Mitch glided into the beach with a shout and then picked up his board and ran over to them. His wetsuit was bright red and had several patches sewn on it; most notably the British and Australian flags.
“Heard you had a bit of excitement, mate.”
“It was nothing.”
“Don’t be modest now. You took out some boys is what I heard. And saved the damsel in distress. Pretty little bird that.”
“Yeah, she is.”
“Oh ho, sorry, mate. Didn’t mean to step on your toes.”
“No, it’s fine.”
He slapped Patrick’s shoulder. “Well hope your hand’s up to a good fight. These little creatures can pack a helluva punch on those fishing lines.”
Mitch walked away and back to the hotel and Patrick watched him go.
“Why are we here, Chris? He has more qualified people than us to hunt this thing.”
“Tell you the truth, I don’t know. I asked him the same thing and he just told me he knows what he’s doing.” He pulled his foot out from one of his sandals and stuck it in the soft sand. “You gonna call your dad?”
“I don’t know now.”
“I don’t think you should. I think you should come with us and kill this fucker and be on the cover of National Geographic with us.”
Patrick looked out over the water at the masses of ships that were packed tightly near shore. “I’m not sure it’s gonna be so easy.”
*****
Hamilton had decided they would have one more night onshore and then leave in the morning. The voyage was slated for two weeks but Hamilton thought they would need to extend it longer than that. Mitch had told Christopher they should plan on at least a month at sea.
Patrick had bought new clothes from the hotel shop, paid for by Hamilton, and sat in the casino at a blackjack table in his new black pinstripe suit that Christopher had picked out for him. Rodrigo was at the bar getting drunk and Mitch was playing craps.
“Where’s Jane?” Christopher said, sitting down and throwing a hundred dollar bill on the table.
“She’s packing. She was supposed to be going to Mexico but she’s heading home.”
“You sure about that?”
Patrick looked up to see Jane walk into the casino. She was dressed in a black evening gown, her hair done up and shiny earrings sparkling under the casino lights. He asked for another card, busted, and then got up and went to meet her near the entrance.
“I thought you were packing?” he said.
“I was. I mean, I did. But I don’t . . . I mean, I guess . . .” She chuckled nervously. “I’m not making much sense am I?”
“You’re okay. What’s going on?”
“I just don’t want to leave yet, Patrick. Leave you I mean. I never thought I would be, but I’m sick of this country. It’s not like it was when I was here before. Let’s go somewhere else. Together.”
“Where?”
“Mexico. Or back to the states, I don’t care.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. How bout for right now we get drunk and gamble and talk about it?”
She took his hand and they went back to the tables.
Patrick laid several hundred dollar bills out and received chips in return. He split them with her and leaned in and kissed her soft lips, tasting her honey lip balm.
* * *
39
The sand was in Patrick’s nostrils and he held one finger to his nose and snorted it out of the other nostril. He was still looking at the tricycle and didn’t notice the major yelling at him from behind. He glanced back and saw the three soldiers that would be going in with him. They were boys, two of them only nineteen. The third one was PFC Martin; a big Texan with the constant stink of chewing tobacco on him. He pulled down his scarf and spit a long strand of brown on the ground, half of it getting onto his chin and body armor.
“We ready to go, Captain?”
Patrick stared at the brown goo on his body armor, already crusting from the desert heat. He looked to the man’s face and noticed for the first time a small scar on his upper lip.
“Captain Russell? Are we ready to go?”
“Yeah. Follow my lead. No heroic bullshit.”
He turned back toward the house and glanced at the tricycle as he came to the door.
Patrick took a deep breath and lifted his leg, bashing his heel just under the doorknob. The door splintered and swung open. He rushed in, his rifle in front of him, finger caressing the trigger. He swung to the right behind the door and then the left. He came to the center of the room as the three men spread throughout the house.
They cleared the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom, the second bedroom, and a small office. The only thing that was left was the door leading to the basement. The major had sent in another team of four and they stood behind them. Patrick looked to their team leader and nodded and the team leader nodded back.
He kicked in the door and went first into the basement.
The stairs were old and rickety wood. He reached the bottom but it was dark. His rifle had a night-vision attachment and he flipped it on. He went underneath the stairs and ducked, resting on one knee as he scanned the space.
There was movement near a washing machine. He held his breath.
The movement increased and then in one motion a man jumped out and fired, the gun lighting his night-vision screen as bright as the sun.
Soldiers began firing in the confusion. Someone screamed that they had a man down. Patrick took aim at the Iraqi, and fired.
The back of his head blew out onto the wall and he collapsed on the floor. People were shouting to get the lights and they came on.
The man was no older than eighteen. He still had the bad teenage mustache of someone still going through puberty.
“Captain,” someone said, “it’s Martin.”
Martin was slumped over, blood pooling between his legs on the concrete floor. A round had gone into his cheek and out the base of his neck, severing his spine.
Anger welled up inside Patrick and he clinched his jaw.
“Sir,” another PFC said, peering into a side-door, “you need to see this . . .”
Patrick woke up in bed, nude. Jane lay next to him, asleep on her side, her gown thrown over a chair against the wall. Her hair caressed his shoulders and tickled his arms. He leaned over and kissed her and she stirred but didn’t wake.
He rose and walked out onto the balcony of his hotel room. It overlooked the ocean and he sat on a chair and watched the waves roll into the beach and foam and crackle before disappearing. He counted five before Jane came and sat next to him in a bathrobe.
“I want to leave today,” she said. “Come with me.”
“Not yet. I have something I have to do.”
“You’re not talking about going after this thing are you?” Patrick didn’t say anything. “Patrick, you can’t be serious. These people are . . .” She looked around to make sure no one was out on any nearby balconies. “These people are dangerous. Taylor’s crazy.”
“He seems all right.”
“Something’s wrong with him. The way he talks; his thought process, I don’t know. Something’s not all there.”
“Chris works for him now. I don’t know if I’m ready to leave him.”
“You don’t know if you’re ready to leave him or your brother?”
He looked at her and then away, back out over the ocean.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you two were close. But he’s gone, Patrick. Killing a squid isn’t going to bring him back.”
“He’s paying me decent money for a few weeks work, Jane. And there’s a chance I could get some fame from this. No one’s ever seen a giant squid. Could you imagine if we caught one? They have no idea how big these things get. Chris was saying this could be the biggest animal in the world.”
“And you’re going to kill it because Taylor Hamilton has a hard-on for it?”
“They don’t want to kill it. They want to captu
re it.”
“Why?”
“Fame I guess. Maybe he’s just obsessed with these things and wants to be the first one to capture it, I don’t know.”
She stood up, closing her robe tightly. “This is stupid, Patrick. This is stupid and immature. I’m getting on a plane tonight, with or without you.”
Patrick sighed as she got into the shower and leaned against the balcony railing with his elbows and watched the early morning surfers on the beach. There were only five or six of them; all adrenaline junkies. Some of their friends or relatives had video recorders on the beach and were recording the surf in case one of them was attacked.
There was a knock at the door and Patrick went and opened it. Mitch stood there with a smile on his face and two ginger ale bottles in his hand.
“Mind if I come in?”
“Sure.”
Patrick went back to the balcony and Mitch joined him, giving him a ginger ale. “For your stomach,” he said.
“They don’t seem scared,” Patrick said, looking at a new carload of surfers that parked near the beach and began to unload their boards.
“Nah, something weird really. You say ‘shark’ and people get to running out of the water. You say ‘squid’ and people think it’s funny. But I tell you, mate, it isn’t funny.”
“You’ve seen these things up close?”
“Well nobody’s seen one. Not a live one. But I saw a dead one once off the coast’a Greenland. It had washed up on the shore and I flew out to get a glimpse of it before it rotted away.”
“What was it like?”
“It was a fifty-two footer. Beautiful white with hooks the size’a fingers in its rings. It had somethin’ tied up in its legs and me and another fella opened them up and there was a ten foot white tip shark wrapped in it, all scared up from the rings. But the eyes’a the squid, that’s what stuck with me. It had angry eyes. We think that’s why it died; it drown trying to kill the shark. It would’ve rather died than let go of its prey. Yeah, for me, I’ll take a good sized shark any day.”
Jane stepped out of the shower in her bra and panties and saw Mitch. She casually took her gown off the chair and went back into the bathroom to slip it on.
“Fun night?”
“None of your business,” Patrick said. “Why you here anyway?”
“Can’t I come and just chit chat with my fellow sailors?”
“No, you can’t. You want something.”
“Got me pegged. I need you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“One of our crew got picked up last night on some criminal charge. He had a gutful’a piss and havin’ a good time. I’d like you to see if you could get him out for me.”
“Out of jail? How would I do that?”
“Word is you got in with the mayor.”
“He’s had me arrested twice, I’m not sure in is the right word.”
“He also let you go twice. Everybody been telling me he’s a bit of a hardass, but for some reason he’s taking a shining to you.” He took a long drink of ginger ale and then said, “My bloke’s got a wife and two kids back home and she ain’t got no other income. I’d consider it a personal favor if you could talk to the mayor. And I never forget my favors.”
“All right, I’ll talk to him. What’s your friend’s name?”
“Roger Wilcraft. I appreciate this, mate. You need anything, from now on, you come to me.” He softly punched his arm and left the room, glancing into the bathroom on his way out and catching a glimpse of Jane putting on make-up.
* * *
40
Ignacio paced nervously outside the governor’s office. The governor, Nico Amadeo, was a difficult man to get to know and even more difficult to like. He was unpredictable and violent, and Ignacio was never sure exactly how a meeting with him would go.
It was rumored one of his many mistresses had informed him a few years ago that she had gotten pregnant. In response, he beat her so badly she miscarried. After the miscarriage he set her up in an apartment of her own with a salary from the government for document reviewing.
“He is ready for you, Mr. Silva.”
“Thank you.”
The office was massive and Ignacio had always thought that perhaps this office had been shared by three or four different people before the government bought the building in the 1980’s. Nico sat behind his desk with one boot up on the edge and the phone glued to his ear. He motioned for Ignacio to sit down.
Ignacio did so and looked around the office. There were photos of family and fishing trips and dedications. But it was all a sham. He knew Nico’s wife lived in a separate residence and was lucky if she saw her husband once or twice a year. His children were raised by nannies and his father had been placed in a care facility for the elderly long ago, before he was considered elderly.
Nico hung up the phone and leaned back in the chair. “This is not good, Ignacio.”
“I know.”
“What of the men who kidnapped the touristas?”
“I told everyone that many of them were shot and the rest escaped.”
“Do you have donkeys training them? How did they let one tourista cause so much trouble?”
“These are average men, Nico. If we used the military for these as I wanted—”
“No, if anyone knew we did that it would be my head. No military. Just find people in the prisons that have at least had some training. And tell them to find touristas that are easier targets, heh?”
“I will, Patrõn.”
“Good. Now what of this fish?”
“Everyone knows about it. I could not stop it.”
“It will bring some people to try and see it, but couples and families will not come if they think it is dangerous. Families are who spend their money here.”
“I know.”
“You know? Then what will you do about it? Will you fuck every tourist that comes in as a bonus? How, Ignacio, will you fix this?”
“I will capture it.”
“And then what?”
“Then we will build an aquarium around it. It will be the first giant squid ever captured by man. People will come from all over the world to see it. And our beaches will still have families.”
Nico thought about this a moment and then a small smile crept over his lips. He pressed a button on his phone and his assistant answered. “I am sending Ignacio to you. Get him whatever he needs. I have decided to capture it and put it in an aquarium. What do you think of my idea, Roberto?”
“I love it. It is a great idea, Patrõn.”
“Ignacio, I have accepted this idea. Capture it and put it in an aquarium. Yes, I like this idea. We can have el presidente dedicate it and have all the cameras there.”
“It is a great idea, Patrõn.”
“Yes, I believe it is.”
* * *
41
Patrick walked to the restaurant from his hotel. The day was hot but enjoyable and he watched the tourists shopping in the elegant stores or strolling along the streets snapping photos of old buildings and statues.
The restaurant was called the Parisian Bistro and it actually was reminiscent of the cafés in Paris. There was a veranda and people sat sipping cappuccino and surfing the internet on laptops or reading. One man was making a drawing of the waitress with pencil and charcoal on a white pad and Patrick glanced at the drawing as he walked by.
He scanned the interior of the restaurant and saw Ignacio sitting by himself. He sat next to a window and watched the tourists on the street as they looked into the restaurant and stopped by the entrance, scanning the menu hung near the door.
Patrick walked to him.
“Hello, Mayor.”
He took a sip of cappuccino leaving a bit of foam on his upper lip. He wiped it with a napkin and motioned with his head to the chair across from him. Patrick sat down and looked out the window as Ignacio took a bite of his egg white omelet.
“Do you want anything to eat?”
&nbs
p; “No, I’m okay.”
“Your ship is sailing soon. Are you going to be on it?”
“Yes.”
“That is a mistake, blanquito. You should go back to America and leave that ship alone.”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t. But you’re here so I will give you my advice.”
“I need to ask you a favor.”
Ignacio laughed. “What have you done to earn a favor? You Americans never stop amazing me. You come to my country, get thrown in jail twice, I let you go and you come with your hand out asking for a favor. What happened to the cowboys, blanquito? I thought Americans were independent and never asked anyone for help?”
“The cowboys died out. We’re into handouts as much as anyone else now.”
“Okay, at least you are honest. What is the favor?”
“There’s somebody being held at the jail named Roger Wilcraft. I would like him released.”
“Yes, I’ve seen this man. How do you know him?”
“He’s supposed to sail on the ship with us.”
“And he is a friend of yours?”
“Actually, no, I’ve never met him. But someone asked for help and they seemed to think that I may have some pull with you. The guy has a wife and kids back home.”
“Hm, a wife and kids, you say? And tell me, do you know why he is in jail? Did this person explain this to you?”
“No.”
“He raped a maid at the hotel, blanquito. How do you think his wife and kids would react to that?”
“I didn’t know that’s what it was.”
Ignacio took another bite of omelet and swallowed some water out of glass. “She is not coming forward. She has been paid I would think. I could hold the man if I wished. But there is no point. I was going to release him anyway.”
“Thank you. Is there anything I can do for you in return?”
“Actually there is. I need—”
His cell phone rang and he picked it up off the table and answered it. He spoke in Spanish for a few moments and then looked to Patrick, his eyes wide.
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