some kind. He doesn’t know what exactly. Maybe an IED, maybe chemical. Probably not bio but could be. But the number of victims is for sure, what I texted you. Two hundred plus or minus. That’s confirmed. And whatever it is, it’s up and running; the perps set it and they were headed back. The CI said 4:00 p.m. is when the attack goes down.”
Two and a half hours. A little less. Lord…
“No idea of the victims, location?”
TJ Scanlon offered, “None.”
“But you said they ‘were’ headed back.”
“Right, we caught a break. There’s a chance we can nail ‘em. The CI gave us the make of the car—a 2000 Taurus, light blue. CHP spotted one in Marina and went after it. The driver took off. Probably them. They lost the pursuit on surface roads. Everybody’s searching the area. Bureau’s coming in from the field office. Hold on, Boss. I’m getting something.”
Dance happened to glance up and see her reflection in the glass panel on the other side of which elegant and eerie sea horses floated with sublime, careless ease. Dance noted her own still gaze looking back at her, in a narrow, Cate Blanchett face, hair in a ponytail, held taut by a black and green scrunchy installed that morning by her ten-year-old daughter, currently champing beside her. Her mop-headed son Wes, twelve, was detached from mother and sister. He was less intrigued by cephalopods, however big, and more by an aloof fourteen-year-old in line, a girl who should have been a cheerleader if she wasn’t.
Dance was wearing jeans, a blue silk blouse and a tan quilted vest, comfortably warm. Sunny at the moment, the Monterey Peninsula could be quite fickle when it came to weather. Fog mostly.
“Mom, they’re calling us,” Maggie said in her weegee voice, the high pitch that conveyed exasperation really well.
“One minute, this’s important.”
“First, it was a second. Now it’s a minute. Jeez. One one-thousand, two one-thousand…”
Wes was smiling toward, but not at, the cheerleader.
The line inched forward, drawing them seductively closer to the Cephalopod of the Century.
TJ came back on the line. “Boss, yep, it’s them. The Taurus’s registered to the Brothers of Liberty. CHP’s in pursuit.”
“Where?”
“Seaside.”
Dance glanced around her at the dim, concrete and glass aquarium. It was holiday break—ten days before Christmas—and the place was packed. And there were dozens of tourist attractions like this in the area, not to mention movie theaters, churches and offices. Some schools were closed but others not. Was the plan to leave a bomb in, say, that trashcan out front? She said into the phone, “I’ll be right in.” Turning to the children, she grimaced at their disappointed faces. She had a theory—possibly unfounded—that her two children were more sensitive to disappointment than other kids their age because they were fatherless… and because Bill had died suddenly. There in the morning, and then never again. It was so very hard for her to say what she now had to: “Sorry, guys. It’s a big problem at work.”
“Aw, Mom!” Maggie grumbled. “This is the last day! It’s going to San Diego tomorrow.” Wes, too, was disappointed, though part of this wasn’t sea life but pretty cheerleaders.
“Sorry, guys. Can’t be helped. I’ll make it up to you.” Dance held the phone back to her ear and she said firmly to TJ, “And tell everybody: No shooting unless it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t want either of them killed.”
Which brought conversation around them in the octopus line to a complete stop. Everyone stared.
Speaking to the wide-eyed blond, Wes said reassuringly, “It’s okay. She says that a lot.”
# # #
The venue for the party was good. The Monterey Bay Seaside Motel was near the water, north of the city. And what was especially nice about this place was that unlike a lot of banquet rooms this one had large windows opening onto a stretch of beach.
Right now, Carol Messner noted, the beach had that December afternoon look to it: bleached, dusty, though the haze was mostly mist with a bit of fog thrown in. Not so focused, but, hey, a beach view beat a Highway 1 view any day, provided the sun held.
“Hal,” she said to her associate. “You think we need more tables over there? It looks empty.”
Carol, president of the local branch of the California Central Coast Bankers’ Association, was a woman in her sixties, a grandmother several times over. Although her employer was one of the larger chain banks that had misbehaved a bit a few years ago, she’d had no part of mortgage-backed securities; she firmly believed banks did good. She wouldn’t have been in the business if she didn’t think that. She was living proof of the beneficence of the world of finance. Carol and her husband had comfortable retirement funds thanks to banks, her daughter and son-in-law had expanded their graphic arts business and made it successful thanks to banks, her grandsons would be going to Stanford and UC-Davis next fall thanks to student loans.
The earth revolved around money, but that was a good thing—far better than guns and battleships—and she was happy and proud to be a part of the process. The diminutive, white-haired woman wouldn’t have been in the business for forty-six years if she’d felt otherwise.
Hal Reskin, her second in command at the CCCBA, was a heavyset man with a still face, a lawyer specializing in commercial paper and banking law. He eyed the corner she pointed at and agreed. “Asymmetrical,” he said. “Can’t have that.”