by Ed Teja
“That's pretty much sums it up.”
“Therefore, that leaves you either walking away from the whole sordid mess, telling him to work it out with the aid of his dim crew, or jumping in with both feet, not knowing how deep the water is or if there be sharks. Making that choice, jumping in, will commit you to doing whatever vile thing it might take to save the day. Expediency will become the only virtue. You will knowingly put your ass on the line and do bad things in order to put things right, while accepting you won't get any credit for it.”
“Exactly.”
“And Hank stuck you there?”
“That's my point.”
“And yet—”
I looked at him, saw a smile on his face. Good friends come in two flavors: the reassuring (everything will be fine, pal) and scary. As a classic scary friend, Bill read minds. He could get into my thoughts, even those I didn't want to consider myself. His look told me he'd caught the scent of one of those now and was tracking it. “Yet, what?”
“First, that's exactly who you are—the secret hero. Even though the admiral will undoubtedly come out of this having done little or nothing, but reaping bountiful rewards, I'm sure you get a sense of satisfaction out of the fact that he had to come to you. That he needs you to save Polly's ass.”
I drew a breath. “It pisses me off that he's so cocksure, certain I'll do it.”
“And that's not the main thing. I doubt old Hank knows what a pushover you are for lost causes.”
“Then what makes him think—?”
“I'm guessing your Polly has given him hints about truths he doesn't like. You walking away from your career got her to walk away from you. She had plans that required being married to a dashing military man. You trashed those. I'm guessing it's likely she's let him know that if he fucks up his career, he is history. From his own lips we heard that he is on a knife edge, with one side being an undistinguished, earlier-than-planned retirement. Also, not so incidentally, he's sure you would do anything to protect her. Despite all reason, despite any form of logic supporting such actions, you will act to protect her because you harbor a fantasy.”
“I do?”
“Deep down in that black void you call a heart, lurks the myth that you will one day rescue the damsel in distress. You think she will give up kissing frogs and take her hero back into her arms.”
I snorted. “I don't want Polly back.”
Bill laughed. “I don't mean you actually want her back, yet there is no doubt you want her to see the error of her ways; you'd like for her to admit that she made a mistake and wanted you back. I doubt even you are dumb enough to go another round with her.”
“Even if that was true, which I firmly deny, Hank isn't that perceptive.”
“He doesn't have to be perceptive.”
“No?”
“Polly probably threw that tidbit in his face more than once over the years.”
“Why?”
“That doesn't even deserve an answer. By the way, the reason you are doing this isn't entirely because he dragged up Polly's name and tied whatever is going on to your tail with your history. You want to do it because you live for exactly this kind of stupid shit.”
“Be serious.”
“I am. Remember how excited Tim was about dealing with pirates? The kid came alive. It's the same damn family trait. You best learn to accept that part of your nature with at least my own level of reluctant enthusiasm.” Bill cocked his head. “I think your parents hit you over the head with a copy of Don Quixote when you were a lad and you've been tilting at windmills ever since.”
I didn't like hearing that. “Sure, I try to help people when they are in trouble.”
“That's not true. You don't try to help them. You can help yourself.”
At times like this I wanted to be angry with Bill, but I never managed it. Like Gazele chewing out Sally, he might say things I didn't want to hear, but that just made him a scary friend, like I said. I might even think he was wrong, dead wrong, but there was never any doubt that he spoke out of true friendship. Whether I wanted to hear it or not, his observations came from a good place.
Worse, I couldn't refute the truth in what he said. “Making you my partner was smart of me,” I said.
He snorted. “It was the smartest thing you ever did. Trouble is you don't believe it. It just sounds good to say out loud.”
“I don't?”
“If you believed it, you would want to demonstrate that sentiment more often. I mean, you could start with small things, like letting me be captain sometimes.”
The argument was in jest; an ancient and totally bogus pretend disagreement. Bill liked being first mate. With me as captain, he claimed the unassailable right to complain about my decisions.
“And then,” he said, as he refilled our glasses, “on this quest we have the inclusion of Amy Pfeifer who is smart, attractive without being pretty, and quite possibly dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“Ranger training, for openers; her vague relevance to this mission for another. I'd like to know if grabbing the bad guy alive to pump him for information and shutting down these evil bastards is her real agenda. It sounds a lot like you.”
“So what give you pause?”
“Nicely phrased. Well, off the top of my head, it strikes me as curious that in a mission where you are supposed to penetrate into the turf of well-trained, well-armed, incredibly nasty mercenaries, she wants the two of you going in alone.”
I looked at him, expecting to see a smile. I didn't see one. “Maybe she doesn't trust Hank's people any more than I do.”
“And maybe she knows something we don't. What if she doesn't want him captured?”
“You think she might have some reason to want to blow the op?”
“Not sure. There are myriad possibilities, including the idea that she might want some other outcome, or be running it for some unknown third party. For all we know, she works for Vermeer or someone else.”
“How would that work?”
“At the end of the day, I'm sure this bad guy would be valuable to folks outside of the DEA or Hank. Maybe a competing organization, or a cartel thought it prudent to offer her cash to drop him on their doorstep. That could be a reason to insist on keeping the team small. It's easier to kill one ex-SEAL who might object to her change in plans than take on a handful of trained troops.”
“Those are sobering thoughts.”
“Thoughts that never occurred to your insufficiently devious mind but should have. I don't know her—I only hear her singing a lovely and seductive song of reason and justice and all that, which makes a kid like me suspicious. After all, we know that since the beginning of time, sirens have always used lovely, compelling songs as part of their scheme.”
“Much to the detriment of Homer's version of superheroes. Maybe you can tie me to the mast.”
He laughed. “A glimmer of education pops through at last! Junior, there might be hope for you yet.” He raised his glass. “To the classics.”
I raised mine, and we clinked glasses. “I can drink to that. To fun-filled kidnappings and the pursuit of happiness in our time.”
“Which reminds me of wise words from Lawrence Ferlinghetti. In Pictures of a Gone World, he wrote: 'The world is a beautiful place to be born into, if you don't mind happiness not always being so very much fun.'“
“You always have to come up with clever sayings to temper my enthusiasm, don't you?”
“Of course. What good is knowing all that shit if you don't let people know you know it? Like a prayer raised to Quan Yin, the goddess of compassion and mercy, it's necessary to mouth them when launching on another crazed mission—you and me heading off, like your beloved Quixote, on yet another heroic journey, wherein we do in the bad guys and save this poor, sad world.”
“I'm not going after windmills,” I said. “Not a single one.”
“Are you sure? I can get your white char
ger out of storage. Or are you traveling incognito?”
“The horse gets seasick, so no.” I felt a calmness. Once the decisions were made, I could focus on executing the tasks. “Assuming the ground rules don't shift, or the something that is always rotten in Denmark doesn't come ashore, we are embarking.”
“However this goes, keep an eye on your backside,” he said. “I'll try to be there, but you'll be surrounded by unknowns. Some very attractive.”
I shivered slightly. I wasn't in the shape I liked to be in for missions like this; I was going to kidnap a man from a private island in order to protect Polly from a threat she didn't know existed. If I was caught, I'd be branded a rogue mercenary. I didn't have control over many of the variables—almost none, to be precise. And, to accomplish this task, I had to depend on information that came from Hank, a devious bastard who hated my guts, and I was putting my life in the capable hands of a very mysterious woman I'd just met.
What could possibly go wrong?
11
The next morning, Bill and I went by the boatyard to catch Jeff, Gazele's brother, and Geordie, who ran the place.
They were looking proudly at a beautiful steel ketch sitting on the hard, her black hull glimmering in the morning light. “Don't she look real fine?” Georgie said.
“She does,” I said. “Gorgeous.”
She did. Like some grand celebratory statue, she was the prettiest thing in the boatyard.
“I got a call from a man in Panama. He is flying over to see her,” Jeff said proudly. “He saying if she be what she sounds like, he is a serious buyer.”
“We leave that in your hands. As a matter of fact, Bill and I need to go out of town for a time,” I said. “I'm not sure how long, but a few days, anyway.”
“I gonna have the salt-water fire pump rebuilt,” Geordie said. “You wanted it re-installed soon.”
“Tim will be onboard taking care of things. He can help out with the reinstall. It will do him good to see how that works.”
Georgie and Jeff both nodded absently, but their attention was back on the ketch. “We gonna us make some nice money on this boat,” Jeff said.
We'd been awarded the boat as salvage and we'd struck a deal with Jeff and Georgie. They put in the labor and covered the haul out, and we'd share the profits from selling her.
“I gonna put photos, before and after shots, on the website,” Geordie said. “Let people see the kind of work we can do here. We should be ready to launch this lovely lady real soon.”
“Sweet,” Bill said. “You guys should be proud.”
“You sure about us changing her name?” Geordie asked. “We almost ready to paint it on the stern and get the papers fixed up, but I always hear that changing a boat name brings bad luck.”
“Maybe,” Bill said. “But that bad luck won't be worse than what comes with a commonplace, dull and boring name like Wanderer.”
“What's with this name you picked—Mazu?” he asked.
“That's the name of the Chinese goddess of the sea and protector of seafarers,” Bill said. “What could be better?”
Jeff gave him a skeptical look but resigned himself to the idea. Bill was easygoing, but once he settled on something, changing his mind was a hard slog to windward.
“Breakfast,” I said, pointing toward The Barracuda. “That is fine work, guys. With luck we will all make a little money on this boat.”
“Even after the widow gets her cut,” Jeff said. “For sure.”
He meant the widow of a young constable who'd been shot during the mess that had led to us getting the boat. We'd all agreed that she deserved a share of the profit. The insurance money from the policy the government provided wouldn't go far.
“The guy from Panama—” Bill asked, “is he a sailor, or is this a broker?”
“A broker,” Jeff said. “He gonna take her to Rio Dulce to sell her. Might need us to arrange getting it over there.”
“See what he says. If he is willing to pay for the boat, I'm sure we can arrange a delivery. Some of the guys who work for the charter boat companies might be willing to handle it for us.”
Jeff scowled. “Not too sure. The season starting up. A couple of guys already saying to me that if we need a delivery, it would have to pay pretty damn good.”
“If it comes down to it, I'll sail it there myself,” I said.
Bill grinned. “That isn't a bad idea. You could use some peaceful time at sea to think.”
“About what?”
“About whether you want to be a freighter captain or a hero.”
“Look, I don't want to be a hero.”
“Could've fooled me,” Tim said.
“You too?”
“It isn't a bad thing, big brother. But saving the world gets to be a full-time job real quick. At least that's how it looks.”
“You two—”
Bill slapped my back. “Look, you and I will go to Exuma and work with Amy to do whatever is needed to fix the current crisis; then when we get back, if Jeff has made a sale, and I'm sure he will, you can sail the boat to Panama or wherever. Then the delivery fee can go to the widow of the constable who got killed the last time we tried to save the world. We'll add it to her share, and then you can feel that going sailing has a noble end.”
“We do have a cargo coming up.”
“Which Tim and I can handle quite nicely all alone, thank you. It will give him a chance to do the things you don't trust him with yet.”
I groaned.
“What you two up to, leaving the island and all?” Jeff asked.
“Martin has to save the world again,” Bill said.
“I haven't agreed to do a damn thing,” I said. “If this isn't what Hank says—”
“Humor him. He thinks he has a choice,” Bill said. “It's pretty much a sure thing. The adrenaline is already pumping, and he met a pretty lady. But don't tell anyone because I don't think we are leaving through official channels.”
“That's a fine thing,” Jeff said. “You not a man for sitting around liming.”
“Fine, indeed,” Geordie said.
They were just relieved that they could finish the work on the boat and negotiate the deal without me looking over their shoulders. “I love sitting around,” I said.
“Don't bother lying,” Bill said. “It doesn't make you look more like one of the gang. Besides, all your friends know who you really are, and being defensive about it won't fool a soul.”
“We know you just gotta mess in people's business,” Jeff said.
“Exactly,” Georgie said. “Sometimes it even is a good thing.”
“Sometimes,” Jeff agreed.
Bill slapped my back and gave me a push toward The Barracuda. “The point is they love you anyway, Junior. Now we need to get a hearty breakfast before Hank sweeps us off on this stupid adventure.”
“I'll keep an eye on the boat,” Tim said.
“We expect nothing less and nothing more,” Bill said.
12
We were just finishing breakfast when Hank arrived. “Coffee?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I've got a boat waiting for us.”
I paid Gazele, and we walked to the docks. The boat took us to the larger island of St. Agnes. Aggie, as we called her, was the larger of the country's two islands and home of the seat of government and an actual, if small, airport.
Hank had a small jet waiting for us.
“Why didn't Amy fly with us?” I asked.
Hank gave me a thin smile and shrugged. “The woman insists on making her own way around. I offered her a seat on the plane, but she turned it down. I guess it's a thing about other people arranging transport for her—maybe her agency thinks it looks bad, or she worries about feeling obligated.”
Or assassinated, I thought. A tension existed between those two that had roots in something more than simple inter-agency rivalry.
The ride was smooth, with the jet fl
ying low, heading northeast, and landing at the commercial airport of Grand Exuma. It's a major airport, as island airports go, with American Eagle and some other airlines even running scheduled flights up to Miami.
Hank had arranged our arrival, and no one paid us any attention as we came down the ramp to the tarmac and walked to a waiting car.
“How many tax-funded hours do people spend standing around waiting for you on an average year, Hank?” Bill asked as the driver took us into town.
He didn't get an answer from Hank, but the rearview mirror showed he'd put a smile on the driver's face.
When we arrived at Hank's office, its modesty came as a surprise. I expected something Pentagonesque—a term that, to me at least, inevitably means elaborate and bloated. This was a storefront office, definitely down-market as such things go. It verged on being a sensible, practical, and low-profile place where actual work got done.
Given Hank's love of pomp and circumstance, I could only assume Hank had more than a little trouble getting his budget requests approved.
“This is the public face of the task force,” Hank said as we walked in.
The office had an outer area that held two desks. Behind the desks, two familiar faces glared at Bill and me with an expression of undisguised hatred. Behind one desk sat the team leader, our former guest on Harm. A cute little plaque on his desk told me he was Chief Petty Officer Lawrence Chandler. The other man, the one Bill had dangled over the water, had a plaque telling us he was Petty Officer First Class Jose Roberts.
I understood their nasty attitudes. Not only do guys like that often have no sense of humor at all, the truth is that we macho types, and I admit to being one, have a tough time swallowing defeat under any circumstances. I had to admit that Bill had rubbed it in a bit. Maybe more than a bit. These two wanted a rematch. I wondered if they wanted it enough to jeopardize Hank's mission.
“Hey, it's the Little Rascals,” Bill said. “Where is the rest of your crew, Hank? Or was that a pickup squad?”
