He took a drink of his beer and said, "I'm not much for good-byes." I waited, but he added nothing.
Renee arrived with our food and a second round of beers. Sometimes she's absolutely clairvoyant. We chatted as we ate, but Justin was even more reserved, and his countenance seemed darker than usual, tonight. He's never been an outgoing conversationalist, but I felt as if tonight something was troubling him. Maybe he was having second thoughts about everything he'd told me. Why has he told me so much anyway? Is there something to this I'm missing? The silence was making me nervous, so in an attempt to stimulate dialog I asked, "Any luck fixing the fuel system on the boat?"
Justin shook his head and said, "Not really. It's some kind of intermittent gremlin. I can't seem to find it, so I'm taking it down to Miami to the marina Captain Bob always had do the service work."
"Oh, when are you taking it down?"
He said, "I'm going tonight. I was going yesterday, but the weather was so crappy I waited."
I was surprised he was going at night, "Why go down at night? Why not wait until morning?"
Again, he looked at me as if contemplating whether to answer or not. Finally, he said, "Another front is coming in tomorrow morning. Waves will kick up and it'll be a much rougher ride, so I'm going tonight. I'll stay at one of their transient docks tonight."
I asked, "Where will you stay while they repair the boat?"
"Oh, I'll find somewhere."
I thought to myself, maybe Barbie's back in town. I was bright enough not to say it out loud though. Justin didn't seem to be in the mood tonight to discuss his personal life. Not that he ever was.
We finished eating and Justin said he should get going. As we both stood, he reached out and shook my hand. As he did, he looked me in the eyes and said, "You know Jack, things are not always as they appear. People generally see what they expect to see."
I really didn't know specifically what he was referring to, since my experience has been that very little about Justin is as it appears. I replied with a simple nod. He turned and headed for the back door. I sat back down in the booth.
Renee stopped by and cleared our dishes and asked if I wanted anything else. I told her I was fine, I'd just sit there a minute and finish my beer. My mind was attempting to fill in the blanks left by what Justin told me, and what he obviously didn't.
I recalled that months ago, when I first met Tim and PJ they were working on the murder of a Middle Eastern cab driver. Shortly after they began the investigation, the feds took it from them under the guise of national security. Maybe that was part of the FBI investigation Justin was talking about? While I had declined to have Justin tell me exactly what this rogue CIA unit was doing, it wasn't difficult to speculate. If it was something heinous enough to kill investigative reporters over, it was certainly more than bugging a political headquarters or the illegal sale of arms to some out-of-favor rebel group. Justin said he'd been an instrument for this unit, so I believe it likely involved assassination of some type.
So, maybe the cab driver was killed by the CIA? Maybe that was the mission of the rogue CIA unit Justin talked about? Maybe they were eliminating people deemed a threat to national security? Maybe somehow this Middle Eastern cab driver made it onto the wrong terrorist watch list? The government can't use a drone strike in Miami, at least not yet, so hired killers are used. That's why the FBI took the case, they recognized it as part of the pattern they were investigating.
Yet, according to Justin, the CIA unit was disbanded and the FBI investigation was closed and buried. That would take clout of the highest magnitude. I couldn't decide what thought was scarier, the existence of a unit of this nature, or the fact that the murder of innocent citizens to cover its tracks would be swept under the rug.
I was startled out of my mental inquiry by the vibration of the cell phone in my pocket. It was Elena. She said, "I finally got out of this boring meeting. I didn't think it would ever end. Is it too late to visit?"
"It's too late to visit, but if you can stay the weekend it's just right."
"I guess the suitcase in my trunk says I plan to stay the weekend."
"Perfect, see you when you get here."
After we ended our call, it dawned on me that I hadn't been especially diligent in my housekeeping this week. Actually, I'd done very little, well, none. I decided a quick tidy-up was in order, so I went upstairs. I spent about thirty minutes trying to make the place look like something more presentable than a bachelor pad. After finishing, I decided to reward myself with a beer, so I took a Landshark from the refrigerator and wandered out onto the balcony.
It was that point of the evening where the sunlight has faded, but the Atlantic hasn't become an inky black void quite yet. It was a relatively quiet evening, especially for a Friday, and I heard a boat fire up its engines in the marina. I looked down the rows of slips and a couple of minutes later I spotted Justin's Rampage moving slowly out into the channel toward the ocean. I sipped my beer and watched him glide toward the mouth of the marina. In the fading light, the boat was a mere shapeless mass gliding under the occasional flicker of its running lights. I heard Justin open up the throttles as he reached open water. I saw the fireball before I heard the sound of the explosion. Seconds later, all I saw was a flaming patch of dark ocean.
Acknowledgements
My sincere gratitude to all of my friends and readers who have encouraged me to continue the adventures of the cast of characters who bring Cap's Place to life. Special thanks to Jessica Benbow for her review and suggestions and to Renee Morales for her herculean efforts in editing. My amazing wife Karen continues to support me every step of the journey. She is the keystone of my life.
The cover for Quick Be Jack is another wonderful product of Dane at Ebook Launch.
Of course, try as all of these folks did, they were unable to prevent me from making mistakes. The mistakes are mine, and mine alone.
Quick Be Jack: A Jack Nolan Novel (The Cap's Place Series Book 3) Page 25
