The Deadly Seas

The Deadly Seas

by

Dennis Powers

The Deadly Seas

Copyright 2011 by Dennis Powers

www.dennispowersbooks.com

Also written by Dennis Powers at Smashwords.com:

The Gold Bugs and A World Within Worlds.

Smashwords Edition

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without the author’s written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

All characters, places, and incidents in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Donna Casey

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

About The Author

Chapter 1

Outside the town of Redwood Bay in Northern California, the young man angled his noisy motorcycle up a winding dirt road. He glanced quickly at the cleared fields surrounding the way, littered on both sides with decaying stumps and overtaken by dry weeds and dirty-yellow grass, then turned back to the dark shadows of the dense forest looming ahead.

The clattering of the engine enveloped his world with loud vibrations as he passed into the dense thicket of towering 200-year-old redwood trees. Their cooling shade sealed away the heat and glare of the late afternoon sun into a filtered twilight. After speeding sharply around two S curves, one bearing down, the next swiftly heading uphill, he slowed down as he passed an eroded trail snaking away that disappeared into the dense growth.

Half the width of the path he was driving, the trail was severely pocketed from the late-spring rains and barely able to accommodate a car. A posted sign warned, Private Property–No Trespassing. He knew the dirt path led upwards to a solitary house on the cliffs overlooking Redwood Cove and he had heard that some out-of-towner now owned it. What a crazy place to live, what with it being so isolated, he thought, as he continued another fifty yards and then stopped at the bright, blue clearing that appeared in front.

Looking down to the blue-green ocean, he saw the secluded bay sparkling in the sunlight. Anchored at both ends by rocky outcrops and high bluffs, the narrow white-sand beach stretched for a half-mile. Steep black-rock cliffs surrounded the cove, except for the rock-guarded entrance where he was now. Dotted with low-lying brush and weeds, the hill flowed down to a rock-strewn, sandy prairie that dropped abruptly in several feet to the beach. Although this drop-off was a natural barrier to the normal high tides, it proved to be little protection against the high ones from the severe winter storms that lashed the area.

Pine, cedar and redwood trees were clustered together at the top of the surrounding cliffs, every tree below having been cleared away a century ago. Held in place by the underwater currents and gentle slope, waterlogged branches and seaweed were in scattered pockets along the beach. Piled high in places on the plain were mounds of sun- and water-bleached logs that gave mute evidence of the logging and people who years before had once lived there.

The man was attracted to movement from below. Good, he reflected, there was but one couple around, now walking up to their parked car. They soon would be leaving. This had been another hard day hammering on old man Conrad’s roof, another hot summer’s day to cool off from. He motored slowly down to the hill to where their car was parked, kicked the stand down, and stretched his tired muscles.

Reaching into a motorcycle bag, he took out a six-pack of beer, still cool to the touch and bought ten minutes before at the country market. Nodding politely to the people ahead, he walked with his beer to the partially shaded rocks that jutted from the beach and reached to the seas. The Pacific Ocean lapped at the debris in front of him like a thirsty dog for cool water.

He soon heard the car’s crunching over the small pebbles in the road as it climbed to the small opening, the vehicle’s mechanized, thin whine finally disappearing into the timberlands. The slapping sounds of waves against rocks and shrill cries of the seagulls flying overhead captured his attention. He was finally alone and a satisfied grin came to his face.

Finding a flat place on the rocks, he sat down to unlace his dusty sneakers and kicked them away. Stripping his soiled T-shirt off, the young man admired his deeply tanned, lean body that was used to a hard day’s work under the sun. An early evening breeze began to pick up and felt good against his sweaty brow. With a loud psst, he opened a can of beer and took a long guzzle with the swirling liquid comforting his parched throat.

Dangling his feet in the water, he quickly finished the first can, opened another, and placed the remaining ones in the sea by the rocks. Placing a heavy rock over them to keep the invisible currents from sweeping them away, the man leaned against an outcropping that led up from the rocks. He sipped his beer and looked around the sweeping beach.

He had heard someone – probably the new owner – had bought the cove for some kind of a building project. Maybe there would be more work after Conrad’s job was done. You always had to hustle for work around here, but, then again, this wasn’t a bad life. You could always take your time and relax, whether you were on the job or not.

He tossed his thoughts around absent-mindedly while sipping a second beer. As the sun began to lower into the horizon, however, he decided it was time to get off his butt and take that swim, drink another cold one, and then hightail it home to be with his girlfriend. As he waded from the rocks, the water quickly came to his waist and soon slapped against his upper body and face. The swell of a wave carried him upwards, and then down as it passed.

Although starting to build from the increasing winds and tides, the waves averaged three and four feet. Diving into the ocean, he swam out further, stopped, and treaded water. After swimming along the coastline for several minutes, the man began angling his way slowly back to the rocks and another beer.

The waves rhythmically pulsated towards the beach in sets of twos and threes. A hundred yards offshore, a larger wave began building. Another started to swell behind the first, but to one side of the channel and away from the first. Heading to the shoreline, the swimmer was unaware of what was happening behind him.

Sweeping into the rocky cove at an angle, the two waves built up and dominated the smaller ones. Fifteen seconds later, they crashed into one another in a frothy spray of water, both ends protruding out in long, sweeping tails from their growing middle. Instead of crossing over and canceling themselves out, the two waves bulged into a swollen mass twice as big as before. Owing to the shape of the bay and the tides, they merged together and overtook a smaller one, growing grotesquely over the normal wave sets now pushing the solitary swimmer to the rocks. The freak, rogue wave swept towards the unsuspecting man, now wading to the rocky outcropping.

Strange feeling, he thought. Maybe it was the beer, or swimming, or something. He then noticed that the currents had swept away the large rock weighing down the beer, and the cans were swirling away like metal flakes caught in a magnet’s field. Speeding past him, the man tried to catch one, but missed it as the container sailed past his outreached hand. Sweeping past his legs, the seawater pulled all of them away. When he was nearly pitched backwards, the young man felt a jolt of anxiety.

Back still turned, he scampered up the first rock and turned to see what was happening. Looking upwards, he saw the giant wave breaking ten feet over him with no time to react except for a split-second of dread and wonderment. That was the man’s last thought, as the huge, powerful wave dashed him against the rocky outcropping, smashing his head with one savage punch and pummeling the now unconscious youth over the ledge.

The wave exploded against the outcropping in a thunderous spray, its convulsions pounding up, wrenching the body likewise, as a weightlifter rips a light object up with too much strength. The voluminous waters broke over both sides of the rocky outlet and smacked with a resounding whomp against the rocks, surging past the normal waterline with a flood of seawater.

The wave height dropped as the crest passed and its energies were spent in pounding forward. Keeping the body inside its deadly grasp, the swirling ocean pulsated before angling back. Driftwood and seaweed jerked about in a strange tribal dance, as the man’s head briefly bobbed in the low waters, only to be jerked down by the strong currents.

The receding sea pulled the dead man into the ocean, back into the shallow waters of the bay. With the sun flashing into the horizon, the cove seemingly returned to normalcy, the young man captured under twenty feet of seawater, arms outstretched, legs entangled in kelp. A water-stained beach with scattered debris and flotsam left in a crazy-quilt mosaic was the only evidence of what had just happened.

The high tide later deposited the pale, bruised body face down on the beach onto a final resting place near the rocks. The sounds of the night mingled with that of the waves, lapping at the driftwood, branches, bulbs of seaweed, and swaying feet. The motorcycle stood silhouetted on the hillside above in silent testimony that its former owner had once been alive.

Chapter 2

Eighteen months later, the deep rumblings of a bulldozer echoed throughout the mid-morning to the cliff tops overlooking Redwood Cove. Staring down at the dark exhaust that spewed out in long puffs, Doug Russell stood at the grove of redwood trees and watched the tractor work to cut out a road between the tiny red flags that led up.

With the ocean’s shimmering outline below, six small houses stood in a line behind the beach, as a gravel road winded back to where the bulldozer was plowing. Built on caissons, the structures looked like matchboxes that had been glued to tiny toothpicks. Concrete pads and supporting beams in place, the spidery legs of more caissons reached up in four places behind them, while miniature-looking workmen were inserting steel rebar to construct two more.

In a matter of months, Russell reflected, the life that he now disliked would be behind him. It had been so easy, and so profitable at first. He had grown up in a poor neighborhood in South San Francisco and attended San Francisco State on a football scholarship. He decided while there that dealing in pot was an easier way to make a living than graduating and working in some sterile office building for somebody else. He dropped out in his third year to concentrate solely on that. What had been fun in the beginning, however, had now turned into all-too-serious, too-paranoid business.

After sizing up his twelve-unit development, Russell turned around and walked the short distance back to his house. Although in his late-forties, he was still in good shape, all due to the intense, everyday workouts he forced himself to endure. He usually wore a Western shirt, blue jeans and cowboy boots of rattlesnake skin, today being no different. His thick, dark-brown hair was streaked with gray and expensively styled. Disarmingly-friendly brown eyes complemented an attractive but rough face. However, those eyes could unexpectedly take on a sharp, no-nonsense glint, as they did now.

The gold rush in Northern California’s marijuana growing and selling had enticed Russell in the beginning. In this part of the country, working in marijuana is a business of choice and this is California’s first or second largest cash crop, depending on which newspaper you read. Redwood Bay is in Humboldt County which – along with adjoining Mendocino County – was where pot growing is a major industry. Despite the persistent efforts of state and federal agencies, the continuing depression in the timber, fishing and other industries force residents into embracing this cottage industry. People with not much money have a way of doing that.

Russell had expanded from his base of college students and professors to include supplying the stockbrokers, lawyers, contractors, and professional businessmen and women from San Francisco and Marin County north to the Oregon border. He wasn’t the only supplier, but he tried to run the best one. He would buy quality product from the small, independent growers at wholesale prices, and then retail them at prices slightly lower than the market through college students, suburban housewives, and even mailmen.

Russell had steered clear of dealing in meth, crack cocaine and other hard drugs. He had a belief that marijuana was the lesser of the evils with his desire to own a manageable business that had long-term growth prospects. But that fairy tale had now become sleepless nights, an ulcer and no fun – with a reoccurring nightmare of not being able to breathe in a windowless, airtight room, waking up in a cold sweat and feeling that someone or something was reaching out for him.

The house was pure Doug Russell. Purchased one and one-half years ago from an over-extended developer, he had cut a tough deal to include the land in Redwood Cove. Having decided to change from dealing in dope to dealing in real estate, his approach would be the same, the only difference being that the government would consider this one to be legal. The house before him emphasized the split in his life.

Built five years ago in an L shape, a wing of three bedrooms and two baths swept to the back from the left side of the spacious living room that directly faced the plunging cliff. Designed with large, glass windows for the sweeping views of forests, blue skies, small cove and the ocean, a luxurious, deep-pile white carpet covered the living and dining areas.

Furniture of gleaming, polished metal and black glass with exquisitely designed, hand-crafted redwood pieces were built specifically for his house. Original paintings of forests, oceans and clipper ships adorned the walls. Shiny, large green plants were scattered throughout, even adorning the expansive, stainless steel kitchen with its huge butcher-block built in the middle. This was a house that matched his diverse and expensive but not generally extravagant tastes.

The practicalities of Doug Russell’s world, however, had forced him to add a few extras to go along with his new furnishings. Sophisticated security alarms and listening devices had been installed throughout the home and grounds, ranging from hidden television cameras monitoring every area to motion-sensitive alarms surrounding the structure. A large metal satellite dish was on top of the spacious three-car garage.

This was not to receive television signals, however, but to transmit confidential, radio-telephone communications whenever needed. The windows were replaced with smoke-gray glass so that no one could see in, but those inside could clearly see out. The outside grounds were cleared of brush and trees from the cliffside and back that allowed a helicopter to land, as well as depriving anyone of places to hide.

A high chain-link fence swept around the perimeter. Doberman Pinschers patrolled the inside, although Russell was not a fan of these types of dogs – essential but not the type that you wanted your mother to meet. Not to mention, he hated all of the required security when he thought back as to how it had been so unnecessary before, even when he had become successful in a business not known for its longevity.

Stepping inside the living room, Russell spotted his attorney, Mike Halston, still talking on the telephone. The two were a study in contrasts. Mike Halston was fifty-five years old and had known Doug for twenty years, dating back to Russell’s first drug bust when the barrister had freed him over one of the legal technicalities that the lawyer knew so well. Halston was overweight, bald with curly blonde fringes at the sides, and had grandfatherly-looking blue eyes. He looked like Friar Tuck in a business suit when in court, and Halston used this to his advantage when working to convince a judge that didn’t know what he would do to get a client off – which was anything from manufacturing evidence to coaching perjury.

As he told everyone, he had been married for too many years to count, with two kids who by now were totally screwed up. Halston had various girlfriends during his marriage, none of whom had stayed with him for any length of time. He said he had recently found another one, although no one had yet met her or even knew her name. This time, hopefully, it would be one who didn’t want any more amenities than he thought she was worth.

The two had met early in their careers. An alert, undercover detective had noticed Russell while working a sporadic college beat, and Doug had made two cardinal mistakes that he never again repeated. The first was becoming intimately involved with one of his dealers, and the second was failing to keep himself totally distanced from the distribution. In this case, one of his dealers was a cute young thing – to use his words – looking for the proverbial fast buck. When the detective put the pressure on her, she without hesitation pointed the finger directly at him. After Russell arrived at her apartment for a fun-filled evening of pot-smoking and sex, the police busted him as he handed over several bags of pot for her to sell.

Russell had heard about Halston from one of his retailers who had used him when a sale had gone sour due to the wrong people buying the goods – namely the cops. When Halston used an illegal search and seizure argument, the man had gotten clean off. The attorney was also able to get Doug off on a technicality, arguing this time that it was a police setup, or entrapment, that an unsuspecting judge swallowed on a pre-trial, procedural motion. Halston loved to work over the system and at the same time make good money. He hated judges and laws, dating back to when his authoritarian father beat the hell out of him for putting an extra tablespoon of sugar on his cereal, or do anything else that was against his father’s instructions. Given this motivation and success, Doug used Halston for all of his legal and illegal requirements.

Since Doug Russell was a natural businessman with his operations growing quickly, these needs became considerable. By this time Halston was buying pot from twenty independent growers and retailing pot weekly to hundreds and hundreds of very satisfied professionals. As he prospered, so did Halston. After five years, Halston didn’t need any other clients as all of them were the suppliers, customers and go betweens in Doug’s operations. Russell was netting over two-million dollars annually in tax-free cash, while Halston was getting a