Purgatory Ridge

“Let me tell you a story,” Bridger began. “My third year as a SEAL, I got tapped for an assignment. Me and two others. Top-secret stuff. We meet with these intelligence people and the deal is this: There’s a freighter preparing to depart Singapore, flying the Libyan flag. She’s loaded with phosphates or something, but that ain’t all, because these intelligence guys want to make certain she doesn’t reach Qaddafi. They can’t do anything officially because they don’t want to cause an international incident. So what they propose we do is go under that freighter and attach a line of explosives across the hull. They want us to rig the charges with remote electronic detonation capability. They figure to shadow that freighter, and when it hits high seas, detonate the explosives. They want to make a perforated line across the hull. They’re hoping the stress on the vessel will make it break apart, like tearing a sheet of creased paper, and it will go down looking as if it had all been a tragic accident. I’m thinking these guys are fucking nuts, but they got rank, right? So we do it. Get the explosives and detonators in place, then we all follow that fucking freighter in a little boat of our own. Three days out, we hit rough weather. Encounter eighteen-foot waves. Guy who’s in charge of this operation gives the order. One by one, the charges go off. We’re monitoring their radio broadcasts, and we’re holding our breath, wondering if they’re aware of the explosions. But, hell, you been in gales. You know how noisy it is inside a ship that’s being hammered by rough seas. And each charge by itself is nothing big. Anyway, they don’t say jack about it over the airwaves. The ship, she don’t seem to show any effects. Just keeps right on moving. Everybody’s getting nervous, except the dude who planned the whole thing. He’s telling us all to be patient. And sure enough, about twelve hours later, just as the storm’s starting to let up, that big-ass freighter folds in half and goes to the bottom in a couple miles of ocean. Nothing in the final transmissions says anything about sabotage. It looks like a terrible accident caused by structural flaws and the fury of Mother Nature. Fucking ingenious.”

During the whole story, LePere had been staring at his hands, which were gripping the top of the bar. “You’re saying somebody sank the Teasdale?”

“I’m only saying it’s been done before because I did it. And just think for a minute, Chief. That old scow was due to be scrapped. How much does the Fitzgerald Shipping Company get for a few hundred tons of scrap metal versus insurance on an ore carrier fully loaded? The difference is probably enough to tempt anybody to commit murder. I’d bet my left nut on it.”

That evening, LePere had stumbled from the bar in a daze not due to the boilermakers. He spent a sleepless night reliving the sinking of the Teasdale, dredging up every detail, examining it with bitter care. He thought about the boom that awakened him, that had made the ship pitch so that he’d been thrown from his bunk. He thought about Pete Swanson, the coal passer they’d picked up in Detroit, a man he’d never worked with before, a man whose dying words were “I blew it.” LePere had always thought Swanson was simply delirious. But maybe there was more to it. Maybe he was trying to make a confession before he died, before he went to hell for his treachery. By the time a dingy morning light crept through his bedroom window, LePere had decided.

After his shift the next day, he found Wesley Bridger at a twenty-dollar blackjack table. In front of Bridger were several hefty stacks of green chips.

“I want to talk,” LePere said.

Bridger waved him off. “Later, Chief. I’m on a roll.”

“Now.”

“Okay, okay.” He gathered his chips, tossed one to the dealer, and stuffed the others in his pockets. He followed LePere to the bar.

“Why’d you come to Aurora?” LePere asked.

“Like I told you, Chief. Just kicking around. Doing a little gambling, that’s all. I like the casino here.”

“There are other casinos. Why here?”

Bridger signaled the bartender. “Jack Daniel’s, on the rocks. Anything for you, Chief?”

LePere shook his head.

The whiskey came. Bridger knocked it back.

“Ever since I left the SEALs, I’ve been a gambler. Small-time stuff. Never had the kind of stake it takes to play in the big games. One day I’m in the dentist’s office. Got me an impacted wisdom tooth. I’m in the waiting room, waiting for my turn in the chair, reading this magazine. Great Lakes Journal. I find that story about you and the ore boat that went down. It gets me to thinking about that freighter I had a hand in sinking. I figure if you were to find that wreck, at the very least you could probably prove negligence. But maybe you could prove murder. In either case, a jury is gonna give you a shitload of money. I figure it’s worth the gamble. So here I am.”

“To do what?”