by David Bruns
Bodies, sweat, damp heat. The crush of dancers forced them so close together that Gabby’s nipples poked him through the thin material of his shirt. A few tendrils of curly dark hair had come loose from her hair clip, and they framed her face softly. She looked up at him, and Brendan bit his lip. Her hips ground against him and his breath stuttered in his throat as his body responded to hers. He lowered his face toward Gabby, and she was already moving to meet his lips.
Then it happened. The DJ hit a strobe light; the world went freeze-frame all around him.
And Gabby’s face changed. Her features sharpened, the mass of dark curls transformed into a sleek bob, and he was looking at Liz.
He jerked his head back. Gabby opened her eyes when the expected kiss didn’t happened. “What’s the matter?” Liz/Gabby mouthed to him in stop-motion.
Brendan gulped. He stopped dancing and put his head close to her ear. “Liz—I mean, Gabby, I can’t—”
Gabby’s head jerked away from him. She pushed him back into the group of dancers behind him. Brendan lost his balance, falling on his ass in a circle of Indian girls who glared down at him, looks of disgust on their faces.
The DJ started the strobe again as Brendan struggled to his feet. The combination of too much to drink and the freeze-frame of the lights meant it took him a long time to get back to the table. Brendan flopped onto the couch next to Scottie. “Where’s Gabby?” he gasped.
“She grabbed her purse and left a minute ago,” Scottie said in a shout. He peered at Brendan’s face. “You okay?”
“Did she look upset?”
“Skipper, I’ve been married three times. If you want to ask a man if a woman looks upset, you best ask someone else.”
It would have been funny if he wasn’t so angry with himself about the whole situation. He threw a sidelong glance at Gabby. She had her beautiful brown eyes focused on him.
“Did you hear what I said?” she asked.
Brendan nodded. There was nothing he could say to make this better, so he decided to just shut up.
Gabby looked away and Brendan breathed a sigh of relief. He’d already made his clumsy apologies, multiple times. It was time to let it die.
“Who’s Liz?”
“What?” Brendan’s head snapped around.
“Who’s Liz? That night at the club, you called me Liz. Who is she?”
“Uh, she’s a friend. Someone I went to school with.”
Gabby plucked the empty coffee cup from his hand. She placed a hand on his knee, the injured one. Her touch was familiar, but lacking intimacy—not like the way she’d touched him before the Maldives.
“Hey.” She waited until he looked up at her. “What we were about to do on the dance floor was way beyond friends, skipper, and you called me by another woman’s name. Not what any woman wants to hear.”
She gave him a sad smile. “Get your head straight, sir. Liz is way more than a friend.”
Brendan blew out a deep breath as Gabby disappeared into the cabin below. The sun came up over the horizon.
Less than a week and he’d be back in Minneapolis.
CHAPTER 50
Tenerife, Canary Islands
16 August 2016 – 0945 local
The Malay captain called the snowcapped volcano el Teide.
The peak was visible a full half day before they could make out the rest of the land mass that was the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Rafiq stood on the bridge wing, enjoying the warm sea air and fretting about the next port of call. The trip to Tenerife had been excruciatingly slow, as the Malay breakbulk freighter made stops along the coast of South America. Even the bribe of more money would not sway the Malay captain.
“Breakbulk freighter make many stops. Act natural,” was all he would say, and offer Rafiq a gap-toothed grin.
He was right, of course. Arriving at their destination early only opened them up for more scrutiny. Better to arrive the day of the event.
Jamil joined him at the railing, sleep still marking his face. Rafiq felt little need for sleep these days; time enough for that after his mission was complete.
The Lumba made the turn around the point of land that hid their destination. Santa Cruz de Tenerife, despite the exotic-sounding name, was a dump, a dirty port filled with ships like the Lumba. Cranes loomed over the edge of the concrete piers, where piles of pallets, cargo containers, and trucks sat in huddled confusion.
It was perfect. Chaos meant lax, easily bribed officials.
The tugs came out to meet them, their whistles piping sharply as they came alongside. A local pilot scrambled up the rope ladder to the deck on his way to the bridge. Rafiq and Jamil regrouped on the main deck, out of sight of the bridge, but where they could watch the approach.
The ship was being placed in a berth at Dique del Este, one of the busier piers, where it would take a half day for the Malay captain to offload his cargo from Brazil and take on fuel. Rafiq looked at the sky; they’d be gone by nightfall. Without him.
He turned to Jamil. “You have everything you need? Any final questions?”
Jamil shifted his feet on the steel deck. After nearly a decade of waiting, this was goodbye.
The Lumba rocked gently as the tugs pushed her close to the pier and the lines went across. A crane lifted the gangway into place and a pair of customs officials came onboard to meet with the captain. Rafiq waited until they had gone to the bridge and the pilot had left the ship before he turned to Jamil. “This is goodbye, my friend. May Allah keep you safe in your travels and shine his mercy upon your mission.”
Jamil’s eyes were wet, and when he hugged Rafiq, his grip was strong. Rafiq felt a tickle of worry. Jamil had been off ever since his brother had died, more emotional, softer. He wondered for a brief moment about their plan to split up. No, only he had the skills to perform this final leg of their mission.
He broke the hug and grasped the handle of the hand truck, leaning back to balance the weight on the wheels. He went first down the gangway, using his body to ease the load down the sloped walkway. He reached the bottom and met the customs official stationed there.
“Passport.”
Rafiq handed him his Canadian passport, the gold crown emblem on the cover nearly worn off with use.
The customs official gestured at the black packing case on the hand truck. “What’s in the case, sir?” he said in heavily accented English.
Rafiq smiled. “I’m a surveyor. The tools of my trade, senor.”
The man nodded as he flipped through the passport pages. When he found a blank one, he stamped it and handed the booklet back to Rafiq.
“Have a good trip home, sir.”
CHAPTER 51
Estancia Refugio Seguro
17 August 2016 – 2358 local
Reza peeled back the tight-fitting black sleeve to peer at his watch. The softly glowing hands told him it was two minutes to midnight.
He’d wanted to wait until later, but Walid had insisted they launch the raid at midnight. The farm workers on the ranch started early, he said, some as early as three in the morning. Besides, security changed shifts at midnight and they could take out both sets of guards at the same time.
In the end, it was Walid’s raid; all Reza could do was make suggestions. And worry.
A light rain fell, the kind that provided a nice background of white noise to mask their approach to the main house. The ranch house itself was huge, a low-slung, two-story affair of stone and timber that sprawled across the hilltop overlooking the long valley.
The earpiece crackled in Reza’s ear. “I have a visual on both guards. Standing by for go.”
Walid’s reply came in stereo: once over the headset, and once from the man lying prone in the leaves next to Reza. “All teams, standby to go on my mark. Three, two, one. Go!”
Reza saw the two guards, sharing a cigarette in the driveway under the only lamp within a hundred meters, both do a stutter-step and drop to the ground. The team of four to his right sprang up and s
tarted to hustle across the long upslope of open lawn that lay between the edge of the jungle and the ranch house.
The door on the veranda facing them opened, and a young woman stepped out onto the wet stones. She wrapped her arms across her chest and called out in a stage whisper, “Franco?” She tiptoed across the flagstones until she could see the driveway. Her mouth dropped open when she saw the two men lying facedown in the pool of light.
Walid cursed and swung his rifle into firing position. He squeezed off a shot just as the girl turned back toward the house. The bullet nicked her shoulder and spun her to the ground. The assault team had nearly reached the veranda; she screamed when she saw them coming.
The scream was cut short by a three-bullet burst of gunfire that echoed across the valley.
Walid leaped up, dragging Reza with him, all pretense at stealth gone. “All teams, go! Go now,” he shouted into the headset. He charged across the lawn. When they reached the veranda, Reza heard the deep blast of a shotgun followed by multiple bursts of automatic weapons fire. They passed the body of the young girl on the veranda, dark blots of blood on her white nightdress, her eyes staring upwards. She might have been eighteen.
They passed through a kitchen, lit only by the lights from the appliances, and into a broad hall. Walid took the stairs two at a time to where one of his men was waiting for him on the landing. He pointed to the open double doors at the end of the hall.
Nadine had managed to take out two of Walid’s men with her single shotgun blast. The first body, missing most of his face, lay across the entrance to the master suite, the second had some pellets buried in his throat. The white towel pressed against the injured man’s neck was dark with absorbed blood. Reza was no doctor, but he was sure this man wouldn’t live either.
One of the men flipped on the light switch, flooding the room with light. Reza swallowed hard to counteract his gag reflex.
Nadine lay sprawled across the carpet, her hair splayed out like a dark halo around her head. She bled from at least six gunshots wounds in her torso, and blotches of dark red almost consumed the creamy silk of her long nightdress. Stray bullets had stitched holes into the wall behind her.
One of the other men came into the room and whispered to Walid. He turned to Reza. “Rafiq’s not here.”
Reza looked at the king-size bed. Only one side had been slept in.
They were too late.
Reza knelt next to Nadine. Her eyes were unfocused, and her head lolled. He gripped her chin and bent close to her. “Where is Rafiq? Where is your husband?”
She blinked her eyes heavily; her lips moved like she was trying to speak.
He leaned closer. “What?”
Her breath tickled his ear. “Fuck you,” she whispered.
Reza sat back. Nadine’s blood-soaked chest had stilled and her eyes stared up at the ceiling. He looked up at the wall, where a photograph of a smiling Rafiq held two squirming children.
“We need to go, Reza,” Walid called to him from the doorway.
“Where are Rafiq’s children?”
Walid shook his head. “We’re not taking the kids. We just shot his fucking wife, for God’s sake. The locals will have my head if I touch his kids.”
“I need to talk to them. Alone.”
Walid looked at his watch. “Three minutes. One second longer and you’re on your own getting out of here.”
The children were huddled together in what must have been the boy’s room. The kid was clearly horse-crazy, with pictures of horses, books about horses, even a shelf full of toy horses. The boy’s face was pale with fright beneath a mop of black curls, and his dark eyes stared up at Reza as he approached. He tightened his grip around his little sister.
If the boy was frightened, his sister was angry. Reza saw Rafiq’s sharp features in her young face. She was clearly the stronger of the two.
Her eyes blazed and she pointed her finger up at him. “You leave us alone,” she shouted.
He tried to sit on the edge of the bed, but the girl kicked at him. He remained standing. “I need to find your father,” he said.
“You leave us alone,” the girl repeated in a shrill voice. Her brother sat mute beside her.
Reza felt a flash of anger. He reached out and caught the girl’s wrist. He squeezed until she grimaced in pain, but she would not cry. He hauled her across the bed until her face was inches from his. “I need to know where your father went.”
Walid called to him. “We need to go. Now.”
Reza tightened his grip on the girl’s arm, and still she would not cry. His eyes flicked to her brother. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll take your brother away and leave you here all alone.”
The girl’s eyes widened a fraction.
“Papa went away,” she said.
“Where? When?”
Walid hissed at him from the doorway to hurry up.
“He left in a big ship. He said he was going to sail across the ocean. Mama said the ship was called delfin.”
CHAPTER 52
Minneapolis, Minnesota
30 August 2016 – 1930 local
Brendan inspected himself in the mirror and let out a deep breath. Behind him he could see the pile of discarded outfits on his bed, but in the end he’d settled for the old standby: khakis, white button-down oxford, and blue blazer.
Exactly the same thing he’d worn the last time he saw Liz.
He’d been almost three weeks into his four weeks of leave before he finally screwed up the courage to call her. Brendan suspected that Don and Marjorie had both called his parents to urge him to ask Liz out.
When did it get so hard to just talk to her? Once they’d been best friends, inseparable. Sure, they dated, but life at the Academy was too busy to have a full-blown relationship.
He sucked in another deep breath to calm the butterflies in his stomach. It’s just two old friends going to dinner, that’s all. Keep it cool, man. Keep it together.
Except it was more than that. Liz was divorced now, and of all the dozens of possible FBI offices to transfer to in the entire United States, she’d chosen Minneapolis. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
He spied the bottle of Old Spice that Master Chief O’Brien had given him before his last meeting with Liz and smiled. What the hell; he dabbed a splash of the cologne along his jawline.
His mother was waiting for him in the kitchen. “Oh, Brennie, don’t you look handsome. Liz won’t know what hit her.”
Brendan rolled his eyes. “Mom, please. I’m not going to prom, just dinner with an old friend.”
His father joined them in the kitchen. “Well, you can tell your ‘friend’”—he waggled his fingers for air quotes—“that she’s welcome here anytime.”
Brendan knelt next to Champ’s dog bed. “Please make them stop, buddy.”
The old dog thumped his tail weakly and rolled a cataract-glazed eye in Brendan’s direction. At fourteen years old, his old friend was on his last legs.
Knowing that parking near the trendy Uptown area was going to be murder this time of year, Brendan decided to walk from his parents’ house in Linden Hills. It took longer than he remembered, and he arrived at the Urban Eatery a few minutes late, out of breath, and limping. Brendan wiped his brow with a pocket handkerchief as he pulled open the heavy door of the restaurant.
The interior was dim and chill with air conditioning, making the sweat under his arms freeze into clammy patches. He heard Liz before he saw her, her deep chuckle rolling out from the bar area. He stepped into the space.
Liz was leaning against the bar with both hands, facing the bartender and laughing at something he’d said. She wore a simple sheath of pale yellow that complemented her dark hair and olive-toned skin. The sleeveless dress showed off her muscled biceps and shoulders.
The bartender looked up and saw Brendan. He nodded to Liz and moved away.
As she turned around, Brendan had the sudden desire to run. He looked down at his khakis and sweaty white shirt and knew
she was out of his league. She was sophisticated, mature, professional, and he was . . . the same guy she’d known a dozen years ago.
Liz’s brown eyes were warm, still merry from the shared joke with the bartender. When she hugged him, he felt the strong muscles of her back through the thin dress. The warm scent of her perfume enveloped him, a subtle musk with light notes of vanilla. He thought of the cheap cologne he’d splashed on himself and tensed.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“Nothing, sorry.” He clumsily disengaged from her embrace. “I’ll check on our table.”
“No need,” Liz told him. “Tony will do it.” She waved at the bartender, and he picked up the phone. Tony’s eyes locked onto Brendan’s for second, and Brendan thought he detected a flicker of anger in the man’s gaze.
“You’re on the patio, Liz,” he called.
Liz took Brendan’s hand and led him through the restaurant to a table for two overlooking the lake. A chilled bottle of Prosecco was waiting for them. Brendan pulled out her chair. “You seem to know this place pretty well.”
Liz laughed. “I live just around the corner. I come here all the time.” She accepted a glass of wine from Brendan. “What shall we toast to, Bren?”
She’d called him Bren. He fought back a rise of hope in his chest. “To absent friends?”
Liz narrowed her eyes. “How about to present friends?”
Brendan flushed as he repeated, “To present friends.”
They eased into the conversation with small talk, mostly about work. Brendan hinted that he couldn’t really say much about his recent assignment, and Liz gave him a knowing smile. “I thought refitting sailboats was a little below your paygrade, Commander,” she said and changed the subject.
