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Back Blood in the Water Save as PDF
Chapters (82)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. FORTY-ONE
  45. FORTY-TWO
  46. FORTY-THREE
  47. FORTY-FOUR
  48. FORTY-FIVE
  49. FORTY-SIX
  50. FORTY-SEVEN
  51. FORTY-EIGHT
  52. FORTY-NINE
  53. FIFTY
  54. FIFTY-ONE
  55. FIFTY-TWO
  56. FIFTY-THREE
  57. FIFTY-FOUR
  58. FIFTY-FIVE
  59. FIFTY-SIX
  60. FIFTY-SEVEN
  61. FIFTY-EIGHT
  62. FIFTY-NINE
  63. SIXTY
  64. SIXTY-ONE
  65. SIXTY-TWO
  66. SIXTY-THREE
  67. SIXTY-FOUR
  68. SIXTY-FIVE
  69. SIXTY-SIX
  70. SIXTY-SEVEN
  71. SIXTY-EIGHT
  72. SIXTY-NINE
  73. SEVENTY
  74. SEVENTY-ONE
  75. SEVENTY-TWO
  76. SEVENTY-THREE
  77. SEVENTY-FOUR
  78. SEVENTY-FIVE
  79. SEVENTY-SIX
  80. Praise for Blood in the Water
  81. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  82. Newsletter Sign-up

“This is war. It is the same war. America can pretend that it is not, but that does not change the facts.”

“Agent Steele, I am ordering you to end this interrogation!” Brooks demanded.

“I’m not forcing him to talk to me,” Steele said. She looked back at Carpio. “I think he wants to talk to me. I think he needs to talk to me.”

“This is not a war that we started,” Carpio continued. “It is a war that you started. My people only wanted to live in peace. America came to El Salvador. So I came to America. You should understand that more than anyone. You are the hunter. Why do you hunt?”

“We’re done now,” Brooks said. He put a hand under Carpio’s armpit and tried to lift him up, but the chains held.

“You will never get out of here,” Steele said. “I promise you that.”

Carpio stopped even as Brooks tried to pull him along. He stared evenly at Steele, his red-tattooed eyes boring into her. “Agent Steele, you should stop making promises you can’t keep.”

FORTY-NINE

Wednesday, February 6

Long Island was a narrow spit of land in the middle of Boston Harbor, roughly a mile and a half long and a quarter mile wide at its widest spot. It ran south to north and had once been connected to the mainland by a rickety two-lane steel bridge that traversed the half-mile of harbor between its southern tip and the northern end of Moon Island.

The island was owned by the City of Boston, and the southern two-thirds had been used for nearly a century as a dumping ground for society’s less desirable elements. Beginning in the 1820s, the city constructed an almshouse and shipped its poorest and most helpless residents out to work a small farm on the island in exchange for a bed and enough food to sustain themselves.

Over time, the public offenses warranting removal from the public’s dismay to Long Island swayed with the mores of the day. The facilities were used, over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as housing for unwed mothers, as a chronic disease hospital, and as an orphanage. By the early twenty-first century, the island’s facilities, which included one thousand beds, were used primarily to house a combination of drug addicts and homeless men. In 2014, however, the city’s Corps of Engineers condemned the bridge that connected Long Island to the mainland, and residents were given three hours to gather their belongings so that they could be bused one last time off the island. The bridge was subsequently demolished, and the island was left deserted.