by Cap Daniels
He handed me his card. “I have a clearance, but probably not a need-to-know, so I doubt they’ll read me in. But I’d appreciate you asking when they show up. It’s nice to understand what’s going on sometimes, but not always.”
I took his card and promised to make the request.
He pointed to Skipper. “How about putting that gun away when any other law enforcement boats want to stop you for a chat?”
She didn’t miss a beat. “We didn’t know you were a law enforcement boat when you came sneaking up on us. We were getting ready to repel boarders if you guys had been pirates.”
“You’ll want to hang on to that one, Chase. She’s a firecracker.”
“What did you do with the people aboard the rendezvous boat?” I asked. “Are they in custody?”
“Like I said, they put up a pretty good fight when we got there to intercept them. Between our fifty cal on the bow and the HITRON bird, there wasn’t much left to take into custody when the smoke cleared.”
“That’s too bad,” I said. “It would’ve been nice to interrogate them.”
He shrugged. “They didn’t give us much choice. When somebody shoots at us, we shoot back—but with bigger bullets. It’s what we do. You two be careful getting back into St. Augustine. If you need anything, give us a call. We’re always listening.”
The patrol boat turned and roared away back toward St. Augustine, and we brought our boat out of the heave-to condition and got her sailing again.
Skipper wasted no time. “Okay, I don’t care about clearances or what’s classified or whatever. It’s time for you to tell me the truth about what’s going on. Let’s have it, Chase. Start talking.”
She wasn’t going to let me get away with hiding behind the classified fence. I had to come clean. I set the autopilot and settled in for a long talk.
28
Earl from the End
“This isn’t easy to explain,” I began, “and it is classified. I’m not allowed to tell you any of this, but you deserve the truth after what you’ve been through today. What I told you before wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t the whole truth. I do work for the government, but not directly. I’m a type of independent contractor. They call on me to do things they can’t use conventional government employees to do. I’m trained to sneak in and out of places undetected and to do nasty things while I’m there.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Sometimes it’s as simple as taking pictures or gathering information, but other times, it can get a little sticky,” I said.
She put her hands on her hips. “Come on, Chase. I’m not a little kid anymore. What kind of sticky things?”
“Sometimes it becomes necessary for me to kill someone. I didn’t like it when I did it in the past, and I’m not looking forward to doing it next time, but it’s part of my job, and I do it because I believe in democracy and keeping the world as free as possible. Sometimes people like me have to do some bad things to protect the good guys—people like you and your family.”
She sat silently.
I needed to gauge her reaction and tolerance for additional information, so I said, “There’s more . . . a lot more. Do you want to hear it?”
With confidence, she said, “Yes.”
“The Russian intelligence service is called the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, or SVR for short. It’s a lot like the American CIA. You’ve probably heard of the KGB.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of that.”
“The SVR is essentially the old KGB with a new name. Anyway, Anya was an SVR officer. They sent her to find me and interrogate me after I’d done a job down in Cuba last year. To make a long story short, she found me, but instead of interrogating me, we fell in love, or at least I thought that’s what happened. As it turned out, I was very wrong about that. It appears she was acting the whole time to get inside our service and report back to the Russians on everything I was doing.”
Without a word, Skipper stood and walked into the main salon, leaving me alone on the deck. She returned with a tray containing two cups filled with ice, a bottle of rum, and a pitcher of lemonade. She poured two shots of rum topped with the lemonade.
“This is all getting a little tough to believe,” she said. “It sounds like a movie . . . not real life.”
“I wish it were a movie, but, unfortunately, it’s my real life, and now it’s part of your life, too. I’ve dragged you into my world, and I’m eternally sorry for doing that.”
“You didn’t drag me anywhere,” she said. “I wanted to come. In fact, I don’t think I gave you a choice in the matter. Who knew this was going to happen?”
“I’m still sorry for putting you in the middle of this mess.”
“Chase,” she said, “it’s not your fault. Now keep talking. I want to know how Michael and Sara fit into all of this.”
I took a sip of the concoction she poured. “I don’t really know what was going on with the Andersons, but I’m sure that isn’t their real name. I do have a theory, though. Over the years, especially during the Cold War, the Russians placed individuals and couples in the United States as deep cover assets. These people blended in perfectly with American society. They had normal jobs and children and seemed like run-of-the-mill Americans, but they were actually spies for the KGB originally, and later, the SVR. The CIA called these people illegals. They were very hard to sniff out and rarely got caught. In fact, we have no idea how many illegals the Soviets placed in the States during the Cold War. We believe the practice of placing them has died down, but we can’t know for sure. I believe Michael and Sara were a team of illegals who were sent to find out what happened to Anya when she didn’t check in with Moscow on time.”
I took another drink, hoping Skipper would have a question or two. I needed any excuse to distract me from what I had to say next.
“So, it hurts to admit it, but here’s what I believe. I believe Anya was playing me all along and planned to keep on playing me as long as I’d let her. She said she wanted to get married and maybe even have kids one day. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine living like that?”
“Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe she really did love you, and maybe she did want to marry you and have your babies. Maybe that was her way out of Russia.”
“If that was true, then why would she have been reporting back to Tornovich?”
“Who’s Tornovich?”
“I’m sorry. I forget you don’t know all of this. Tornovich is a Russian SVR colonel who Anya worked for. According to what Michael and Sara said, Anya hadn’t reported in to Tornovich for several days. That would mean she’d been reporting in prior to getting shot in Miami. If she was truly in love with me, and if she was really going to defect, she wouldn’t be reporting.” The longer I talked, the more my anger festered. The thought of being used and played like that was more than I could stand. I had to stop. I had to catch my breath and calm down.
“Chase, are you all right? Your face is bright red.”
“I’m fine. It just infuriates me to believe Anya could’ve been that deceptive and manipulative, but worse than that, I can’t believe I fell for it.”
Skipper slid toward me on the settee and put her arms around me. I was in no mood for affection, but I wasn’t going to push her away again. I’d done enough of that already, so I wrapped my arms around her and held her as my breathing and heart rate returned to normal.”
“You don’t have to tell me anymore, Chase. I get the picture. I don’t like seeing you so upset.”
I touched her face and she flinched in pain. The wound was swelling and turning red.
“Let’s get you to a hospital and have a doctor look at your face.”
She looked down at my swollen and bruised knee. “I’ll only go to the doctor if you go, too. Your knee looks bad, and your nose looks even worse.”
“It’s a deal.”
* * *
We reached the St. Augustine Inlet. Skipper wanted to handle the boat, and because I enjoyed seeing her fa
ll in love with it, I surrendered the boat to her.
“Are we going to the same anchorage beside the Bridge of Lions?”
“No,” I said, “let’s go to the city marina below the bridge. We can plug into shore power there and have a mechanic come take a look at our starboard sail drive to make sure the fishing net didn’t do any real damage.”
“How will we get under that bridge? It’s not even twenty feet high.”
“I’ll show you,” I told her.
We were about a quarter mile north of the bridge when I picked up the VHF handset, switched to channel nine, and pushed the button.
“Bridge of Lions, this is the sailing vessel Aegis II requesting you open the bridge for southbound traffic.”
“Open the bridge?” Skipper said in disbelief.
The bridge tender answered my call. “Sailing vessel Aegis II, we’ll have it open for you shortly.”
Skipper watched as the center of the ornate Bridge of Lions began to tilt upward.
She gasped. “It’s a drawbridge. That’s so cool!”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s very cool.”
After we’d made it past the bridge, I called the city marina on the VHF and asked if they had a slip available for a week. Skipper maneuvered the boat into our designated slip number as if she’d been doing it her whole life, and I had us tied up in no time.
Marinas are interesting places full of fascinating and bizarre people. The St. Augustine City Marina was no exception. Within thirty minutes of arriving, a dozen people stopped by our boat to welcome us and get a look at the new catamaran in town. We weren’t the biggest boat in the marina, but we were a sailboat. A fifty-foot catamaran gets a lot of attention almost anywhere. Several people offered us a cocktail and invited us to come visit with them on their boats. The community mentality of a marina is unlike that of any other group of people.
Many of the older ladies who stopped by for a visit commented on what a cute couple Skipper and I made. We didn’t bother correcting them. They were going to believe whatever they wanted no matter what we said. All of the younger guys who came by, as well as many of the older ones, gazed a little too long at Skipper to suit me. It wasn’t jealousy. I felt responsible for her and didn’t want to see her become an object to anyone—especially not a boat bum like me. Besides, Petty Officer Third Class Tony might not be as forgiving as some if he caught those guys ogling the current object of his affection.
With so many cruisers and live-aboard owners in the marina, I took advantage of the opportunity to ask for the name of a good mechanic and fiberglass repair specialist. Everyone I asked said, “Earl at the end is the best around.” With a bevy of recommendations like that, how could I go to anyone other than Earl at the end?
“I’m going to meet Earl. Do you want to come?”
Skipper wrinkled her nose. “No, I think I’ll just hang out here.”
Protective big brother mode kicked in. “Okay, but don’t wander off.”
She stuck out her tongue. “Oh, I won’t. Besides, Earl from the end might be super cute, so maybe I want to be here when you bring him back.”
I strolled down the dock, admiring the boats and greeting the owners as I went. When I made it to the end of the dock, I saw a thirty-something-year-old guy in cutoff shorts and a John Deere hat sitting on a Mainship 34, his feet on the rail and a Corona dangling from his fingertips.
“Are you Earl?” I asked.
The man squinted into the sun. “Nah.”
I waited a beat. “Do you know where I can find Earl?”
He poured the last few inches of his Corona down his throat. “What do you want with Earl?”
I wasn’t sure I had any reason to tell him why I needed a mechanic, but I was intrigued, so I played with him a little. “I’ve got this tooth way back here,” I said, pulling the corner of my mouth back and pointing to my molar. “It’s been giving me a fit and the folks down the dock said Earl could fix anything. So, here I am.”
He pointed his empty beer bottle at me. “You know something, man . . . you’re funny.” He tossed his empty into a bucket on the deck and yelled, “Hey, momma! There’s some guy up here to see you. He says he’s got a bad tooth and needs you to pull it.”
Mother? Skipper’s going to be sorely disappointed.
The man pulled two more Coronas from the cooler, opened both of them, and handed one to me. “Here,” he said, “this’ll have to do for anesthetic.”
I raised my bottle, offering a toast, and took a long swallow. An older woman with spiked gray hair and reading glasses perched on her nose came through the sliding door of the boat and onto the stern deck.
She stuck out a greasy hand. “Hey, I’m Earline, but everybody calls me Earl. Come on aboard, and I’ll take a look at that tooth of yours.”
I stammered, “Uh, it’s not really a problem with my tooth. I need someone to look at my sail drive.”
She slapped her son on the shoulder and cackled like a drunken mother hen. “I’m just messin’ with you. I ain’t no dentist, but I’d probably make a good one. Don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I said, “I think you’d make a fine dentist.”
“What’s wrong with your sail drive?” she asked as she opened a beer of her own.
“Nothing, I hope, but I picked up a chunk of fishing net about thirty miles offshore this morning, and I just want to have somebody look at it to make sure I didn’t do any real damage.”
She stared down the dock. “You’re in the cat?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “We just pulled in a few minutes ago and several people told me you’re the best mechanic around.”
She scratched her face with her filthy hand. “Yeah, they’re right about that.”
I waited several uncomfortable seconds for her to say something else, but she sat down and started drinking her beer.
“So, when do you think you might have time to take a look it?” I asked.
“I ain’t cheap.”
The conversation was getting weirder by the minute.
“That’s okay. I don’t mind paying for a good mechanic.”
“It’s twelve bucks plus four beers an hour unless it goes over three hours, and then it’s just ten bucks an hour ’cause after twelve beers, I ain’t near as good a mechanic as I was three hours ago when I’s sober.”
I couldn’t tell if she was serious. I said, “I’ll make it twenty bucks and a six-pack an hour, but no money or beer until you’re finished.”
“Finished with what?”
I yanked the corner of my mouth back again. “Pulling this tooth. What else?”
She grabbed a toolbox and followed me back to the boat. When we arrived at the cat, I laughed to myself when I saw Skipper had changed clothes and brushed her hair. I had a suspicion Earl wasn’t her type.
“Skipper,” I said, “this is Earl. She’s going to take a look at our sail drive.”
“Hey, Skipper,” said the spikey-haired woman. “I bet you thought you were gonna be the prettiest thing ever on this boat . . . ’til I showed up. Sorry to bust your bubble, beauty queen.”
Skipper stared at me, and all I could do was shrug.
Earl asked, “So which motor is it, the front or back?”
I liked Earl. She went into the boat, and I heard her whistling a song I’d never heard.
“What the hell was that?” Skipper asked.
“That’s Earl at the end,” I said, as if that answered anything.
After just over an hour of working in the engine rooms, Earl appeared on deck. “Have you got a plastic baggie?”
“I’ll check,” Skipper said.
She came back with a one-gallon bag and handed it to Earl, who turned on a small flashlight and dropped it into the bag. She wrapped the top edge of the baggie around her wrinkled mouth. Like she'd been smoking for decades, she struggled to inhale all the air from the bag before she sealed it shut. She pulled off her shoes, pants, and shirt, and stood there in her bra and panties—
all sixty years and two hundred pounds of her. She pointed her finger at me. “Don’t you be getting no ideas. You could never handle this much woman with that bad tooth of yours.”
Skipper’s entire body quivered as she tried to suppress her inevitable laugher. I couldn’t wait to see what Earl was going to do for her next trick. Whatever it was, it would’ve been a bargain at twice the price.
She picked up her bagged flashlight and walked right off the back of my boat and into the water. Skipper couldn’t hold in her laughter.
I stood there in awe, shaking my head. “It’s Earl from the end.”
Earl emerged from the water with a spiny lobster in one hand and her flashlight in the other. She laid both on the table. “That’ll be thirty bucks and eight beers. I went over an hour, but not much, and you said twenty bucks and a six-pack an hour.”
I retrieved a fifty-dollar bill and two six-packs from the boat and handed them to her. She tucked the fifty into her soaking wet bra and scooped up her belongings. “I ain’t got no change, and your motors and sail drives are fine.”
Without drying off or getting dressed, she strolled back toward her boat, leaving a trail of greasy saltwater in her wake.
About fifty feet from our boat, she turned back and yelled, “Thanks, hon! You were great! I ain’t had me a man that good in thirty years.” She blew me a kiss and walked away.
“Is she for real?” Skipper said.
I held my chin up high. “She ain’t had her a man this good in thirty years.”
29
The Pain
The following morning, we found a maxillofacial surgeon who could work Skipper in. Her jaw wasn’t as swollen as we thought, but her pain was pretty bad. When the nurse finally called for her, Skipper insisted I go with her. I reluctantly agreed.
They took some X-rays and checked her vitals, and then placed us in a small exam room. The doctor introduced himself as Doctor Lane and washed his hands at the small sink in the corner of the room. Wasting no time, he got right into it. He had Skipper open her mouth as wide as she could and then wiggle her jaw left and right. That made Skipper yell out in pain. The surgeon grunted and kept prodding and squeezing her face. Without saying a word, he stuck an X-ray film onto the wall-mounted light box and studied it.