“How old is you’re daughter? Is she little?”
“No. She’s nearly twenty now. She’s a student at a university in Colorado.”
“Nearly twenty? You don’t even look old enough to have a twenty-year-old daughter, man. Heck, I just turned twenty myself. I figured you were about thirty.”
“Add another decade and some change,” Eric laughed. “Anyway, she’s a young woman now, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried about her. I don’t know if she was even back in Florida when the hurricane hit, but she should have been home for summer break if she was able to travel from Colorado.”
“Man, where have you been for so long that you don’t even know? That’s pretty messed up, dude!”
“Like I said, I just got in from overseas. I’ve been working in Sweden and Norway most recently, but lots of other places before that.”
“Doing what? It’s worse over there in Europe than it is here, from what I’ve heard. I’m surprised you could find a job.”
“Security contracting. It’s in demand everywhere now. There’s no shortage of jobs in my line of work.”
“Oh wow, so that’s what you meant when you said that about those Somali pirates. You weren’t kidding, were you? You’re like a mercenary! I remember seeing a lot of stuff about you guys working in Iraq and Afghanistan on the news, years ago. I’ll bet you make a shitload of money, don’t you?”
“The pay is good, but that’s not all there is to it. Most of the time I feel like I’m making a difference. And there’s a lot more freedom than when I was in the Navy.”
“The Navy? Where you a freakin’ Navy SEAL? That’s where I’ve seen a kayak like that! Some movie where the SEALS used them to sneak in and blow up enemy ships in some harbor somewhere! Man, I really fucked up didn’t I? I should be dead right now, trying to steal a kayak from a freakin’ Navy SEAL turned mercenary pirate hunter!”
“It’s all good, Jonathan. We all make mistakes, and I made the first one. I’m the one who should be dead. If you were one of the real troublemakers around here and were properly armed, you’d have blown me away before I knew what hit me!”
“I wish I had a gun! I used to have a .38 Special I kept in my car all the time, but it got stolen when somebody broke into it back when I was still working.”
“Well, you’ve had some bad luck with thieves, haven’t you, Jonathan?”
“Yeah, I guess I really have, come to think of it.”
Eric twisted his wrist to activate the backlighting on the dial of his dive watch. With less than an hour until daybreak, he was running out of time to get situated for the day. If Jonathan had managed to stay hidden here for weeks, Eric figured this was as good a spot as any he might find nearby. Now that they’d talked and cleared up things between them, Eric wasn’t worried that the kid would try any more tricks. He could pick his brain for more info while he waited, and then he would set out for Shauna’s tonight after getting some rest.
Four
JONATHAN SEEMED DELIGHTED WHEN Eric announced his plans. He had no doubt been starving for conversation, hiding out in the mangroves as he’d been doing. He was greatly impressed with Eric too after their little misunderstanding, and was eager to hear more about the life of a professional military security contractor.
“Hey, I’ll help you with that,” he said, as Eric pulled the bow of his kayak higher up the bank.
“Thanks, but that’s far enough. I’ll cover it up with a few leafy branches before daybreak so it won’t be visible from the waterway, but I’ve got too much crap in there to unload it all and get it completely out of the water.”
“What in the hell did you put in here? It feels like it weighs a ton!” Jonathan said, as he tried to lift the bow himself.
“Just stuff I figured I’d need. I came here knowing I couldn’t count on getting resupplied anytime soon, and knowing I’d better be ready for anything.”
With that, Eric reached under the foredeck of the kayak from the cockpit and pulled out his M4, slipping an arm through the sling to free up his hands for carrying more of his stuff into the woods.
“Whoa, dude! Whatcha got there? That’s a cool-looking AR-15!”
“Yeah, but it’s not the kind you can go pick up at the sporting goods store.”
“No shit? Is it the real deal? Is it fully automatic? Can I see it?”
“Later. It’ll be light soon enough. I want to get everything I need out of here and cover up this boat right now.”
“I’ll help you carry it! Just hand me some stuff. My camp is about 50 yards back in the woods there. You don’t have to worry about being seen back in there. And with that, it won’t matter if you are. You can just blow somebody’s shit away!”
It wasn’t hard to figure out that Jonathan’s knowledge of firearms came from too much TV. But at least he knew how to fish and had sense enough to find a good hideout, two things that no doubt contributed to him making it this long. Eric knew most kids his age wouldn’t have a clue what do in a situation like this, but before he let his thoughts go there, he had to stop. His own Megan was in that category, as much as it pained him to acknowledge it. He knew a lot of that was his fault, and he’d tried to teach her what he could the few times he’d had a chance, but that had been a long time ago. The eager 10-year-old that he taught to shoot and even took camping two or three times soon became the rebellious teen that didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. Eric knew a lot of that was because he hadn’t been there for her in those critical years, but there was nothing he could do to change that now. All he could hope was that he’d get a second chance. She might not want it, but she was going to need his help now.
When he’d gotten the things he needed out of the kayak, Eric fished Jonathan’s machete out of the mangroves where he’d tossed it, and used it to cut a few branches to hide the boat. Then he handed it back to him and shook his head.
“That thing’s dull as shit.”
“I know. I don’t have anything to sharpen it with. I had a file but it was with my tools in the boat when it got stolen.”
Eric said nothing but he knew he would end up putting an edge on Jonathan’s blade while they talked. He didn’t know exactly why, but he liked this kid despite his attempt to take his boat. It was probably because of his determination to survive, and the fact that he was successfully doing it on his own, living off of his fishing instead of looting or looking for a handout. The sudden opportunity to take a seaworthy kayak had caused him a brief lapse in judgment, but Eric could forgive him once, and while he was here, he would help him out if he could.
As dawn broke over the waterway, the rain picked up a bit and Eric followed Jonathan to his hidden camp, where he had rigged up a camouflaged poly tarp over the small fire pit where he had been cooking his meals. A cheap dome tent that he had been sleeping in was pitched nearby. Leaning up against the surrounding trees were several fishing rods, and hanging from a low branch was a cast net.
“This is home for me, at least for now. I guess I’ll be staying here until someone else finds my camp. If I still had my boat, I’d have probably moved on by now.”
“There’s advantages to moving and advantages to staying,” Eric said. “I’d say you’re pretty well set as long as the fishing is good. You don’t know who you might run into out there on the water.”
“I know. My boat had a motor, but it was just a 25-horse Mercury, so it wasn’t fast. I think your kayak is a lot better even if you have to paddle. It’s hard to see, especially at night and it doesn’t make a sound. That thing is badass! Is it specially made for the SEALs?”
“Not really. It’s the manufacturer’s ‘military’ model, but anyone can buy one. Special Ops units rarely use them these days. They’ve got much more sophisticated high-tech delivery systems for the most part, but they can come in handy for some coastal and river work for reconnaissance and things like that. On one of my more recent contract jobs we used them that way. We’d sink them when we got close to shore so they woul
dn’t be found while we were carrying out the mission. They’re slow and kind of primitive, but they have a lot of advantages, like the silence you mentioned, plus the ability to carry several hundred pounds of gear and explosives.”
“Wow! Is that what you’ve got in there now? Is that why it’s so heavy, because of all the grenades and shit?”
Eric smiled. He didn’t know if he should admit it or not, but yes, he did have a few grenades. They were readily available when he was putting together his gear list for the trip, so why not? But the grenades only accounted for a tiny percentage of his payload on this mission. What he had more of was food and other essentials for an extended solo operation without resupply, including of course, lots of ammo. There was another select-fire M4 stashed in a dry bag under the stern deck, along with a mounted M203 grenade launcher and a couple dozen M406 high-explosive rounds for it. Eric also had a spare Glock 19 and plenty of extra magazines for the pairs of handguns and rifles. He planned to do his best to avoid getting into a situation where he would need his weapons, but he wasn’t coming here without backups and sufficient ammo. Eric knew too that if he was intercepted and caught by the authorities the consequences would be severe. If things were like they’d been in France and Italy when he’d worked there, just having the weapons would probably get him summarily executed. Nevertheless, he deemed it worth the risk.
Jonathan told him what he knew of the situation, but unfortunately, that was not a lot, as the kid hadn’t been outside the local area. Eric would find out more as he went along, hopefully getting the details straight from Shauna and Megan soon. As they sat there under the tarp while the rain drummed down, the world beyond Jonathan’s hidden camp seemed unnaturally quiet. There was no traffic moving on the nearby road, just as there had been none on the bridge Eric passed beneath in the dark. No voices reached their ears over the sound of the rain, nor were there any of the gunshots Jonathan said he heard most days. It was impossible to know if it was the weather keeping people from moving about, or if there were simply fewer people remaining with each passing day. Thinking of all the possibilities made the hours drag by for Eric. He wanted to get to Shauna’s house now and find out if she and Megan were okay.
If he hadn’t been intimately familiar with south Florida weather patterns from living here in years past, Eric would have been tempted to move on under the cover of the rain. But knowing how fast things changed here, he wouldn’t risk it. The sun could come out again before he was halfway there and then he’d be stuck, looking for another place to hide, because there was no way he was going to risk paddling down the waterway in broad daylight and good weather. He resigned himself to a long day of waiting under Jonathan’s tarp, and to pass the time he worked on the dull machete, first with a small file and then with the water stones he carried for his knives.
“That’s a lot better,” he said, as he tested the edge by shaving a small patch of hair off his forearm. “I would say be careful with it, but back when I was a kid in the Boy Scouts, they taught us that a sharp blade is safer than a dull one.”
“That’s freakin’ awesome!” Jonathan said, as he felt the edge.
“It’ll stay that way a while if you don’t hit any rocks or anything like that with it.”
Eric touched up his fighting knife after finishing Jonathan’s machete. It was a custom seven-inch Bowie blade with rosewood scales; given to him by a fellow teammate whose life he’d saved when he was wounded in a firefight with the Taliban. Drew Herrington would never walk again, but he was still able to pursue his blade craft when he got home. He had presented the knife to him years later, when Eric had gone to visit him at his father’s ranch in Texas.
“That’s a badass knife!” Jonathan said, when Eric handed it to him to let him see. “Ever killed anybody with it? How many people have you killed?”
Eric just smiled and ignored the question.
“I’ll bet it was a lot, huh? The wars in Europe have been bad. Worse than what you saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, huh?”
“Yeah, it was bad. It’s been bad everywhere, and unfortunately, now here.”
“Do you think things will ever calm down? I mean it seems like the more the government tries to do, like shutting down the roads and airports and all, the more fighting it causes. It’s like a freakin’ civil war, I guess. I wonder how many people will have to die before it all stops?”
“There’s no telling, but if you get involved in it, you’ll die sooner, I can assure you of that.”
“Well, it looks like you’re prepared to get involved.”
“No. I’m prepared to survive. All I care about is getting my daughter out of this mess, and then my father. If my ex wants to come with us, she can come too, but she’s got a new husband and a stepson, so I don’t know how all that would work out. All I know is that we’re getting out. It’s up to them what they want to do.”
“I hear you, man. Divorce complicates the shit out of things. But even if it’s just you and your daughter and your dad, where would you go to get away from all this?”
“Lots of places, just not anywhere in the U.S. We’ll get a boat once we get to my father’s place on the Caloosahatchee. He owns a boatyard over there and I’m sure he can line us up with something big enough to sail far away from all this insanity.”
“A sailboat? Yeah, I guess that would work, if you can get away from land before you get blown out of the water. At least you won’t need fuel, and that’s a good thing because it’s damned hard to get if you can get any at all.”
“Even if it wasn’t for the fuel problem, sailing is the only thing feasible for the kind of distances that would do any good.”
“So you’re talking like getting the fuck completely out of this whole part of the world, huh? Like crossing the ocean and shit? Where would you go? Somewhere like New Zealand? I guess that would be safe, huh?”
“Maybe. But there’s lots of out of the way places you can reach with a good boat. The main thing is getting away from the U.S. mainland, and staying away from Europe, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and Persian Gulf… all the usual hot spots. I’ve seen all of that part of the world I need to see in this lifetime.”
“Man, it sounds like you’ve got a solid plan. I hope it works out for you, I really do. I wish I could say I had a plan, but I really don’t. I’m just taking it day-by-day right now, you know what I mean?”
“I am too, Jonathan. All that stuff is way out there in the abstract future right now. First, I have to find my daughter, and then my father. That might be the hard part, but it’s also the only part that matters right now. I’ll worry about the rest of it when the time comes.”
Five
AS THE LONG RAINY day wore on into afternoon, Eric followed Jonathan through the woods to his most productive fishing spots, where he worked his lures among the submerged root systems until he had a couple of nice mangrove snappers. Jonathan had been doing all of his cooking over a small fire pit under the tarp, and because of the daily rains, he had stashed a supply of dry twigs and larger branches under there and in a corner of his tent.
Eric saw that despite Jonathan’s youth and lack of fighting experience, he was a pretty good outdoorsman who knew how to stay fed and comfortable in the wild. He had not been lying about that when he’d first suggested Eric take him with him before threatening him with the machete. The fire he rekindled to cook the fish was just large enough to get the job done but no more, creating minimal smoke that might filter through the trees and be visible from the road. As the flames burned the wood down to cooking coals, Jonathan expertly gutted and filleted the fish before laying them out on a small wire grill that he carried as part of his camping kit.
“Where’d you learn so much about fishing and camping, Jonathan?”
“From my dad. We fished almost every day in the summer, and went camping anytime he had a long weekend off. Sometimes we went down to the Keys, and other times over to the Everglades. That was my favorite. Man, there’s some good fishing over th
ere, but the camping is tough, because the mosquitos will eat you alive. The Everglades is one place you don’t want to go in the summer! We usually went when I was out of school for Christmas and Spring Break.”
“Where is he now?”
“My dad? He died a couple of years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. It sounds like he taught you a lot while you had him.”
Jonathan said nothing else about it, so Eric didn’t ask him any more questions. He figured if his mother or other family members were still here he would mention it, but since he didn’t, that probably meant they were not. When they had eaten their fill of fish, Eric opened one of the dry bags he had brought to Jonathan’s camp from the kayak and dumped the contents onto the ground. This was one of two such bags that contained his quick energy, eat-on-the-go fuels: including things like almonds, peanuts, dried fruit and energy bars. If he got into a situation where he needed to eat while paddling, these snacks would keep him going until he could prepare a more substantial meal later. He had plenty of MREs and some canned goods stashed away deeper in the kayak, as he didn’t come here counting on being able to resupply along the way. Since Jonathan had shared his shelter and his fish with him, Eric insisted he take some of the snack foods to add some variety to his diet.
“You know, since you brought it up earlier, I’ve been thinking about those trips to the Everglades with my dad,” Jonathan said. “No matter how bad the mosquitos get at times, that would be a pretty good place to hang out about now, with the way things are. Anybody that’s good at fishing could do all right over there.”
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