3.
 Lt. Linsey Simon, of the uniformed Harbor Police Division, watched the proceedings from a small police patrol boat within her jurisdiction inside San Diego Bay. As she kept binoculars before her eyes, she steadied her elbows on the control panel on the canvas-topped bridge as the small patrol boat heaved lightly in calm channel currents. Linsey Simon was a trim, 30ish woman wearing a dark blue uniform and baseball cap of her police service. She looked swallowed up by a red life vest and belt full of equipment, including a 9 mm Gluck and extra clips. The swallowed-up look was deceptive, and her small, wiry body was like a steel spring curled up in all that gear. She was one of the fastest runners and strongest swimmers on the force. With a black belt in Judo, she was known for good instincts and making good critical decisions under fire. Her husband, Jack Simon, locally well-known and tough-talking journalist, had ample respect for Linsey's determination and capabilities and enjoyed her attractive feminine side. Her associates respected her, and at the moment her partner Cleveland "Cleve" Bartlett and two other uniformed officers looked relaxed as they waited on the main deck below for her leadership. The three men—wearing the same dark uniforms, orange vests, and armaments as Linsey—comfortably eyeballed their leader and the decisions she was making about the strange ship clanking slowly toward the harbor mouth. Cleve wasn't actually Linsey's partner anymore, not since she'd made rank, but he was the colleague she always took with her when she went in the field and needed a backup person in the car or boat, wherever her duties took her. Recently, she'd been doing plain clothes liaison work uptown with a Federal task force, and that was taking her ever more away from being grounded in her chosen profession. But it was all interesting.
As she watched Lima Voyager chugging in on the tide, Linsey thought there was something painfully strange about the ugly ship that was about to enter the harbor and tie up at a private pier within the 32nd Street Naval Yard. Maybe it was the ship's tawdry appearance versus the clean Coast Guard and Harbor Pilot vessels surrounding her. In Linsey's business, you looked hard—real hard—for the hidden drug deal, the approaching terrorist, the bomber, the smuggler. It was something every peace officer took deadly seriously, because the nation was under constant threat of attack from those who fanatically hated her, and the slightest slip or oversight could mean the death of thousands. So what was it about this clattering tub? Some corporation was paying top dollar for this piece of scrap to float into an expensive berth. What was that all about? Lt. Linsey Simon had a funny idea she wasn't seeing the last of this cargo tramp. Drugs? That was the likely profile, but something about this vessel didn't quite jibe.
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Copyright © 2014 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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