Michael Palmer - Extreme Measures

Overhead, and as far as they could see, gulls were crisscrossing through the cool morning air, their shrill cries punctuating the background rumble of heavy machinery.

"How old were you when he took over for your parents?" Eric asked.

"Fourteen. The accident was two days after my birthday. Eric, I'm going to get to the bottom of all this. I'm going to find out who he was and exactly what's happened to him."

"Well, if he worked here," Eric said, "sooner or later someone is going to recognize this picture."

And not ten minutes later, in the shipping office, someone did.

The woman, an attractive if overly made-up blonde, paused in her gum-chewing. "Yeah, I seen him around," she said in a heavy Boston accent. "His name wasn't Scott, though. It was Sandy something.

And of course he didn't look quite like he does in that photo.

What's that he's wearing?"

"A wet suit," Laura said. 'He was scuba-diving."

"Well, here he wasn't any scuba diver," the woman said, tugging at one of her bra straps. "Here he was just a grunt."

"A grunt?"

"Yeah, a manpower guy. You know, a temp. He started coming here, I don't know, a few months ago, maybe more. At some point someone must've hired him full time, though, cause it seemed he was here every day. Then all of a sudden, poof, he was gone."

"When?" Eric asked.

"I dunno. January, February maybe."

Eric and Laura exchanged concerned looks. Both were well aware that Thomas Jordan had died in February, "Do you remember his last name?"

Laura asked.

The woman shook her head. "He bought me coffee once at the truck," she said. "I hardly even got to talk to him."

"You would have liked him," Laura said.

Hey, wait a minute. Brenda might have something on him in the personnel files."

She called over to the woman who was typing behind her.

"Take a look at this picture. Isn't this that guy Sandy who used to work here?"

The other woman, dark-eyed, slim, and perhaps ten years older than the blonde, studied the poster for a moment and then shook her head.

"No way," she said. "That's not him at all."

"You sure?" the blonde asked. "I could have sworn-"

"You asked, I told you. I know exactly who you mean. Sandy North. This guy doesn't look the least bit like him. trust me."

The woman turned and went back to her desk.

"Well, I guess I was wrong," the blonde said, somewhat nonplussed.

Eric and Laura could think of nothing to say that wouldn't have been combative. They thanked the woman and left.

"You sure this guy ain't Sandy North?" the blonde asked after the door had closed.

"Debi," Brenda said, "I look at their faces; you look at their jeans.

Which one of us is right?"

The brunette waited for a few minutes until Debi started typing.

Then she picked up the phone and cupped the receiver.

"A guy and girl just left the shipping office," she whispered.

"The woman's got a stack of posters with Sandy North's picture on them…

"That woman Brenda was lying," Laura said. "I'm almost certain of it."

"She did seem a little too forceful."

"Eric, what would Scott be doing working the docks under another false name?"

"I don't know, but I think it's time you faced the possibility that maybe his life took a downward Turn after he left that job in Virginia."

"But why would he lie to me?"

Eric shrugged.

"Ashamed, I guess. Maybe he was an alcoholic and it just got the better of him."

"I don't buy it," she said. "There's too much that doesn't hold together."

They headed back toward Warehouse 18, pausing now and again to question one of the longshoremen, or to tack up a poster. At the end of half an hour their enthusiasm was gone. Not only did no one recognize Scott's photo, but many of the men they approached refused even to speak with them. Finally they made their way to the warehouse.

The huge metal hangarlike doors of the place were shut Eric peered through the thick, grimy glass of the smaller entry door. He could make out no movement inside. He twisted the knob and then opened the door a crack, failing to realize that all around the area the work noise had stopped.

"We go in?" he asked.

"If that's being pushy, we do."

Eric inched the door open a bit more.

"Are you two nosy or just stupid?"

The two of them whirled.

Three men, two holding steel crate hooks, stood in a semicircle around them, trapping them against the wall Beyond them, Eric realized, the docks were suddenly deserted.

"We're… we're trying to get some information about my brother,"

Laura ventured. "We think he might have worked here."

She offered a poster, but the men didn't move.

The center man of the three, a bull whose head seemed to balloon up from between his shoulders, eyed them for a time.

"Go around to the side of the building," he ordered. "Walk slow."

"We're not looking for any trouble-"

"Shut the fuck up and move!" the man snapped.

With the three men maintaining the arc around them, Eric and Laura sidestepped around the corner of the building and along the wall until they were screened from the rest of the dock by a mountain of oil drums.

"Okay," the bull said, "that's enough. Now, where's the tape?"

Laura and Eric looked at him blankly.

"What tape?" Eric asked. "We don't know what you're-" Before he could finish, the man stepped forward and hit him brutally in the solar plexus. Eric doubled over and dropped first to his knees and then on his side, gasping for breath. A bitter mix of coffee and bile welled in his throat. His eyes were tearing and he tasted blood from where he had bitten the inside of his lip. The bull pulled him to his feet.

"Just keep your mouth shut," he said. "No talking to her. Now, lady.

As you can see, I'm not a very patient person. Your brother killed a friend of mine and maimed another. It's not going to take much for me to do something similar to this jerk here, or to you.

Laura could only stare at him in fear and disbelief.

"Now," he went on, "word has it that you either have a certain videotape or know where it is. You can save us a lot of time, and both of you a lot of pain, if you'll just tell us where it is."

"I… I don't know what you're talking about," Laura managed.

"Suit yourself. Artie, break one of his fingers."

"Don't, please," Laura cried. "I don't know what you want. I don't know anything about a tape. Please don't do this."

"Artie?"

The man, wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves cut away to accommodate his biceps, handed his crate hook to the bull and advanced on Eric, who was still too dazed to react with any force.

"No!" Laura screamed.

Then, from behind the mountain of oil drums, the engine of a forklift rumbled to life.

"Please, no!" she screamed again.

The three men stopped and turned toward the sound. At that moment a drum came hurtling off the top of the pile. It caught the bull-necked leader squarely in the chest, slamming him against the wall.

As he crumpled to the tarmac the drum burst open, drenching him with heavy black crude, which also splashed onto Laura and Eric.

"Run!" a voice cried out from behind the barrels.

"Get the hell out of here!"

The two men still standing were reaching for guns as Laura grabbed Eric's arm and pulled him through the sticky pool of oil toward the far end of the building. Before they had gone ten yards, there was a shot.

Instinctively they dived to the pavement, but behind them, Artie screamed and fell, clutching his thigh.

"He shot me!" he shrieked. "The fucker 'shot me."

"Run!" the voice shouted again.

As Laura and Eric scrambled to their feet they saw the two men, flattened down in the oil, glaring at someone behind the far end of the barrels.