Tied to the Stern

by Mark Stone

  “It’s been a minute since you called me babe,” Natasha answered, settling in front of me. She held ice wrapped in a towel in her left hand and a smirk on her face that was signature Natasha. “Too bad you don’t mean it.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her, my heart speeding up. Was she forgetting herself? What was going on here? “Margo,” I said tersely. “I don’t know what you mean. I always mean what I say when I’m talking to-”

  “Drop it, Stormy,” she answered. “This room isn’t bugged. In fact, it can’t be.” Natasha walked over to a lamp sitting on a bedside counter. It was tall, white, and the sort of hyper sleek that only existed on places where people had more money than they could ever spend. Lifting it, she pointed to a tiny black box stuck to the inside of the shade. “This stops all of that. Of course, it also means your phone won’t work.” She grinned. “Not that you should have been expecting many calls.”

  “So, even if they tried to bug us here, it wouldn’t work?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “And my phone never works out here.”

  “That’s my understanding,” Nat said.

  “And won’t that seem a bit odd?” I asked. “If all the other rooms can be bugged and ours can’t, won’t that draw the sort of attention to us that it shouldn’t?”

  “Look at you,” Natasha chimed. “Thinking like an agent. It’s not just our room, Stormy. Several of those blockers have been placed around the hotel in random rooms. It just makes it seem like the place has spotty service.” She shrugged. “Which, as you know, is pretty standard in St. Thomas.” She looked out the window. “Even if it is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in my life.”

  “It’s a hell of a place,” I answered, thinking of all the times I had been here with my family, of all the good times we’d shared. This would not be a trip like any of those. Though there was no doubt this place was one of the most idyllic spots in all of the world, what we were here to do was definitely no vacation. This was business, and I needed to get down to it. “What are we looking at here?”

  Natasha took a deep breath, folding her arms over her chest, and turned to me. “Pandemonium, basically. The man who died trying to break you free-”

  “You mean the man who tried to kill me?” I asked, glaring at her.

  “Yeah. Him,” Natasha said. “He was one of the Archer’s top men.”

  “That’s not what Terry led me to believe,” I said, narrowing my eyes a little. “She told me she knew he was trouble since the first moment she saw him.”

  “Well, then maybe Terry, whoever she is, should have told that to the Archer. It might have saved him some trouble.”

  “Do we think the Archer is the kind of guy who would listen to someone else’s advice?” I muttered.

  “That’s what we’re here to find out,” Natasha said. “And Lord knows I hope he is. Otherwise, we’re in trouble.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Natasha took a deep breath. “Like I said, this whole thing is pandemonium. From what I can tell, everything is upside down now. The Archer has, according to my sources, always been a paranoid sort. This hasn’t helped. He’s going through everything with a fine toothed comb. And he’s starting right here.”

  She pressed the homemade ice pack against my neck. The cold startled me at first, but then the cooling sensation actually helped me feel a lot better, quelling the burning in my neck.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, looking the woman directly in the eyes, eyes I would have sworn to love forever in a different life.

  “I mean men have come to the door three times since you’ve been delivered asking whether or not you’re awake,” she said. “The Archer wants to know exactly what happened out there, and he wants to hear it from all the mouths that are able to tell it.” She blinked at me as another knock came on the door. Instinctively, I knew it was the men. They were coming back for me, to bring me to the Archer. I had just woken up in St. Thomas, and already I was about to be baptized in fire.

  Chapter 15

  The men at the door didn’t disappoint. As soon as Natasha opened it, they barged in.

  “This time, we’re not taking no for an answer, lady,” the taller of the men said, knocking Natasha back a little as he moved past her. Anger blossomed in my chest. Natasha might not have been my favorite person in the world, but I didn’t take kindly to anyone roughing up a woman. And thankfully, since Natasha was posed as my cover’s fiance, I could get away with expressing that anger without blowing my cover.

  “Push her like that again, and you’ll lose that hand,” I growled, my nostrils flaring and my hands balling into fists at my sides.

  “Mr. Davidson,” the taller man said, smiling as he took the sight of a conscious me in. If my threat frightened him, he didn’t let on in the slightest. “Good to see you up and about. If you slept much longer, I was thinking we were going to have to take a hose to you.”

  “Something to consider when training your people, I suppose,” I answered as rudely as I pleased. “I wouldn’t have been out at all if that woman hadn’t taken a damn taser to my neck.”

  “Protocol, I’m afraid,” the man answered, still with a smile. “Though, if you have a problem with it, you’ll have a chance to voice that soon enough. The Archer would like to see you so that he can talk to you about the incident from before.”

  “Incident?” I scoffed. My goal was to work up some mock outrage, but as it turned out, it wasn’t too hard. I might have been pretending to be Al Davidson, but it was my body that was tossed around like a ragdoll. It was me who was threatened, me who was beat on. As it turned out, indignation wasn’t too hard to come by. “Is that what your boss is calling it?”

  The tall man took a step toward me. “See, and here I thought you considered the Archer your boss too.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Natasha tense up. She thought I had made a mistake. She figured I’d lost my cool and misspoke, but that wasn’t what happened. After I got into all of this, I studied up on Al Davidson. Among other things, the scumbag was a hothead. I doubted this would be the first time anyone in the Archer’s employ would have been met with this fact.

  “And here I thought any boss worth a damn would be smarter than to let some mole come to receive one of his most valuable assets. If that’s the kind of man we’re working for, I’m not sure I still want to be part of it.”

  “Al, baby. I think you’re forgetting yourself. The Archer has been good to us, baby. He’s got our best interest at heart,” Natasha said, walking toward me and slipping her arm through mine. It was a move meant to shut me up while preserving our covers.

  “I’m a number to the Archer, babe,” I said, not turning to look at her. In fact, I didn’t react at all as her arm slipped through mine. Normally, I would have pulled away from Natasha’s touch like she was a snake. She wasn’t Natasha right now, though, and I wasn’t Dillon. We were Al and Margo. The two of them touching was as everyday and occurrence as the sun moving across the Florida sky. It was no big deal. So, I didn’t treat it as such. “I’m a cog in a machine to him, and I’m cool with that. I understand it. Hell, I’ve been through enough of this garbage to know how it works.” I shook my head, sneering at the two men. “At least, I know how it should work. An operation like this, it should be clockwork. There should be none of this nonsense. I shouldn’t be thrown around the back of an armored car like a pinball in a damn machine. I shouldn’t be shot at or threatened by people who are supposed to be on my side, and I sure as hell shouldn’t be assaulted in order to get where I’m going.” I scoffed at them again. “Whether it’s protocol or not.”

  “You know what the next protocol is, punk?’ the second of the two men, a shorter man who had been silent until this very moment, spoke up. His voice shot up in a surprisingly high pitched and nasal squeak. “It’s to make sure you come by any means necessary.” He shook his head, which revealed that the block of sandy curls on his hair had been sprayed so much that it didn’t move an inch. He lifte
d his hand, revealing a pair of shiny brass knuckles. “And I do mean any means necessary.”

  Now, I probably shouldn’t have laughed. Honestly, it would have probably been in my best interest to shake like a leaf, to assure the pair I was going to comply fully, and walk out with them, all shivering with fright and with my tail between my legs. I couldn’t help myself though. This dude, this nasal pitched, hairsprayed dude with the brass knuckles just tickled me with his ridiculousness. I couldn’t help it.

  “You’re not serious, are you?” I asked, laughing so hard I wanted to slap my leg. “Oh my Lord, you are serious. That’s almost sad, bud.”

  “Sad?” the short man asked, his face reddening and his eyes filling with fury. “I’ll show you sad, you stupid son of a bitch!”

  He reared back, tossing a stubby, brass-laden fist at me. Basically still laughing, I moved my head to the side, dodging his fist. Grabbing his arm, I brought it down hard against the wall. His fist opened and the brass knuckles fell to the floor as I twisted his arm hard. I didn’t stop until I heard the pop and then the yelp I knew was coming.

  Turning again, I pushed the man off me, glaring at him as he fell on the floor beside his stupid weapon.

  The taller man, still standing, looked over at me and shook his head. “They surround me with amateurs.”

  “It’s a hard knock life,” I answered. “Can we go now?”

  “We can,” the taller man said. He motioned for me to head toward the door and the shorter man started to push himself off the floor. Unfortunately for him, the taller man leveled a kick into his gut, sending him falling and coughing.

  “Not you,” the taller man said. “You’re not invited anymore. Go to the mailroom.”

  “But Nate,” the short man gasped, fear evident in his voice.

  “Mailroom!” he said loudly. “Now!”

  I shot Natasha a look. We didn’t know what the mailroom was, and that was something that needed to change. She didn’t move an inch, but I saw in her eyes that she knew what I needed from her. She would find that out, and I would see what happened when I finally came face to face with the Archer.

  Chapter 16

  As we walked out into the breathtaking scenery of St. Thomas, it struck me how sad it was that this- and not a trip with my wife or family- was my first experience with the place in so many years. I’d spent good times here with my grandfather, splashing around in the ocean, eating fresh fish on the beaches, and shooting the breeze with the man I respected most in this world. RIght now, though, I kept pace with a thug who worked under another thug and thought it made him important. It was less than ideal. Still, it meant we were getting somewhere. With me meeting the Archer, Natasha would get to the bottom of whatever the Mailroom was. With any luck, we’d have this whole knot unwound before my family even had a chance to worry too much about me.

  “Quick hands back there,” the tall man said, looking over at me with something between a scowl and admiration on his face.

  “Not really,” I answered, shaking my head. “Though, I guess any hands can be considered quick depending on what they’re being compared to. I really figured someone like the Archer would have better trained people than that.”

  The tall man pulled to a stop, turning to me and crossing his arms over his chest. “Is that right?” Looking me up and down, he smirked a little. “I think you’re selling yourself short there, Mr. Davidson. I’ve tussled with the man you took down on more than one occasion. I found him to be more than adequate.” The man’s eyebrows ticked up. “Not to mention the fact that I trained him myself. So, if you find yourself less than impressed by his skills, I guess you know who to blame.”

  I glared at the man, deciding that the real Al Davidson, or at least the Al Davidson I had crafted up to this point, wouldn’t really care what this man thought.

  “You said it. Not me,” I muttered.

  To my surprise, the tall man started chuckling loudly. “You really are a piece of work, aren’t you?” he asked. “I mean, I’ve seen some sons of bitches run through this enterprise in my day, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one who wasn’t at least a little afraid of me.” He shook his head. “But you’re not, are you? You’re not even the least bit afraid.”

  I stood tall, puffing out my chest and staring right into the man’s eyes. “If you’re anything like your protege, I don’t see where I have much reason to be afraid.”

  “Me either, judging from what I just saw back there,” the tall man said. “That being said, it took me by surprise.”

  “How so?” I asked, my pulse ticking upward just a little.

  “Your file, Mr. Davidson.”The man chuckled again. “ You know something, I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Nate Chambers. How about the two of us have a drink and get to know each other for a bit?”

  My chest tightened. This, of course, seemed like a horrible idea to me. I had a job to do, and that job included getting to the Archer as quickly as possible. Wasting my time with this knucklehead wasn’t conducive to that end goal. Still, I’d need to move around the subject delicately, seeing as how Nate seemed to be wary of me already.

  “I’m not sure the Archer would like that,” I replied, stuffing my hands into my pockets. “Keeping him waiting and all of that.”

  “That’s the thing, Mr. Davidson. The Archer’s already been waiting for quite some time. Given how long you were unconscious, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Archer has already moved on to other business.”

  My eyes narrowed. “If that’s the case, then why come and get me at all?”

  “Because he told me to, and because the Archer likes to keep his options open. His time is valuable, Mr. Davidson. Yours is not. He wants to make sure you understand that straight off.”

  “I think I’m starting to,” I answered, nodding at the man as he motioned for me to walk toward the sandy beaches that started just feet from where we now stood.

  As I followed him, I realized just how expensive the cabana I woke up in must have been. This was summer break on St. Thomas, and this was prime real estate. As the tourists passed us by, clad in their bikinis and board shorts, the idea of how odd this was struck me. Here they were, going on about their business, all the while unaware that something big was brewing right under their noses, unaware that a nefarious mastermind had set up shop in their favorite vacation destination.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Davidson. The Archer will let you know when he needs you loud and clear. I assure you, there’s nothing about him that’s patient or quiet,” Nate said, motioning me toward a white block building that looked to be one of the custodian depots littered around the beach and other public areas. A small white square without much room and a red number seven painted at the side (to indicate which terminal it was), I wasn’t quite sure what was going on.

  “What the hell is this?” I asked in a brasher tone than I would have normally used. “I thought you said you wanted to have a drink and get to know each other.”

  “I did,” Nate answered. “And this is where that’s going to happen.” He stopped short in front of the small squared off building and folded his arms over his chest.

  “This is a glorified broom closet,” I answered. “When you said you wanted to have a drink, I assumed you meant one of the dozen or so beachside bars that are literally in walking distance from this spot.”

  “Are they?” Nate asked, his eyebrows arching. “As someone who has never been to St. Thomas, I’m surprised you have any idea how many bars are in walking distance from where we are right now.”

  A rush of heat ran through me. That’s right, Al Davidson had never been to St. Thomas before. That meant I had never been to St. Thomas before. I needed to keep a better handle on that.

  “I do my research, Nate,” I said, using the man’s given name and pulling at the first explanation I could think of. “Frankly, I’d be surprised if you didn’t. My guess is that a man like you knows every step of everywhere he’s going whether he’s been there before
or not.”

  A sly smile slid across the man’s face. “That’s not inaccurate,” he confirmed. “Which should tell you all you need to know about my decision to have our little meeting in here.” He pointed to the small building again. “Now, if you would follow me.”

  I glared at the man as he walked to the number seven building and pulled the door open. My intuition was telling me there was a hell of a lot more to this than the promise of a mixed drink and hearing about this idiot’s childhood. Still, in for a penny in for a pound, as they say. I was in this now, and more than that, Natasha was in it too. Blowing my cover wouldn’t only mean screwing up a mission they had built from the ground up. It would also mean putting both my life and the life of a woman I had known (for better or worse) for years in what could very well be mortal jeopardy. I couldn’t do that. So, if Nate Chambers wanted to have a drink on the inside of a cleaning room, I supposed I would have to follow suit.

  Nate turned and nodded at me before he entered. I did the same thing and followed him inside, half expecting to find some sort of sprawling staircase leading down to a secret (and hopefully much larger) room. Instead, as the man closed the door behind me, I saw this room was nothing special. Illuminated by a single hanging light and filled with cleaning and gardening supplies.

  “This isn’t exactly the tropical scenery I was expecting when I was told I’d be going to St. Thomas,” I said, folding my arms over my chest and clearing my throat.

  “Life’s full of surprises, Mr. Davidson,” Nate said, turning the look on the door and settling in front of it. “Or would you prefer me to call you Dillon Storm?”

  Chapter 17

  My entire body shook as I heard my name, my real name, pour from the lips of Nate Chambers. The Archer’s right hand man knew who I really was, and that meant all of this had just come to a crashing halt. My mind immediately went to Natasha, to the way I’d left her alone to fend for herself. If they knew who I was, it meant they knew who she was too. She could very likely be dead right now. The idea sent shivers down my spine.