Sailors and Sirens

by Charles Dougherty

  "So she's still with us?"

  "Absolutely. Any other questions?"

  "What happens next?"

  "Before we move on to that, I need to tell you that Mary and Bob know that I was going to have this conversation with you. Beyond that, what we've talked about is just between you and me. I trust your judgment if you feel you need to share parts of it with Mary, but that's entirely up to you. And I agree with Bob about your personal relationship with her. We're comfortable that you're both professionals. What you do on your own time is between the two of you. We're happy for you if it works out, but there's no pressure either way. Clear?"

  "Yes, sir. Sorry, I mean yes, Mike."

  "That's okay," Mike said with a chuckle. "Now, what happens next is that Mary will get a text telling her I have briefed you. She's stuck with a burner phone; her encrypted phone was broken in the scuffle last night. If I don't miss my guess, you'll hear from her pretty damn quick. She's supposed to link up with you and the two of you should call in on your phone. Aaron will pass along our latest intel, and you can take it from there."

  "Thanks, Mike. Nice talking with you."

  "Same here. Stay well and tell Mary hello."

  "Will do."

  25

  After I talked with Mike, I started a pot of coffee at the minibar to give me something to do. Before it finished brewing, the room phone rang. I picked up on the second ring.

  "Hello?"

  "Can I come up?"

  "Yes, of course. What kind of question is that?"

  "I wanted to be sure it was okay."

  "Hurry up. Where are you?"

  "The lobby. Bye."

  Two minutes later, there was a soft tap on the door. I took the chain off and opened it. Mary stood there, looking nothing like the girl who ate breakfast with me two hours ago. She licked her lips and frowned.

  "Can I come in?"

  "What's the matter with you?" I swung the door open and motioned for her to enter. When I closed the door behind her, she licked her lips again, looking around the room like she never saw it before.

  "Mary?"

  She flinched and looked at me. "I'm really sorry, Finn. I want to explain, okay? I need your forgiveness."

  "Everything's all right, Mary."

  She shook her head. "No. I messed up; I need to — "

  "You need to give me a hug, and then we need to call Aaron. Let's get the business out of the way first."

  She dropped her backpack and stepped into my arms. Her head on my chest, she sobbed softly as I held her.

  "It's all going to be okay," I said, patting her back.

  "Oh, Finn, I was so scared I'd never see you again."

  "That's all behind us now. Sit down and let me pour us coffee. We need to call Aaron, and then we can talk about us if you need to. But I'm just glad you're back safe and sound."

  She straightened her back and nodded. With my arm around her, I led her to the little round table in the corner. She pulled out a chair and sat. Taking a step over to the minibar, I poured two cups of coffee and joined her.

  "What did they… Who… Mike?"

  "Mike called, yes."

  "What did he tell you?"

  "That you were safe, and that we're still a team as far as Phorcys is concerned."

  She sighed, the hard angles around her mouth softening as she relaxed. "What did he tell you about last night?"

  "Nothing, really. Not about what happened. Just that they were okay with it."

  Her eyebrows rose. "That's all?"

  I nodded.

  "Then I should take a few minutes and — "

  "Later, okay? Mike's instructions were for the two of us to call Aaron and pick up on the latest intelligence. Once we have that out of the way, you can tell me as much as you need to about last night. I'm afraid digesting your story might distract me from whatever Aaron has to say. All right?"

  "But what if Aaron wants to discuss what happened?"

  "Then we'll play it straight. But my bet is Aaron doesn't know any more about what you did last night than I do. And he's not going to ask. Trust me on that."

  "I will, then. Bob told me the same thing. You guys all…" she shook her head.

  "Yes, we do. We all think alike. That's why you're here, to give us a different perspective. Okay?"

  "Okay. Make the call."

  I took the phone from my pocket and put it between us on the table. I tapped in the unlock code and placed the call.

  "Finn?"

  "Yes."

  "Mary with you?"

  "I'm here," she said.

  "Good to hear your voice. We missed you earlier. Did Finn fill you in?"

  I nodded, and Mary said, "Sure."

  "What's new from your end?" I asked.

  "Greg tracked down the car rental information. It was rented to Nikolai Popovich. Florida driver's license, looks like a false identity. He's the bodyguard. There's nothing on Lavrov, or whoever he really is. We've run facial recognition on the driver's license photo. It's a match for a Russian national who is suspected of being part of an international criminal enterprise. He's the ex-Spetsnaz trooper, maybe. But his identity is fuzzy. He's used a lot of different names, and all the information in the files is 'rumored, unverified.' Anyway, he picked up the car late yesterday afternoon. He and the one calling himself Lavrov are unaccounted for, but they left the car at a self-service drop-off at the airport in Savannah two hours ago."

  "So he and Lavrov are in the wind," I said.

  "Yeah, but there's more. They may or may not be involved, but Jeremy Theroux's body was found in his office first thing this morning. Zamochit."

  "Wait a second," Mary said.

  "Okay," Aaron said, "What's up?"

  "You guys didn't send that text we talked about, did you? The one to Lavrov, from Davies's phone?"

  "No," Aaron said. "We talked about it, but there were a couple of things that held us up."

  "I guess I was one," she said, "but what was the other?"

  "I couldn't find the phone," I said. "I figured you must have ended up with it, somehow."

  Mary frowned, looking at me.

  "You were fiddling with it when we were in the car after we questioned him."

  "I was?" She shook her head. "I'm still drawing a blank on a lot of that time. Wonder what they shot me up with?"

  "Doesn't matter now," I said. "When I couldn't find it here or in the car, I thought maybe you dropped it in your bag."

  She got up and retrieved her backpack, upending it, dumping its contents on the bed. After a few seconds, she held it up and waved it back and forth. "Guess it won't do us any good, now."

  "It might," Aaron said. "You never know. Hang on to it until I get somebody to pick it up; we'll see where it leads. But let's get back to your question about the text. We didn't send it. We had reservations about it. I wanted to run some checks on the phone before we sent it, but we didn't have the phone — or the number. Plus, we wanted to find you first."

  "Huh," Mary said. "I just wondered. So Lavrov must have had another reason for killing Theroux, then."

  "Could be that he figured we were going to kill Theroux anyway, after we staked him out," I said. "And Lavrov wouldn't have wanted to take a chance on Theroux spilling his guts if we interrogated him."

  "That would mean the Savannah target is in danger, too," Mary said.

  "Yeah," Aaron said. "I was coming to that."

  "Stringfellow is dead too?" I asked.

  "Missing, so far," Aaron said. "Their housekeeper went to work this morning and found his wife all doped up and disoriented. Nobody has seen Stringfellow since he and his wife went to bed last night."

  "Stringfellow is the guy in Savannah?" Mary asked.

  "Right," Aaron said.

  "My hat is off to you, Mary," I said. "You called Lavrov's move perfectly."

  She gave me a searching look, then said, "You think he anticipated my text?"

  I chuckled. "No, not that perfectly. But if we had sen
t it, he would have done your bidding, for sure. You didn't get to push his buttons, but you knew right where they were, and what would happen if you pushed them. I'm impressed."

  "I think you're reading more into this than you should, but I appreciate the vote of confidence. I was guessing if I suggested it, he would kill them — kind of a macho thing. No way he would let a woman kill them. But the big question now is where do we go from here?"

  "Mike and Bob called me a little while ago," Aaron said. "The consensus is that we need to let things cool off. Remember that DoJ investigation? I mentioned it way back, when you hit the Senator."

  "The investigation into the mysterious Russian, you mean?" I asked.

  "Yes. There were several other people under surveillance in connection with that, and all of them have died in the last couple of weeks, thanks to the two of you, mostly."

  "Is somebody onto us?" Mary asked.

  "There's no sign of that in our intercepts from the DoJ. But Mike and Bob and the others worry that Lavrov might not be the only one who goes underground. They suggested that maybe you should go sailing for a while — get out of the States and let the dust clear. Meanwhile, we need to find Lavrov, or whatever his name is. And we're keeping a close watch on the players at the DoJ; we already know there's something rotten there. We need to let things quiet down, or all the rats will scurry away before we can find them."

  "So we're on vacation for a while?" I asked. "Is that the idea?"

  "Yep. But before you go, put Davies's phone in a padded envelope and leave it at the front desk. I'll send a courier around this afternoon to pick it up and drop off a replacement for that broken phone of yours, Mary. You weren't leaving today, were you?"

  "Not today. I've got a night's sleep to make up."

  "Rest well, then. You two take care, and I'll keep you posted on things here."

  "Thanks, Aaron," I said.

  "And from me," Mary said, as I disconnected the call.

  I took her hand in mine and looked her in the eye. "Do you need to talk?"

  She nodded. "I screwed up, Finn."

  "You keep saying that, but I'm not sure why."

  "Why what?"

  "Why you did what you did, or why you think you screwed up. You're not impulsive; you don't do things without a reason."

  "There's a lot buried in those statements. And yeah, what I did last night might have been a screw-up, even though Bob said I did what I thought was right. He told me nobody was going to second guess me about that. Bob said something like what you said a few minutes ago — that I have a different perspective on things than the rest of you. Different doesn't mean wrong, he said. But he gave me pointers on what I could have done differently to keep myself safer and avoid the confusion and disruption." She paused and took a sip of coffee.

  "That's interesting," I said. "So why do you say you screwed up?"

  "Because I did. I let those bastards get the drop on me. I should have been watching my back."

  "There's nothing I can say that will make you feel differently. I know. I've been there. We all have. Mull it over, analyze what you could have done differently. Figure out how they got inside your guard. But don't beat yourself up about it. It's over. You survived; they didn't. That makes you the winner."

  "Because I was lucky enough to have you looking out for me. That's not good enough."

  "Now you'll hurt my feelings."

  "No, Finn! That's not how I — "

  "I know it's not. Forgive me for trying to interject a little humor. I shouldn't have; I know how raw your feelings are right now. Mine too."

  "It's okay. But I never depend on luck; that's why I feel like I messed up. If it weren't for luck…" She shook her head.

  "I would have never met the woman I love, if it weren't for luck, Mary."

  "That's sweet, Finn. But it's not the same."

  "Luck is a part of life," I said. "Sometimes it works in your favor, and sometimes it doesn't. But it's always there, tipping the scales one way or the other. If you don't like that notion, think of it as the sum of all the things that are beyond your control that influence the outcome of your efforts."

  "I'm trying. Bob told me something similar. He quoted a French philosopher from the early 1800s. 'Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God, when he does not wish to sign his work.'

  "He said I should ponder that, if I wanted to come to grips with the role luck plays in our affairs. Pretty deep, huh? Do they teach you stuff like that in the military?"

  "Sort of, via the method of hard knocks. What else did Bob have to say? You mentioned pointers on how you could have reduced the risk of what you did last night?"

  "Yes. Aside from wanting to strike back, my take on the whole situation was that I was the one they were after. None of you wanted to let me deal with that in the way I thought was best. Like I told you, that really pissed me off. So I decided to handle it my way, and you all could suck it up, or not. I told Bob I was sorry if I didn't follow orders like the rest of you, but that's the way I am."

  "And how did he react to that?" I asked.

  "He said something like, 'Mary, you were in the best position to make a decision about how to proceed. The decision you made was yours to make. But you should have told Finn what you planned to do. I understand that you needed to go in alone; he would have understood that, too. But you gave up any opportunity for assistance, because nobody knew where you were.'

  "I never thought about that, Finn. I'm not used to having help, or backup. I just thought you guys would tell me I couldn't do what I thought I needed to do. So yes, I did screw up last night. But I guess I got lucky. It all went the way I planned it."

  I nodded and didn't say anything.

  "Actually, I didn't really plan it, just between you and me. I went to the marina to get a first-hand look at Anastasia. As I was walking out toward the face dock, these two crewmen wearing polo shirts with Anastasia on them passed me going the other way. One of them gave me the eye, and that's how it all started. They bought me a few drinks at the bar in the marina and I fed them a line about looking for a crew position. They offered to show me the yacht. How could I turn that down?

  "I knew what those two were thinking; they were obvious about it. But I know my way around jerks like that. So they slipped me aboard, and I took it from there. They were planning for an early departure this morning, so most of the crew were already asleep. They died in their beds.

  "Once I worked my way up to the captain's quarters, I took time to ask him a few questions. He didn't know where Lavrov and his bodyguard were — just that they would meet up in Savannah this evening. And that's about it. I saw an opportunity and took it. One of those carpe diem things."

  "Were you expecting to find Lavrov aboard?"

  "No. The two guys who picked me up told me the owner was away. That was why they could get away with sneaking me aboard. But I decided that was okay. I knew we didn't want to kill Lavrov before we learned more about him. Mike said that, remember? On our conference call. But he also wanted to shake Lavrov up, throw him off balance. I figured killing his crew while he was away for the night might rattle his cage a little bit."

  Rattle his cage? A little bit? You killed 12 people to rattle his cage?

  "No kidding. It will be interesting to see what his next move is. But my bet is he will lie low for a while. That's okay with me. I could do with a little break. Aaron as good as told us Mike and Bob want us to go sailing for a while — get lost in the islands."

  "We could pick up where we left off," Mary said. "But Island Girl's out of the water, right?"

  "Yes. I can call the boatyard and schedule a launch, though. Not a big deal."

  "How long will it take to put her back together? You stripped everything on deck and stored it in the cabin, didn't you?"

  "Yes. It'll take a few days to get her shipshape."

  "Do you mind going down and doing that by yourself?"

  "No, but why?"

  "Just some things I would lik
e to take care of. A few days should do it, and then I can fly down. Could we meet in St. Thomas in a week?"

  I swallowed my disappointment, wondering what she was plotting next. "Sure. If that's what you want."

  "And can we leave there right away?"

  "I'd like that," I said.

  "Me, too, sailor. Can we go back to Isla de Aves and chill out for a while? Just the two of us, with nobody else for a hundred miles?"

  "Sure," I said. "We can do that." I hear a woman's voice, singing, singing, calling to me…

  The End

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  Sailors and Sirens was published in June 2019. The next story in the series will be released later in the year. You'll find progress reports and more information on my web page, www.clrdougherty.com. Be sure to click on the link to my blog posts; it's in the column on the right side of the web page.

  Assassins and Liars and Avengers and Rogues are available in audiobook format. Vigilantes and Lovers, the third Finn story, will be released in audiobook format in September 2019. Learn more about these audiobooks on my website.