Orb

by Arp, David E. ;

  Two kids trotted over the levee fifty yards ahead. Both boys were dressed in jeans, one in a red shirt hanging loose around his waist, the other, a pudgy kid in a white T-shirt a size too small. Their laughter stopped when they saw the boat. They pointed. The boy in the red shirt looked around and saw Wes and Meshach and nodded to his friend.

  “I’ll shoot both of them in the head.” Meshach’s tone remained flat, conversational.

  Again, Wes didn’t need to be told. Boys first. As they approached, the kids glanced at each other. They looked fifteen, maybe sixteen, barely old enough to drive.

  Meshach had already put Wes’s pistol in the waistband behind his back. His pistol he’d stuffed in his belt, in front and handy.

  Wes said, “Good morning, men,” with as much sincerity as he could muster.

  “Morning,” the chubby kid said, almost a whisper.

  “Isn’t school in session?” Wes said.

  “Yeah, but school stinks.” The red-shirted kid flipped his hand and eyed the boat as he talked.

  He’d called them men to bring them up to his level. The compliment went right over this kid’s head. “I have news for you, boy. Dumb stinks too. You’ve got what, three more years of school and sixty years of living afterward, on average. That’s a long time to be dumb. Go to school before you get in trouble.”

  He had their attention. They moved back the way they’d come, mumbling between themselves. Wes ignored them on purpose and picked up his pace. What they didn’t know would hurt them.

  “Real profound words for the boys there, pops. One of those kids will be a rocket scientist because of your advice.”

  A retort came to mind. He left it there.

  Wes didn’t have a gun to use against Meshach, but he possessed information. Throwing out a name, a place, an event in the man’s life could buy seconds, minutes, maybe hours. But what should he reveal and how much?

  When he reached the boat and looked back, the kids had left. He stopped. “What now, Elgin?”

  Oh yeah. He’d hit a nerve. It wasn’t much, a slight twitch in Meshach’s neck muscles, but enough.

  “You called her Jess on the phone a few minutes ago. Who you talking to? The fat boy I shot in the head? He was your computer guy, eh? Blue-eyes, Jess, she’s one to pray. How about you? Do you believe in God?”

  “Yes, I do, Mr. Fairchild? Do you?”

  Meshach shrugged. “Of course. I make it a point to know my enemies.”

  33

  Monday morning

  Wes sat on a padded bench-seat in the front center of the boat facing backward. The prow held live-wells and numerous storage compartments, including the anchor’s hold, all of them accessed by hideaway latches and watertight lids. The trolling motor was folded up, lying flat, and tied alongside the edge of the boat to his right.

  Confidence and arrogance often had the same outward appearance, up to a point. Usually, the latter showed its ugly face when a man opened his mouth. At first glance, Meshach exuded confidence. The way he carried himself. The way he fought. No malice voiced, just matter of fact commands void of inflected tones or accents. He was as cold as an arctic winter.

  Hard to believe he was only twenty-five. How had Elgin, the kid in the Cub Scout attire from the picture, become Meshach in such a short time? A close look at his dad would probably answer that question. If Meshach, at the age of twelve, killed his own father, then….Wes didn’t get that part. A boy’s only escape from his dad was murder.

  Was Meshach a product of his dad’s environment? Was he any less at fault for his actions because of his childhood?

  Meshach stood at the console. They faced each other. Wes tried not to stare, but that proved hard to do. The guy’s eye watered continuously and he never blinked. How could he not blink? His injured hand shook every time he wiped around his eye. He steered with his left hand. The pistol lay in plain sight on the console. He didn’t show discomfort, but the pain had to be excruciating. His skin had turned ashen. Infection?

  Wes’s hands were free, and he knew why. Meshach didn’t trust himself to tie them.

  When they departed the levee, Wes had to get on his knees before Meshach stepped into the boat. Then Wes retrieved and stowed the anchor. That task told him a lot. Knots tied at regular intervals along the length of the anchor rope and blue cloth wrapped around the anchor. He planned to use it for a grapple. From a boat? Now that Meshach had limited use of his right hand, he couldn’t heave his makeshift apparatus. Was that Wes’s purpose? If Meshach couldn’t throw the anchor with his injured hand, how could he climb the rope using the same hand?

  The guy had lost his mind. Board a ship, underway, at sea. Then do what with it? The words Tony uttered went off like fireworks in his head. Mars, Ursa, Nakika and Ace of Spades. He was going to steer a vessel into an offshore facility. Meshach had accessed the Automatic Identification System looking for a weapon and a victim.

  Sounded like a suicide mission, but the man didn’t seem the type to give his life for a cause.

  Did an environmentalist hire this nut job to cause a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Wes couldn’t see it, but one more Macondo-type incident and Uncle Sam would shut down drilling offshore forever. The anti-drilling extremists would love that. Wes smelled someone really sinister, and he sat somewhere high atop a covert totem pole.

  It was 8:20 AM and they were headed northwest on calm water. Meshach guided the boat down the center of the channels and wide around turns. They passed three boats, all of them traveling in the opposite direction. Wes averted his eyes. He wouldn’t put others at risk to save his own bacon.

  Meshach didn’t act concerned or worried about much as they motored at a leisurely pace through cane breaks along the western side of the Mississippi River in broad daylight.

  Wes prayed Tony had survived and alerted the cavalry.

  He glanced left and right trying not to be too obvious about watching where they were going. A small manmade levee jutted into their path from the right. The builder may have had a purpose in mind, but Wes couldn’t see it. Looked like Meshach couldn’t see it either. If he stayed on course, he’d plant the bow of the boat right in the middle of it at thirty miles an hour. The sudden stop would be painful for them both.

  Meshach wiped his eye and jerked the wheel left. The boat skidded by the outer reaches of the berm by mere feet. Wes prayed he didn’t look so obvious in his surprise. He’d just seen a chink in the man’s armor.

  As quickly as he turned left, Meshach steered back right and cut the power. The boat dipped forward then settled. A camouflaged, three-sided boat garage without a roof lay just behind the small levee. It wasn’t something Wes expected to find in the middle of the marsh. He’d seen one used on a television show about Louisiana duck hunting. The sides stood out of the water five feet. Camouflaged netting draped over a light PVC pipe frame flipped up and over the top of the boat, leaving a skylight to shoot from down the middle. A duck blind.

  Meshach nodded at the structure. “Imagine that, Mr. Hansen. Right place, right time.”

  Every muscle in Wes’s body tensed. Turn about and fair play aside, Meshach knew his name too. That gave more credibility to the threat he’d made against Wes’s family.

  Meshach turned the boat around and backed into the blind. He killed the motor. “Pops, pull the sides over the boat.” He removed the key from the ignition, stuffed it into the left pocket of his pants, then picked up the pistol.

  Wes did his bidding. Meshach kept his distance, moving from side to side and front to back as Wes worked the top over them. Pretty ingenious contraption—drive in, drive out, and never leave the boat. It even had a gate to cover the entrance. The thing would be worthless for hunting ducks without a couple of good Labradors to retrieve the fallen birds.

  When Wes finished, Meshach gave a satisfied nod. “Looks like the posse will gallop on by this time.” He motioned with the pistol again. “Back to your seat, pops.”

  Meshach made a point of using p
ops. Sometimes Wes felt old, like this morning when he’d fought for his life, but if Meshach thought the overuse grated on his nerves, he was wrong. Someday, in the not-too-distant future, he’d hear his grandson, Levi, use the title, and he’d think of this sorry excuse for a human being no longer.

  A whisper of a breeze shook the camouflaged netting, like leaves of a tree playing with the shadows and sunlight on the ground below. Camouflaged though it was, viewed from the air the blind would present a blot on the natural scheme of things. An alert pilot would quickly see the difference.

  Meshach sat on the outboard edge of the boat and wiped at his eye again. “You going to analyze me?”

  “Nope.” Wes gazed anywhere but at Meshach. The man acted cool on the outside, but what went on in the inside? Wes hoped the working jaw muscles showed inner frustrations. He’d be patient and wait to see what kind of questions he’d ask, if any.

  A quick shadow passed across the boat as a pelican floated by. Wes gave thanks for the covering and shade. Baking in the direct sunlight, his thirst would be worse than it was at the moment. Looked like the bugs appreciated the shade as well.

  Meshach unzipped his backpack and removed three pieces of his sunglasses. He held the broken frame together and tried to put the lens back in. Looked like a job for duct tape. Too bad. Must have used it all up. He dropped the glasses back in the pack and dug out Wes’s pistol and a bottle of water. He put the pistol aside, held out the bottle, eyed the contents, then twisted off the top and took a long drink. He smacked his lips. “I filled this up at the trailer last night, right under your nose.”

  Wes would cede that point, but Elgin would never know. The man—no—the kid was a vengeful punk. The only difference between him and a five-year-old was one year, twenty times. Wes moved to the floor, sat, leaned back against the side of the boat and closed his eyes. He’d been up over twenty-four hours. He knew he could go fifty hours without sleep because he’d done it once in Iraq, but he was busy then, not sitting on his backside.

  He had a long day in store, unless he managed to get himself shot before it was over. Lord, my soul to keep…if it comes to that.

  34

  Monday evening

  Wes’s mind snapped on like a light bulb at the flip of a switch. Humming? Meshach was humming? Wes didn’t think the two were compatible: heartlessness and singing.

  At least it wasn’t Taps.

  How long had he slept? It didn’t matter.

  This was one time in his adult life he wished he’d turned down a job. Then, maybe not. Sometimes the job found the man. This might be that time. If getting Meshach off the street was his calling, then so be it. He wished he felt more up to the task.

  Could be his final calling. That would be disappointing. His daughter had decided to talk to him again, his grandson would be born soon, and he’d met Jess.

  With the Good Lord’s help, he’d get a chance to look back at the ordeal through a pair of 20/20 glasses. For now, he had trouble seeing a way forward.

  He had to admit Meshach had one-upped him physically. To get out of this predicament alive, he’d have to outthink the man and catch him off his guard.

  The breeze was barely noticeable and smelled musty. Meshach finished his tune. The silence was complete. He’d hoped to hear helicopters during the day, lots of them. The posse wouldn’t gallop on by as Meshach had mentioned because they weren’t coming. He was on his own.

  He opened his eyes. The netting over the boat made the evening seem darker than it was. The sun was just below the horizon. Another time and another place and he might enjoy the sunset. He struggled to think if he’d ever had a worse day.

  If Tony…

  No! Tony was alive and intact until Wes heard the facts. Then he’d mourn or rejoice. For now, he’d remain optimistic and concentrate on saving his own hide. Tactical. Stay tactical.

  He struggled to his feet and sat on the padded seat. He stretched. His neck hurt from sleeping with his head canted to one side. Something caught in his left shoulder again. Not a good sign.

  Meshach sat at the boat’s controls. He glanced over the top of the GPS display mounted on the console and seemed to focus on Wes for an instant, then continued. The eye still watered. The “orb” Jess had called it. The term fit. Looked just like the business card. Meshach didn’t blink. Weird. He seemed paler too.

  The man was stoic.

  Might as well get the ball rolling and see what it hits. “I had a good visit with Marlin Sands the other day. I saw Lane’s mom. Even made a short excursion to the Valley of Fire State Park and looked around.”

  If Wes hit a nerve, it was numb.

  He poked some more. “Monique wanted you to join her in D.C.” Wes let his voice go up an octave. “Save the planet and the polar bears, that type of thing. Maybe you, Lamech and Sullivan could follow her on Chirp. Oh, wait. You already did.”

  Meshach looked up. “You don’t know anything.”

  “I know you accessed AIS. Does Mars or Ace of Spades ring a bell? Why did you go after Bethany?”

  Meshach acted deaf.

  “She loves the dog, by the way.”

  Meshach took a deep breath. “You talk too much.”

  “Jess identified you. We found an old picture of you and some other scouts at Lane’s house. You only opened one lens cap on your binoculars. I see you prefer a monocular now. You were, what, twelve? That’s about the time you took your last fieldtrip with your dad. Meshach, the man from fire.”

  Wes saw him grasp the .45. Dear Lord.

  He didn’t believe it. Meshach didn’t even look up from what he was doing. Just pointed, pulled the trigger and set the gun down, like tapping the remote to change the channel from Fox News to Duck Dynasty. The bullet whizzed through the Plexiglas windscreen, passed inches from Wes’s right ear and zinged off into the gathering dusk.

  The report from the discharge had not cleared when Meshach spoke. “You remind me of my dad. He failed to take me seriously. I told him to leave me alone or I’d kill him. He didn’t believe me. I told you that you talk too much. You do. Be quiet.” Meshach started the engine. “Time to go. Open the gate, pops.” He stood and grabbed the pistol again.

  Wes turned mechanically, stepped onto the prow of the boat, and pushed the makeshift gate open. Meshach placed the pistol back on the console, engaged the outboard, and eased into the channel. He looked around as if undecided about a direction of travel, then pointed the boat southeast, back the way they’d come.

  Wes sat, and the shakes hit him. The motor driving his heart and his nerves ran away with itself. He didn’t see his life flash before his eyes, but he saw the muzzle blast from the pistol. Playing fifty questions with Meshach was the same as playing Russian roulette with a semiautomatic pistol—stupid.

  The time had come.

  The boat wallowed in the muddy water then slowly gathered speed. The outboard sounded like a vacuum cleaner with something stuck in the hose, then changed to a low, steady growl as the bow eased down and the boat planed out on the water’s surface.

  Wes looked forward and noticed something he’d missed. He’d even knelt on it to open the gate a minute ago. A loop of the anchor rope with one knot visible protruded from under the door to the hold. He turned back and glanced at Meshach standing erect at the controls, outlined against the southern edge of the waning sunset. The navigation equipment had his attention.

  Wes didn’t remember leaving the rope out, but there it was in plain sight.

  The purpose he was supposed to serve in Meshach’s scheme of things still eluded him. When Meshach pulled the trigger on the .45 a minute ago, he didn’t know if the bullet would miss Wes or hit him in the head. Meshach didn’t care anymore about shooting a man than he would when swatting a fly.

  Meshach glanced up, eased the boat to the left, then leaned left to peer around the narrow windscreen. Wes heard a zip, a big bug, like a beetle. As a kid, he’d called them stinkbugs. Looked like it was doing 30 miles an hour and sounded li
ke a dive-bomber. The thing hit Meshach right between the eyes. Sounded like a shot and set Wes in motion. He sprung for the rope and the anchor. He had two steps and a hard lunge to the left, off of the deck of the boat, to formulate his plan: don’t get tangled in the rope.

  As he cleared the hull, he dropped the anchor.

  Hitting the water at forty miles an hour wasn’t something a person would remember. Legs and arms and head yanked and twisted by their weight and the friction of the water pulled at his torso and limbs and brought his speeding body to a violent stop in mere feet. Wes gathered his wits in time to see the boat in a hard left turn, bow high, listed onto its side as the outboard forced the stern around. Meshach looked back his direction. Then, from out of the shallow water the rope sprang like a rubber band and stretched tight between the anchor and the bow. The boat changed direction like the end of bullwhip and left the water for air. Wes’s last image of the wreck had Meshach upside-down in the air above the boat, arms and legs wide, headed for parts unknown.

  Wes wormed his way through the water and mud into the tall grass. The motor sputtered and died. He ended up on the opposite side of the channel from Meshach. He didn’t take a gander back and give the man a target to shoot at. Like Tony, until sight of his lifeless body proved otherwise, he’d consider Meshach alive and well—and armed.

  Dry land and the highway lay a mile away, due north, and all of the distance consisted of either open water or grassy swamp. Nighttime settled in fast. Besides soaking wet, he’d soon be cold too. He tried to move his left arm and almost cried out at the searing pain in his shoulder.

  Create distance and be quiet doing it.

  Wes had no visions of being the disabled and unarmed hero. Evade and escape. Live to fight another day. He crawled deeper into the swampy grass with the bugs and the crawly critters. After twelve hours with Meshach, he looked forward to their company.