by Ed Teja
“The other?” I asked.
“The island has two I consider acceptable.”
Bill grinned. “Ordinarily, I'd be delighted to join you bums, but I have a previous appointment.”
“Met a new girl already?” I asked. “When did you have time for that?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly. A friend's brother lives here with his family. I promised to in check on them.”
“A friend?” Amy asked.
Bill saw where she was going with her question. “A lady friend back on St. Anne named Sally Walker. You met her the other day—the non-Gazele waitress at The Barracuda, scene of your elegant destruction of Hank's digestion.”
Amy's eyes lit up, and she grinned. “Sure, I remember her. Cute girl.”
“Anyway, she asked me to call them, and I did. They insisted I come for dinner tonight. I do want to meet them, and seeing as I'm back here, I'd like to see the island a bit. Besides, that will get me out of your way and take my mind off the trouble you two are getting me into. I'm preparing myself for the possibility of a lengthy prison term.”
“Should I leave a night light on for you?” I teased.
“Actually, they offered to put me up for the night. Her brother suggested it would be appropriate to share a glass or two of rum and talk into the night. And even though you are fine company, Junior, staying with them sounds a lot nicer than staying in any hotel, much less one owned by the government. Sally said her sister-in-law is a good cook, so I'll swing by the market and grab whatever looks yummy. There should be some decent fish and veggies.”
“Expect to experience some sticker shock,” Amy said. “Vegetables are expensive here. The island is small and the salt in the air kills tomatoes.”
“Thanks for the head's up.” He winked. “You two have a nice evening doing whatever.”
“Do you want to meet for breakfast?” I asked.
Bill considered it. “The idea sounds good, but I expect to be up late, and I'll want to sleep in. Don't wait for me. If I don't show up, have your breakfast, then head over to see Hank. I'll show up at his office eventually, and you don't need my help abusing him. Feel free to start the show without me. If my part of this absurd drama only involves driving a boat, I can do that in my sleep. And no changing of plans will alter what's on the charts.”
“I'm pretty sure you've done it in your sleep on many occasions,” I said.
“The skill is practically a requirement for watchstanders on undermanned freighters run by frugal-assed captains,” he said. “But it isn't near as scary as it sounds. You should give it a try.”
As Bill walked out the door, intent on catching a cab, Amy poked me in the ribs with her elbow. I didn't mind in the least. “How come you aren't nice, like Bill?”
“I wouldn't say I'm not nice.”
“You do get a tad stuffy and uppity at times.”
“That's just me being an adult. At least one person in every group has to act like a grownup once in a while.”
“They do? Why?”
“To get things done.”
Her smile switched into high wattage mode, making me feel good, just happy to be with her.
“Is that a rule? I hadn't heard of it. I hope it isn't a rule. There are so many rules already—way too many rules for my taste.”
“Not really a real rule, just a functional rule of thumb. Something that helps keep a body out of too much trouble.”
She held up her hands and wiggled her thumbs, looking at them as if she'd never noticed them before. “Thumbs have rules? I knew I never liked thumbs all that much but until now I didn't know why.”
“What's not to like about our opposable thumbs?”
“If I can believe you, they have their own rules. We use our thumbs to get into trouble, yet the thumbs have rules that you say keep us out of trouble. That's very confusing.”
“When you think about that way, I guess it can be.”
“How else would you think about it?” I saw a tinge of astonishment in her eyes. “Is there another way to think about opposing concepts of rules for opposable thumbs?”
“I guess not.” I began collecting the papers and photos we'd scattered across the floor, stacking them, intending to shove them back in the folder that Roberts had brought them in, but as I reached out, Amy made a sudden move, slapping them out of my hand, sending them flying again. I sat back on my heels and looked at the mess. “What was that about?”
“It's about the joy of chaos,” she said.
“You are kind of nuts.”
“I am. I'm stir-crazy, regimented, rule-shackled nutsy. I need a cure.”
“Is there one?”
“We've spent an entire day, on a gorgeous tropical island, mind you, stuck inside this room, planning out a fucking mission that shouldn't even be happening. We've spent the day being focused and professional, thinking in neat and organized ways about things that are extremely messy and unorganized.”
“How else would you think about it?”
She caught me echoing her question and laughed. “No other way. That part is as it should be. Now later, when it's time to run the mission, once again we will—by choice—put on our tightly focused faces and fix our attention on carrying out our mission objectives without getting our asses shot off.”
“All true and a good goal.”
“But now I need a break. I need to breathe the free air of disorganization. Until these straitjackets are again necessary, I demand an interval that is imperfect, unfocused, and disorganized.”
I looked at her, kneeling beside me, and saw a different intensity in her eyes. “And no rules?”
“As few as possible,” she said.
Her mouth was partly open, her lips soft. I watched the rise and fall of her breasts under that charcoal sweater. The idea of disorganized chaos and no rules suddenly held great interest.
“And without so much thinking,” she said.
Her lips parted and her tongue flicked over her red lips, moistening them. It seemed an unconscious gesture, but it was seductive and inflamed me. Without thinking, I reached over and took her by the shoulders, pulling her body against mine. Her eyes bored into mine, and her expression told me I was finally on the right track. With her face tipped up, her eyes engaging mine, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her tighter, feeling her soft breasts against my chest. I bent my mouth to those luscious, expectant lips and kissed her—an unthinking, disorganized, unplanned, and rather feral kiss.
We captured that delicious moment. I saw how close it had come to slipping away. I'd tried to be a gentleman, wanting to make Amy like me. With my lips on hers, my probing tongue in her mouth, I showed the lust I'd been trying to pretend wasn't lurking under the surface. And she responded, returning the kiss, wrapping her arms around my waist as my hands went to her ass to pull her body closer, even tighter, against mine.
The kiss went on for some time, passing through more than one heady spiral. Hands explored bodies, and my pulse pounded at the wonders it discovered. When we broke that heady and powerful kiss, she smiled.
“That's more like it,” she said. “Much better. Welcome back to paradise, soldier. You were away at war far too long.”
“I find women with an odd sense of humor rather desirable,” I said.
“Damn good thing,” she said.
18
I woke in the middle of the night to find myself lying half awake in the dark, wrapped in Amy's arms and legs, my brain reeling from the wild lovemaking. Her perfume, a subtle fragrance, enveloped me. I knew that even when I'd slept it had been there, lingering, enticing me.
I turned to her, letting my fingers trace a soft breast and my mind consider the various ways I might wake her, weighing them to determine which we might find the most interesting.
That was the moment it was all interrupted, the instant when the explosion rocked the room—a blast, strong enough to shake the windows, took care of waking her
.
We shot out of the bed, pulling on pants. Amy yanked back the curtains of her room, exposing a skyline illuminated by fire.
“What is it?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I think someone blew up your hotel. I can't think of any other building that size over there.”
“Bill!” I said, before I remembered he wouldn't be there either. His self-imposed helpful handyman role might just have saved his life.
“Look at that. Being sociable saved him and lust saved you,” she said. “It's a good thing neither of us was feeling all morally correct last night.”
“That's true in too many ways to even count,” I said.
I glanced at the clock. It was three in the morning and the moon was waning. The strongest light came from the distant fire.
She turned to look at me, her figure a sexy silhouette in the flickering light. “Were there many other guests in the hotel?
“None. Seems low season affects covert safe houses just like the other hotels.”
“At least there is that.”
“On the other hand, the timing of that blast, given that a limited number of people knew we'd be there, suggests evil is afoot.”
She nodded. “It's a reasonable guess that someone had reasons for not wanting you going on this mission.”
“I agree,” she said. “Unless—” She pointed at the stack of papers in the corner. “What if they watched the hotel and knew you were gone? What if Hank thought we had left those documents tucked away in the hotel safe the way we had stupidly promised?”
“That suggests he would want them destroyed? Why?”
“I'm just saying.”
“But what are you thinking?”
“That either there is something in there he doesn't want anyone to see, or there is something in there he knows is bogus and he knows that if other people see it—it might be a good thing if he didn't find out we neglected to keep our promise about putting them in the safe.”
“We can't leave them here,” I said.
“I have no intention of doing that.” Her eyes were dark, focused. “Let me send them to my people. They might be able to find out why Hank, or whoever, to give him benefit of the doubt, wanted them destroyed.”
“You are pretty sure the hotel was blown up to destroy the records, aren't you?”
She made a face. “Makes sense. I don’t think I’d blow up a hotel to do it as it strikes me as crude and unnecessary, but I understand wanting to get rid of the documents. That protects Hank. Without them, if something goes wrong on the island and we get caught, there is no proof Hank is involved; it's our word against his. If we are killed, there is no paper trail leading from him to us. Even if it's successful, if we had proof he was involved in an illicit, unsanctioned mission, that wouldn't be good for him. We'd have leverage. You might pass it to Polly.”
“That's worth considering.”
“And if I'm wrong, my people get some good information that Hank wants to keep from them. I'm sure they can mine it for more than Hank found. That's worth something.”
“It is, bless your devious soul.”
“In the morning, I'll arrange for a courier to pick it up. Then we can go see Hank with long faces and sadness over the loss of the documents.”
“And now, I better let Bill know I'm alive,” I said.
“That's the right thing to do for a friend,” she agreed.
Bill answered on the first ring, and I put him on speaker. “I was just going to call to check on you, Junior. I was hoping you didn't make it back to the hotel in time for the fireworks.”
“All okay here.”
“I assume Amy is well too?”
“Fine, Bill,” she called.
“What about the documents?”
“Why?”
He paused. “Because I am over near the hotel and looks like the explosion was in or near the area of the office, that little room that holds the safe. It kinda made me wonder. Maybe whoever did this wanted to make sure that intel didn't leave the hotel.”
“You harbor doubts that this was an accidental gas leak or some such, I take it.”
“Call it doubt with extreme prejudice.”
“My first thought was it was a ham-fisted attempt to take us out.”
“Why not both? I can't imagine that they detonated their firework for no reason whatsoever.”
“In any case, seems they did a sloppy job of it.”
Bill clucked. “Place is sure burning real nice.”
“But if it were us doing it—”
“We'd make sure the targets were in the building if we were the kind who delighted in killing other folk. And if we wanted to destroy documents for some strange reason, cracking the safe would have been an easy way to make certain the stuff was there. Hell, a break-in would be enough to retrieve the documents and save everyone a messy cleanup. Unless this was just a greeting from the local pyromaniac saying, 'Welcome to Exuma,' of course.”
I tried to picture that, for some reason. “Killing us would tend to put a damper on the mission,” I said.
“Hank could put a brave face on it, and say, 'Damn it, Amy, Martin would want us to go on. You can get one of your people to go, or I'll have one of my men go with you even though it is risky.'“
She laughed.
“Could it be provocation?”
“For what?”
“If two civilians, American citizens, got killed after talking to Hank about the sins of Brad Vermeer, that might, dare I say, ignite interest on the part of his superiors in a military strike.”
That raised Amy's eyebrows. “I didn't think of that. But if they were trying to kill you two, a surgical strike, guys with knives, would be a stronger indication of evil intent.”
“That Amy is so damn smart,” Bill said. “It is complicated, and it's unlikely we are going to sort this out.”
I stared through the window at the red and yellow flames and listened to the sirens of fire trucks. “Either way, offhand I'd say that we have some people nearby who don't want us succeeding and want the documents destroyed.”
Bill snorted. “One last speculation: What if word of Hank's plan to grab Vermeer made it to street level and our pigeon decided to preempt the preemptive strike? And of course, we can't totally discount the idea that Hank's minions have their collective and sullen noses seriously out of joint. They get the hair-brained idea that if they eliminate us Hank would turn to them and let have the glory of doing his dirty work.”
“That was two speculations,” I said. “You went over budget.”
Amy stretched. “Bill, the last one seems the least likely, what with the oversight Hank talked about.”
Bill paused. “Martin, I have a serious question for you.”
“Okay.”
“What in the world gives you, me, Amy, anyone, any reason whatsoever to think that the admiral has told us the truth about any of this?”
“Nothing. We decided he was lying, remember?”
“So there is the possibility that he lied about being told to back off Vermeer, correct?”
“I supposed.”
“And, for all we know, Washington would green light this mission for him if he begged like a good senior officer should.”
It was my turn to let my brain catch up. “I suppose,” I said.
“For all we know, this is an elaborate plan that has no point other than to kill Martin Billings. Although killing Amy Pfeifer might be in that mix.”
“What?”
“Maybe Hank thought killing his wife's ex might earn him points at home. If we are to survive—”
“A goal I wholeheartedly support—”
“I knew I could count on you. To do that, we have to accept that he could have motives we can't think of because we aren't twisted military fuckheads.”
“He has a good point,” Amy said. Her words startled me. I'd drifted into analyzing the facts and forgotten the phone
was on speaker. Not that she shouldn't hear it, it was just another example of how many ways there were for technology to trip me up. Don't get me wrong, I like the newest night-vision scopes as much as the next guy, but at the rate the world was growing in complexity, and the dearth of decent user manuals for most of it, I sensed a tendency, or trend, to be trendy, that all our conveniences were growing damnably inconvenient.
“Of course he has a point. He always does.”
“Oh, I heard that,” Bill said.
I sighed. “We are further from knowing anything than we were before we knew anything.”
“That makes no sense,” Bill said. “But if this last move in the chess game was Vermeer attempting to stop the mission, then maybe... well, if he struck first, he'll also be looking over his shoulder more than we'd expected.”
I looked at Amy. “What's your reading?”
She shook her head. “Look, I can't imagine how Vermeer would get specifics on the mission even if he got wind of it. No one knows about our involvement, so they wouldn't know about the hotel. I doubt Hank's men are feeding information to Vermeer. They strike me as military assholes who are loyal to the chief military asshole. And I still don't buy into Vermeer suddenly becoming some mafia don.”
Bill laughed. “So are we doing it, going ahead?”
“Probably,” she said. “I'm stubborn.”
“You are. I had a hunch you'd want to do this thing anyway—grab the guy. Especially now that you two are engaging in a little inter-agency cooperation over there.”
“Grabbing the guy is a big deal for drug enforcement, Bill,” Amy said. “That part is true.”
He sighed. “We already came all this way. No sense getting rattled by an explosion or two.”
“Two?” I asked.
“If you think that is the only surprise we will encounter before we are done, you are certifiable. It's just starting, and things can explode in a broad variety of ways.”
“Unless they implode,” Amy said.
“There is that,” he agreed.
I knew we'd already made up our minds; the mission would go ahead. My hunch was that it was going ahead, no matter what. I'd never been faced with having to determine if I'd accept a mission over and over again like this. But the terrain kept changing. Still, at some point you gave it a green light and lived with the consequences.
