by Sharon Sala
Dammit. After everything, this was not the ending he had envisioned.
His legs felt like lead. He felt himself sinking.
Oh no. My Shelly. So sorry. Love you forever.
And then the stars went out.
* * *
“Paul! Grab him, dammit! He’s sinking!”
Paul Faber glared at his fishing buddy. “I see that, Lou. Get me closer.”
Lou accelerated the outboard engine, maneuvering their skiff right beside the drowning man, and a heartbeat later, Paul leaned over, grabbed him by a leg and pulled him into their boat.
“Good job,” Lou said. “Is he alive?”
Paul was on his knees as he moved their lantern a little closer to the body and began checking for a heartbeat.
“Barely,” he said, and started doing CPR as Lou hit the gas on the outboard motor and aimed the skiff through the bay back toward their landing on the opposite shore.
It wasn’t until Paul saw blood mixing with the water beneath him that he realized the man was hurt. He hastened his chest compressions and was soon rewarded when the man choked, then started coughing up water. Paul turned him over onto his side so the water could run out, and that was when he saw the bullet hole in his shirt.
“This guy’s been shot.”
“Oh man! Think we should call the cops? No, wait! What if they ticket us for fishing out here after dark?”
Paul frowned. “You gonna measure a man’s life against some measly fine?”
And then the man between them suddenly groaned and spoke only two words in a deep, raspy voice.
“No cops.”
* * *
Jack didn’t remember anything but the sight of the stars above him as he’d begun to sink, so coming to in a rowboat with strangers was something of a shock.
“What’s your name? Are you a criminal?” Paul asked.
Jack coughed, then shook his head once. “No name. No perp. Smugglers... They shot... Help... Hide...” Then he rolled over onto his back as a wave of blinding pain pulled him under.
Paul eyed the man closely and made a knee-jerk decision. “Fine, we’ll call him Dude, and I’m betting five bucks he’s some kind of cop. Perp is cop talk.” Then Paul got up on his knees and pulled off his shirt.
“What are you doing?” Lou asked.
“Gonna pack this wound and hope it slows down the bleeding until we can get him help.”
Lou frowned. “He said no cops. Doctors have to report gunshot wounds on patients.”
“I know that. I’m not taking him to a hospital. I know a guy,” Paul said.
“We both found him. We’ll both take him,” Lou said.
Paul folded his T-shirt into a thick cloth pad, then yanked off the man’s T-shirt and used his skinning knife to cut it straight up the front. He began pulling on the thin knit fabric to elongate it, then started rolling it up, turning it into a long, thin rope.
Sweat was dripping out of his hair and into his eyes as he shoved the pad he’d made against the open wound, and tied it down as tight as he could with the makeshift rope.
“What made you think to do something like that?” Lou asked.
“Two tours in Afghanistan,” Paul said, and then looked toward shore. “We’re almost there. As hot and muggy as this night is, he shouldn’t feel this cold. Hurry. I think Dude is going into shock.”
Three
The moment Lou reached the landing, Paul jumped out and ran to the Jeep. He backed the trailer down into the water, then helped Lou winch it up and fasten it down. As soon as they were on solid ground, they lifted Dude out of the boat and into the back seat of the Jeep. Paul jumped into the driver’s seat, leaving Lou to keep an eye on the victim, and took off as fast as he dared drive.
“Where are we going?” Lou asked.
“To see a medic I served with. His place is just off Tri-City Beach Road. I’m calling him now. What’s Dude’s status?”
Lou reached over the seat to check his pulse. “Heart still beating.”
Paul nodded, listening as his call began to ring. Once, twice, three times it rang, and then Paul heard a familiar voice, cursing and coughing between breaths.
“Faber, you sorry bastard—” cough, cough “—do you know what time it is?”
“Not exactly. I need your help. Bringing you a man we fished out of the bay.”
“I don’t resurrect drowning victims. Either you resuscitated him, or you didn’t.”
“I resuscitated him, but he’s been shot. If you can stop the bleeding, I won’t ask more.”
“Dammit all to hell, you sorry bastard. I don’t want to be mixed up in anything shady.”
“Please, Muncy. I have a feeling about him. I think he’s one of the good guys. Just save him. I’ll get him off your property as soon as you say I can move him,” Paul said, and then waited. There was a long moment of silence, and then he heard a resigned sigh.
“You’re gonna owe me. How soon will you be here?”
“Fifteen minutes, more or less.”
Muncy grunted. “I’ll be waiting.”
Paul disconnected. “He’s gonna do it!”
Lou glanced over his shoulder. Dude was gonna owe them big-time—if he lived.
* * *
Special Agent Charlie Morris was still on the dock in front of Adam Ito’s warehouse, watching the searchers out in the bay. This should not have happened. He was sick at heart, trying to come to terms with his part in letting Jack McCann down.
They’d searched the waters all around the docks, around the ships still anchored offshore and all around Morgan’s Point. They’d done all they could do until daylight, which actually wasn’t far away. The sky in the east was already getting lighter. He rubbed the back of his neck as he stared at the vast expanse before him.
“Come on, Jack...where are you, buddy? I’m not gonna give up on you until they show me the body, and don’t make me face that, because then I would have to tell Shelly we failed you.”
His phone rang as he was waiting for sunrise.
“Special Agent Morris,” he said.
“Agent Morris, this is Fred. I’m sending you the info you requested via email. Check your phone. It’s a large attachment. Let me know if there’s anything wrong.”
“Thanks, Fred. Will do.”
He hung up, then pulled up his email, then began searching for the file. It had to do with who owned the warehouse where the bust went down. He was guessing Ito owned it, but he needed confirmation. To his surprise, Adam Ito co-owned it with his father, Ken Ito, who was a resident of Tokyo, Japan, which meant Ito senior was far beyond their jurisdiction.
* * *
The gleam from the headlights was bouncing off the corner posts of the driveway as Paul turned off the beach road and sped toward Muncy’s house. It had been a while since his last visit here, but he distinctly remembered getting stone-faced drunk at a wake for a vet friend who had committed suicide. It had taken him two days to sober up enough to drive home.
“Porch light is on!” Lou said, as the house came into view.
“And that’s Muncy on the porch,” Paul added, pointing to a bare-chested man wearing a pair of gym shorts and cowboy boots.
“I see you two share the same tailor,” Lou said, eyeing Paul’s bare beer belly.
Paul didn’t answer. He was too busy trying not to run over the baying mastiff that came out to greet them.
“What the hell is that animal?” Lou muttered. “It’s huge.”
“That’s Dwayne, named after the actor Dwayne Johnson.”
“The Rock. I get it. Both of them oversize,” Lou said. “Now please tell me he’s friendly, or I’m not getting out of the Jeep.”
“He’s fine,” Paul said, then braked and killed the engine.
Muncy was already calling down t
he dog as Paul jumped out. Lou followed reluctantly, still uncertain whether he was going to survive the trip from the Jeep to the house.
“I’m gonna pull him out. You catch his legs,” Paul said.
Lou nodded, and together, they got the unconscious man past the dog and into the house in one piece.
“Muncy, this is my fishing buddy, Lou Parsons. Lou, this is my old friend Muncy Peters.”
Muncy nodded, but he was more focused on the man they were carrying. “Bring him this way, and put him belly down on the island,” he said, leading the way through the living room to the kitchen.
“Good lord,” Lou said, eyeing the white sheet hanging off the kitchen island like a tablecloth, and the assortment of medical supplies on the counter behind them.
He grunted as they lifted Dude up, then carefully rolled him over onto his belly, turning his head to the right.
“Hell of a bandage,” Muncy said, eyeing the wet, bloody pad they’d tied onto his shoulder.
Paul shrugged. “It’s all we had.”
Muncy checked for a pulse. “Barely there. He needs a transfusion, but it’s not gonna happen here. You two, stand on either side of him in case he wakes up. After all the crap it appears he’s been through, it would be a damn shame if he broke his neck falling off the operating table. Paul, move that hot soapy water where you can reach it and clean him up.”
Lou’s eyes widened, but he held on to their patient as the other two began working.
Muncy began by scrubbing his hands and arms, then putting on a pair of surgical gloves, while Paul began cleaning the man’s entire back with hot water and soap.
“That’s good enough,” Muncy said. “Now pour this grain alcohol into the wound, and then some of it into the pan with my instruments, then stand aside.”
Again, Paul did as he was told, then moved aside as Muncy picked up a surgical clamp. It wasn’t the tool he needed, but it was all he had.
“Help me, Jesus,” Muncy said, as he eased the probe into the wound, then kept moving it around until he felt the bullet. Muncy stopped and took a couple of slow, deep breaths to calm his nerves.
“Did you feel it?” Paul asked.
Muncy nodded. “Going to try to get a hold on it,” he said. “Hey, Lou, stand on the other side of me. You’re in my light,” Muncy muttered.
“Yeah, sorry,” Lou said.
Silence ensued as Muncy worked, until finally he latched on to the bullet and pulled it out. “Got it!” he crowed, and dropped it into a small dish. “I’ll clean out the wound now and sew it up. That’s all I can do for him. I think he’ll live. Are you satisfied with that prognosis?”
Both men nodded, somewhat in shock at what they were witnessing.
Paul kept an eye on Dude. He had not moved once through the entire process until Muncy began pulling the edges of the wound together with neat, tiny stitches. At that point, every time Muncy took a stitch, Dude moaned.
“Just like Granny’s quilting stitches,” Muncy muttered, as he knotted off the last stitch.
He checked the man’s pulse again, gave him an injection of antibiotic, and another one of painkiller, and then applied a clean bandage. “I’m finished and he’s still alive, which says more for the dude’s fortitude than my skill.”
“Now what?” Paul asked.
“Get him out of those wet clothes and off my kitchen island and I’ll make breakfast,” Muncy said. He began gathering up his equipment, dropping each tool into a deep pan of water simmering on the back burner of his range, and threw the rest of the bloody bandages away.
“Where do you want us to put him?” Paul asked.
“Down the hall in the spare bedroom.”
“Will do,” Paul said. “Lou! Grab his feet.”
“Lord have mercy,” Lou muttered, trying not to think of eating off the makeshift operating table as he helped Paul strip the guy and carry him down the hall.
Muncy ran ahead to turn down the covers, then helped ease him down on his side. They propped pillows behind his back to keep him from rolling over onto the wound and pulled up the covers, then paused in the hall to adjust the thermostat on the central air before going back to the kitchen.
Paul paused, then leaned over and quietly spoke into the unconscious man’s ear. “Hey, Dude! Don’t die. Okay? Just don’t die.”
* * *
Adam Ito flew out of United States airspace in the dark and was in Mexico before daylight. He took a plane from Mexico City back home to Tokyo in the bright light of day without being challenged, but he did not breathe easy until the plane was in the air. His entire syndicate—the one he’d spent years building—was gone, and all because he’d taken a traitor into his midst.
It was certain that all of his men had been arrested, so he had no immediate people to call to find the details about what happened. His last order had been to kill Judd Wayne, and if he wasn’t already dead, Adam would find out his real identity and finish the job himself.
* * *
Oblivious to anything but the subconscious need to keep breathing in and breathing out, Jack’s body was struggling to hang on to life as the sun rose on another day in Houston.
He had no conscious thoughts, just intermittent flashes of random memories that disappeared as quickly as they came.
Sitting beneath a Christmas tree when he was little, calmly unwrapping everything under it.
Chasing his dog, Trip, through the woods back home in Colorado Springs.
Shelly walking toward him as she came down the aisle.
And then back into a deeper state of unconsciousness.
* * *
The alarm went off in Shelly’s bedroom, signaling the beginning of another day on the job. Grumbling beneath her breath, she rolled over and shut it off as she threw back the covers, getting up before she was tempted to go back to sleep.
Going back to work yesterday had been a little rough, especially since she’d had to take a cab back downtown because she’d left her car in covered parking the day before. But as the day progressed, she’d felt better and better. By noon, she was almost her normal self, but not enough to brave the Houston heat.
She had asked Mitzi to bring her a sandwich when she came back from lunch, then kept working. Tomorrow was payroll day for all of her accounts, so the accounting had to be done and the paychecks sent to direct deposits at respective banks. By the time she drove herself home that evening, she was satisfied she’d come to no lingering harm and was completely caught up at work.
Shelly flipped on the TV to listen for a weather report as she headed to the bathroom, and was in the shower when they aired the report of the FBI bust of stolen army weaponry at one of the shipping docks, and the arrest of the people involved.
She turned the set off as she went into the kitchen to grab a little breakfast before she headed downtown, and was happily oblivious to the fact that the FBI had divers in Galveston Bay, looking for the body of her husband, who was being viewed as missing and presumed dead.
* * *
As soon as the sun came up, Paul took Lou home, then dropped the boat off at his place and was back at Muncy’s house by midmorning with a sack of burgers and fries and a giant chew bone for Dwayne. The mastiff sniffed the sack but happily settled for the rawhide chew and plopped down with it on the porch. Paul walked in with the food, partly as a balm to Muncy for putting up with his uninvited guests, and partly because Muncy loved burgers and fries.
“Whatcha got there?” Muncy asked, as Paul headed toward the kitchen.
“Burgers,” Paul said. “Want one or four?”
Muncy grinned. “I’ll start with two. Don’t mind if I do,” he said, digging his hand into the sack and coming up with two paper-wrapped burgers and one of the to-go boxes of fries. “Coffee’s fresh if you want some.”
“I do,” Paul said. “I’m gonna take some
food and the coffee back to the bedroom.”
“What are you going to do back there? I just checked on your patient. His blood pressure is good and his heart rate is steady.”
“Because he’s my dude. I fished him out of the water. Biggest fish I ever caught and I don’t intend to lose him,” Paul said. “Besides, it’s not like I got anyone waiting for me at home. If you want me, you know where I’ll be.”
Muncy watched his friend walk out with the food, then finished off one of the burgers before he went outside to finish watering his vegetable garden.
Paul softened his steps as he walked into the bedroom, put the food and coffee down on a small table near Dude, and eased himself down in the easy chair beside it. The man’s color was still pale, but he was breathing slow and easy.
“You just hang in there,” Paul whispered, then peeled the paper away from a burger, and as he began to eat, he couldn’t help but think what a turn his life had just taken.
Being retired had been sucking big-time, but for the moment, he had purpose. And after watching the breaking news reports about the FBI bust in Galveston Bay this morning, he fully believed Dude had been telling them the truth. Now all he needed was for him to pull through and tell him the rest of the story.
* * *
Agent Charlie Morris was still on the scene, waiting for word from the divers who’d been in the water since daybreak. He could see the boats of all three diver crews who were searching the bay in grids. So far, they had nothing to report, and Charlie couldn’t bring himself to go home.
He’d called Alicia twice this morning to check on her and give her updates. She knew Jack and Shelly, too, and was heartsick for what seemed to be a horrible end to a dear friend.
Charlie heard the tears in her voice and felt the same sadness. This still didn’t seem real, and he wasn’t going to believe it unless he saw a body.
When his radio squawked, he grabbed it.
“Agent Morris. Go ahead.”
“Sir, this is Search Team One. We’ve cleared grid three and we’re moving on to grid four.”
