The Arcturus Man

  “Not to worry, Ginger. You are the only digital girl in my life.”

  Ginger smiled, broadly. “Do I look like Jenny, Jared?” for him. She pressed her breasts together with her upper arms. She turned around once He had made her a 38, “C” cup. Maybe he should back it off to a “B.” He wasn’t sure he should, but that would look more like Jenny. He had a good look at Jenny on the mud flats. “Stop it,” he thought. “Analysis is paralysis.”

  Her long hair fell in front of her face. She gave him a very sexy look. “Are you sure you don’t need me?”

  “No. I’ll see you later. Bye.”

  The screen went blank. He glanced at a monitor that was still on. It was four o’clock. He went to the kitchen and put a six-pack of St. Pauli Girl in a cooler. He patterned Ginger to the St. Pauli Girl.

  “Should Ginger become Jenny?” he thought.

  He tapped a beer from the dispenser and sipped at it while he worked. He liked the keg much better than bottled beer, but keg beer didn’t transport well. He wished they wouldn’t pasteurize the beer in America. It ruins it. Jared liked beer.

  He put some strawberries in the cooler and filled it with ice packs. He steamed some white asparagus and fried some lima beans in butter and garlic. He put the hot food in a vacuum container. He cracked a heat stick and slid it into the container in a side compartment--one of his more useful adaptation inventions. He liked the taste of asparagus, but packed some prepared Hollandaise in case Jenny liked it on hers. He put some uncooked bacon in the cooler. It was ten of five. He carried everything down to the boathouse. In a few minutes he could hear the Mercury purring at a distance. She was right on time.

  He walked down the dock and she drifted in. “She was very good with the boat,” he thought. She threw him a line and climbed on to the dock.

  “Hi, have a good day?” She walked over and kissed him on the cheek. He turned her head gently with the tips of his fingers and kissed her full on her mouth. She didn’t resist, but it did surprise her. She returned the kiss. He held it just a tad longer than she would have expected for a greeting kiss. It was nice.

  She smiled. “I guess you're glad to see me.”

  He didn’t say anything. They both loaded the boat.

  “Come on. Let’s catch some dinner, he said.”

  "There he is," thought Smolenskiy.

  Smolenskiy immediately rolled to one side. He methodically relaxed every part of his body. He focused on each part, one part at a time. He slowed his breathing. He tried to slow his heart rate. It was a ritual he practiced many times. At this distance you could actually see the movement in the scope caused by his heart pumping. He took his time to ensure that he was as ready as he could possibly be. If he missed this opportunity, there would always be another, but everything seemed to be perfect today. He must not fail, but he also must not rush. He had to be patient and methodical. He was ready.

  He was sweating and his breathing was still labored. He damned whatever caused him to deteriorate at such a young age. minded himself again.

  Smolenskiy was not aging well. His father lived to be almost a hundred, he re

  He had night sweats. The sheets were damp every morning. He saw blood in his urine. He thought that was from drinking and a damaged liver. He had to cut down. He had lost a lot of weight in the past few months and his muscles ached. They ached now. That was probably his liver too. He noticed that bright red spots had appeared on his palms and soles. He attributed it to getting older. Old men always had spots. He was disgusted with himself.

  He edged up on his elbow and removed the newspaper flap over the photographs that were taped to the inside cover of the gun case. The position was uncomfortable. His back ached so much. These were pornographic pictures that he had never seen before. They were more than pornographic. Pornography began to bore him so his handlers found something new that would rivet his thoughts. They were cruel and sadistic images of bondage and sexual humiliation. He found them interesting. He let the images fill his mind. He fantasized about each photograph.

  Rather than becoming excited, he was slowly relaxing. He intended to confuse the rabbit with images of pornography. He was covering his mental tracks. He knew what Jared was capable of. Fearing that Jared could sense him, he risked the fantasies causing his pulse rate to go up, but it was necessary. He could not think about what he was about to do. He was an excellent sniper and his actions were so automatic now that very little thought was required. He lifted himself and brought his eye to the scope. Jared was in the cross hairs. There was a young woman with him. She looked familiar. It was the same M.I.T. student he saw in Rockland. He would have to kill them both now.

  There was too much movement. The boat was rocking under the weight of the man and woman moving about. He wanted to get his shot but it was too risky. It looked like they were leaving. Ivan was upset. He would have to do this all over again tomorrow. He saw the boat power up and head into the bay. This was terrible. He watched the boat though his scope. Suddenly, Ziemelis turned into a new heading. He was actually getting closer now. What luck! The boat stopped moving as it got close to the island across from the boathouse. It made a large arc across the bay and was now actually closer than the boathouse had been. He saw Ziemelis throw out an anchor. His rabbit was only 500 meters away. That is exactly the range he had practiced. But was he too close? Ivan decided that it was not too close. It was fine.

  Stephen King Island Late Afternoon

  They both climbed back into the big Whaler. He retrieved the line and pushed off. The Mercury revved as he turned up the throttle. He went out into Kennequit bay and approached Stephen King Island. The temperature had warmed into the low seventies. It was warmer than usual for late May. The sky was clear and cloudless. There was virtually no wind and the ocean was calm. He caught a current and opened up the throttle. The currents were easy to see on a day like this. They were flying. The bow spray was refreshing. Jenny chatted about how great this was. As they approached a small island, he cut the engine. He hooked a line from a lobster pot buoy with his gaff and tied off. The island had a small growth of pine trees, but it was mostly rocky. Jenny spotted a sea eagle’s nest near the top of one of the pine trees. It thrilled her and she got Jared to look at it too. He had seen it before.

  Jared opened a tackle box and started to assemble a salt water trolling rig. He pulled out wire leader and spinner lures. He snapped on some small lead weights.

  “If you’re not in a hurry, do you mind if I get this mud off?” asked Jenny.

  “No hurry.”

  She kicked off her sneakers and took off her socks and sitting on the edge of the boat, she dangled her feet in the water to rinse off the blue clay.

  Jared had miscalculated badly. He hadn’t believed that anything would happen this soon. He didn’t think that Jenny was in danger. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Smolenskiy was out there and he was getting excited.

  It would only toke a few hundred milliseconds for the bullet to reach them. At 70 degrees Fahrenheit and low humidity, it required split-second timing. The bullet would be traveling faster than sound so he couldn’t rely on hearing it. He had to be a polygraph. He had to sense the instant the shooter realized that the rifle had discharged. He had very little time to judge the right moment. He couldn’t act too soon, and certainly not too late. “Now,” he thought.

  He grabbed Jenny by the shoulder and roughly pushed her over the side as he dove forward toward the bow. The bullet plowed into the water past the boat, quickly followed by the crack.

  She resurfaced. She was coughing up sea water. She had to blow her nose and wipe her face with her hand. She was more than mad. She was fuming!

  "What's wrong with you? Do you think this is funny?" She coughed and sputtered. "Grow up, Jared."

  She was treading water near the boat.

  Smolenskiy refused to believe the testimony of is own eyes. His case officer had clearly underestimated Jared. He had already warned his handler about Jared. Maybe h
e was too close. He knew he should have relied on his own assessment. He could have killed Ziemelis at the restaurant. Why didn't he? The downside of being a good officer was the necessity of obeying one's superiors.

  "Superiors?" Sami was a fat, self-indulgent swine. The pornography was supposed to block Jared, or at least confuse him. Great minds made that determination. Great lazy fat minds. A Bulgarian Jew!

  Next time he will do everything his own way. He packed up and slowly started to walk back to his car in the clearing. He turned back. He had forgotten his fishing pole. He grabbed it, snapped the hook on the spool, and walked toward the clearing. He took his time like it was a Sunday stroll in the park. He even whistled part of the way. There is always a good side to everything. His hunt wasn’t over. He liked to hunt.

  Jared fixed a forced wide grin on his face and held it as long as he could. It worked. A few seconds later Jenny started to laugh.

  He had to get her to quickly focus on something else.

  "It was a sophomoric impulse I just couldn't resist. Sorry! Now you better get into the boat. The bay is teeming with sharks."

  "Really? So this is how you treat women. You throw them into shark infested waters to make room for the next one." She said it with an angry smile. She climbed into the boat with his help.

  Jeez, they’re only blues…you know, Bluedogs around here. They don’t like humans that much,” said Jenny.

  “Really? A great white attacked a dozen or so survivors of a Canadian air force plane that came down in this bay, just about two thousand yards past the island. They were in a life raft at the time.” He couldn't salvage the moment. He was talking really stupid.

  “Yea. I read about it in the National Geographic,” she said.

  “Can you untie us from the buoy?” asked Jared. “Just don’t pull the buoy too far out of the water. These lobstermen get really pissed when you do that. I’ve known them to watch boats from a hilltop with a spy glass while holding a deer rifle in their laps.”

  “You don’t say,” as she started pulling the buoy line up. “Feels like the traps full." She feigned pulling up the line.

  “Can we please untie? We need to troll now,” said Jared.

  She didn't ask again. He watched as she untied. Her wet thin blue blouse looked like it was painted on her body. He pulled a large bath towel out of a storage compartment. “Here. The water is really cold.”

  “Absolutely freezing,” she said. She started to towel herself off.

  Jenny wrapped the towel around her, gathered it in one hand and slipped out of all her clothes with the other. She hung her clothes over the stern so they could dry in the sun.

  “I don’t think it will take that long for your clothes to dry. The sun is pretty intense today,” he said.

  It was an awkward moment. He sensed her discomfort. He could do something about that. He could create equilibrium.

  He stood up and kicked off his sneakers and took off his Khaki shorts. He jumped in the water head first. The white jockeys were in sharp contrast to his tanned body. He had a great build. Not beefy. Just perfect muscle tone. She noticed that yesterday but there was more of him to see this time.

  He was breathtaking to watch, she thought. He dove and porpoised almost out of the water. It was plain to see to Jenny that he was having fun. He was so serious most of the time. Now he was playing.

  He swam with long gliding strokes. She had never seen anyone swim so fast, but of course she had never really seen any great swimmers except on television. She couldn’t really judge, but it was clear that he was a great swimmer. He was a good twenty meters out, dove, and popped up again almost at the boat. Effortlessly, he came up over the side. She handed him a new towel. He wasn’t shivering at all. She had warmed up quite a bit, but still felt a tad chilled.

  “That was invigorating,” he said.

  She drew the towel tighter around her and smiled. Jared saw it as an invitation. Whether it was or was not became irrelevant. He pulled her close and kissed her. He was still wet so it was a strange feeling for Jenny. It was pure impulse now.

  “Wet was very, very intimate, “she thought.

  She put her tongue in his mouth. Jared had never French kissed before. It was exciting. It was something new. It was so intimate. He liked it. He explored her mouth with his tongue. He hadn’t realized that a woman had a taste. He liked that too. It was a long kiss. They explored one another’s bodies. He ran his hand down her back. They dropped to the deck. He reached around and pulled another blanket out and spread it.

  Jenny was breathing very fast and was much more aggressive in their love making than Jared. For the first time in Jared’s life, he wasn’t controlling the moment. That was thrilling but it kept him off balance. She coaxed his mouth to her breasts. Her hard nipples were salty in his mouth. He could taste the sea. He gently stroked the tender skin on her inner thighs with his nails, slowly working his way closer. She responded immediately. She wanted him. Now!

  “Do you have a condom?” she barely whispered.

  “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t think…” The spell was broken.

  She bolted up, releasing him.

  “We can’t. You know, it’s just too risky these days. I’m sure you’re OK, but we’ll both be thinking about it later.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me. Honest!” he said. He tried to pull her down again.

  “No Jared, we can’t,” she said.

  He thought about taking the decision away from her, but he relented. He didn’t want to drive her away.

  “I’m really sorry, Jenny.”

  “It’s nothing to be sorry about,” she answered. “I suppose that I actually like the fact that you don’t keep them around the house in candy dishes.”

  She pulled the towel up from the deck and wrapped herself in it.

  "Truth! I feel really mortified right now," she said. She looked away.

  She now felt very exposed. They dressed quickly. Her things were still very damp, but it ceased to matter.

  He didn’t know how to restart a conversation. He wanted to say something tender, perhaps loving, but he felt that he had let her down. Again, he felt out of control. He wasn’t accustomed to that and knew he was handling things badly.

  She didn’t bother putting her blouse on. It was sopping wet.

  “I haven’t seen a soul out here all day. You've seen everything there is to see. It is a little late to act shy.” She grinned. “The lobsterman with the spy glass can get a coronary for all I care.”

  “She was wonderful,” he thought.

  “What about dinner?” Jenny asked.

  “Right. Dinner. Can you actually untie the buoy this time?” asked Jared.

  “Yes, Captain,” said Jenny.

  He started the engine and they began to troll. They still had a couple hours of sunlight before it would get begin to get cool.

  “Old man Sevigny was one of those lobsterman I was telling you about,” he said

  “Yes, I remember you telling me about him." She suddenly remembered. "Was that a shot I heard?"

  "Probably. People are shooting around here all of the time. It doesn't have to be hunting season."

  He wanted her to focus on his story, not the shot.

  “Sevigny was the only real friend I had around here. You know how long it takes for Down Easterners to accept you, but he wasn’t like that at all.”

  “Did he actually ever shoot anyone?” She asked.

  “Well…the story is that he did. The courts around here are pretty understanding when it come to lobster rustling, but that could just be local lore to scare off would-be rustlers. Knowing Sevigny, I doubt that it is true, but I know he wanted people to think that it was.”

  “How did you meet him? I know you bought the island from him.”

  “I liked the culture Maine was famous for, namely that people here don’t ask a lot of personal questions, unlike the Boston area. So I moved up here after I left Cambridge. I fished in this bay and used to
tie off on Sevigny’s lobster pot buoys. One time when I rowed ashore—he used to rent me a boat for two dollars a day—I asked him how to keep the blue sharks away from my live bait. He said I shouldn’t. He claimed that there were two shark filet mignons on each side of the dorsal that were ‘scrumptious eatin’. (He did his Maine accent again.) I normally cut the line when a shark hits it, but this time I played him. I finally had to beach the boat and haul him to the beach as a hand line. It was only a four foot blue shark, maybe five, but I couldn’t kill it. It was sunset before he finally met his maker and stopped snapping.”

  “So, how was it?”

  “Sure enough, I found the rolls of meat on each side of the dorsal. I started a fire and fried them in a cast iron skillet. It was the worst tasting thing I had ever eaten. It was nothing but gristle. I couldn’t see him, but I was sure he was sitting up on the hill and watching me through his spy glass, laughing his freaking head off. I was camping on his land. The next morning he walked down to my camp site and he gave me that damn ‘Mornin, young fella,’ snickered, and walked off before I could say anything.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He died. I don’t go to funerals generally; it’s a barbaric custom, but I did go to his. He was a good friend for the few years we knew one another. I guessed that he was in his nineties, but with the wrinkled leather-faced look these lobstermen get, you can’t ever be certain of their age.”

  “I’m sorry I never got a chance to meet him. Sounds like he was a nice man.”

  That was rhetorical again, so he didn’t feel obligated to respond.

  “Good,” he thought. “Things are getting back to normal.”

  They were both quiet for a time. She liked being topless in the sun, but had never been topless with a man for this long and never outdoors. This was something Krissy would do, but not her. She surprised herself how comfortable she felt with Jared. She hadn’t missed that his eyes went to her boobs from time to time, but how horrible it would be if he wasn’t interested in looking at her. This time she liked that he liked looking at her. It was a good and not at all an uncomfortable feeling. She felt a hint of arousal again thinking about him, but decided, wisely, to wait until they got back to the house, if at all.