Black Tide

Chapter Nineteen: Fallout

The sun rose sluggishly over the smog-choked skyline of Los Angeles, painting the city in grimy streaks of orange and gray. The California Joint Task Force (CJTF) headquarters, nestled in an anonymous steel-and-glass building downtown, buzzed with activity as federal agents, local cops, and cyber-security specialists tried to piece together what the hell had happened the night before.

Detective Luis Calderón, a grizzled LAPD veteran with a face that looked like it had been carved out of asphalt, stared at the evidence board in the CJTF’s main conference room. His partner, Agent Jenna Roth, a no-nonsense FBI operative with the patience of a caffeinated squirrel, leaned against the wall, nursing a black coffee that smelled as burnt as her mood.

“Walk me through this shitstorm again,” Roth demanded, gesturing at the images on the board: charred bodies, melted tech, and the obliterated remains of The Serpent’s Grace, the yacht that had served as Sophie LaRue’s floating fortress.

Calderón sighed, rubbing his temples. “Alright, so… Sophie LaRue, AKA Viper, believed to be a top lieutenant of Crimson Dawn, was hosting some kind of high-level meeting on her yacht. Then, BOOM—her entire operation goes up in flames. We found pieces of her guards scattered half a mile down the coast.”

“Pieces?” Roth raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Pieces,” Calderón confirmed grimly. “As in, ‘here’s a femur, there’s a ribcage.’ Real Picasso shit.”

“And we’re sure this wasn’t an inside job?” Roth asked, tapping her nails on the table.

Calderón shook his head. “Doubt it. Whoever did this wasn’t subtle. High-grade explosives, military precision, and no survivors.”

Special Agent Marcus Riddick, the CJTF’s cyber warfare specialist, barged into the room, waving a tablet like it was a holy relic. “We got something!” he announced, his thick Southern drawl cutting through the tension.

“What is it?” Roth snapped.

Riddick grinned, dropping the tablet on the table. “A couple on another boat caught the explosion on cellphone cam while recording some more adult activity.”

“s**t,” Calderón muttered, lighting an e-cigarette despite the NO SMOKING signs plastered everywhere.

“Tell me you’re joking,” Roth said, glaring at Riddick.

“Nope,” Riddick said, tapping the screen. It displayed a video feed of an Asian man bent over, taking a rather long d**k. In the background is a rather larger moments before the explosion. There is a streak from the sky and the yacht is turned into a fireball. “If I am not wrong, that was a Hellfire missile. I don't know, but I think this is Black Tide. If I am right, these guys are a hundred times more terrifying than we thought.”

“Remind me,” Calderón said, exhaling a plume of smoke. “What do we actually know about Black Tide?”

“Not much,” Riddick admitted. “We think they’re a group—maybe ex-military, maybe rogue AI-enhanced operatives. So far, we think they specialize in wiping out terrorist cells, and they’ve got tech way beyond anything we’ve seen. So far, they seem to have a hard-on for Crimson Dawn. But there was also that video that popped up in that Super Project in Shreveport. So, the jury is out on if they hunt certain assholes or are they equal opportunity street sweepers.”

“Jesus,” Roth muttered, staring at the screen. “So, we’ve got a bunch of vigilante ghost-hackers running around with military hardware, and now they’ve turned California into their playground?”

“Looks that way,” Riddick said, grinning like he enjoyed the chaos. “But here’s the kicker: whoever’s behind Black Tide? They’re not sloppy. They scrub their tracks so clean it’s like they were never there. This video just slipped through the cracks.”

The CJTF unit moved through the wreckage of the San Jose safe house like ghosts, their boots crunching over shattered glass and scorched concrete. The air inside was thick with the acrid stench of blood and melted electronics, a nauseating cocktail that turned the stomachs of even the most hardened agents.

Sergeant Luis Calderón squatted near the center of the room, his gloved hand picking through the charred remnants of what used to be a security console. He muttered under his breath, shaking his head as he pulled out a charred hand.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “This wasn’t an attack—it was a damn execution.”

Agent Jenna Roth, standing nearby with her arms crossed, scanned the room with an icy glare. Her sharp eyes landed on the grotesque centerpiece of the c*****e: Marcus Vega, a top Crimson Dawn lieutenant, or what was left of him. His mutilated corpse lies in a bodybag, having been collected from the woods; his limbs are in there with him but not attached. The bodies of his bodyguards were scattered around the house and yard, each killed with surgical precision.

Roth wrinkled her nose. “Looks like they were trying to send a message,” she said, her voice flat, though her grip tightened on the tablet in her hand.

Calderón stood, brushing ash off his knees. “A hell of a message. Vega’s is a damn jigsaw puzzle, his guards got put down with blades, guns, and fists like it was a damn video game, and this place looks like someone set off a precision EMP. What kind of psycho pulls this off?”

“Don’t we already know?”

Calderón sighed, pulling an e-cigarette from his pocket and lighting it despite the protest from his mask. “Yeah. Black Tide. Always the same M.O. High-tech surgical strikes, no survivors, and nothing but bodies as a calling card.”

“Right,” Roth said, tapping on her tablet. “So the question is, who is next? The Cali Crimson Dawn cell is done? They are all dead or in jail, except for their leader, Vex Arcane. And I suspect he is already dead. We just don't have a body.”

“You aren't wrong,” Calderón replied, exhaling smoke. “I would say poor bastard, but I can't think of someone who deserves this more. Whoever Black Tide is, they are getting more done in days than we have in a decade.”

Roth arched an eyebrow. “And we’re supposed to just trust that these vigilantes with god complexes are the good guys? Last I checked, murder wasn’t exactly justice.”

Calderón shrugged, motioning to the c*****e around them. “I think that is the problem. We are cops; we look for justice. These guys prey on the justice system as much as they do their victims. Black Tide plays by their rules.”

Roth scowled, her eyes narrowing. “And what happens when Black Tide decides someone else needs ‘cleaning’? What happens when they go after people we’re supposed to protect?”

“Then it’s our problem,” Calderón said simply. “And God help us all.”