They went to work. Butch trained Skippy quickly on what was required. He knew her system and had no intention of changing what worked. When the time came, he walked from the office to the foundry floor where the crew waited. They were talking in hushed tones behind their hands.
An environment of secrets and gossip.
Skippy didn’t mince words. “Your foreman got himself fired for fucking over the foundry. Which means that some of you helped him.” Skippy waited as he looked quickly at each and every one of his crew, noting those who couldn’t look him in the eye.
“That’s behind us. Our job has one simple task. Metal castings. Simple as that. We make the steel and create something that a company wants to buy. We roll sheets and wire. Without us, our world cannot be rebuilt. I don’t give a fuck about anything other than that. We’re going to do our jobs and take pride in the result. Here’s what we have on the agenda for today…”
Skippy gave out the individual assignments, mixing people up to ensure that no two malcontents were together. That may not have been fair to those who only wanted to do their jobs, but Skippy and Butch had a plan.
Throughout the afternoon and evening, they spent all their time on the floor, giving a helping hand and showing that they led by doing. Long into the night, the work continued. Butch and Skippy were everywhere in order to help, not micromanage. Come morning, the crew realized what they’d been missing for as long as they’d worked there.
The team.
They had been a bunch of individuals, working hard, but sometimes at cross purposes. When they worked as one with the extra hands, they accomplished more than they’d ever thought possible.
Butch and Skippy were tired.
“Go home, lover. I’m my own relief,” Butch mumbled.
“I’ll come back early. Don’t fall into the vat. You should probably stay away from the floor in entirety. Tired people make mistakes,” Skippy said.
“I will comply,” she intoned with a smile. Skippy signed the pay sheet vouching for who was there for the whole shift and dropped it into the slot on the door. Someone from accounting would pick it up shortly.
Skippy felt refreshed with the morning chill and clear air. He wasn’t sure how he’d like being on the shift opposite Butch, but was already thinking about who could replace him as foreman. Butch could move up and he could take the day shift. Happy with his plan, he left the front gate, whistling happily.
After walking a block, something hit him in the back. He staggered forward, jumping and rolling as he’d been taught, and came back to his feet with hands up and ready to fight.
The recently-fired foreman stood there with three other men. All of them carried short pipes.
Welcome to New York City, Skippy thought. He wanted to turn into a Werewolf and scare the men shitless, but he was still under cover. He had to do it the hard way.
“He should be out cold!” one man exclaimed, tightening his grip on the pipe.
“You didn’t hit him hard enough, dumbass!” the foreman growled. “Get him.”
They came in close together. Skippy dodged left, then dove to the right, grabbing the pipe from the man on the end. Skippy ripped it from his hands as he moved farther to the right, keeping the man between him and his friends.
Skippy swung high, then ducked low and hit the man in the knee. The bones crunched and the man went down, screaming in pain. Skippy launched himself in a semi-circle to the right.
His enemies were learning quickly. They spread out to give themselves room, but they were still in a line. Skippy accelerated toward the gap between the foreman in the center and the man to the right. Skippy held the pipe in one hand, jamming the end into the foreman’s face and catching the other pipe as the big man was in his backswing.
Skippy pulled the man over backwards and turned, a pipe in each hand. The uninjured man lost his nerve, threw his pipe down, and ran as if his hair was on fire. Skippy rotated his wrists, twirling the two pipes. One man lay on the ground whimpering and gasping while holding his destroyed knee. Another lay on his back, eyes open but unfocused after hitting his head on the pavement.
The foremen held his face in one hand, trying to wipe blood away from the circular cut on his cheek and nose.
“It’s just us now and for the record, I was here long before you. I’m a real New Yorker. Now it’s time to show you how it’s done.” Skippy moved in slowly. The foreman took his bloody hand away from his face and gripped the pipe baseball-bat style.
Skippy edged closer until the man took a swing. The Werewolf blocked it with one pipe, swinging the other into the man’s forearm. The bones snapped and he dropped the pipe. Skippy swung again, breaking the man’s other arm.
The foreman stood dumbly, mouth agape. “Welcome to the real New York, pal. You’re afraid of the dark because of people like me. Now go before you make me angry,” Skippy said in a low, dangerous voice. The foreman limped off, his useless arms cradled across his chest.
“Here’s your pipes back. You might need them to fight off the rats.” Skippy tossed the pipes at the two men still on the ground. Without another thought, he turned and strolled away.
“What a beautiful day in the city!” he told the world.
Guantanamo Bay
Kaeden was bored, and he knew that was bad. In his recon line of work, sitting in one place for a long time and doing nothing was the key to success. As the colonel told him, patience was a bitter cup from which only the strong could drink.
He wasn’t feeling very strong at the moment. He was looking at ground that had been undisturbed in ages. He saw nothing except the jungle encroaching on the ruins. Birds flew through the area, unmolested by man.
Kae listened intently, finding sounds only from nature. The wildlife raucously shared its joy, and it took him a while to sort things out.
He crawled at a snail’s pace from one hide site to the next. No one had observed anything. Most of the warriors were awake, wondering what was next.
He had to lead from the front, as his father would tell him, show infinite patience. Kae told them all they would wait another full day before moving to an alternate location that he would scout that night.
Kae told Camilla to get some sleep and be ready for when they conducted a night reconnaissance. He expected it would take all night and she’d have to be alert to keep up.
The weather was hot and the humidity unbearable. The warriors were soaked with sweat while lying in the shade. Kaeden’s boosted body compensated better, but he was still uncomfortable.
Kaeden wished that Jack had had a chance to be uncomfortable. Kaeden’s first mission and he’d already left someone behind. With the burial at sea, Jack would never go home. Kae knew deep down that he’d done what he could with events far beyond his control, but on the surface, it grated on him.
He looked forward to a private conversation with his father. The colonel had lived through all of it before, reconciled himself with the dead without being flippant. He carried all of them with him still, no matter where he went, honoring their sacrifice by continuing to follow his moral compass.
Maybe what he meant when he told them, ‘the FDG leaves no one behind’ was that ‘we honor their sacrifice by bringing their memories home.’ The battle between his emotions and intellect waged. Kae settled into his position, his body tense as his mind fought with itself.
***
Marcie didn’t move. She didn’t allow any of her people to move. From their vantage point, they could see the ocean beyond and the areas leading into the bay itself. If there were fishermen of any sort, she expected that they would reveal themselves.
The day dragged on and the only thing revealed was how much they could sweat. They drank far more water than they’d planned.
Marcie called her husband. “We need to find water,” she told him.
“I’m heading out tonight to scout the eastern area, work around to your side, and see what there is to see,” he offered. “As far as a report goes, it’s been a
long, long time since any humans have been here.”
“A whole bunch of nothing on this side, too,” she replied.
“Roger, out,” Kae replied, shaking his head at what the colonel called radio discipline. He stuffed the device back into his breast pocket. During his time in Japan, Akio tried to teach them meditation. Everyone seemed to benefit from it except for Kaeden.
He closed his eyes and tried to look into his soul, but the only things he saw were critical and painful. He opened his eyes and wiped away a tear, looking around to make sure no one had been watching.
“Fucking shit,” he whispered, frowning.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
North coast of Cuba
“There’s wildlife, but no humans at all,” Char said as she leaned on the rail and looked at the coastline. The two-masted sailboat made good time sailing downwind with a following sea.
The trip they estimated to take a week looked like it would only take three days.
“Stop for supplies?” Terry asked. Char nodded and pointed to the hands.
“Fresh water and maybe even hunt?” Archie asked. Even though he had been the one they tied up, he had become the small crew’s spokesman. The others weren’t too vocal and knew that Archie wasn’t afraid to stand up to the new captains.
“Hunt vegetables,” Terry said. He had his trusty .45 and Char wore her Glocks, but with the sea spray, she found that she needed to clean them daily to keep rust from taking hold. Terry would have preferred to store them in an oilskin, but he didn’t have one.
Not yet anyway, but that hatched a plan. “We need to catch a shark,” Terry told them. “But first, let’s head toward Bahia de Perros. There’s a large sheltered harbor into which a river drains, at least that’s what the last map I looked at showed.”
“Bay of Dogs?” Char translated.
“It is indeed, but first, the barrier islands.” Terry called “helm a lee” as he turned the bow across the wind. The sails whipped across, dragging the heavy booms with them. The sailboat hesitated, then surged forward. The mid-morning sun shone from the port side of the boat as they headed south by southeast.
Terry pointed with his chin. “Over there is Cayo Coco. Somewhere off the north coast is a pod and two of our people,” he said sullenly.
“And an ugly test for the kids’ mettle,” Char replied unhappily.
“If they can get past that without losing sight of what it means, they’ll be fine.” Terry needed them to be fine. He’d bet the future of the FDG on them, that they would become its future leadership, take the Force wherever it needed to go and lead the warriors in whatever battles needed to be fought.
He chewed the inside of his lip as he contemplated it. He looked at the sun. The kids wouldn’t check in until the evening. Terry needed to hear in their voices that they were okay, especially after they had a night and a day to think about it. Time was the enemy. If they were busy, he knew it would have been easier for them.
But they weren’t, and both he and Char knew what they were going through. She wrapped an arm around his waist.
“They’ll be okay,” she tried to reassure him.
“I know,” he said weakly, not feeling it. “Be ready on the sails. Watch for whales!”
Terry didn’t think there were any whales, but he wanted the crew to be doing something besides looking at him.
“Whales?” Louie asked.
They were on to him.
“Well then, look for sharks!” he told them. “We need some sharkskin.”
“Bad luck hauling a shark into the boat, boss,” Jose noted, screwing up his face with the unpleasant thought.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Everyone knows that!” Jose replied.
“We’re going to do it, and you’ll see that it’s not bad luck. Look at us!” Terry held his arms out, showing his bronzed and well-muscled physique. “Do I look like the type that believes in bad luck?”
“You’re not old enough to have seen what bad luck really is, Captain, but we’ll do it your way, and then you’ll see!”
Char snickered, but nodded in agreement. “We’ll do our best to fight off the evil demons,” she said reassuringly.
The gap between the islands was immense and easily traveled. They continued across a gulf and headed toward an opening in which another bay was hidden. Terry and the crew controlled the sails to cut speed, furling them as they slowed. With only the mainsail remaining, Terry turned the boat directly into the wind, and then they brought the last sail down.
They were in shallow enough water that they could use their anchor. Char checked the line and then kicked the anchor overboard.
“Barrels in the skiff,” Terry ordered. They put the small boat aft into the water and brought the empty barrels up from the hold.
“Just like in the age of sail,” Char said with a smile.
“The magical age of pirates and plunder,” Terry replied. “Arrr, matey.”
The crew loaded the barrels and Terry wished them well as they rowed away from the sailboat.
Terry picked up a pole, put some bait on it, and tossed it overboard. He could see clearly to the sandy bottom. Fish were lazily swimming about. He leaned back and closed his eyes as he embraced the good life of sailing the Caribbean.
“Look at you!” Char said, shaking him.
“What did I do?” he said defensively.
“Clean your pistol is what you’re going to do. I think we may be having pork for dinner. You won’t need your sharkskin then if we don’t poke too many holes in the pig’s hide.”
“Where?” Terry asked.
Char pointed. “A couple hundred yards, maybe.”
“Let’s go now.” Terry put on his swim trunks while she removed her clothing. She already had her bikini on. They eased over the side and into the water, holding their pistols over their heads as they side-stroked toward the shore.
The men had rowed into a small river and with heavy strokes, they continued into it, forcing their way upstream.
Terry and Char continued across the beach and into the jungle on a heading that Char indicated. Terry wove his way between palm trunks as he continued inland, sniffing and listening.
He smelled them long before he saw them. The stench guided him in. Terry slowed and crept soundlessly toward his prey.
One man yelled and then another.
Terry started to run with Char close on his heels. They both had their pistols out as they burst into a clearing where a small pack of wild pigs had driven the men into the water. Half the water barrels had been destroyed and the skiff was floating downriver.
Char didn’t hesitate. She fired one after another, knocking the wild pigs down with single shots. They started to run, but it was too late.
Not a single pig left the clearing.
Terry ran and dove, hitting the water stretched out fully. He came up and swam with powerful strokes, quickly catching the boat. He turned it toward the shore. It ran aground, and he left it there.
The men were out of the water and apologizing profusely for their cowardice.
Terry looked at them in surprise. “What’s the big deal? We have the guns. We used them. We’re having pork and jerky for the foreseeable future!” Terry laughed. “And you didn’t know we’d come ashore. So next time, you need to have a way to protect yourself. Next time, gentlemen, we’ll get it right.”
They filled the barrels, dressed the hogs, and loaded the skiff. They towed it by hand as they walked down the small river’s shore. When they reached the bay, Terry told the men to swim for it. He threw his pistol on top of their kills and waded in, keeping a tight grip on the skiff’s lead.
The men didn’t seem too willing until Char sauntered into the water and dove in, swimming gracefully. “Don’t make us leave without you. This place looks nice, but it would suck to live here.”
Louie, Jose, and Archie looked at each other, shrugged, and waded into the water.
Terry pulled the skiff behind him as
he side-stroked toward the sailboat.
“You need a name,” he told the boat as he approached. Whatever had been painted on the hull had disappeared long ago, if a name had ever been there. “Betty Lou? Ass-kicker? Ball slapper? Mildred?”
Char was first to the boat and climbed aboard. The first thing she did was put her pistols in her cabin and wipe them with fish oil.
Once on the deck, she heard TH talking to himself. She cocked her head to better hear.
“Mildred?” she asked as he swam aft, where there was a ladder into the boat. It wasn’t big enough to have davits to haul cargo into the boat, but it did have a pass-through door.
He tied the skiff to a cleat, and while clinging to the ladder, he handed his pistol belt to Char. With one hand, Terry pulled the carcasses out, one by one, and tossed them through. Char carried them to the ad hoc cleaning station in the middle of the main deck.
The deckhands treaded water until Terry finished. “Get those barrels of water in, tie this boat up, and then break out your knives, boys, we’ve got some work to do!” Terry said with gusto. He vaulted over the ladder and onto the deck.
He pulled his knife, stroked it twice across the sharpening steel, and reached for the first victim.
“Hey!” Char interrupted, pointing with her knife at Terry’s M1911A1 pistol. “Are you that hungry?”
“That I forgot about my thunderstick? I guess so. I can taste it all, smoked ham, pork chops, maybe even cure some bacon,” he said with a dreamy expression.
“You are such a man!” Char exclaimed. “Your two motivators are sex and food. A very distant third is your children.”
Terry looked appropriately chastised. He slipped his knife back into its sheath and headed to the cabin to clean and oil his pistol He returned in three minutes to find four people crowding the table.
“Chuck the guts, slop boy,” Archie said.
“Oh man!” Those were Terry’s rules. Everyone was equal. The other jobs were being done, leaving deck cleaning for him. When the time came, he’d man the wheel and sail the boat, but while anchored, he had the duty.
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