A Viable Threat (A Martin Billings Story Book 4)
Page 24
Hodges pointed at the package. “In that case, if she was mistaken, you'd better take those things, tuck your tail between your legs, and go sail your boat. We will carry on the heavy work.”
She was disappointed in me. Me too. “It isn't that I don't want to help.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I have other responsibilities now, Hodges. My boat and my partner need me.”
She nodded. “Fine. Tell yourself that. Go be a regular guy, a low-rent transportation mogul.”
“You are a crap recruiter,” I said.
A frown creased her forehead. “I flunked human resources.”
“That's it? End of the pitch?”
She stood up. “Probably not, Marty.”
“Then what?”
She shrugged. “I don't know yet. Things change. I might think of something to change your mind. You might think of something to change your mind.”
“I doubt it.”
“But don't think you are going to be able to simply walk away from all this. I suggest you keep looking over your shoulder.”
“Why? Do I know too much? Are you coming for me?”
She shook her head. “I'm not worried about what you might tell anyone. But several groups of bad guys might feel differently. They won't know how much you learned.” Her scowl deepened. “And if your ex suspects you have any hard evidence of her involvement, I think she'd come gunning for you in a heartbeat.”
I smiled. “Hodges, I'm touched. You want to be my guardian angel.”
She sighed. “No angel. No, not even close.”
“So you think—”
She put up a hand. “No. We've both had our say. I'll leave you to get ready.”
“You are going to just walk away?”
A weak grin crossed her face. “I'm not going to debate it with you. I've got things to do. But people do miss flights. I'll check back here. If you do miss this one, then we can talk about why. If we like what the other has to say, then we will go have a beer and do all that bonding crap.”
Then she turned and left. I watched her go—a determined woman on a mission; a true believer. Where had I seen that before?
“You can trust Hodges,” Amy had told me.
In one of the books Bill made me read, Eric Hoffer wrote that when you saw a true believer coming you should run away—no matter what the true believer believed in.
Amy had called me a compulsive hero. That sounded terrible, as if I couldn't control myself. I did like to help people, but I didn't want to be a hero.
What I did want was impossible. I wanted to sail that ketch to Panama with Amy beside me.
I smiled. I knew what Bill would say. There was no way in hell Amy would have gone off sailing with me—not with Polly and the dozens like her still out there. Amy would take one look at a simple ordinary sailing life and say: “Are you with me, Marty? Are we gonna bring down some bad guys?”
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About the Author
Ed Teja is a writer, a poet, a musician, and a traveler. His stories and poems live in the places he knows—places that lie in the margins of the world, and feature the amazing, often strange, sometimes dangerous people he meets between the cracks in everything.
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