by Matt Lincoln
“You’d be wrong.” Her tone was flat and cool. “Keep in mind that the ones desperate enough to head for you are the ones I’ve turned down. Start with ‘nothing left to lose’ and then jump off that cliff, copain. Those are the people she wants to come for you. And she’ll get them. I promise you.” I didn’t like the way that felt, her using that analogy to explain it.
“Just me, or my whole team?” If it came to it, I could disavow them to save them, but if we were all being marked, then that was a different matter. I found myself staring at Kippy, waiting for her next words with dread and an eagerness beyond my regular need to hear the truth.
“You, for a start. But there are plenty of operators involved that will not hesitate to take the other three out or to use them against you. You should tell them to back away. To not rally on your head, if you get my drift.” She meant to let me know that they’d be safer the further away they were from me. That raised the hairs on the back of my head right there.
Kippy had never been overly apprehensive about anyone else’s safety in the time that I’d known her. For her to suddenly tell me to have Rosa, Doc, and Xavier stay away just didn’t fit with what I knew of her. Something was not right. I decided to play along and to let her think as she would, about me and about her advice.
“Do you know the timetable?” I shifted the subject in an attempt to get more information out of her. “Should I be looking over my shoulder here, at my house, or do I start when I get back to the States?” Not that it mattered. Once warned, I was planning on setting everything at high alert from here on out. I was not going to be caught flat-footed by anyone for any reason.
“You never should have stopped, copain. The moment you decided to let the Judge go without even letting her know why you gave her a reprieve, you placed everyone in danger. I know that you did it to protect Arik from her, and that was brave, but creatures like that don’t respond like everyone else by being put into a corner.” I got the sense that she knew firsthand about it. “Fu won’t wait, she won’t hide, and she will not be deterred for any excuse.” Kippy moved to look me directly in the eyes. I didn’t know why, but it was humbling.
“She got to you, didn’t she?” That was why Kippy was here. This was a courtesy. Nothing more. She had taken the contract. My body tensed, and I started to react as I was trained to when Kippy just broke out laughing at me. She shook her head and looked away, waving me off.
“No, I’m not here to kill you, you idiot. Have you not been listening to anything I’ve said? Sheesh!” Kippy’s mood improved, and she tried to recover from the misunderstanding. “I just want you to watch your back. I want you to be careful, dumbass. I’ve put a lot of time and effort into you, and I don’t want to lose that investment.”
I was totally lost now. Whatever this was, she was sincere. “What are you even talking about? You’re all over the place, Ozoa. Pick a topic and stick with it, please.” She wasn’t making any sense to me at all anymore. I knew that it wasn’t really her way, but I needed her to be straightforward. “Can you… talk like a normal person for once, please?”
Kippy sighed dramatically and exhaled in a lengthy manner. “Okay…” She took a protracted look at me as if she were sizing me up for a serious conversation. “So, when we first met up, back in the Azores, I was extraordinarily unimpressed with you. All of you, but you, especially, copain. Like to the point where I thought you were a complete hack, a washout, just completely useless, and that wasting any time on you was beyond even---”
“Ozoa, shut up. I get your point.” I gestured with my hands to speed this up and to move on. “You didn’t like me very much. I understand, I do. So, let me put your mind at ease and tell you that the feeling, on my part, is still very mutual.” Hopefully, that was clear. “Now, what investment are you talking about?”
“I was thinking of recruiting you.” She said this with the most simplistic comfort that I had ever heard come from her lips. But it was still a bombshell. “And I might still, someday. Just… not right now. You have too much baggage.” She actually shrugged her shoulders when she said that.
“I have--- you wanted to what?” She had to be joking. She could not be serious. My mind was reeling from such an absurd notion. “There was no way in a million eons that I gave you any indication that I would ever want to---” But she cut me off by waving her hands at me this time. I could see how annoying that was now.
“I don’t care if you were interested or not,” she said sharply. “That’s never been the objective. You can hate me, and I can still find value in what you do. Don’t be such a drama king.” Kippy scoffed and rolled her eyes at me. She may have been genuine in her explanations, but that didn’t mean that I had to approve of her intentions. “Anyway, looking for talent like I always do, you blipped on my radar after the car accident, and so I looked into you.” That actually wasn’t much of a surprise. We did the same thing, after all.
“Then I saw that you had a whole crew, so I looked into them too.” She made a disgruntled noise and tilted her head as if she were cautiously deliberating how to say what came next. “You do have some decent individuals, but as a whole, I’d certainly not make an offer for the entire set. But that’s how you run and until your band breaks up permanently, then I’m not going to send out an overture. Capiche?”
I honestly did know what to say to that. I sat there, stunned, offended, and incensed all at the same time. It took a few moments for me to form the words required to reply to her.
“There is no way in this life or the next or even the one after that, that I would ever contemplate working for you, Ozoa. If you only understand one thing for the remainder of your existence, let it be this. You will never recruit me to your mercenaries.”
All she did was shrug at me. “Says you.” She didn’t look or sound insulted by this. Kippy just kept swinging her feet over the edge of the dock and watching the water. “So, yeah, investment and all that. I don’t want to see any harm come to you. Can you accept that much?”
I nodded, though not sure if I should accept it. “I can. I’ll try to.” That was my honest answer, nothing more. There was a long, silent pause as we both sat there and wondered how to move on from that point. I was never going to trust her, certainly not now, knowing that she had been and still might be seeking to poach my team.
It was her that broke the awkward tension by saying something oddly vulnerable. “So, I’m heading off to search for El Dorado. I will probably be incommunicado for a while, so I have a favor to ask of you. And no, you can’t pass on it, so don’t even think about it.” She peeked over to make sure that I was still listening.
I was. “Go ahead.” I kind of wanted to know what she was going to say, and I very well could say no if I had wanted to. “Wait. You’re going to Colombia?” I ran everything through my memory to find an answer as to why. The Yabut. She was going to the source. But why?
Kippy snapped her fingers in front of my face several times. “Favor, copain, focus with me, okay?” I whacked her hand away. She was lucky that I didn’t do more. That made her grin. “Good, now listen to me. I need you to look after George for me while I’m gone.”
That was unexpected. In a million years, I would never have guessed that he was the favor. I detected a hint of anxiety from her when she spoke his name, though.
“Why does he need looking after?” I had wondered about their dynamic since I’d first found out that they’d been married and were now divorced. No, it wasn’t any of my business, but I was as curious as anyone would have been.
“Because for one thing, he helped you out with Arik. When the Judge makes her move, she could target him as well.” That bothered her, I could tell. And she was not without reason for it. “And there’s kind of the Nace thing, too.”
“What Nace thing? He’s dead, isn’t he? The guy took a bullet to the throat. There are not many people that’ll come back from that, am I right?” There had to be something else going on. “So, is he dead or not?”
>
“Not quite. I mean, now he is, but before, no, not really.” Kippy was clearly uncomfortable talking about this. She refused to meet my eyes when speaking. “Miami’s finest surgeons did their best, and somehow, they saved the POS, and he was sent to DC for his recovery.” There was a guilty shade to her face when she said this, so I pressed it.
“What do you mean, ‘was’? Did you do someth---” I caught a glimpse of her black eye again, and my stomach fell into my feet. “You didn’t? Ozoa, tell me that you didn’t go and murder an injured man? Even you couldn’t be that stupid!”
That got her. Kippy turned on me, and I’d never seen someone so furious and so still. “I didn’t. I tried to stop it. Or rather, I tried to stop the guy that was killing him because I wanted to kill Nace first, but I couldn’t. Fu or the Yabut or someone sent a goon to do it before I could.” She shook her head. “You know what I mean, right?”
She tried to clarify it for us both. “Nace is dead. I didn’t do it, but I was going to. I attempted to stop the assassin that was there, but I failed. So, now Nace really is dead and whoever sent the guy to kill him knows that I was involved. Does that make sense?”
“It does. And I wish that you hadn't told me.” Not that I thought any less of her, but now I knew how far she’d go, and I didn’t like that knowledge. I’d have to learn to live with it, though, along with a lot of other things.
“So, back to George?” she pressed. “I’m not going to be there, so you need to watch out for him, okay? He’s not used to this sort of stuff anymore.” Her whole demeanor changed when she spoke about him. It was so strange to watch it.
It was a reasonable request, all in all. But I had to ask, “What do you mean, ‘anymore’? He wasn’t one of your recruits, was he?” That was unforeseen, if true. The mild-mannered Scottish doctor to Miami’s elite used to be a mercenary? I needed to know more.
“How exactly did George and you meet?” I’d never find out if I didn’t ask.
Kippy’s eyes flared at me, and she shook her head very subtly. “That’s not important.” She couldn’t talk about that part, I guessed. Maybe just not with me. That was fair enough. “He can take care of himself. It's just that he may not be willing to. That whole Hippocratic oath nonsense and whatever.” She tried to pass that off as a joke, but it failed. “Keep your eye on him when you can. You know, drop by for tea, scones, medical advice, you get the picture…”
“Under one condition. Tell me why, out of anything in this world, his welfare is so important to you. Answer me that, and you can consider him under my protection for as long as he needs it.” Then I revised that statement. “For as long as you ask me to.”
Kippy wasn’t one to give unfiltered answers. I’d come to grips with that. Mostly. But she looked directly at me, right into my eyes, and only then did she speak. “Because he’s the only thing I’ve ever loved. And when something happens to him, I will not be able to continue.”
I remembered very clearly her saying “when” something happens to him, not “if.” She was living with the threat of her loved one being taken away from her with every breath. That stuck with me for a lot longer than I liked to admit. And I wished that her words hadn't had such an impact on me, either. Yet, they did.
Epilogue
Bridget was already near tears by the time that I had finished telling my story. Haley was hanging on every word I’d said. I had to reassure them.
“It wasn’t all that bad. I mean, obviously, I’m still here, right?” I was trying to be genteel and disarming, but I didn’t think I nailed it.
“What happened to the Yabut pirates? Did you ever catch them? Or even the ones involved with Arik’s kidnapping?” Bridget seemed very captivated by the idea of them, even if I hadn’t explained all that much about them to her.
“They stayed around for a while. Kippy’s actions in Colombia proved to be a big help, overall, even if no one saw it that way at first.” Thinking back, I didn’t even think she’d made that much of a difference by going down there, but it was just one more surprise I had to deal with later on.
“You’ve never mentioned that Arik boy before now. I take it that things didn’t end so well for him.” Bridget had a good memory, and she was right. I hadn’t told anyone about him outside of the people directly involved with him. His story was too personal in some places, and I owed it to him not to speak about it lightly.
“No, not at first, no. He had a bunch of false starts and a lot of bumps along the road, but all in all, he turned out good. As good as anyone can turn out after all that mess.” I thought back, and it made me smile. He’d proved a mass of people wrong, in both good and bad ways. “Arik found his way, and let’s just say, he followed the advice of his counsel and made his mother pay for everything corrupt things she’d ever done.” I smiled just thinking about it. After all of that, Arik had gone to law school, became an attorney, and helped lead the prosecution against his own mother and the criminally inclined DEA Task Force, with some help from Eve. He was fighting a good fight, and I couldn’t be more proud of him for doing it.
Haley got up and started to move around. “I’ve sat down too long. Here, let me get us some refills.” She reached for the tray and gathered up our mugs. We watched her disappear into the kitchen. That’s when I noticed Bridget observing me with an intense gaze.
“What is it? Do I have something in my teeth?” I joked.
She smiled and shook her head gently. Her eyes flitted to my bag on the floor and fell on the crafted paper that held my surprise. Then she nodded toward it.
“Is that for who I think it’s for? Or am I speaking out of turn, Jake?” She had a kind way of expressing herself and her interest in things that might not be that easy to ask about or to explain. I cherished that about her.
“Normally, I’d play coy and ask who you mean, but the truth is, this gift is for you.” I reached over the arm of the chair and took the item out of the pocket of my bag. I held it one last time, partly out of a desire to make Bridget curious but also because I knew that once I handed it to her, she’d be very affected by it.
It was a fantastically odd configuration for an object, and it took the poor girl at the shop a while to cover it efficiently. She’d tried three times before just layering it in used newsprint until it became manageable enough to finalize it with the hand-crafted wrap that now covered it.
The paper had started out as a typical brown craft paper until a clever and talented artist came along and altered it. With watercolors, he or she had created a new world of pastels and washes over it. Now, it resembled a mosaic of flowing ribbons and tiles. It was almost too pretty to use as wrapping paper, but I had guessed that Bridget would love it.
I leaned out and offered it to her. She was unsure at first, even hesitant to touch it. “Are you certain? I thought for sure that this was for, well, nevermind, and thank you.” Her smile broadened as she took it with both hands. “Oh! It’s heavier than I’d thought it would be.”
“Yeah. They can get weighty.” It was taking all that I had not to crack into a laugh or tell her to hurry it up. There was one part of me that wanted to watch her open it and see the look in her eyes. And still, another part that knew she was going to be overcome with emotion and would need a moment to recover once she saw it for what it was. I was torn, and I didn’t know which way to go about it.
Luckily, Haley saved me. She entered with a refilled tray of steaming coffee and cocoa and some more goodies from the kitchen. She saw the gift as well and couldn’t help but allude to it. “That’s very pretty. What is it?”
“Bridget has to open it to find out. That’s why it’s wrapped up.” I teased Haley, who, in turn, stuck her tongue out at me and then threw a cookie at my face. I grabbed it one-handed and jammed it into my mouth as a victory signal.
“Show off.” Haley maneuvered herself back into her seat after she’d passed around the mugs. “Well, don’t keep a pregnant lady in suspense. Open it up, auntie!” She was excited for B
ridget. I could see that.
Bridget sensitively released the tape tabs holding the paper in place. I could tell she was admiring the paints and artistry. But I also got the sense she was nervous about opening it. I didn’t know why exactly. It just struck me that way.
“Here goes…” She slid the rolls of newsprint around and off until she got her first sight at the glass orb. She gasped, halted for an instant, and then continued. The paper fell away to reveal a very old, nearly antique water globe, complete with a golden filigree base. The sphere was of the Jardim Duque da Terceira, the Dukes gardens from Angra do Heroismo.
Bridget’s eyes filled with tears, and she let out a poignant, tiny gulp. She turned it upside down and then right again to see minuscule petals drift around inside instead of the usual snow. She had to blink several times to see it clearly, and I excused myself on an errand to get her some tissues.
Once I found them on the table under the mirror, I returned to Bridget and handed them to her.
“Thank you, Jake,” she mumbled through happy sobs. She dabbed at her eyes and tried not to look so overcome. “Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just so beautiful.”
“I hoped you’d like it.” I took the opportunity to drink my coffee and helped myself to some more cookies. Haley admired it and nodded over at me approvingly. She mouthed ‘that’s lovely,’ and I was glad that she endorsed it. With my errand done, I spoke up. “Well, I think that’s my cue to head on out. I still have a long drive ahead of me.”
“Oh, no!” Bridget exclaimed. “Please stay. At least for dinner. I’ll--- give me a minute, and I’ll whip something up.” Bridget was in a panic to get up and make me stay put. I wasn’t going to let her, though.
