The Heavens Rise (29 page)

“Hey, Ferriot? You seen my phone?”

G
et down!” Nikki cried.

They were flying through Jefferson Parish on Interstate 10, passing the broad off-ramps to various shopping malls, cavernous hangarlike buildings where Ben had done last-minute Christmas shopping in another life. He’d been dialing numbers so frantically he’d missed the flare-up of police lights behind them. Now he lowered his head and watched as Nikki looked into the rearview mirror and let her foot off the gas.

“No, no, no!” Ben protested. “C’mon. You gotta—”

“Hush.”

The police car was gaining on them, lights flaring, siren wailing. They’d been doing ninety since hooking up with the interstate behind the airport. Ben had been curled into a ball for the first twenty minutes of the drive until he realized the nausea was actually more bearable when he was sitting up. By the time he got his bearings they’d been
cutting through the sea of cypresses that cradled the 310 Freeway, leaving the towering Luling–Destrehan Bridge in their wake, and crossing behind the airport’s runways. Wherever Noah had taken him, it had been on the west bank of the river.

But now they were just a few minutes from the best off-ramp to get to Anthem’s apartment and Nikki was letting a cop car get within inches of their rear bumper. “Gotcha,” she whispered.

The cop car suddenly swerved to one side and slammed nose-first into the concrete divider. She hadn’t just let the car gain on them; she’d been letting the driver get within range.

“You have a test question, right? If you get him. You understand what I mean, don’t you? In case Marshall’s already—”

“Yeah. I’ve got one.”

“You need to throw up?”

“No.”

“Are you lying?”

“Yes. Nikki . . . how long until I can . . .”

“I don’t know, Ben. It was days with me, but I didn’t know what had really happened to me. It could be sooner. I don’t know.”

“Jesus!
”

“Just open the door, I’ll slow down and—”

“No, no, no. It’s not that. He’s on
call.
I forgot. He’s probably on a ship right now.”

“He’s safer on a ship.”

“He wouldn’t go out on one without his phone. He needs it. He uses it to communicate with the relief pilot.”

The great hulk of the new pumping station they’d installed next to the broad, flood-prone dip in the interstate flew past the left-hand side of the Jeep, then they were passing under the train trestle, and two expansive aboveground cemeteries appeared on either side of the freeway. The city was within sight now, the South Carrollton off-ramp dead ahead.

“Do I get off?”

“I don’t . . .”

“
Ben.
Should I get off?”

“I don’t know. Just wait. Just hold on—”

A call to information put him through to Vessel Traffic Control, the small bunkerlike building where all the bar pilots monitored their own river traffic. Each station was manned by an off-duty pilot, and chances were high at least one of those pilots would be a member of the Landry family. A gruff male voice answered before Ben could rehearse his words. So he went with his first instinct.

“Are any of the Landry brothers working a shift tonight? I have to speak to them immediately. There’s been a family emergency.”

“And who’s this?”

“My name is Ben. I’m a close friend of their brother, Anthem. There’s been an accident.”

“There’s been an accident, you say?”

“Yes. I’m trying to get in touch with any of the Landry brothers. Merit or Greg or—”

“Hold on,” the guy said. The curtness of his response suggested that either Merit or Greg was working one of the computers in the other room, maybe within sight of the guy’s desk, and he wanted nothing more than to pass off this crazy dead-of-night caller to one of them as soon as he could.

“Ben?” It was Greg Landry. The last time they’d spoken had been at a family crawfish bowl a few weeks earlier, where the family was shot through by a wary optimism over Anthem’s newfound sobriety. Radio calls squawked in the background; Greg must have picked up in the central control room.

“What accident? Anthem’s on a ship.”

“Where’s the ship?”

“Uh, sheesh . . . I don’t know. I know it’s grain and it’s headed south for a handoff to a Crescent City pilot at Chalmette. One of its containers is cracked . . . What the hell’s going on, Ben?”

“Find out if he got on alone. If he didn’t, we have a very serious problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Find out, Greg. You said he’s headed south? Toward downtown?”

“Yeah. I can give you his exact position . . .”

“I need to know if he’s
alone,
Greg. He’s not answering his cell phone.”

“Now just hold on a second. Okay? Hold on! He’s got his radio with him.”

Nikki said, “Where am I headed?” Ben gestured dead ahead, toward the mushroom swell of the Superdome and the brightly lit skyscrapers of the Central Business District. The radio noises continued in the background. Greg Landry must have been sitting at his station when he answered the phone, and he didn’t even bother putting his hand over the receiver as he asked the guy next to him, “You talked to A-Team since he boarded?”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Ben cried. “Don’t radio the ship!”

“Well, how in the hell do you expect me to—”

“Listen to me, Greg. And I promise you, I am not fucking around here, okay? So you have to listen to me here—”

“I’m
listening,
for Christ’s sake!”

“If he didn’t get on the ship alone, then he’s in danger—”

But Greg was talking to the man next to him in the control room again, his tone urgent.

“Greg!”

“He’s not alone,” Greg said into the phone. “Guy next to me just talked to the pilot who handed off to him at Destrehan. He said some . . .” To the guy next to him, Greg said, “What frickin’ cousin?”

Greg’s simple question—What frickin’ cousin?—resounded over and over again in Ben’s head like cannon fire.

“You want to tell me what the hell’s going on here, Benny?”

“There’s been a threat against Anthem,” Ben said.

“A threat against— What kind of threat? Like terrorism?”

“Something like that.”

What frickin’ cousin? What frickin’ cousin? What frickin’
—

“You think somebody got on with him?” Greg said, dropping his voice so as not to be overheard. “Benny. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“Mother of Christ. I’m calling the ship, for Christ’s sake!”

“No! Don’t do that! You’ll tip him off.”

“Then he’ll use the code word we’ve got for hijackings.”

“Just tell me where the ship is!”

“Ben, you’re not making any goddamn—”

“Tell me where he is!”

His scream frightened Nikki so badly she winced and brought one hand to her mouth. There was a stunned silence from the other end. But Ben didn’t care about any of it. He was trying to strategize in his head.
Can’t go behind the floodwalls ’cause we might miss the ship and then we’ll get trapped. And how much range do we have anyway and what good can I do if I can’t see inside of the ship or the bridge or where they are? I’ve got to get high up and the whole city’s below sea level. Have to get downtown. One River Place. The Hilton. Or the bridge. That’s it, that’s it. The bridge. Have to get on the bridge. But what will we do then? Something. That’s all. That’s all anyone can ever do. Something, goddammit.

“They passed the Upper Nine about fifteen minutes ago,” Greg said, sounding stunned by Ben’s eruption. “That’s Audubon Park. They’ll hit the base of Canal Street in a few minutes.”

What frickin’ cousin? What frickin’ cousin? What frickin’—

“If you have a terrorist protocol, activate it. Activate it now.”

Greg inhaled sharply, but before he could respond, a familiar, static-spiked voice echoed through the room on the other end of the line, sending a spike of cold fear through the center of Ben’s gut.

“Heeeeeelllllooooo everyone? Is anyone theeeeeerrrrree?”

There was a rustle against the phone, probably because Greg was setting it down on a table. But Ben could still hear everything: the click of Greg answering the radio call from the man he thought was his brother, and then Greg’s voice saying, too softly, too controlled, “Hey, man. It’s your brotha. How’s everything going out there tonight?”

“My
brother,
huh?” came the coy, probing response.

He doesn’t know his name, doesn’t recognize the voice. He doesn’t know his name because it’s not him anymore.

“Yeah, man,” Greg answered, trying to play it cool even though his voice had the tension of a high wire. “How’s that Panamax treating yah, A- Team?”

“Oh, it’s just fine,” Anthem’s voice said, and then in the background, Ben heard something else. Crying. A man crying. Not just crying. A pathetic, terrifying and yet somehow universal sound: a man pleading for his life. “Listen up,
brotha
”—and this snide ridicule of Greg Landry’s Lakefront accent was all it took to confirm Ben’s most horrifying fear—“there’s something I want y’all to hear!”

The gunshots came so close together it was impossible to tell how many there were.

G
unfire swallowed the quartermaster’s cries for mercy.

Amazing how the body just drops like that
, Marshall thought. He was crouched in the back corner of the deck. He had, only seconds before, closed the interior entrance to the main deck, and now he was studying his handiwork with a calming sense of satisfaction. No grasping at the chest, no arms opening to God above. Just sudden deadweight hitting the floor like a ton of bricks.

And now Anthem Landry towered over the crumpled form of his third and final victim, the gun in his right hand, the walkie-talkie in his left; the latter erupting with terrified demands for information from Vessel Traffic Control.

Marshall saved the quartermaster for last not because he was the smallest, but because he’d been alone at the wheel while the captain and chief mate had been huddled in discussion close to one of the exits.
Four shots had taken down both men, then Anthem had crossed the deck in several long, effortless strides, aiming the gun at the terrified, screaming quartermaster as he threw the lock on both doors. All these tasks had been completed effortlessly by the blood-lashed, gun-wielding pilot, probably because a man whose arm wasn’t aching from the gun’s recoil was controlling his every move.

And now the call had been made, the final murder recorded for posterity’s sake. The interior entrance was locked, which meant anyone who tried to break in from the side staircases would be exposed to gunfire on the landings outside. It had all come together so beautifully; he allowed himself several moments to just savor it. Even the blood splatters throughout the bridge were just a faint, delicate glisten in the radar screen’s green glow.

Up ahead, the Crescent City Connection blazed high above the rippling black waters.

He couldn’t wait too long. The clock was winding down. The heart of the city that had stupidly declared Anthem Landry a hero would soon be exposed to the ship’s giant prow.

Anthem Landry raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth, pressed the button and began to speak. “Answer me a question, brotha, motha, and whoever else can hear me on this beautiful night. Don’t you have days when you’re just ready to be done with this place? With this whole fuckin’ city, I mean. Don’t any of you get tired of pretending this place wasn’t meant to fall into the fucking sea? Anyone? Anyone?”

•   •   •

Could they get there ahead of the ship? Were they ahead of it right now? There was no getting Greg’s attention back. He was too busy trying to break in on his brother’s full-scale mental breakdown. And he was failing. Anthem wasn’t interested in being interrupted. Marshall Ferriot wasn’t interested in being interrupted.

“ . . . You know how fucked up it feels to have everyone call you a
hero, only to turn around and realize you’re the hero of a giant shit pile full of niggers and drunks? It’s like being handed a medal and realizing it’s covered in piss. A piss medal. Hey, maybe I just invented a new term. How about that?”

“What the fuck, man?” Greg Landry wailed into the phone. “What the fuck is happening?”

“It’s not him, Greg.”

“What do you mean it’s not—” Voices on the other end of the line interrupted him. They were gruff, authoritative, trying for a sympathetic tone and failing in their eagerness to get Greg Landry out of the control room. He was losing his shit.

“Who is this?” a new voice said.

“My name’s Ben Broyard. I called about a threat we received against Anthem Landry at our offices earlier tonight—” When the guy didn’t ask all the questions he should have been asking, like What office? and What does threat mean? Ben understood the level of terror that now gripped everyone at Vessel Traffic Control.

In the background, the venomous diatribe continued. “ . . . Fact is, we ignored our own history. No city ever should have been built here. This damn river! It’s just a giant toilet for the rest of the country. And we’re the sewer! And do you know what that means? Do you know what that means for every last one of us? We live in shit! That’s what!”

When the stranger spoke again, his attempt to enunciate every syllable only caused his voice to wobble even more. “I’ve known Anthem Landry most of my life. And that’s Anthem Landry’s voice we’re hearin’. So tell me, just who in the hell is this threat
against
?”

Shouts erupted in the control room and, after a few seconds of this melee, Ben heard a recurring phrase: He’s turning. He’s turning the thing. He’s turning.

“Where?” Ben shouted. “How’s he turning it around so quickly?”

“He’s not turning it around. And it’s empty.”

“Empty. Isn’t that good?”

“No. It means its got no weight. It’ll ride up over anything it hits and just keep on going. And they were just starting to drain the ballast so the bow’s still sticking up out of the water and . . . Aw, Jesus . . .” The man groaned. “Aw, no, no, no . . .”