Progeny

by Shawn Hopkins

  “Where to, my friends?” the driver asked, obviously making it a point not to stare at the goliath situated in the rearview mirror.

  “Grotto Bay Resort,” Jackson said.

  As the driver pulled away from the curb, John looked over at the man who had fought beside his brother for over twenty years. “Where’s everyone else?”

  “At the hotel.”

  “You draw the short end of the stick?”

  Jackson’s bald head rotated, his mirrored sunglasses continuing to cast John back down at himself. “I was the closest to Henry.”

  John didn’t press the issue. Obviously Jackson wasn’t going to admit to being on the same flight. Which could only mean that Jackson was escorting him, making sure he got to where he needed to be — a fact that raised all kinds of questions. He turned his gaze out the window for the first time and found that they were surrounded by the bluest water he had ever seen. Boats were sprinkled throughout the water rather liberally and actually accounted for more traffic than the road they were on. A light rain was falling over the island, but the sun seemed ready to make its appearance, its face stubbornly clinging to a few straggling clouds.

  A dark-skinned man in his forties, the driver began filling the sudden silence by commenting on their short journey. “We are heading over the Causeway, crossing Castle Harbor,” he reported rather cheerfully. “Your hotel is just on the other side.”

  John looked ahead about half a mile to where the bridge ended and could indeed see the hotel nestled up in the embrace of a lush hill.

  “To your right is Coney Island Park,” continued the driver, “and to your left, past the airstrip, is King’s Castle.”

  There were two forts that John could see off to the right and little islands beyond Jackson’s obstructing frame to the left.

  “We built the airfield back in ‘41,” Jackson started to say, staring back at the airport. “Thought Hitler might defeat Britain so we took out a ninety-nine-year lease on a base. The Navy closed it down in ‘95.”

  The driver laughed, overhearing him. “And now we bring tourists in civilian planes, something our economy has come to depend on!”

  “We left you with roads, too,” Jackson said.

  “You sure did, my friend. In fact, you took over an eighth of our entire island, changing forever the very landscape of our humble home.”

  “But like you said, the economic benefits we left you were great.”

  “That they were,” he replied, chuckling.

  At that moment, his eyes still fixated on the view, John pulled out his phone to call Kristen. As he waited for her to answer, he recalled that Bermuda was an hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time. She would be on her way home from work now. Picking up on the last ring, she saved John from having to leave a message. But just as they started talking, Jackson and the driver ceased with their own conversation, allowing for an odd silence to erase any sense of privacy. So they didn’t speak long. “Just wanted to let you know I’m here,” he told her. “Is everything okay? Then I’ll call you later. Love you.”

  They pulled off the Causeway and passed a couple of tennis courts before stopping in front of an elegant orange building that was outlined with white trim, the lawn surrounding it littered with sculpted bushes and palm trees.

  “Enjoy your time in Bermuda,” the driver said, accepting with thanks the tip from Jackson.

  John closed the trunk and waved, following Jackson away from the curb and to the hotel’s exquisite lobby.

  After picking up their keys — apparently John wasn’t supposed to have a problem with Jackson not having checked in yet — they headed out the rear door, following a road that cut a beautiful path through acres of gardens. They walked past some scantily clothed people lounging around a pool and entered the lobby of another building, finding an elevator to their floor.

  The doors opened and let loose a young couple armed with tennis rackets and too much caffeine.

  “Watch where you’re going,” Jackson growled as he sidestepped them. He entered the elevator and poked a round button. The doors closed.

  “You know a lot about this place?” John asked, referring back to the airfield talk in the cab.

  “A little.” Then the doors opened again, and Jackson stepped out. He walked down the hall to John’s room and then stepped aside so that John could open it.

  John entered and did a quick tour of the room, impressed mostly with the balcony and its awesome view of Castle Harbor, the Causeway, a few scattered islands, the private beach and dock harboring a large sailboat below him, and half a dozen jet skis cutting trails of white wake through the tranquility of it all.

  Jackson came up behind him. “That’s St. David’s Island at the other end of the Causeway, where the airport is. Over there to the left is Grotto Bay Bridge. It connects to Coney Island. You either have to take a ferry from the West End or take the Causeway and go all the way around the airport to get to St. George’s Island.”

  “What’s on St. George’s Island?” John asked, figuring there was a point to the unprovoked flood of information.

  “White Horse Tavern. Be there in an hour and a half.” And then he turned and walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind him.

  John followed him to the hallway and watched to see which room he was staying in before closing the door and returning to the bedroom. Opening the sliding glass door that led out to the balcony, he stepped into the warm breeze. He could hear the water lapping against the shore below him, but it did little to allay his growing concerns. And then there was that thing he’d seen outside the window of the plane…

  Staring out at the blue-gray horizon, storm clouds drifting further apart from each other, he began to formulate a plan.

  He needed to know why he was really here.

  ****

  After acquiring a scooter from the hotel’s renting center, John asked the employee how to get to the tavern.

  “Take Swing Bridge over to St. George. It’s on the other side of Water Street, right across from the cruise ship terminal. You can’t miss it, there’s a Norwegian ship docked there. Here,” the woman handed him a map, “just in case.”

  “Thanks,” John said. He walked the bike away from the hotel before unfolding the map, matching the woman’s words to it. As it turned out, St. George’s Parish contained both the town of St. George and St. George’s Island as well as St. David’s Island. After committing a course to memory, he folded the map and tucked it into his back pocket. Then he set out for the Causeway.

  John found the drive back over the Causeway and through St. George to be beautifully relaxing despite his present circumstances. There was a sense of serenity and goodwill attached to the narrow streets, a placidness covering the pastel-colored houses barely contained by the white stone walls separating them. And every Bermudian he passed waved a happy hello. If only he could forget his progressing psychosis long enough to enjoy this place.

  Leaving the moped next to a dozen others, he stepped through the door of the green and white tavern. No sooner had the door closed behind him than someone was calling his name. Jackson stood near the back of the room, motioning for him to follow.

  John was led outside and to a waterfront terrace lined with tables. At the end of the terrace, a set of stone steps descended down to the water and to a row of bobbing jet skis. To his left, a huge cruise ship was resting on the other side of a small islet — the Norwegian ship the woman had referred to.

  “Ordinance Island,” Jackson muttered. He followed his gaze while squeezing through tables.

  The remains of a fortification sat on the island’s east side, old stonework stretching up out of the ground and still attempting to hold its position around a canon aimed out into the harbor. Steeling a look behind him, John saw that there was a road bridging them to the small island.

  “Boys, Henry’s little brother,” Jackson announced as they approached a table surrounded by rather large men.

  But no one stood, no
one reached to shake his hand or offer him a seat, no one introduced themselves or even so much as said hello. They just continued staring at their menus as if they hadn’t heard Jackson at all.

  So John just stood there, sweeping his gaze over them one at a time, attempting to apply his peculiar powers of sense to all of them. Finally, and still without invitation, he reached for an empty chair and sat.

  The man next to him took a long sip of something in a short glass, slammed it down on the table, and spun to face him. “So you’re Johnny, huh?”

  “John’ll do fine,” he said icily.

  “Nick.” He offered him his left hand.

  Only the familiar feeling of colliding flesh never came, empty air the only thing in his grasp. At first, John thought Nick had simply pulled his hand back. But upon looking down, he realized that Nick didn’t, in fact, have a left hand.

  The table erupted in laughter, but Nick’s gaze narrowed threateningly on John.

  John looked him over again and could immediately tell that Nick had seen better days.

  “You have something to say, Johnny?” Nick asked. He seemed intent on forcing some kind of altercation.

  There were a hundred things John could say, most of which he certainly would have said a few years ago. But he let it go, looked back down at the scarred stump Nick had as a hand, and said, “That stinks.”

  Nick continued to hold his gaze before a modest smile cracked his lips and some of the hostility evaporated from his eyes. “Yeah, as a matter of fact it does.” He noticed the scars on John’s neck, the piercing blue look in his eyes, and quickly decided to change his approach. “Don’t let it scare you.”

  “What?”

  He waved his arm. “My stump. It bothers some people.”

  “I think I’ll be okay.”

  “Lost it in ‘98. Serbia. Ended my career.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” John mumbled, bringing the menu up to his face and signaling an end to the charade.

  “Johnny,” Jackson said, “next to Nick are Hunter, Chris, and Paul.”

  John acknowledged them with a subtle nod of his head, again quickly sweeping his gaze over the last three men.

  Hunter, sitting immediately to Nick’s right, was an African American with a perfectly-shaped bald head that would be devastatingly effective if used as a wrecking ball. It was supported by a muscular neck and shoulders that had a wingspan all to themselves. He was wearing a red and white Hawaiian shirt that, like Jackson’s polo, seemed barely able to contain the rippling mass beneath it. He was naturally kind, though his eyes told of a sharpness that never retired, questioning and expecting everything — even while seated at a table in Bermuda. The man was, no doubt, remarkably intelligent.

  As John moved his attention to Chris, he began to appreciate the reputation the squad had earned amongst its superiors.

  Chris looked less like a bodybuilder and more like a stuntman — wiry, athletic, fast. He looked more like John’s age than the mid-forties he had somehow managed to embrace with such rare elegance. With messy blonde hair reaching his shoulders, green eyes that seemed to be amused by everything, and a white smile that beamed against his tropically tanned face, he was the one Henry had told the most amusing stories about. His brother had described him as a pure adventurer, a guy always looking for a thrill to ride out and not a care in the world to keep him from it. But along with such stories was a fierce loyalty he had to his brothers here, willing to eliminate anything that threatened even so much as one of their reputations. There was one particular incident that Henry had described (but one that John couldn’t fully recall at the moment) involving racial slurs thrown at Hunter by a gang of skinhead trash, an ice cream cone, a pool stick, a hanger, and a few ambulances…

  Donning a sheer white linen shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, khaki shorts, and flip-flops, Chris looked more like a surfer than a SEAL. But John knew that the man could instantly transform himself into the multi-million dollar weapon that he had been trained to be if the situation required it. Though, presently, he seemed more interested in a girl at the table behind them than in anything else.

  And then there was Paul. Though Paul wasn’t as physically intimidating as Jackson and Hunter, and didn’t appear as athletic as Chris, he was by far the meanest looking. His black hair was buzzed short and sat growing atop a face carved from granite — a pair of thick sideburns traveling down past his ears and ending abruptly at his jaw line. A single patch of black hair grew in the shadow of a lower lip that may never have known the tug of a smile. But unlike John, who always wore at least a day’s worth of stubble to conceal his facial scars, Paul seemed perfectly content in showing his off. They crisscrossed his face in angry fashion, hinting at experiences that could explain the coldness in his eyes. Tattoos ran up his forearms and disappeared beneath the sleeves of a black t-shirt. If the group had a ruthless killer among them, a man with no soul and capable of shamelessly executing whatever form of punishment a mission demanded, it was him. The time off since his retirement had apparently been without the relaxation Nick had become accustomed to. And it was John’s guess that he was still actively involved in a similar line of work.

  All things considered, the group sitting around him seemed more than capable of finding their missing comrade. Which once again begged the recurring question, why did they so desperately want him here? It went against the very fabric of how they operated, for not only did they despise him because of his political heresy, but also for being an outsider. To invite a stranger to participate in a mission, let alone a mission intent on saving one of their own, seemed like the last thing in the world they would be prone to do.

  The waiter came to the table and asked for their orders, interrupting his thoughts.

  Grilled wahoo, baby back ribs, fish and chips, a burger and fish chowder, ribs…

  “And for you, sir?” the waiter asked John last.

  Sensing that he wasn’t ready and not wanting to wait for him, Jackson ordered for him. “He’ll have the grilled wahoo, too.”

  The waiter asked what he would like to drink.

  “Water, please,” he answered before Jackson could.

  Chris mumbled something derogatory under his breath and asked for another Rum Swizzle.

  As the waiter left with their orders and menus, Jackson told John about the wahoo, that it was the local catch and surely fresh.

  “Thanks.” John leaned back in his chair.

  “Yeah,” Chris said, “if you ever need to be told what to do, just ask Jack. He thinks he knows everything. Thinks everyone should know it, too.” He winked at Jackson.

  Jackson took a sip of what John guessed was beer. “Didn’t bother you when I told you not to wipe yourself with nicandra physalodes when we were in Peru, did it?”

  Chris laughed, clapping his hands. “You see. He can’t just say ‘that poisonous plant.’ He has to let everyone know its scientific title. Like anyone cares. You better tell him now, Johnny, that you’re not impressed, or you’re in for a grueling few days.”

  Jackson shook his head and looked over to John. “Just ask Henry what the CIA’s profile says of me, and what it says of Chris.”

  “Yeah, proof that their letter ‘I’ is nothing but a joke,” Chris retorted as the waiter appeared and set another drink down on the table in front of him.

  John accepted his water with a polite thank you. He took a sip while eyeing the company around him once more, deciding to jump in and get it over with. “So what’s the plan?” The question earned him an unpleasant look from Paul that confirmed his theory that he was nothing but an outsider and not really wanted here at all.

  But Jackson answered the question. “The author that he wanted to talk to lives in Somerset Village, all the way on the West End. Problem is, he’s away until tomorrow afternoon.”

  “You’re sure he actually met the guy?” John asked.

  “As sure as I need to be.”

  “How do you know he even got here?”
<
br />   Hunter leaned forward. “I happened to be texting back and forth with him when he arrived. He said he’d write me later, once he got settled. That was the last anyone’s heard from him.”

  “And what makes you think he’s in trouble?”

  “You know why he wanted to talk to the guy, right? The things he was into?” Jackson asked.

  “Not really.”

  And with that, all the trained killers seemed to fidget a little, a look passed around amongst them that John wasn’t exactly sure how to interpret.

  But Jackson grinned, seemingly unimpressed with John’s answer. “Sure you don’t.”

  Before John could respond, however, the food arrived and all conversation came to an abrupt halt — or at least his participation in it. They continued talking back and forth as if he was no longer even sitting at their table. Outsider. Traitor. Unwanted… So why was he here?

  Once the check was paid and the table cleared, Chris stood and announced, “See you tonight, boys.” Then he winked at the girl behind them, walked down to the end of the terrace, his shirt blowing in the breeze, and skipped down the steps that led to the water. He slid a pair of sunglasses on and gracefully threw himself onto one of the jet skis, switching it on and sending a cloud of black smoke puffing into the tropical air. The water churned beneath him as he reversed away from the tavern. And once he was positioned toward the open harbor, he stood, gave a half-salute, and hit the accelerator. The jet ski shot a stream of arching water high into the air, barely missing the tavern’s waterfront guests, as Chris circled around Ordinance Island and disappeared behind the cruise ship, apparently heading out to sea.

  Hunter mumbled something under his breath about his friend’s apparent lunacy as he lead the rest of them away from the table and back through the tavern.

  John stayed by the tavern’s front doors, leaning against the wall while the rest of the Team hovered around their scooters in the parking lot, brushing up in private whatever their immediate plans were. Evidently, they were top secret. Once they were clear on their next move, Hunter helped Nick onto the back of his scooter while Paul sped off on his own.