by Cap Daniels
“Twenty-five-year-old woman! Blonde hair! Gunshot to the back! Where is she?”
I saw the woman running for the telephone mounted on the wall at the end of the room, so I drew my pistol and put a bullet through the phone. I ordered, “Stop where you are!”
With eyes full of terror, the woman froze then fell to her knees. The man whose neck was clamped in my left hand shared the woman’s look of fear and pointed toward a body covered by a white sheet. I shoved the man to the floor, holstered my pistol, and began scanning the gurneys for Anya’s body. At the same time, four armed police officers—real officers this time—burst through the doors into the morgue.
I scanned the room for another exit and something seized my attention—a foot protruding from beneath a white sheet . . . on it, a tag tied to one of only four toes.
I grabbed a pair of gurneys holding two more bodies and shoved them into the center of the aisle. I sprinted toward an exit sign, leaving the cops stumbling over the gurneys and dead bodies. I made my way back up a set of stairs to the main floor of the hospital and ran through an emergency exit and out to the street.
My thoughts were scrambled. I continued running but had no idea where I was going. My life was crumbling at my feet, and I was an empty, broken man.
* * *
The next memory I have was a mouthful of sand and Clark rolling me over. I was lying under a dilapidated pier, covered in sand and reeking of Jack Daniels. My head pounded, and I felt like I’d been run over by a bus.
“Come on, Chase. Let’s get you cleaned up. We’ve got to get you out of Miami.”
Miami? It all came flooding back. Anya’s gone.
Clark helped me to my feet. I’ll never know how much of my pain was from a hangover and how much was from a heartache, but at that moment, there was no difference.
I showered in a rented motel room and threw on some clothes Clark had found for me. My head throbbed.
Clark forced two cups of coffee down my throat and shook me back to reality. “We’ve got to get moving. My dad is doing his best to deal with the fallout from your little episode yesterday, but we can’t stay in Miami.”
Through the fog in my head, I said, “Is Skipper okay?”
“She’s fine,” he said.
“I owe her an apology. I was an ass to her yesterday.”
“You don’t owe me an apology.” Skipper was sitting in the corner of the room.
“Skipper, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. None of this is your fault.”
She sat beside me on the edge of the bed. “Chase, stop it. I know you didn’t mean it. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Anya.”
She hugged me, and I tried to fight back the tears, but it was no use.
“We have to go,” said Clark.
We left the grungy motel and headed south toward Key Largo and the Ocean Reef Club Airport. Hank wasn’t there, but we found the King Air where he promised it would be. We left my car in the airport parking lot, covered it with its fitted cover, and Clark started the preflight inspection on the airplane.
I was in no shape to help, so I climbed aboard and strapped into one of the seats, pulled the shade down to keep the sun from sending my head over the edge, and sat silently, questioning everything.
Clark patted me on the shoulder on his way through the cabin and toward the cockpit. The engines spun up, and the air conditioner soon had the cabin nice and comfortable.
Skipper sat down across from me and put her hand on my knee. “I guess we’re going back to Georgia, huh?”
“Yeah,” I told her through squinted eyes. “We’ve got to get you home.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Last time I talked to Mom and Dad, they were pretty mad at me. I don’t think they ever want to see me again.”
“You should’ve seen their faces when Anya and I told them we’d find you and bring you home. They were both in tears, Skipper. Trust me. They’re going to welcome you with open arms.”
Clark pulled off his headset and turned to the cabin. “Where are we going?”
“You’re taking me back home to Athens,” she said, hesitantly.
I tried to sleep on the flight, but I couldn’t stop picturing Anya’s face and replaying our last conversation.
She’d said, “This is terrible plan, Chase. You are walking into place, and you do not know how many men or where is girl.”
Why didn’t I listen to her? If I had, she’d still be alive, and I wouldn’t be running from the Miami cops after shooting up the VA hospital.
Clark pulled me from my stupor when he leaned from the cockpit. “Hey, Elizabeth. Do you want to ride up here?”
“I’ll stay back here with you if you want,” she said to me.
“No, you go on up. I’m okay, and you’ll like it up there.”
She twisted into the cockpit and settled into the co-pilot’s seat. I could see Clark showing her the controls and pointing out things on the ground, some five miles below. I finally fell asleep through the mass of thoughts churning in my mind.
I woke up when I felt the wheels touch down at the Athens Airport. My head was clearing, and I was beginning to feel almost human again. I peered into the cockpit to see Skipper with one hand on the yoke and the other on the throttles.
“You’re a natural,” I heard Clark say.
“Whatever,” she said. “You did that.”
“Well, I may have helped a little, but you did most of the work. Why don’t you go wake up Chase and let him know we’re down and safe?”
I stuck my head into the cockpit. “Don’t tell me you let her fly.”
“Did you see that?” Skipper said with wide eyes and a brilliant grin. “He let me fly. It’s amazing, Chase! You’d love it!”
I tried to smile. “I’m sure I would.”
Clark taxied toward the ramp. “Was that Dr. Richter’s Mustang on the ramp in Key Largo?”
“It was,” I replied.
He’d left the airplane there after flying it down to join Anya and me in our attempt to find and kill the last remaining Suslik. The gunfights and sinking boats that followed had left him stuck in Miami with a bullet in his shoulder.
“I think I’ll stick the King Air in his hangar since it’s empty,” Clark said. “I’m sure the old man wouldn’t mind.”
We taxied to Dr. Richter’s hangar, shut down the engines, and listened to them whistle to a stop. I opened the cabin door and stepped onto the tarmac, squinting against the sun and still trying to clear my head.
Skipper walked down the steps from the plane, shielding her eyes from the evening sun. Clark followed closely behind her and tossed me a small key ring. “Open up the hangar if you don’t mind.”
How did Clark get a hangar key? I don’t have a hangar key.
I unlocked the hangar and pressed the button to start the big door rising on its motorized track. Dr. Richter’s VW Microbus was parked beside the small tractor he used to tow his P-51 Mustang in and out of the hangar. I hopped in the Microbus and pulled it outside and around the King Air. Clark pulled the tractor out and attached the tow bar to the nosewheel of the big plane. I wasn’t sure the King Air would fit, but Clark appeared to know what he was doing, so I stayed out of the way and watched. He pushed the airplane into the hangar with only inches to spare, and then parked the tractor beneath the left wing.
I stared at the brown couch where Dr. Richter had shown Anya the old pictures and letters from her mother. It had happened only a few days before, but it all seemed so long ago.
Clark hopped off the tractor. “Why don’t you guys go have your reunion? I’m going to hang out here and get some sleep. I’m beat. I’ll be here when you’re ready to pick up your boat, Chase.”
“You have a boat?” Skipper asked. “What kind of boat? Where is it?”
She had always been full of questions. It was nice to see that curious, mischievous girl I knew.
I’d almost forgotten about my boat at Jekyll Island, and I never ca
lled anyone to go pick it up. I hoped it was still tied up at the end of the dock.
“Yeah, I have a boat,” I said. “It’s a sailboat over at Jekyll Island. I’ll have to go back and get it.”
“Can you bring it here?” she asked. “We could go sailing down on Lake Oconee, and maybe Clark could come.”
“Well, it’s not really that kind of sailboat. It’s fifty feet long and weighs about forty thousand pounds. It’s not just my boat. It’s also where I live.”
“Oh, cool,” she said. “Then maybe Clark and I could come see you on your boat.”
“He’s thirty-four,” I reminded her.
She grinned. “Yeah, but he looks twenty-four.”
“Come on. There’s a couple of people who’ve been waiting a long time to see you again.”
She twirled around on the ball of her foot and made a telephone sign with her right hand, sticking a thumb in her ear and her pinky finger near her lips. “Bye, Clark. Call me.”
“Bye, Elizabeth. It was nice to meet you.”
* * *
We drove for a few miles, and I noticed she was starting to fidget in her seat.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m just nervous about going home. I don’t know what it’s going to be like.”
“It’s going to be like going home, Skipper. Your folks are going to cry and hug you, and it’s going to be an emotional mess for a day or two. Then they’ll want to ask you a lot of questions. It’s going to be a big change for you . . . and for them. You left home an innocent little girl, and now you’re coming back knowing a lot more about the world than you ever wanted to. But to them you’re still that innocent little girl. They’re not going to be ready to hear what you’ve been through, and you’re not going to be ready to tell them. I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but I did spend a few years studying psychology.”
She playfully shoved my shoulder. “Stop it, Chase. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“It’s okay to tell them you’re not ready to talk about it. It’s going to take some time for everyone, especially for you, to get used to being safe and sound at home. They’re going to treat you like a little girl again and want to tuck you in and check on you during the middle of the night. Let them do it. They need that as much as you need the safety and security.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right, but I’m still nervous.”
“It’s okay to be nervous,” I said. “They’ll be nervous, too.”
“It’s going to be tough for you, too, you know. I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to go back to your boat all by yourself. I don’t think you need to be alone right now.”
“Some of us grieve better alone. I’m going to miss her and it’s going to take a long time to get used to being without her, but I don’t have a choice. I have to do it. I knew it could happen. It could just as easily have been me who took that bullet. Life sucks sometimes, kiddo, but like your friend Clark says, we’ve got to soldier on and embrace the suck.”
We pulled into the driveway and she reached for my hand.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said.
“Please don’t go,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to embrace the suck alone.”
17
Dead to the World
We stepped from the Microbus and Skipper grabbed my hand. “Chase, if it’s going to be as weird as you say, I want to tell you this now.”
“What is it?”
“Thank you for saving my life,” she said.
“I didn’t save your life. I just got you out of a bad situation.”
“Yes, you did. I had a handful of sleeping pills when you came into that bathroom. I wasn’t going to live another day in that hell. You saved my life. Thank you.”
Laura screamed from the porch. “Bobby! Bobby, get out here! Skipper’s home!”
Skipper ran to her mother. Coach Woodley raced outside and joined his wife and daughter in a long-awaited and tearful hug.
I watched them from the yard, thinking no one would ever be that happy to see me. I was destined to be alone in a cold world of my making. The life I’d chosen, or perhaps the life that had chosen me, wasn’t the kind of existence that led to moments like that. I might help create those moments for other people, but I’d never again know how they felt. I’d never again hold a woman in my arms and cry for her. I’d never again have anyone long to see me or hear my voice. I was alone, and I’d remain alone. My family was gone, Anya was dead, and my existence was practically invisible to the rest of the world. It had to be that way. When I would die in some miserable corner of the world at the hands of people who’d destroy life as Coach and Laura and Skipper knew it, I’d do so alone. No one would cry or mourn my passing. I’d be gone, and someone else like Clark would take my place. And it would continue. I was a tool in a very large box for the use of powerful men who I’d never see, and who lived in places I’d never go. When I’d end up lost or broken or no longer a tool they needed, I’d be replaced by a newer, sharper, equally dispensable tool.
My fate was sealed when I took their money, when they paid me to take the life of another and I did it. I became exactly what Anya said I was: a nayemnik, a mercenary. Now I’d become something far more sinister, something far viler. I’d become a man who would take the life of another, believing I had some superiority, some moral standing to declare another human being unfit to live, and to act as not only judge and jury, but also executioner. When I’d believed Micky had no value, I dispensed of his life in the blink of an eye. When I believed Giovani could deliver Skipper to me, I felt no remorse in destroying his hand and later ordering Clark to put a bullet in his head. I’d probably killed the woman I shoved through the glass of the shower, and most certainly killed the guards who were only doing a job for a price. I’d walked through those men as if their lives were meaningless. My carelessness and arrogance led me to belittle the woman who loved me and wanted to bear my children. I’d forced her into a battle that couldn’t be won, a battle that was never hers to fight. Finding Skipper was my promise and my commitment, and I should’ve never asked Anya to wade into Hell to fight my war. I killed her with my arrogance and my stupidity. She was dead, and I was alone, and that’s how it would always be.
Breaking my promise to Skipper, I climbed back into the Microbus and drove away, disappearing just like I’d done years before. If I’d stayed, it would’ve only been harder when I finally left. The leaving was inevitable and the pain unavoidable. Prolonging it by keeping my word would be crueler than walking away at that moment.
I drove back to the baseball field at the University of Georgia and squatted behind home plate one last time. I could feel the sweat and the weight of the helmet and mask and pads. I could smell the leather glove, and I could hear the roaring crowd. I remembered the feel and sound of a fastball landing in my glove at ninety miles per hour. I could taste the thrill of gunning down a runner sliding into second with a perfectly placed throw into the infielder’s glove. I’d been one of the greatest collegiate catchers of all time. I would’ve been a major leaguer. I would’ve spent my entire life under the lights and the watchful eyes of cheering fans, but all of that went up in a cloud of dust on a hot June afternoon in Omaha, Nebraska when a baserunner came thundering down the baseline and collided with a twenty-one-year-old Chase Fulton guarding the plate.
When the dust had settled, my hand was so badly broken I’d never again throw a baseball, but I’d learn to hold a pistol and snuff out a man’s life with the twitch of a finger. I’d learn to make a fist that could knock a man from his feet with a well-practiced punch. No, I’d never play ball in Turner Field, but I’d travel the world delivering those shots and punches that might’ve made it possible for the screaming fans to sleep at night, believing they were safe and sound, and that evil was held at bay by some force they’d never see. I was that force. Like Athena’s battle shield, and like my boat lying on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, I was the aegis.
I
rose from my crouch behind home plate and surveyed the field and then the empty stands. I saw the seat where Anya had spilled her chili dog all over herself a few days before. I’d never come back to that stadium. I’d never step foot on that field again. But I’d make sure I did everything in my power to keep that place free and safe for every boy like me who ever dreamed of hitting a game-winning home run, and dared to dream that he’d one day wear a Major League uniform.
I left the field and drove back to the airport where I parked outside the hangar door. I didn’t want to go inside and risk waking Clark. He needed his sleep, and I needed to be alone, so I crawled into the back seat of the Microbus. My eyelids grew heavier with every breath. Alone, in the back of someone else’s van, parked on the tarmac of an airport in a town that was once my home but could never be again, I drifted off to sleep.
I dreamed of the sea and sound of the waves lapping at the hull of my boat. Pelicans dived on baitfish, and seagulls squawked their shrill cries. I dreamed of my sister’s laughter and my parents singing to us as children. I dreamed of the smell of Anya’s hair and the taste of her lips.
* * *
I awoke to a pounding on the window, and as I reached for my pistol, I narrowed my eyes to see Clark peering through the window. I lifted the lock and opened the doors to the side of the bus.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Sleeping,” I said. “At least that’s what I was doing ’til you woke me up. Did you get some rest?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I slept a few hours. I don’t need much sleep, but you were dead to the world.”
“That’s a good way to put it,” I said as I crawled from the back of the van.
“So, how’d it go with the girl’s folks?”
“They were glad to see her.”
“I’m sure they were. It’s a hell of a thing what you did for them. You probably saved that girl’s life, and you gave those people their daughter back, changing their lives forever. Don’t ever take that kind of thing for granted. You made a real difference in their lives, and they’ll never forget it. That’s what makes what we do worth whatever it costs.”