by Matt Lincoln
“You’ve got some, well…” I gestured all around my own face as I gazed at my partner’s, which was pretty much covered in chocolate at that point.
“Whoops, sorry,” Holm said, grabbing his napkin and dabbing a bit at his face, though it didn’t help much. “Did I get it?”
“Sure,” I chuckled, realizing that he was probably a lost cause at that point, given that he still had half his plate left.
“Well, do we think it’s that ship of yours, Marston?” Muñoz asked, ignoring Holm and me. “We know they’re looking for it, right?”
My pulse quickened at the mere mention of the Dragon’s Rogue.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly, shaking my head. “The ship was originally built and commissioned in Europe, but I’ve been operating under the assumption all this time that it’s somewhere in the Americas’ waters, based on its last known location, and that stuff with the Searcher’s Chance. I suppose it’s a possibility, though.”
“These people are like, obsessed with this stuff though, right?” Birn asked. “Like you, but even more. It could be anything, then, right? There are other long lost pirate ships out there. If I’ve learned anything working with you, it’s that.”
“I wouldn’t say that anyone’s more obsessed than him,” Holm said, jutting a chocolate-covered thumb in my general direction.
“Alright, alright,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Point taken. But what he means is that they look for more than one ship, while I’ve only ever really intentionally looked for the Dragon’s Rogue and maybe the Searcher’s Chance. The rest of it all just kind of fell in my lap.”
“Yeah, because only you would have buried treasure falling right into your lap,” Holm said, rolling his eyes.
“Hey, you were with me when we found Lafitte’s ship,” I pointed out.
“Please,” he scoffed. “There’s no way I would’ve even ended up on that mission unless I was with you.”
“So you’re saying I’m a better agent than you,” I teased.
“No, I’m saying you’re a weirder one,” he corrected, and I had to give him that one as we all laughed.
“Birn’s point is, this could be any artifact that they’re looking for, right?” Muñoz asked. “Or do they only work on one project at once? This is the part of their file you’ve been working on, Marston.”
Everyone looked to me for confirmation, and I nodded.
“Yeah, I mean, they have to, right?” I asked. “We know that they found Lafitte’s ship sometime in the last year, then pawned it off on Clifton Beck, that gang leader from New Orleans, for some reason that really doesn’t make any sense yet. At the same time, they had that thug Joey working on the whole Dragon’s Rogue and Grendel’s journal thing in Virginia.”
“Wait, why doesn’t that make sense?” Muñoz asked, holding up a finger to stop me. “I thought they did that as a way of helping out with the whole Haitian zombie drug thing you guys were working on.”
“Yeah, but why did they want it in circulation in New Orleans?” I asked. “It wasn’t their drug. They weren’t making any money off of it, as far as we know, and we’ve looked deep into it. If they were directly involved, we would know it by now. And why’d they leave all that treasure on board for the gangbangers to just take instead of keeping it for themselves? None of it adds up.”
“Weren’t they tailing you in Haiti, too?” Birn asked.
“Someone was,” I confirmed with another nod, wiping some syrup off my own lip. “That’s how they knew I was looking for the Dragon’s Rogue in the first place.”
“This is gonna sound crazy, but hear me out,” Muñoz said, and I nodded yet again. “Do you think that maybe they left Lafitte’s ship there for you to find?”
I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth, gravy dripping off the biscuit and down onto one of the pancakes.
“I… I hadn’t thought of that,” I managed, blinking at her.
I really hadn’t, though now that she mentioned it, I wasn’t at all sure why. The Hollands had sent me the fake journal, after all, and they’d been constructing a fake Dragon’s Rogue for me to find, too. So why not Lafitte’s ship? Was it even the real deal? Could it be a fake, too? I hadn’t had much time to look at it or any of its contents before the FBI hauled it away. An expert like George, or maybe even Percy, would be able to tell for sure.
“You think that was a fake like the other one?” Holm asked in a hushed tone, reading my mind. I looked over and saw that he’d all but abandoned what was left of his own meal, as well.
“I… I don’t know,” I stammered, my mind and heart still racing in tandem at the possibility. “The FBI took everything, and Diane hasn’t been able to find anything out about it since.”
“I mean, it’s our case now, though, right?” Birn asked with a shrug. “That turned out to be a Holland case, even though we didn’t know it before.”
“Yeah, but Diane said they’re still cagey about it all,” I explained. This had been a sore spot over the last several weeks between Diane and me. I wouldn’t shut up about it, and she wouldn’t stop telling me that the FBI would get around to it when they got around to it. They just needed to finish their own evaluation of the artifacts first. When they did, we would be the first to know their findings.
“Cagey?!” Holm explained. “I swear, this is our case. They’ll do anything to keep this stuff from us. Don’t they care about actually catching the bad guys?”
“Of course they do,” Muñoz scolded. “And not all FBI agents are like Smith. Didn’t we just all have it out about this an hour ago? Aren’t you done yet?”
She had a point. Complaining about the FBI’s involvement with this case wasn’t going to get us anywhere.
“Hey, isn’t that woman agent you worked with in NOLA on that case?” Birn asked. “I mean, she was down there with you, there when you found the ship. It’d make sense if she was in on the whole thing.”
“And you said she was cagey about the Holland case, too, when you talked to her last,” Holm said excitedly, pointing his fork at me and sending droplets of chocolate all over the table between us. “I bet he’s right. She must be working on that!”
“I don’t know,” I said cautiously, shaking my head and not wanting to get my own hopes up. “I know they sent her back to teach some classes at the academy while she wound down from her undercover work.”
“But she’s not doing that anymore, right?” Holm asked, his eagerness unabated. “Otherwise, why would she be all weird about talking to you about it?”
“I don’t know,” I said again, a little sharper this time. “And I’ll let you know what she says as soon as I hear from her, just like I promised earlier. Until then, there’s no use worrying about it.”
I said this just as much to convince myself as I did them. I wasn’t sure what to make of all this speculating. Muñoz’s new theory was going to stick with me for a while, and I knew that. And I couldn’t exactly afford to get distracted right now, not if Holm and I were going to prove that they needed us in Scotland.
“Well, if the ship is a fake, the question remains as to why,” Muñoz said, determined not to drop the subject as she narrowed her eyes and furrowed her brow, lost deep in thought.
“I thought you just said why,” Holm pointed out, flicking his still-chocolaty fork in her direction now. “Because they wanted to mess with Marston after finding out he was looking for the Dragon’s Rogue in Haiti.”
“Yes, that’s the why, but how,” Muñoz clarified. “That still doesn’t make sense to me.”
Holm looked just as confused as he was before she said this, but I knew exactly what she meant.
“The question is, how was Lafitte’s ship supposed to mess with me?” I asked as an explanation for Holm and Birn, who also looked a little lost. “I wasn’t looking for it like the Dragon’s Rogue, was I? The reason for the fake journal and the fake Dragon’s Rogue was to get me to give up looking or even to think I found the ship when I really didn’t. None
of that holds in this situation.”
“I guess you’re right,” Birn said, now adopting the same thoughtful look that was etched across his partner’s face.
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Holm said with a sigh, setting down his fork at long last. “Or doesn’t, I mean.”
“And the treasure wouldn’t make sense either,” I added. “And all the artifacts. Could all of those have been fake, too?”
“It didn’t look fake,” Holm said almost defensively as if he didn’t even want to think about that possibility.
“Neither did Grendel’s journal,” I pointed out. “I never would’ve been able to tell if it weren’t for that old book repairman Percy’s help. And even he said that most appraisers wouldn’t be able to tell, it was that good of a forgery.”
“Well then, we need to tell the FBI that,” Birn said quickly. “Do they know?”
“Yeah, they know everything about my search for the Dragon’s Rogue now,” I said with a nod, staring down at the plate in front of me.
This was a sore spot for me, for some reason. It was bad enough having everyone at MBLIS now directly involved in my search, but the FBI, too? This was supposed to be a thing between myself and my grandfather, and now between Tessa and me. For some reason that I couldn’t quite explain, that bothered me. I didn’t want all these strangers all up in my business like that, and I did consider the Dragon’s Rogue to be my business, in a way.
“I wonder if they’ve considered all this,” Muñoz mused, sipping on her coffee as she spoke, holding the cup between both of her hands. “They may not have since they’re not as close to the case.”
“Which is why we should have the damn ship!” Holm exclaimed. “And why we should be on a plane to Scotland right now. We’re the ones most familiar with the case, so we should be the ones who are working it.”
I didn’t disagree, but if Holm continued to go on like this, we were never going to get anything done, and he would probably alienate just about everyone at the other agencies who were supposed to be on our side in the process.
“Look, we just need to bide our time, like Diane said,” I sighed, hating myself as I said the words. “We can still help. All it takes is a phone call for us to make our suspicions known. I’ll talk to Diane about it and have her make sure the FBI knows all about the possibility that Lafitte’s ship could be a fake.”
“A phone call?” Holm scoffed, bugging his eyes out at me. “You can’t be serious. You know as well as I do that we’d be way more help actually there than we could ever be over the phone.”
“Yes, but that’s not the point,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s just the way it is. Throwing a tantrum about it isn’t going to fix anything.”
“And just sitting around and letting other agencies steal the biggest case we’ve ever gotten?” Holm asked me, incredulous. “That’s your plan?”
“No, my plan is to keep doing good work and to keep pestering Diane about things until she pulls through,” I said, in as patient a tone as I could manage. “And she will pull through. She always does. She has our back. It’s just a matter of time.”
I looked at each of my brunch companions in turn. They all knew that I was right, that there was nothing more that we could really do. It just sucked. I could see it on their faces, and I agreed with them.
We all went back to eating, though I could tell that most of us had lost our appetite, not that I had much left to begin with given how much food Buddy had given me. Even Holm was just picking at what remained of his pancakes now.
“I guess that would explain why they sent the ship to New Orleans, to begin with,” Holm mused after giving up on the rest of his meal and pushing his plate away from him. “They must’ve known we would’ve ended up there since that’s where the Haitian zombie drug was going.”
“They were looking for the ship for a long time before that, though,” I pointed out, falling on the part of this timetable that troubled me. “And Clifton Beck—well, there were conflicting reports in our interviews about when exactly he was in the Keys. I guess it could’ve been after they found out about us, but the timetable would be tight. We do know that the ship didn’t end up in NOLA until after we were on the case, though.”
A Little Torch Key bartender’s account of events would place Beck in the Keys a couple of weeks before Holm and I were in Haiti. But other accounts presented a slightly hazier picture.
“They could’ve known about you even before that, though, right?” Birn asked. “I mean, these people are everywhere, and we have a lot of drug cases.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I admitted, a chill running up and down my spine at this thought. “They’ve known someone in law enforcement was looking for the Dragon’s Rogue for years now. I guess word spread about me through the nautical community. Though their thug, Joey, said that they didn’t know about me specifically until Haiti.”
“I don’t like any of this,” Holm said, leaning back against the booth and rubbing his stomach uncomfortably. “I feel like I’m going to throw up. I hate the idea of these people following us around on our cases.”
“You sure it’s just that, and not the fact that you mowed down nearly five pancakes covered in chocolate, syrup, and powdered sugar?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow at his plate, and everyone but Holm laughed.
“You could maybe say that it’s a combination of factors,” he admitted, cracking a half-grin and chuckling along with us, then.
“Everything going alright here, guys?” Buddy asked, walking over to our table.
“It was all excellent, thank you,” I said, smiling up at him. “We’ll be back for sure. Often.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have shown you our secret spot,” Birn complained, shaking his head at me, though he was still smiling.
“I’ll be right back with your check,” Buddy told his cousin, and the jovial man meandered back over to the front counter to chat with another one of his waitresses.
“He seems happy,” I remarked, nodding in the diner owner’s direction.
“He is,” Birn confirmed. “I told you, retirement is where it’s at. But not complete retirement. Everybody’s gotta have a second act, even you, Marston.”
“Wait, he’s retired?” I asked, still watching Buddy.
“Former Marine,” Birn grinned. “Don’t tease him for it, though. I know we’re all Navy guys here.”
Buddy didn’t take long to come back over, and he handed a single check to Birn. I reached for my wallet.
“Don’t even think about it,” Buddy said, clapping me on the shoulder and gesturing with his other hand at Holm and me. “Yours were on the house. Just make sure to come back and see me some time, okay? And catch all those bad guys for us.”
6
Ethan
I left Buddy and his staff an enormous tip as thanks, and Holm did the same. One thing was for sure: that diner wasn’t just Birn and Muñoz’s secret anymore. They’d have to put up with us showing up there at least as much as they did when we weren’t in the office.
After eating, we drove around for a little while, letting the food settle and our minds wander, before heading back into the office, dreading the piles upon piles of files and paperwork still left for us to go through.
I couldn’t speak for the others, but I dreaded our FBI companions a little less now than I had that morning before going into work for the first time that day. We’d duked it out, but it seemed like we may have finally come to some kind of understanding. At least we were all united against the common enemy of Interpol now.
When we got back into the office, Diane was still locked away at her private desk. I could hear her muttering something on the phone but couldn’t make out any distinct words.
“Took you long enough,” Agent Smith called to us when we walked back in, but he was smiling instead of smirking now. I thought that maybe I was right, and things were turning up on that front, at least. I figured we were due for a break somewhere.
“Where’d yo
u go?” Dobbs asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Birn grinned at him and gave all the FBI agents a mischievous wink, which elicited several confused looks and cocked heads.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Smith asked, but no one answered him. I got the sense that while he was okay with sharing with his fellow MBLIS agents, there was no way that Birn was going to stick a bunch of FBI agents on his cousin’s diner. I couldn’t blame him.
“What’d we miss?” I asked the other agents as Birn and Muñoz exchanged a mischievous look.
“Not much,” Forrester said with a shrug. “Just more paperwork. Diane was yelling on the phone with Interpol some more. That was kind of fun.”
“Oh?” Holm asked, raising his eyebrows. “I can’t believe we missed that.”
It was always fun to watch Diane rage at people on the phone. She’d been a real force to be reckoned with when MBLIS was having funding difficulties, but I wondered what had happened to playing nice with Interpol. That plan seemed to have gone down the drain.
“Did you get any idea what it was about?” I asked. “I mean, she said she was going to play it cool with them for a while, didn’t she?”
“An hour is a while for Diane,” Holm pointed out, and I chuckled and had to admit that he wasn’t wrong about that.
“She didn’t say,” Corey said, shaking his head. “Something about Scotland, obviously. Hunt listened through the door. Maybe he remembers better.”
Somehow, I didn’t like the image of the FBI agents listening in on Diane’s private conversations. It wasn’t like Holm and I weren’t guilty of doing the same before, but we worked for her. These guys… well, sometimes it was hard to tell when they were operating in good faith, is all.
“I think it just escalated,” the usually silent Hunt said with a shrug. “She was trying to convince them to let Marston fly to Scotland, but I guess they didn’t respond well. She kept getting madder about it, and then there was a lot of yelling. I could even hear the guy on the other line. He was talking so loud. Couldn’t tell what he was saying, though.”
