Evil Eye

by Michael Slade

  The rectal pack was Evil Eye's idea.

  Stealth and mobility were essential to any suicide run.

  Befuddled by drink and muddled by chronic depression, not once had Tarr seriously questioned his coconspirator's motive.

  Big mistake.

  The world is full of deception.

  9:21 . . .

  9:22 . . .

  9:23 . . .

  JET LAG

  Africa

  The harder the old man hit the bottle, the harder Zinc had to study. Not school study, but study that big well-thumbed anthology of English poems to survive "the gauntlet of the bards." Pop and Zinc were locked in an unhealthy battle of father/son one-upmanship, which Zinc planned to win.

  The midnight oil burned.

  He lost himself in the poems.

  And to this day his favorite remained Wordsworth's The Prelude":

  One summer evening (led by her) I found A little boat tied to a willow tree Within a rocky cave, its usual home. Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice Of mountain echoes did my boat move on; Leaving behind her still, on either side. Small circles glittering idly in the moon. Until they melted all into one track Of sparkling light . . .

  Jet lag held Zinc in its sleepless grasp, internal clock so screwed up it might never tell time again, one good night's rest at Chobe only a brief respite, so now he lay awake in the tent, hands joined behind his head, reciting the words of Wordsworth in his mind, boat out there, stars out there, primal river waiting, the Jewel of the Kalahari, the End of the Earth, here in the Last Eden, going, going, gone, away from the city with its sirens in the night, far from the crap that passed as meaningful life, the boat, the stars, the river calling him, not another human for what? a hundred miles? alone with the deep boom of Pel's fishing owls, punctuated by piping from a zillion reed frogs, hyenas giggling while they burrowed into a kill, nightjars and Peter's fruit bats thrumming air. hippos grunting and snorting in the pool upstream, and roaring from a far-off rogue lion on the hunt.

  Zinc threw back the mosquito net and climbed from damp sheets. He unzipped the tent and stepped out into the night.

  No moon, the track to the boat was lit by stars, silver pinpricks twinkling on the glassy river, parting for the prow as he pushed off. Against the diamonds of celestial wealth, ilala palms, and knob thorns, and rain trees were black.

  I dipped my oars into the silent lake.

  And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat

  Went heaving through the water like a swan . . .

  * * * Not a man-made light around to spoil the view, the Mountie lay back in the boat and gazed up in awe at the stellar display. Twice as many first magnitude stars in the Southern Hemisphere compared to home, he could see the Milky Way spilled across the vault, The Centaur and Southern Cross bright in front, Alpha Cen-tauri, nearest star to us, aligned with Beta Centauri and The Crux, Magellanic Clouds floating away.

  Now as the first hue of dawn pinked the sky to the east, Zinc sat up, gripped the paddle he'd carved from the branch, and dipped it into the river.

  He thought:

  With trembling oars I turned,

  And through the silent water stole my way

  Back to the covert of the willow tree . . .

  Dipping the paddle . . . Dipping the paddle . . . Dip ... He froze midstroke.

  Ahead was the camp, ahead was the tent, ahead was the shore to beach the boat, but flanking the tent were men with guns in their hands, one black, one white, the pair from The Herald clipping, the black aiming at the flap the white unzipped, the white covered by the black as he stepped inside, the white exiting quickly as both men went on the hunt, searching the bush, searching the shore, scanning the stretch of river . . . 'There he is!" the black shouted as Zinc turned the mokoro downstream to paddle for his life.

  The Gray opened fire.

  LAST DANCE

  Georgia Strait

  "I wonder what Zinc's doing?" Alex Hunt said.

  'Time in Africa?" Gill asked.

  "Seven-thirty tomorrow morning. Ten hours ahead."

  "He's awaking after a night of sweet dreams about you, lulled to sleep by the grunting of hippos humping under the stars."

  "Zinc's a country boy," Alex said. "Hope he isn't humping a hippo in substitute for me."

  "Don't worry," Gill said. "He'll come home. No matter how good a hump she is, few hippos look as good as you."

  "You're a bawdy woman."

  "No," Gill said, watching Brit dance. "She's the body woman."

  "Excuse me, ladies," Nick said, rising from the table. He'd been conversing with Katherine Spann, his immediate superior at Special X. "I'll be gone a dance or two. Fence to mend."

  "Dance with Brit," Gill said, "and you won't live the night."

  The band was playing The Drifters' "Save The Last Dance For Me" as Nick crossed the room, weaving between tables of Mounties drinking, flirting, and kibitzing as they have at Red Serge Balls for 121 years. Rachel Kidd and Dermott Toop danced cheek to cheek, while Special 0 cops waltzed around them. "Sorry to cut in," Nick said, tapping Toop's shoulder. "The way this sea is rolling, it may be my last chance. The rest of the cruise will be spent hanging over the side."

  "HI be at the bar," Toop said, relinquishing his date.

  "I thought about it," Craven said, taking Rachel's hand. "If I were you, I'd have charged me, too. Apology accepted. Accept mine?"

  "The hatchet's buried," Kidd said as Brit and Ed whirled by. "Why does a knife-wielding psycho threaten me less than that chick's chest?"

  'Trust the Mad Dog to bring a hooker. Regimental formals would be stuffy without him."

  Rachel tugged the tight collar of her tunic. "Bet it's not stuffy in her air-conditioned gown."

  Nick grinned. "She looks stuffed in to me."

  Craven and Kidd, both in Red Serge with corporals' hooks on their sleeves, him in blue yellow-stripe trousers tucked into box spur boots, her in a matching blue floor-length skirt, made a handsome duo on the crowded floor. Discounting Special 0, however, all eyes were on Brit, the minds behind them hoping or fearing her gown was going to pop.

  Brittany Starr had the best body the Mad Dog had ever fucked. He'd balled a lot of hookers, and she was the queen. Come off an ERT assault with his nerves hot wires, it took a hell of a woman to level that adrenaline out. He could count on Brittany to go all night or day.

  The Mad Dog was the horniest stud Brittany'd ever fucked. She'd milked so many Johns she thought she'd forgotten how to come, until that day the Mad Dog paid her after an ERT assault, rattling her bones until he had her begging for a truce. Truth be known, he was the one man she'd fuck for free.

  "Y'ever thought of settling down?" Brittany asked, making sure he danced with his leg slid between her thighs.

  "Y'ever thought of savin' it for me?" the Mad Dog asked, gazing down her gully all the way to China.

  "Y'ever thought of comin' home to crotchless panties, Hap-penis, musk oil, and—"

  "Hold the thought, Brit."

  Wayne Tarr, without a partner, stumbled onto the dance floor, the look in his eyes what you'd expect from a man facing the gallows. "Where ya been?" the Mad Dog said, collaring him. "I been huntin' for you. Let's talk outside."

  Arm around the unsteady drunk, Ed steered him to the door, ignoring Tarr's protests he had to meet someone inside. The exit off the dance floor led out to the bow. On deck, moonlight shone and dimmed with each

  passing cloud, wind from the west flapping their cuffs and whipping their hair, the sea below rising, falling, rising, falling again, each plunge hurling spray up over the rail.

  ww Pull yourself together, Wayne," Rabidowski said. "Don't disgrace the tunic and don't disgrace the team. Word is the Complaints Commission ruled against undue force. A split-second decision with guns firing all around, you called it as you saw it in a dark room. The report goes out Monday."

  A look of boozy
disbelief loosened Tarr's squint, turning to oh-my-god horror when he noticed the boat alongside. With so many Members aboard, detachments and sections had skeleton crews, so a 580 Hurricane launch equipped with a ninety-horsepower Johnson outboard was rigged to the stern, in case an emergency called someone ashore for chopper pickup. That boat was now in the water, with Evil Eye in control, riding down and up the valleys between the waves, visible, then invisible as clouds smothered the moon, tracking the Good Luck City to keep in radio range.

  Nine thirty-one, by Wayne Tarr's watch.

  In his mind's eye, the suddenly sober dupe of the Suicide Club envisioned his coconspirator pushing the radio-control button.

  'Tm wired!" Tarr shouted. "My ass is crammed with plastique! It's a setup! I'm going to blow! I'm the only bomb!"

  Any other Mountie might hesitate, cold-bloodedness fighting with humanity. But not the Mad Dog. All his strength powered the punch that snapped back Tarr's head, then he heaved the unconscious turncoat over the bow rail.

  Gunning the Hurricane away from the cruise ship, out on the water Evil Eye pressed the deadly button, beaming the radio signal as Tarr plunged into the heaving sea.

  Of no effect underwater, the signal failed to blow the detonator.

  The ship's prow plowed the Pacific like a farmer's field, cleaving the ocean to suck the bow swell under the hull, sweeping the flotsam and jetsam of Wayne Tarr toward the stern. Flanking the rudder and powered by the geared diesels in the engine room, twin four-bladed

  screws churned the passing brine, driving the ship forward through the waves. The port propeller sliced Tarr like fine salami.

  Strike a detonator and it will explode.

  Chunk, chunk, chunk, head to foot the brass blades cut, till ping! one pounded the detonator and set it off, hurling the plastic bomb starboard toward the rudder.

  BOOOOOMMMMPHH! Like a depth charge, the C4 blew underwater.

  Jerking the rudder.

  Jamming it.

  Veering the ship toward the reef called Neptune's Trident.

  MOKORO

  Africa

  Except for the Stampede and canoeing in the woods, Zinc felt his father was never there for him. But had the gauntlet of the bards not led him to Wordsworth, would he have been cruising when the Gray attacked? If not for Pop, would the knife be sheathed at his waist, and would he know how to handle a canoe? Pop may not have been there for him in life, but in death he was here for him now.

  Ironic if Zinc resolved his feelings on the day he died.

  Pfffft! Pfffft! pfffft! Walther shots zipped by.

  Sound suppressors attached to both barrels spoiled the Gray's aim, also hindered by distance and diffused light. The slugs splashed water at Zinc like miniature depth charges, one tearing splinters from the bow above the waterline. Profile to the camp, he paddled paddled paddled.

  The White stuck the Walther into his belt to brace the Browning A-Bolt against his beefy shoulder.

  There were coureurs de bois and voyageurs in the Chandler past. Knees spread wide to balance the mo-

  karOt bod) hunched low to shrink him as a target, shoulders eking every inch of push from the oar. Zinc pr op el led the boat toward a clump of reeds. Glancing left, he saw the White aim the rifle.

  Master eye aligning both sights with Zinc's head, body angled forty Ave degrees right of the target, feet firmly planted shoulder width apart, forestock hand advancing the muzzle so the Mountie rowed into the shot, the mercenary drew a breath, exhaled half, held the rest, then squeezed the trigger.

  The .458 Magnum blast erupted like a bomb, driving birds from the treetops in flocks.

  Sensing he was on a collision course with death, a few yards short of the reeds Zinc shifted weight, leaning back to raise the bow and sink the paddle deep, the boat zigging right a moment before the bullet spit from the barrel, the whine of the Winchester hollow point an inch from his ear, before he zagged back on course into the reeds.

  The White worked the bolt to eject the spent cartridge, then slammed a live round into the chamber. His master eye sighted on the reeds, tracking tassels swaying as the prow parted stalks.

  Again the Magnum boomed.

  No sooner did the mokoro slip into the shelter of green, cliffs of reeds, rushes, and papyrus soaring ten feet up above him, rising dense from the water to reach fine brushlike tips in the air, narrowing the sky to a thin swath parallel to the boat, than Zinc fell forward into the canoe, arms stretching the oar in front of the bow to whip it back and forth against oncoming stalks, trembling tassels six feet ahead as if they were bumped by the prow.

  Sucked in, the White sighted too far forward. The bullet whizzed by where Zinc should be, snapping stalks like a scythe. The Mountie dipped his hand in the water to brake the boat. Bwam! Bwam! Bwam! Three more shots. All off target where the phantom mokoro was thought to be. Zinc heard crashing through the bush away from the camp. Was their boat beached on the far side of the island?

  In here, the Okavango seemed to be an impenetrable jungle of grass. Zinc sat up to paddle on. For half an

  hour he tunneled through interwoven mats, walled in and shadowed by papyrus fronds and the long slashing blades of delta reeds. Stalks parted in V's before the wedged snout of the boat, then sprang back as soft whips that slapped his face. Suddenly, like pickets around an open park, Zinc broke through the green dike onto a dazzling lagoon. The heat was searing. A sun the color of watermelon blazed to the east, hurling rays bounced off the water at his dizzy eyes, silvering lily leaves floating on the surface, their flowers blooming saffron, violet, and rose. To cross the lake he paddled as hard and fast as he could in case the gunmen chanced on him. Emerald-green flashes arrowed across the bow as malachite kingfishers flitted by. Wherever Zinc squinted, there were birds: fish eagles perched high on sentry posts; Pel's fishing owls with extra long claws to catch river bream up to five pounds; water-level trotters with stretched-out toes darting across lily leaves as if on a ballroom floor; lilac-breasted rollers with hues so vivid a king reserved the feathers for his throne. Narrowing in, the lake became a serpentine channel, twisting then turning forward and back through dense swamp growths, first the sun full in his face then burning the nape of his neck, the stream a limpid flow of bronze or white or amethyst according to the light, snaking under a mangosteen hung with sleeping bats, past ugly snuffling warthogs eyeing him hatefully and dragonlike monitor lizards mating on the bank, male straddling female as both flicked their tongues. A mauve heron soaring low just above his head, Zinc rowed through an archer's quiver of wild bamboo to traverse another lake flashing like a mirror. The sun a giant magnifying glass burning him into dust, and sweat pouring from his pores faster than he could replace it with scoops from the river, the Mountie's head throbbed at the Cutthroat wound, the Mountie's muscles knotted where the Ripper stabbed his back, while on and on he paddled into the swamp, past iridescent dragonflies and multicolored frogs, popping two Dilantin against an epileptic fit, channel, lagoon, channel, lagoon, sun to shade to sun, lost in a complex maze akin to Snakes and Ladders, waterways circling in on themselves as loops, some rejoining main river streams, others choked to dead ends by papyrus thatch, time lost backtracking to the last fork,

  direction overpowered by instinct to survive, senses totally immersed in sounds and colors with nothing to do, yet everything to do with him as a man, devolving into the African creature from which we all sprang, till hours of heat broiled everything into a seemless solar blur.

  A Walther shot.

  Zinc glanced over his shoulder to find the Black close behind, sound suppressor missing from the barrel of his gun. The Black stood upright in the long narrow hull, hips swaying rhythmically as he poled the dugout south in a race to overtake him. Three more shots, all off target. The Black wore glasses fogged with sweat, a hindrance hard to overcome with just two hands. Thank God for age, Zinc thought, muscles straining with every do-or-die stroke.

  Hunter and hunted had crossed paths on one of the main stream
s. The gondolier used it because he knew the land. The voyageur chanced upon it when he paddled from a winding canal tangled with bullrushes. An archipelago of islands humped ahead, like a sea serpent swimming in the Okavango. Those an inch or two above the waterline would only be visible in dry times like now, before the floodwaters of the Panhandle crept down. The bow-shaped island directly in Zinc's path forked the river permanently, ilala palms waving above giant umbrella thorns. The string side of the bow ran straight downstream for hundreds of yards, a shooting gallery if Chandler chose that route. Any doubt was settled when the White poled from marsh grass further left to block that fork and cut him off. To the right the island curved like a cutlass blade, the arc of the bow hiding the course of this fork beyond the bulge.

  Zinc branched right.

  The sides of the mokoro cleared the river by three inches, the white sands of the Kalahari just three feet under the hull. So translucent was the water that every detail below, every sunken leaf and frond, was as crisp and vivid as if it floated on the surface. The equinox approaching, the sun was at his back, so Zinc's shadow matched him stroke for stroke, skimming over the sandy bottom patched with submerged reeds, vibrant green with touches of dull red. Under waxy lilies white, pink,

  and blue, this was still wild Africa. A baby crocodile nipped the oar, lips curled over tiny white teeth.

  Zinc looked back.

  The Black was gaining, mekoro designed for poles not paddles.

  Zinc looked down.

  The bottom was retreating, the channel deeper with every stroke.

  Zinc looked forward.

  The bulge was nearing, the island bowing out into the stream.

  Life-or-death questions vexed his aching mind. Was the White poling parallel to him down the straight fork beyond the island to his left, soon to round the point where the channels met, boxing him in a cross fire with the Black? Did the bottom of this fork sink deeper and deeper around the bow, until the Black's pole would no longer reach, unleashing him to cross the channel where hopefully a side canal would take him to a safer part of the Delta?