Read Online Killer Waves by Brendan DuBois - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Brendan DuBois
Tags: USA
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"I haven't forgotten how the government works."
Later that night I was sitting alone in my living room, listening to the wind whistle through the broken door, feeling a cold draft upon my feet. The rains had begun in earnest and I had started a fire in the fireplace. My back and hands hurt, for in addition to working on the door I had also spent the past couple of hours cleaning house. The DEA crew had trooped in a lot of mud and dirt, and I didn't want anything left in the house to remind me that they had come in here, violating my peace and my privacy.
I looked over at the door, where I had stuffed old blankets in and about the doorjamb, trying to keep the wind out, though my feet told me I had done a lousy job. Tomorrow I would pay a visit to Tyler Village Hardware to see what else I could do, but right now I was too tired to do anything but brood.
Besides disturbing the nature of the day and my home, this little squad from the Department of Justice had also stirred up old thoughts and memories. It had been like taking a stick and moving it around rapidly in a shallow lake bed: scum and dust and bits of debris were now floating about, obscuring what had once been clear. Old memories and thoughts and fears and passions were rumbling through my mind, and I didn't like it, not one damn bit.
Some years ago I had come to this place, tired and thin and achy from surgeries and too many bad dreams. This little home on the side of the Atlantic Coast had begun as a haven for me. When I first moved in here, I had eaten a lot of take-out food and read and gone for walks along the pounding surf line. But though I had recovered physically after some months, my mind was still there, wounded, dissolving my better nature with the acidy feeling of guilt. Guilt that of all the people I had worked with in that little intelligence group, only I had survived the accidental exposure to an experimental biowarfare agent.
Eventually I was fortunate enough to find a way of tamping down the guilt, before I got the urge one day to start swimming out to Great Britain from the front of my house. I began to do research for columns that would never appear in print, about matters in and around Tyler that were on the fringes of law enforcement. I was also quite fortunate to find a friend in the sole detective for this town, who partially understood my need to get involved, to set things straight. A few days ago, I could have rightfully said that the day in Nevada, gasping for breath on the sands of a test range, seeing my friends and co-workers vomit blood as they died about me, was far in the distance, like my memories of grammar school and high school and college.
But now that damn woman had to show up and shove that piece of paper under my nose, showing me that shaky signature, reminding me with brutal quickness of how weak and scared I had once been, and now it was all coming back. The smell of the desert air. The smile from Cissy Manning, my dear love. And the sounds of those damn helicopters, swooping down upon us, spraying out a fine mist...
I shivered, got up and switched on the television. After about a half hour of channel surfing, from one end of the cable spectrum to another, I caught what I was looking for: a quick update on the Endeavour mission, including an interview with the shuttle commander. He was grinning as he spoke into a handheld microphone, saying everything was just fine, the mission was going great.
But remembering what he had once said to me, I knew better.
"Not all of us get to do what we want," I murmured to the television screen. "Not all of us get to go to Mars. Or even the moon."
I watched for a little while as the cold wind from my poorly-repaircd door whipped around my feet.
Chapter Five
Two days after my door had been broken down, it was now again secure and firm in its new form. Earlier I had gone to Tyler Village Hardware and had talked to a couple of the workers there. After a bit of discussion and
Later that night I was sitting alone in my living room, listening to the wind whistle through the broken door, feeling a cold draft upon my feet. The rains had begun in earnest and I had started a fire in the fireplace. My back and hands hurt, for in addition to working on the door I had also spent the past couple of hours cleaning house. The DEA crew had trooped in a lot of mud and dirt, and I didn't want anything left in the house to remind me that they had come in here, violating my peace and my privacy.
I looked over at the door, where I had stuffed old blankets in and about the doorjamb, trying to keep the wind out, though my feet told me I had done a lousy job. Tomorrow I would pay a visit to Tyler Village Hardware to see what else I could do, but right now I was too tired to do anything but brood.
Besides disturbing the nature of the day and my home, this little squad from the Department of Justice had also stirred up old thoughts and memories. It had been like taking a stick and moving it around rapidly in a shallow lake bed: scum and dust and bits of debris were now floating about, obscuring what had once been clear. Old memories and thoughts and fears and passions were rumbling through my mind, and I didn't like it, not one damn bit.
Some years ago I had come to this place, tired and thin and achy from surgeries and too many bad dreams. This little home on the side of the Atlantic Coast had begun as a haven for me. When I first moved in here, I had eaten a lot of take-out food and read and gone for walks along the pounding surf line. But though I had recovered physically after some months, my mind was still there, wounded, dissolving my better nature with the acidy feeling of guilt. Guilt that of all the people I had worked with in that little intelligence group, only I had survived the accidental exposure to an experimental biowarfare agent.
Eventually I was fortunate enough to find a way of tamping down the guilt, before I got the urge one day to start swimming out to Great Britain from the front of my house. I began to do research for columns that would never appear in print, about matters in and around Tyler that were on the fringes of law enforcement. I was also quite fortunate to find a friend in the sole detective for this town, who partially understood my need to get involved, to set things straight. A few days ago, I could have rightfully said that the day in Nevada, gasping for breath on the sands of a test range, seeing my friends and co-workers vomit blood as they died about me, was far in the distance, like my memories of grammar school and high school and college.
But now that damn woman had to show up and shove that piece of paper under my nose, showing me that shaky signature, reminding me with brutal quickness of how weak and scared I had once been, and now it was all coming back. The smell of the desert air. The smile from Cissy Manning, my dear love. And the sounds of those damn helicopters, swooping down upon us, spraying out a fine mist...
I shivered, got up and switched on the television. After about a half hour of channel surfing, from one end of the cable spectrum to another, I caught what I was looking for: a quick update on the Endeavour mission, including an interview with the shuttle commander. He was grinning as he spoke into a handheld microphone, saying everything was just fine, the mission was going great.
But remembering what he had once said to me, I knew better.
"Not all of us get to do what we want," I murmured to the television screen. "Not all of us get to go to Mars. Or even the moon."
I watched for a little while as the cold wind from my poorly-repaircd door whipped around my feet.
Chapter Five
Two days after my door had been broken down, it was now again secure and firm in its new form. Earlier I had gone to Tyler Village Hardware and had talked to a couple of the workers there. After a bit of discussion and
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