A Few Good Fish

by Amy Lane

  “No.” Ernie yawned. “Takes it out of me. But mostly Sonny doesn’t need it with Ace. Ace got him people, all around him, so he doesn’t have to worry about that death spiral in his head.”

  “Ace did really good,” Jackson said with feeling. “Can’t be easy, living with someone with damage.” Poor Ellery. God, he deserved so much better.

  “It’s not,” Ernie said softly. “But it must be worth it because it keeps happening, right?”

  Jackson smiled weakly. “Yeah. So we know the plan?”

  “Course. I blow a car up in the west end of the base, you and Sonny sweep in from behind the base—the east—and Jai uses the gun stash to pick off everyone who comes out to see what happens when the car goes boom. We’ve only got a few people. It’s not that hard.”

  “What are you doing after you set the car to go?” Jackson asked, because they’d managed to get a lock on the farthest point west that wasn’t mined. They’d seen an outbuilding there, and Jackson would check it out before they set the plan in motion, but the biggest takeaway was to keep Ernie safe.

  Ernie didn’t belong in a firefight, and Jackson didn’t want to know what his superhero not-boyfriend would do to Jackson if that’s where he ended up.

  “My job is to get the hell out of there and leave the rest of the op to the gun-wielding psychopaths who think they’re the grown-ups,” Ernie said pertly. “How’s that?”

  “As a gun-wielding psychopath, I’m fine with that,” Jackson told him, not particularly insulted. “The world’s better with you in it, Ernie—it would be a shame if that changed.”

  Ernie growled. “Jackson, do you know how long I knew Burton before I knew I would love him forever?”

  “I got no id—”

  “I hadn’t even seen him yet. He walked into my bakery and asked for crullers. He was scoping me out, but I could feel him, all of him, this terrible heat and fury and rock solidness just walking around Albuquerque, setting its sights on little ol’ me. When I saw him for real I was stoned stupid, but just hearing his voice again woke me up. Because the thing with the gift is you can either know somebody instantly or you can never know them at all. It makes me very selective who I care about. Burton, Sonny, Ace—I know them. I’d die for them.”

  “That’s….” Jackson took a deep breath. “It takes the rest of us a while longer,” he said truthfully.

  “Bullshit.” Ernie shrugged like that level of clairvoyance was no big deal.

  “You had enough ESP to become your own Naval Intelligence experiment,” Jackson muttered as that damned mange-green desert flowed by him. “How can you call—”

  “How long have you known him? Not slept with him or dated him—known him?”

  He didn’t even have to think about it. “Six years, three months, four days. He took one look at me and….” Jackson paused. His assumption about what Ellery had done and Ellery’s own confession of that moment were two very different things.

  “What?” Ernie asked breathlessly, like a kid at the movies.

  “I thought he dismissed me. He looked at me and blew me off and hated me. But… but he told me later that I… he was attracted to me. And he thought I was out of his league. So he got that pissy sound in his voice and looked down his long nose at me, and we sniped at each other for the next five and a half years.”

  “And the whole time…,” Ernie prompted.

  “We thought about it. When we were with someone else, we’d know this wasn’t the person we wanted. But as soon as we got together, we knew….” How embarrassing. Seriously. Hearts and flowers and chocolates and romance had nothing on this.

  “You knew what?”

  “There wasn’t anyone else we wanted to be with,” Jackson finished.

  “Hmm.” Ernie didn’t sound like he was gloating. He was just pleased. “See? You knew. In that first thirty seconds, you knew. But you both had shit to do in your heads first, right?”

  And then, because the kid deserved the truth. “My head’s an awful place, kid. Wasn’t as easy as it sounds.”

  “Yeah, it is. I been there. I thought Sonny was the worst I’d seen, but you two, you could swap stories.”

  Oreos, KitKats, soup with more crackers than soup. A knowledge of Sesame Street because it was public broadcasting, and Jackson didn’t get to see other TV until he met Kaden in the fifth grade, and Sonny probably didn’t get to until he’d joined the Army.

  A pathological fear of losing the one person they trusted to care for them, based on the empirical evidence that suggested they weren’t worth enough to be cared for.

  “We swapped the stuff that mattered,” Jackson said. “Everything else is just one-upmanship.”

  Ernie grunted. “I am so not impressed by your stoic ‘I can deal with this’ thing. I’m sure Ellery isn’t either.”

  “It’s mine. Where are you going after we blow up the SUV?”

  “Nowhere,” Sonny said unexpectedly, like he’d been with them in the car all along. “We’re blowing up Jai’s Toyota.”

  “Why in the hell—”

  “Because this is a brand-new fuckin’ car, and you may not give a shit about it, but to my people that’s sacrilege. Jai’s driving a POS, and I may have made it function, but it’s not a goddamned Infiniti QX30. Besides, we’re gonna need this car for the getaway—it’s big, it’ll fit everyone including Burton, and when you stand on it, it’ll fly.” Sonny’s sound of disgust was clear. “Their SUV needed a tune-up and its belts are goin’, and it’s got maybe thirty miles before the brakes go.”

  Jackson did a slow blink, but when his eyes opened the road was still the road, Ellery was still gone, and he was still stunned.

  “How in the hell did you know that?”

  “’Cause I heard it pull away. What did you hear when it pulled away?”

  Ellery’s voice in the dark, saying, “Mine.”

  “Nothing useful—ouch! Ernie!”

  “You heard what you needed to hear,” Ernie said, voice thick—but Jackson’s head hurt from the smack to the back of it, and his low-level headache indicated he wasn’t doing too hot as it was. “Now after we blow up the Toyota and I get to the outbuilding—”

  “Shit,” Jackson muttered. “Okay, we need to rethink this. Sonny’s right. This is the getaway car—how do you get away if we’re on the other side of the goddamned compound? We need you to drop us off at the airplane hangar and then you and Jai to circle back around after the Toyota is blown—”

  “But then Jai can’t give you cover!” Ernie protested.

  “Maybe not—but he can get you to safety if this whole thing goes south.”

  Sonny grunted. “Yeah. Like that plan. You and me, we don’t get our guys out, might as well go up like the car.”

  Sonny got it. They were good.

  Behind them Ernie said, “I don’t fuckin’ believe this!”

  But Jackson couldn’t think anymore. He had to find his happy place and center himself or he wouldn’t be able to move when he got there.

  JACKSON KNEW where the main entrance to the base was, but having looked at the overhead map—and then really zeroed in—he’d seen a series of smaller service paths. Dirt tracks, really; they were for jeeps schlepping recruits out to the rifle range and hauling back any soldier unlucky enough to get winded on long runs. Coming up from the east, Jackson turned off on one of those immediately after the main road and swung back behind the airstrip, behind the airplane hangars—one more of a sunbreak than anything else but with three small and one larger complete hangar which stood, bay doors open, like it was ready to send a flight out or take one in. Two copters sat, one a rather vast Black Hawk and one a smaller, spryer Jayhawk, on the helipad behind the airstrip, and Sonny grunted.

  “What?”

  “The UH-60A Black Hawks ain’t been common use for a couple’a years. Most units updated to the Ls or the Ns. This guy shopping Army surplus?”

  “Fits, doesn’t it?” Jackson said. “He’s sort of squatting on this base as it
is. He’s got limited funds coming in, and he’s seriously losing his grip on whatever legitimacy he ever had. He starts training guys for this Corduroy group, and they’re giving him money to keep doing his behavioral modification or what the fuck ever, but in the meantime he’s getting no love from the military. He may have been US Navy, but military surplus has been his MO.”

  “I do not get people coming in and starting shit like this. Like what? Killing people’s like a job skill? Like, oh, hey, I’m gonna start up a camp for people to go kill people?”

  “Uh, Sonny?” Ernie sounded hesitant, as well he should. “What was boot camp in the Army like?”

  “But this ain’t for a country! This is like… like a special class! Like Alba planning to go to junior college to learn how to do algebra, but this is killing people instead. Murder 101—today we learn about poison and tiny little piano wires so you don’t make no fuckin’ noise!”

  “Garrotes,” Jackson supplied, liking Sonny more every time he went off.

  “What in the fuck is a garrote?”

  “That’s what you call it when you strangle someone with a tiny little piano wire. It’s a garrote.”

  Sonny’s mouth fell open, but he didn’t look at Jackson because the three of them were too busy scanning the base as they jounced over the godforsaken road. Not even the Infiniti’s suspension could make up for a shitty dirt track that had probably not been tended for a couple of years or so.

  “How in the fuck did you know that?”

  Jackson let out a mean and dirty chuckle. “Police academy, Sonny. They taught us all about killing there.”

  Sonny’s chuckle sounded unhinged and mean and delirious and a lot like Jackson’s own voice in his ears. “That there is fun shit.”

  “Amen. Is Jai behind us?”

  Ernie checked quickly. “Roger that—do you think he figured out the hole in our plan?” Ernie’s phone buzzed, and he shifted to answer it. Jai’s thickly accented voice thudded through the phone’s speaker, and although Jackson couldn’t make out words, he could make out tone. Ernie soothed his feathers, though, and they continued to circle around the airstrip, sticking to the track.

  The hangar was at an angle from the actual base, out of the line of sight and hidden from the road by the rise at the fence line. The entire base, in fact, was surrounded by a ten-foot fence topped with razor wire, tucked into a wide shallow valley and hidden by the rise that appeared to circle the entire thing.

  If you were hiding a secret military base in the expanse of the desert, this was a way to do it. From looking at satellite maps, Jackson would hazard that the shooting range was situated such that a stray bullet would have spent itself, died, and oxidized before it even hit the fence line rise.

  On the one hand, civilians didn’t have to worry about what was about to go down, because they would never know.

  On the other, if anybody in their little band got hurt, it was a long goddamned way to help.

  They came to a stop and Jackson motioned to Sonny to get out. Sonny ran around to the back to grab the two assault rifles Jai had apparently just had lying around under his bed. Jackson pulled his pistol out of the glove compartment, checked the cartridge, checked the chamber, and grabbed the two spare clips he kept as well. He double-checked the safety and tried to tuck the gun in the back of his jeans and then grimaced.

  “What?” Ernie asked, and unlike Ellery, Jackson couldn’t play the “what” game with Ernie.

  “Fucking jeans are sliding off my fucking ass,” Jackson muttered. He set the gun down on the island between seats and pulled his belt tighter, then forced a hole through the leather and tried again. Yeah, this time the gun felt tighter, like it might not end up a load in his shorts, and he hoped the clips in his pockets wouldn’t cause his death by pulling his pants down in the middle of the op.

  “You get tired of being told to eat?” Ernie asked mildly.

  “God, kid—you ever get tired of knowing everything?”

  “Not yet.” Ernie slid out of the car and opened Jackson’s door while Sonny talked to Jai. “You and Sonny be careful, you understand? I know you’re both going in thinking you need to save your one person, but they’re worried about you as well.” Ernie’s serenity slipped then, and he bit his lip in a show of uncharacteristic fear. “And I’m worried about my person, and you guys need to be careful not to hurt him.”

  Jackson nodded gravely and had a sudden thought. “Hey—what’s he look like? Any distinguishing characteristics?”

  To his surprise Ernie smirked. “Yeah—he says he’s the darkest thing this base has seen since the last eclipse. He slid in as a member of Corduroy, and I guess Lacey’s sort of a fucking racist.”

  Jackson’s lip curled scornfully. “Is there any other kind?”

  Ernie gave another short bark of angry laughter. “He’s made Burton’s life miserable these last few months. If we don’t get shot, he’ll probably be glad to blow this place.”

  For a moment Jackson’s urgency stilled. “You don’t know for sure?”

  Ernie’s full mouth twisted. “We text. There’s a lot you can say in text, but there’s a lot you don’t know either. For all I know, my name comes up as ‘Piece of ass’ in his phone, in case it gets discovered. Not far from the truth, you know, but not flattering either.”

  Suddenly Jackson wanted Burton and Ernie’s Happy Ever After as much as he wanted his own.

  “Stay safe, Ernie. I’ll make it a point not to shoot your boyfriend.”

  “Thanks, Jackson. Don’t throw your life away—it’s worth something.”

  Jackson nodded. For once he thought he had to listen to this advice. If he was the one getting Ellery out of captivity, he had to be very careful indeed.

  Jackson double-checked his gun, double-checked his ammo, and said, “Take care of the car, okay? It really is our only way out of here.”

  “That we know of,” Ernie said, but then he slammed the door and put the SUV into gear. Jackson strode to the passenger side of the little Toyota, where Sonny and Jai were apparently having a discussion in a redneck/Russian hybrid language Jackson could hardly follow.

  “Sonny?”

  “He’s gonna get himself killed.”

  “He’s not going to be in the car when it hits the bank of land mines,” Jackson soothed. They’d even found a brick and a broom handle to rig the gas with a little help from some rope and duct tape.

  “It won’t matter if he ain’t,” Sonny snapped. “Jai filled the damned car with C-fucking-4 and fuses—”

  “No fuse,” Jai said. “Will figure it out.”

  “Well, that’s just perfect!” Sonny was shaking with rage. “So the car’ll hit a land mine, there’ll be a boom, and then there’ll be a big fuckin’ boom that nobody on the planet can ignore, and then all that shrapnel’s gonna come down on these two dumbasses’ heads.”

  Jackson blinked. Part of him liked this plan. Part of him was a little appalled. “You think you and Ernie can get the fuck out of there in time?”

  Jai nodded. “Will make a big boom. Will not make a bigger hole. C-4 leaves behind nothing. Car will have already exploded.”

  Jackson grunted. He knew very little about explosives. “Ernie,” he said helplessly. “You can’t—”

  Jai nodded soberly, like a substitute teacher told not to let the children hang on the cupboards. “I like Ernie. I don’t want to see him dead.”

  Jackson looked at Sonny. “You trust him?”

  Sonny nodded, unhappy but seeing the truth. You had to trust him all the way, especially here. “Please—all of us need—”

  “I will not let the scrawny little chicken die. No worries.”

  Jai was looking at them both with incredible sincerity, and Jackson took a deep breath and hoped. Not for himself, but for this small group of people he’d inadvertently drawn into his and Ellery’s drama.

  “Good luck.” He held out his hand, and Jai took it. “If shit looks bad or it looks too dangerous, dump the C-4, gr
ab Ernie, and get the fuck out of there.”

  “That is a deal.” Jai’s paw pumped Jackson’s smaller hand once, hard. “And if you do not get your man back, I will keep you.” His craggy face erupted into a winsome smile. “You have a strong stomach, and that and the yellow hair….” He shook his head wistfully, as though Jackson and Sonny were just too precious for words, before rolling up the window and driving away. Ernie let him go first, and together they moved out and it was just Jackson and Sonny, running the perimeter of the hangar.

  “You should feel special,” Sonny muttered as they pressed into the shade, backs to the corrugated aluminum. “He’s been crushing on me for two years. You’re the first other person he’s gotten soft on.”

  Jackson grunted and peered around the corner, jerking back when he saw three guys dressed in jeans and boots, hair in various stages of give-a-fuck, scruff and beards aplenty, walking toward the hangar entrance. They wore backpacks, and one of them was wheeling a duffel bag behind him.

  “Military my ass,” he muttered.

  “No, it ain’t the military that makes him crush,” Sonny rambled, like they weren’t in danger with every breath. “He says it’s the hair.”

  “It’s not the hair,” Jackson told him, hoping this wouldn’t hurt Sonny’s feelings. “It’s the damage. We’re both broken. He thinks it’s sexy.”

  Sonny grunted. “I’m not broken enough to throw Ace over for Jai, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Nope, never crossed my mind. Hush.”

  Together they listened, trying to differentiate the inside sounds from the outside sounds. For a moment it was a lost cause, and then Jackson heard a murmuring at the same time he spotted a small vent about twenty feet away. He trotted over, fingers on his lips, and hit the deck, pressing his ear to the vent.

  “The Cessna, not the Jayhawk—you’re sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure. They’re taking the lawyer and his butt-buddy with them. Jayhawk won’t take four people plus luggage.”

  “Great—Lacey’s bailing, Hamblin’s going with him—leaving just us nuts, twisting in the wind?” It was the first time he’d heard the name Hamblin—but the guy who ran Corduroy had to have a name, right?