Tsunami Connection

by Michael James Gallagher

  The Lieutenant came around his desk, misunderstanding her reaction. He tried to be someone to hold onto, having no idea that Kefira's visible reaction was masking an inner confusion. Why hadn't Yochana wanted her to come here? She must have known something, thought Kefira as her outer persona cried large tears and let an overeager officer of the law comfort her.

  "On second thought," she said, after taking a Kleenex proffered by Chavez, "I can't follow up on this with Miss Gonsalves' family. It's just too grizzly for words."

  "I kinda thought that would be the case. It's no problem. Comes with the job."

  Kefira was scheming. Maybe MacAuley or his henchmen had blown her legend. Her life might be in danger here. Even still, something bothered her about the fire and explosion, but she just could not put her finger on it. Kefira said her goodbyes to the Lieutenant and left the station, knowing that she had to become someone new immediately.

  Looking around furtively, she got into her Range Rover and made for a safe deposit box, containing new identity packages and cash, in downtown San Francisco. She wondered how MacAuley had found out so much about her and ended up believing that Shafiq was the leak. The other possibility was unconscionable. Yochana could not be involved. Kefira was not one-hundred percent sure about Shafiq's treachery, but she felt he merited a visit and she felt MacAuley was in Buenos Aires, too. It was just a hunch, but she trusted her inklings.

  BREAK IN NORTH HATLEY

  February 24,2012

  Sitting in the luxurious bucket seat of a Cadillac Escalade, 'The Girl From Ipanema′ punctuating their conversation, Zak turned right down an oak covered lane. Their vehicle took up most of the roadway as the late afternoon spring sun dappled through unseasonably early light green tree buds. Kefira opened the window and inhaled some much-needed peace of mind. They pulled up under the covered entrance to the Covey Manor, a hotel inspired by the charm of George Washington's Mt. Vernon home. Zak popped the lock on the rear door and went out back to get their bags. A tall hotel employee had already removed the luggage from the space under the back seat.

  "Bienvenue chez nous, Monsieur et Madame," said the bellhop, in welcoming Quebecois French.

  "Nous sommes enchantés d'être ici, cher Monsieur," replied Zak, returning the niceties, as he quickly picked up local intonation patterns.

  Kefira found herself sliding her arm around Zak's elbow. They followed the door attendant through the stained glass entranceway and turned left towards the wainscoted check-in desk. The aroma of lavender, dutifully-polished solid oak woodwork and some delightful cooking odors filled their nostrils.

  "Mister Sexton and Miss Chapman, I presume," asked the owner, Sandra Heavysege.

  "That would be us," said Zak.

  "There is a special request for adjoining rooms, if possible, with a view of Lake Massawippi, according to Manon, the regular reservations girl."

  "I didn't think I recognized your voice," said Zak, now answering to the name Mr. Sexton.

  "Manon is at the dentist. Let me introduce myself. I am Sandra Heavysege, the owner. Just to show you how appreciative we are of the patronage of our friends from south of the border, I managed to contact some of our regular customers and arranged a change in their schedule to next week. You have the loveliest adjoining two suites in the manor."

  "I can't thank you enough. To what do we owe this superior treatment?"

  "I'm not shy. Congresswoman Hildabrand called last night and asked if we could bend the rules for you. Seeing as her family's been coming here for over a century, my husband and I decided to make a special place for you. Let me show you personally to your rooms. Tom, the bellhop, has already seen to your bags."

  They walked along the hallway towards the library and sitting room. Sandra pointed out the room and remarked on the magnificent view through wide, floor-to-ceiling windows. "The books in the library here date to the early 1900s, when they miraculously survived a very destructive fire," said the owner.

  "On your left we have the main dining room. Your 9:00 p.m. dinner reservation will be personally supervised by our 'Chef de Cuisine' and the wine specialist will offer you the congresswoman's choice for your meal."

  They continued upstairs to the Treetop Suites. Kefira was subdued by the understated charm of the inn. As well, all the recent strain and stress was wearing her down. Despite having no real idea where MacAuley was, they both decided, however foolishly, that they could let down their guard and just be ordinary people.

  The innkeeper left them outside their private hallway entrance, looking out the windows in the hallway at a spring sunset shimmering on Lake Massawippi that was months earlier than usual.

  "Who's Congresswoman Hildebrand?" asked Kefira.

  "Okay. I admit it. I pulled some strings in advance. I've just been dreaming about spending some time with you since that Capoeira demo," answered Zak.

  "I'm grateful, Zak," said Kefira, sighing deeply and breathing in the atmosphere of the inn.

  They entered their separate yet connecting rooms. Kefira opened the windows in the beautifully appointed turn-of-the-century bathroom and lifted the natural oatmeal soap to her nose. She filled the tub and added a deep lavender bubble bath. She removed her sleeveless silk top, and her snug-fitting silk shorts slinked down her legs. She darned off her thong using a first finger to slide them to her lifted right foot. A deft sweeping Capoeira move saw the small triangle flying through the air. Her body in motion, she started her strength and release workout. After twenty minutes, the harmonized movements had cleansed her soul.

  A new person slunk into the tub and added some hot water. The water soothed her psyche, lavender smell penetrating to her core. After soaking in the tub, she sat on a stool and warmed her jojoba based perfume in her hands, slowly messaging it into every part of her body. When she arrived near the line of her Brazilian cut, Kefira felt increasingly aroused. She stood up, naked, and oiled with a handful of cinnamon and clove scented oil in her palms. Around her neck, she wore Tuareg beads that absorbed her natural musk and intensified the combination of odors.

  The door to the adjoining suite opened easily to the manipulations of her agile feet, because she had secretly unlocked it before the bath. Zak was lying on his bed, reading, a towel flopped over his groin. Kefira moved towards him silently, in a sensuous dance, never spilling the oil in her hands. She approached the bedside and raised her hands in a personalized variation of the sun salutation pose, offering him her submission, one knee grounded. Zak was speechless. Her jet-black hair gave her a feline ardor. Her skin, olive perfection, shone in the moonlight entering the room. Most enticing was the smell of musk, of woman, oozing from Kefira.

  He moved sideways and carefully covered his obvious interest, slipping between Kefira and the bed. His back rounded before her and received the oil in her hands. The warmth of the oil and its scent aroused him painfully. Warm oil slipped over his vertebrae, Kefira's hands caressing his upper, middle, and then lower back. Still oiled, her right hand reached under his scrotum and massaged him, while her head snaked around his hip. He came in seconds. It was the first time in almost five years, five long years since his wife's death at the hands of a suicide bomber.

  Partially spent, he gasped a second time. Then his highly trained muscles flipped Kefira over his back and onto the bed. His tongue sought her warmth, her center. His hands greedily worked her body as he gently bit and manipulated her clitoris. She climaxed the first time on his tongue. They had not yet spoken. She purred as he turned her over on her stomach and rubbed her oiled body, licking her, searching for erogenous zones. Aroused a second time, she murmured languidly and fell into his movement, climaxing slowly. She cried out, spent. Both of them succumbed to a deep, dreamless slumber.

  LAKE MASSAWIPPI

  February 26,2012

  Just two days previously, the ice of Lake Massawippi had cascaded upon itself, screeching its death throes in almost Wagnerian-sounding austerity. The MacAuley house was nestled at the head of a peninsula, st
retching into the coldness of the earliest spring melt in over a century of record keeping, a full sixty days ahead of the normal time. It was a grey cedar saltbox. On the upper floor, dormers popped out of a round-the-house, screened-in porch on the first floor, giving the house the look of a jack-in-the-box.

  Over-protective locals, looking to maintain lucrative upkeep contracts, had stonewalled all inquiries in the area about MacAuley's country residence. Locals had even refused bribes, such as a proffered twenty-dollar bill in the local depanneur, a Quebec French expression for corner store. Finally, an older man took a liking to Sarah. During a breakfast chat, overlooking the lake at the Ripplecove Inn, he not only gave up the location of the MacAuley cottage on Murray Bay, but also offered her a boat taxi.

  "Everything is written in French here unless you find an old map predating the so-called La Révolution Tranquille, or the Quiet Revolution, referring to the on-going struggle for a French-speaking country in Quebec, independent of Canada. Before that, everything was written in English," said the gent in high, black rubber boots accompanied by a whole-body yellow slicker, perched precariously in the second chair at his table.

  "We went up every road off highway 208 and got close on Rue des Hirondelles, but we are at a loss for what to do next. We promised to drop off these wedding pictures and we know that Michael can't abide cell phones. Here, look. We have pictures of the place, but we never imagined it would be so hard to get to," said Sarah.

  "I'm Bill Enright, my friends call me Fish. I'm sort of a fixture around here. I've been fishing greys; grey trout that is, since you was knee-high to a grasshopper. The greys only really bite at this time of year, just after the ice breaks up. Then they are near the surface and are easy picking. I use a live walleye skewered on a steel rod with hooks attached. It's the live fish-like movement that gets 'em. Anyway, I guess you're not interested in that. I was trolling today by the MacAuley place, just this morning. I noticed a light and chimney smoke. Never took a liking to that one, though he's a great voice on him. Anyway, I can drop you on his dock just by his boathouse on my way home, if you like. I'm leaving in a few minutes."

  "That would be wonderful. Don't you think, Aden? How rude of me. This is my husband, Aden."

  "Pleased to make your acquaintance," replied Aden, unknowingly slipping into local intonation patterns out of habit, not mockery.

  "You're a sorry one for mocking me like that," answered Fish, acknowledging the slight with a burlesque of his own intonation patterns.

  "Sorry," said Aden. "I didn't mean any harm. They say mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery."

  "He could use a hair of the dog," filled in Sarah, smiling warmly at both men.

  "That's a problem an old bachelor like me can relate to," said Fish, as he pulled a worn, silver flask from under his red and black checkered wool work clothes. "Have a snort on me."

  Aden sniffed gingerly, and then smiled deeply, showing newfound respect for their friend. "Glenfiddich Single Malt. I'd recognize that anywhere. Here's to ya," said Aden, tipping the brim of an imaginary hat with the snout of the flask and nodding his head before he took a deep pull on the flagon.

  "A man after my own heart, I see," nodded Fish.

  "Do you know where the place is exactly?" asked Aden.

  "I'd say I do 'iffen′ I heard myself say I'd take you thaere," replied Fish, stretching his accent to return Aden's earlier mockery.

  "Really, it's just a bad habit. Sorry again."

  "I guess I'll forgive ya, since you're such a willing whisky drinker. Anyway," said Fish, opening a map on the table between them. "Look here. This is an English map," he said, as he pointed to a spot on a detailed laminated topographical map of the area. Fish spoke with or without his audience's attention. He was often in soliloquy.

  ″I never seen the likes o' this, though. The lake without ice in February. There's something afoot I can't grasp, 'iffen′ you know what I mean. I'm actually considering believing some 'o those scientific types about global what-cha-me-call-it,″ spouted Fish.

  Their breakfast done, the threesome left the restaurant of the Ripplecove Inn and headed for the boat dock. Aden ran back to the car and brought out a large, black carryall the size of a hockey goalie's equipment bag. He was strong, but the weight of the contents, including two Heckler and Koch MP5SD suppressed submachine guns and ample rounds, had him stiff-legging one side of his gait. His kit also included some flash bang grenades for surprise attacks, but he doubted he would need them today as they would be approaching as friends in a local boat. He had slipped his Glock-17 into the holster at the small of his back and checked the belt of his ultrathin Kevlar inner tactical vest. He was glad he had insisted on wearing the vests from the morning despite the discomfort. Adrenalin pumped through his veins, making it easier to carry the bag.

  In the car, he had texted Kefira and Zak as they sat in the woods near the location they believed was the MacAuley place. Aden gave Kefira the map coordinates and said Sarah and he were coming in by boat. It was 10:05 in the morning on February 27, 2012. The weather was unseasonably warm, more like May than the last days of winter. There was no snow left on the ground, just crisp soil or mud, depending upon the strength of the sun.

  The aluminum fishing boat listed to one side as Aden boarded with his gear. Fish cocked a leery eye at the bag and started wondering if he had made the right choice by helping these people. Sarah sensed his inquietude and flashed him a happy smile while she helped Aden stow the heavy sack amidships where it would not unbalance the small 19-foot boat.

  "Staying awhile, are ya?"

  "Never know. Better prepared than not, I always say," said Aden, extending his hand for the flask again.

  "Cures what ails ya, don'it?″

  'That it does. That it does,″ piped in Aden, hoping for another swig.

  'We'll be bee lining from point-to-point, passing Round Bay, Bacon Bay and little Turner Bay, and then it's hard to starboard into Murray Bay. The old MacAuley place is just around what we call the Murray 'nipple', but that's a long story better not told in present company. He's got one of the safest moorings in the whole lake. Can't see it ′til you're on it. Someone from away might pass it right by. You're some lush when you're not paying. Gimme back that flask, son."

  Kefira and Zak crept toward the back of the house, ever vigilant for counter measures and security pads or cameras. Camouflaged in black and green, they blended well into the old-growth evergreen forest near the lake. At five hundred meters inland, Zak's thermal registering glasses caught a swiveling metal object in a tree about twenty meters in front of them. He signaled an attention halt with a raised left hand and bunched fist. Kefira's eyewear had found the same heat signature. She returned a movie camera signal that they always used in this circumstance.

  Both of them reached down for their cloaking devices and pressed the cloak mechanism and the comms-off button, to stop the possibility of an accidental uncloaking incident due to a software glitch in their experimental invisibility software. When comms made digital contact with a cloaked operative, it uncloaked him for an instant while the comms transmitted.

  They did not need to worry about cameras anymore, and could give undivided attention to looking for trip wires, footpad or motion sensors. All of these gave off heat signatures that their eyewear could identify. They proceeded carefully, picking their way through the woods. Kefira reflected that she and Zak were lucky that the winter had been unseasonably warm. As a result, the ground was almost bare where there might have been a meter of snow in a normal year, which would have made their job much more arduous. Furthermore, the hard-packed ground made discovering her and Zak very difficult.

  Meanwhile, a totally black-clad figure sat in a tree stand, high up in a tall white pine. He was protected from heat seeking thermal scans by a special cloth cabin. On his lap was a customized, suppressed and scoped, takedown model Ruger 10/22 rifle. This operative was waiting patiently for three people to come by water. His people had been taili
ng Aden and Sarah since a few hours after their arrival in town. The communication from the bartender at the pub in Boston had first alerted him. He was waiting now, sure of the direction of their attack. His old friend, Fish, was unknowingly providing a blow-by-blow streaming record of the three of them in the Ripplecove Inn restaurant.

  Too bad about Fish, MacAuley thought as he scanned the water.

  He heard their boat before he saw them. The suppressor will cover me but that supersonic pop coming from the unseasonal heat could save the third person, thought the shooter, as a bead of sweat rolled down his nose. Reaching up, his specially padded gloved hand absorbed the sweat. He opened a small vent on the upper side of the tent in the hunter's tree stand and in wafted air.

  The noise of the boat approached. He was between 600 and 700 meters from the house, on the lakeside of the boat's approach, well secluded and waiting for the target to pass in front of him at Murray's nipple. His positioning gave MacAuley plenty of time to sight on Fish, Sarah and Aden. He had to try for one double kill, two people with one bullet, and a second shot for the third person.

  Kefira and Zak were unwittingly, diagonally opposite to MacAuley's tree stand, about one kilometer to his right at the head of the peninsula, just behind MacAuley's house. They were each watching an eyewear display, showing a heat signature moving about inside the house. Their plan was to support Aden and Sarah when the couple approached the house from the lake side.

  Kefira and Zak's eyewear remarked small house noises, a heat signature periodically moving about in the house, a light in the kitchen and a fire in the wood stove. All seemed normal. They could now hear the boat approaching from across the peninsula. Then there was a fast acceleration of the motor, and then the sound of the motor idled. A loud splash followed and then there was the 'clunk' noise of a heavy object hitting the aluminum deck. After the loud splashes, the only sound they heard was that of a motor idling. Kefira looked at Zak. They had to decide. Go to check on Aden and Sarah or head for the house.