Piranha Assignment

by Austin Camacho

  “Like?”

  “Like, babe, why am I here?” Barton stood up and paced a bit. “This guy’s Panamanian, speaks Spanish, knows the area, et cetera, et cetera. Why’d he hire him an Anglo to be his go between with the local government?”

  -15-

  All her life, the darkness had been Felicity’s friend. Why a new location would change that she didn’t know. For some reason shadows seemed longer and deeper in Panama City. Nothing gave her the creeps, yet sitting there with two strong men, she could feel goose bumps rising on her arms when Barton’s aging Jeep lurched to a halt.

  “There it is,” Barton said as he turned off the engine. They were parked in a clearing that served as parking lot for a bar on the outskirts of Panama’s thriving modern capitol. It was a small wooden structure on a rural dirt street. No sign, or anything else indicated a name for the place. The building, out of sight of any others, beckoned to the newcomers without making any promises. It seemed to be nailed together hastily, like a child’s play fort, and leaked light like a Halloween jack-o’-lantern.

  Without the rattle and hum of the ill-maintained motor, Felicity had expected silence to close in on them. Instead, the night came alive with sounds. A woman giggled in the darkness, then a man’s mouth covered that noise. Crickets seemed to be moving in on them from all sides, rubbing their legs together in anticipation. The only thing holding them off was the music from within the small wooden structure.

  She loved folk music and the classics, and Morgan was teaching her about jazz, but the music surrounding her there was none of them. It reminded her a little of the homemade music she had heard in Texas once. It had a Mexican side to it, that feeling of people trying very hard to be gay in the face of adversity. But beneath it, threading through it, was a fierce back beat, narrow and hard to follow. It gripped her heart, forcing it to beat to this new rhythm.

  Her eyes followed a column of smoke from the chimney up to the clear sky. Stars were everywhere, packed too closely together for her to discern constellations. The darkness held a jagged line all around her, but it could not reach high enough to cover those stars.

  “Let’s go in and meet the gang,” Morgan said, hopping out of the Jeep. He and Barton had pulled on jackets to cover their weapons. These two seemed perfectly at home there, and in a way, she figured, they were. Both had spent time in places like this, gathering information about their environment when serving as soldiers for hire. How much the environment had changed in just a few miles.

  Dinner had passed without incident. Barton’s gaze had not wandered for long from Felicity, and she had watched him from the corner of her eye.

  “Hey, babe, how about coming out with me to see Panama City,” he had asked over brandy. “I figure you might enjoy a drink or two in a different place, and you can see the sights with an experienced guide.”

  “You know, I am needing a break from this dreary place,” she answered, “and I know there’s more to this lush country than this armed camp we’re locked up in.” She paused long enough to appear to have second thoughts, and with a vixen’s smile, looked to her left. “Morgan, why don’t youjoin us?” Barton had looked crushed, as anyone would expect. A quick scan of the faces at the table convinced her that everyone present bought it. After a shower and change, the trio loaded into Barton’s Jeep for the long jarring drive to Panama City. He said he bought the vehicle as Army surplus. After just five minutes bouncing on its seat, Felicity found this easy to accept.

  Morgan concealed surprise as they walked toward the saloon door. He had expected to stop at one of Panama’s many sailors’ bars, but instead Barton took them well outside the city. This was where Chris Matthews, a man two of them had only heard about, met his fate over a local girl’s affection. At least, that was the story.

  No one looked up as the three strangers walked in. With the wide angle appreciation of a convex camera lens, Morgan panned the room, taking it in at a glance. Tables stood on either side of the door, with the bar on the opposite wall. It was a dim room, mostly lighted by a candle on each table. Rest rooms were on the left. To the right, a four piece band played. They had no bandstand, just an open area against the wall. The men sat in wooden chairs, playing three acoustic guitars of varying sizes and a mandolin. They seemed absorbed in their music, or maybe they just didn’t want to get the attention of any of the patrons.

  Barton leaned on the bar, beside a tall man with Inca features. While he ordered beers, Felicity chose their table. She wore a peasant blouse and full skirt in soft pastel colors. Her hair was tied back, a jade barrette with a long spike keeping it in place.

  Frying food smells blew out of the door next to the band. It must have led to a back room and kitchen. The food’s aroma competed with the beer smell rising from the wooden floor. When he reached the table, Morgan tried to drown that odor with a long drink from his cool brew.

  Morgan saw that Barton was also relaxed, enjoying the local beer and driving music pumping out of the guitars. It was easy to imagine this room as a place of sudden passion, and passion was the source of violence. These men and their women lived in a violent, quick reaction world. Life was cheap there, and honor dear. A stranger could be the catalyst that brought this moody atmosphere to the flash point.

  Voices got softer as the music’s intensity grew. At a high point of rhythmic frenzy, a woman burst from the back room door. She had the features Morgan had always associated with Cherokee Indians, and the smooth clear café au lait skin of a Polynesian. Straight, jet black hair hung past her waist.

  Her blouse and long shawl, both white, were decorated with large gray flowering vines. both had ruffles on their edges. Her fiery orange ankle length skirt matched the woven amulet resting in the cleft of her bosom. She had long, bright red nails, and wore the flamenco dancer’s black spiked shoes. Her beauty was startling, and the stern look on her face defied every man in the room to try to possess that beauty.

  This must be her, Morgan thought. The woman a spy had died for.

  The music came to such an abrupt stop it made the newcomers jump. Like a statue the woman stood, waiting for the notes that would carry the magic to bring her to life. Almost hidden in shadow, the lead guitarist’s fingers moved, and a light came to the woman’s face. As the melody grew the other players joined in, and she began to dance.

  All conversation stopped, as the room turned to watch the dancer. She moved as a dolphin through the surf, flowing smoothly through the bar’s dense atmosphere. Morgan did not recognize her dance style, but it made his throat dry, and his eyes ache trying to catch every nuance of movement. She would spin, then dip low, her arms keeping her afloat, her fingers plucking invisible strings. Her movements said “you may want me, you man, but my heart is too light, my step too quick for me to be captured.”

  Beneath the table, Barton’s short fingers sought Felicity’s. His rough hand curled around hers.

  The dancer was a captive of the dance, and it carried her close to the strangers’ table. Her lips were impossibly red, her eyes vast oceans of blue. Her perfume, if she wore any, was the sweet musk of love in the rain. She seemed confused for a moment about the pairing here. Who had come with whom? Then she saw that Morgan’s was the heart pounding fastest. She extended her hand to him, inviting him into the dance. He longed to join her, yet knew he could only hear, not feel the rhythm. Smiling a sad smile he simply said, in Spanish “Sorry. I don’t dance.”

  The woman’s eyes said “too bad,” and she moved on. The pace of her turns increased, flaring her bright orange skirt, offering a blurred view of long, smooth legs. Just when every man in the bar had held his breath as long as he could the music slammed to a sudden halt, and the woman returned to her statue state.

  Barton cleared his throat. “The air sure is dry in here. I need a refill.” As the dancer returned to the back room, he stumbled to the bar. Morgan leaned close to Felicity. Before he could speak, she interrupted him with a whisper.

  “Yes. There’s no doubt. T
hat woman could arouse and inflame any man who’d been working like those poor sods at the project. I’d be surprised if they don’t have a fight in here every night.”

  “I hope not. I’m not up to a…” Morgan’s voice trailed off when he noticed a young local man sitting at the end of the bar. He was watching Barton with eyes glazed over from too much beer and too much lust for a woman who was out of reach. Then Morgan looked at Barton. He looked at that bent nose, and those oversized knuckles. Here was a fighter, a brawler, not a negotiator. Morgan could smell the approaching collision.

  “Go start the Jeep.”

  “If there’s going to be trouble, I want to be here,” Felicity said.

  “Go start the Jeep.”

  “All right,” Felicity said. “Don’t let the big lug get hurt, okay?”

  Barton asked for three more beers, took a deep breath and looked around. His eyes settled on the young man at the end of the bar. His smile was met with a glassy stare he must have recognized. He slid off his stool, but got a firm grip on one of its legs just below the seat. Morgan came to stand beside him just after the man at the end of the bar moved closer.

  “I was talking to some of my friends here,” the Panamanian said. He was swarthy, with broad shoulders and a deep chest. His face was bathed in sweat. It dripped around his broad flat nose.

  “It’s good to have friends,” Barton said with a smile.

  “Some of them don’t like Anglos looking at our beautiful women.”

  “I can understand that,” Barton said, lowering his head.

  “Some of them don’t like you.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Barton said, looking to the bartender. He got no sympathy there.

  “I don’t like you.”

  “Then I’ll leave,” Barton said, still smiling. He turned toward Morgan. They exchanged exasperated looks and moved to go, but the drunk’s hand fell heavily on Barton’s shoulder.

  “I think it’s too late to leave,” the drunk said. Three local boys moved to block the door. The drunk produced a butterfly knife and made a production of whipping it into action in his fist.

  “I think I will cut you,” he said. “I have studied escrima. I am an expert with knife or stick. You will die here, Anglo.”

  “No guns,” Morgan whispered, watching the door.

  “Don’t need one. This guy may be a knife expert, but what he doesn’t know is, I hold a black belt in bar stool.” In time with his words, Barton whipped the stool up, smashing the lower end of the legs against the drunk’s head. He went down like a marionette with its strings clipped, in a shower of shattered wood.

  In the same instant, Morgan launched himself forward. His right leg folded up, his left snapping out in a flying stamp kick.

  Outside, Felicity sat at the Jeep’s steering wheel. Hotwiring the vehicle was no harder than applying mascara for her. The engine had fired on her first try, and she sat ready to take off. She heard the crunch of wooden panels, and looked up to see a man come flying out through the door. She depressed the clutch and shifted into first gear.

  Inside, the patrons had closed ranks in front of Morgan, barring the door with a human barricade. A man came at him from the left, stabbing down toward Morgan’s chest with a dagger. A rising block with his left deflected the knife arm, and a solid right put the man on his back. Two brawny arms wrapped around Morgan’s waist, but before the grip tightened he snapped forward, grabbed the man’s pants cuffs, and straightened. He heard a satisfying thud behind him as his attacker’s head hit the floor.

  Off to one side, Barton was rapidly lowering the number of fighters. He weaved away from most attacks, and had a devastating left hook that was doing terrible damage to the noses and jaws of all comers. As he stepped toward the door he soon found himself back to back with Morgan. By wasting a chair across an attacker’s face Barton opened a small clearing in front of himself.

  Morgan’s arms pumped like twin pistons, and an occasional stamp kick cracked a rib or dislocated a knee. One tall black man managed to land a solid jab on Morgan’s jaw. Morgan captured the man’s arm and with a deft twist sent him skidding across the bar. Glasses flew and crashed, and for a moment Morgan had a clear view of the door.

  Felicity’s left ankle was tiring when she saw her two escorts dash from the bar. After a three second time lapse, bruised but determined brawlers followed, but by then Morgan and Barton were bouncing into the Jeep. Felicity popped the clutch, and the aging vehicle rattled forward. Tires spitting gravel, Felicity cranked the wheel hard. It may have looked for a moment as if she had lost control of the Jeep. In reality, she could not resist driving through the crowd of natives, scattering them but not hitting anyone. A sharp fishtail brought the Jeep in line with the road and she spun the tires again, peeling away.

  “Now that was a rumble,” Barton said from the back seat as the Jeep rattled down the narrow road. “I got to tell you, O’Brian, your partner here is one hell of a scrapper. Hey, Morgan, why the long face. We did great in there.”

  “I think I’ve outgrown fighting for fun,” Morgan said from the front passenger seat. Then to Felicity he said, “It’s a fairly sharp right up here about two hundred yards on.”

  “Hey, Red, how can you see?” Barton asked, leaning into her hair. “It’s pitch black and you’re driving like it’s broad daylight.”

  “People don’t call me Red,” Felicity said in a cold tone. “And I happen to have excellent night vision.”

  “I’ve heard him call you Red,” Barton said, leaning back. “And I’m not sure he’s sending us the right way.” In response, Felicity swayed the Jeep to the right. Morgan ducked, and a low hanging branch slapped Barton’s face.

  “Morgan can call me Red,” Felicity said. “That’s one of the things that makes him unique. Another is his infallible sense of distance and direction.”

  A few seconds later she turned into a sharp right that was invisible until they were on the path. They rode in silence for a moment, and Felicity wondered if she had offended Barton more than necessary. Even as she wrestled with that question, she felt a rough hand pull her hair aside. Barton’s breath was hot on the back of her neck as he whispered, “You’re beautiful when you’re angry, even if I can barely see you.” She swatted him away, but her smile lit the darkness. She cleared her throat to try to get back to business.

  “Hey, you guys notice anything odd back there?”

  “Seemed like a typical bar full of wharf rats to me,” Barton said, slipping an arm around her. She squirmed a bit, but did not push him away.

  “I know if they’d caught us, we wouldn’t have got a neat chop in the neck,” Morgan said. “We’d be hamburger now.”

  “You’re thinking about Chris Matthews,” Barton said. “I think you’re right. He was murdered by one skillful killer.”

  “Anything else?” Felicity asked. After a final bump, the Jeep slid onto a paved road. They had reached Panama City proper.

  “What’d you see?” Morgan asked.

  “I don’t know what it means, but I saw a lot of beer poured in there tonight,” Felicity said.

  “Yeah. So?” Barton said. “Panamanians drink a lot of beer. So what?”

  “So all I’ve seen them drinking in Bastidas’ little camp is rum. Why do you suppose that is?”

  -16-

  It wasn’t much of a boat. To a woman who had been a guest aboard the finest cabin cruisers and the most luxurious yachts, it barely qualified as transportation. Or so Felicity had told him. Chuck Barton’s little outboard runabout was a sixteen footer, pushed along by a seventy-five horsepower motor. The hull slapped along the ocean’s surface with a gentle bounce that kicked up a fine salt spray.

  On the other hand, it was a glorious day. Large, white winged gulls tracked their progress, shouting navigational advice in their mysterious tongue. The North Atlantic was a deep azure blue, like a polished opal. The sky was once again cloudless, and the salt laden air had massaged her skin to a tingling glow. Felicit
y O’Brian stood, holding the windshield’s rim. Her hair flew behind her like a bright red pennant. Her green eyes shone with delight, and her grin flashed her perfect teeth.

  Steering in the seat beside her, Barton admired the proud thrust of her bosom under the pullover that fit her like an extra epidermal layer. Her jeans clung with similar tenacity, but his attention kept wandering to her smile. He thought he had never seen anyone take such delight in so simple a pleasure as a brief boat ride. We all get older, he reflected, but the lucky ones don’t really grow up.

  “It’s ten miles across the bay to El Porvenir,” Barton shouted above the engine noise. “We won’t miss noon by much.”

  “No. It’s nine minutes of, now.”

  Barton checked his wrist. “Not ten of, or five of, but nine. How’d you know that? You don’t even wear a watch.”

  “I just know. It’s a gift. Timing is a valuable talent in my business.”

  “Why do I think you don’t mean security work when you say ‘my business’?” Barton asked, but it was rhetorical. He had already learned you don’t get an answer from this woman just because you ask a question.

  At breakfast, Barton had been loud about the previous evening’s action. He praised Morgan’s fighting ability, and said he hoped they had not caused any trouble with the local populace that would affect Bastidas. Then he turned the conversation, and invited Felicity to lunch. He had mentioned a charming little restaurant across the bay where they used fresh shrimp in ways no one else had ever imagined.

  She had looked at Morgan, who assured her there was nothing to do that needed her presence. The others at the table grinned, sensing a budding romance. Felicity acted reluctant but agreed to the date, and Bastidas assured her she was safe in the mercenary’s capable hands.

  All had gone according to plan. Now they were on their way across the bay, carrying the files of four of Bastidas’ men in Felicity’s large shoulder bag. They also had samples of Varilla’s fingerprints lifted in Morgan’s room. Barton had a safe telephone set up in El Porvenir, complete with a facsimile machine. They would fax the prints to Washington and hopefully, someone there could confirm or deny that he was the man whose history matched the dossier.