Jack Be Nimble: Tyro Book 2

by Ben English

  Steve tentatively poked at his gun with a tiny metal probe. “The guys at the gun club always took care of this for me.”

  “Man needs to know how to clean his own gun.” Ian sampled two more items from the plates of food on the low table between them. “Just don't get carried away and ram the .40 caliber brush all the way through the bore.” He chewed noisily. “What is this called again?”

  Steve didn’t look up from his weapon. “Beef skirt steak in mojo marinade. The chicken in yellow rice is arroz con pollo.” He set the gun down in front of Ian and reached for a plate. “You can’t do better than the ropa vieja,” he said, taking a big scoop of shredded chicken. “My stomach can’t decide if this is dinner or breakfast.”

  “Dinner,” Ian said. “The first meal we’ll get in Cuba is breakfast. “But I know what you mean. My body doesn’t know what time it is, or on what continent. Feels like college again.”

  “This would be really good with beer," Steve said.

  Ian allowed it was so. "Maybe Jack ordered the food. He almost always forgets the beer."

  "Yeah, why is that?"

  The older man looked at him. "Are you serious? Jack's a Mormon. Doesn't care what we do, but the guy doesn't drink. Pretty dry for a fish." He laughed to himself.

  Steve was silent for a moment. "I guess I never noticed it before. A Mormon. Are you sure?"

  Ian's attention was back on the guns. "It's not the kind of thing you fake for the fun of it."

  "Isn't what we do kind of against the rules for him? Shooting people, running for our lives, ignoring the government?"

  "You mean like, no sex or caffeine?"

  Steve nodded.

  Ian held up his Coke, drained it dry. "You don't know very much about Mormons."

  Steve was quiet for a minute, and Jack couldn't see his expression.

  Ian finished inspecting the gun and moved on to another. "What's on your mind?" He asked without looking away from the equipment between them.

  Abruptly, Steve coughed. "I think you might’ve broken a rule," he said.

  Ian looked at the weapon, nonplussed. "I’ve got the right brush. What are you-"

  "You broke one of Jack's rules." Seeing that Ian didn't follow, he swiveled the screen of his computer so the other man could see it.

  A video clip played on the small display. Ian squinted and leaned even further forward. From where he stood, Jack had no hope of hearing or seeing what played out before them. Ian straightened quickly, and laughed.

  "They put that on TV? Somebody actually kept it? Play that last part back again. Turn it up a bit."

  Steve propped his computer on top of an ammo box, and the small screen played a recorded batch of international news, culled from various websites by a program Steve had modified. Investigators in London were just beginning to explore the hollow bulk of what had been the Illuminatus Tower, officially blaming faulty wiring for the obscure fireworks show and subsequent blackout of most of metropolitan London. Parts of it, and several of the buildings nearby, still burned. The Tower had been heavily insured, and though it was far too recent a construction to show a clear profit, Raines Capital stood beneficiary to the largest insurance windfall since the turn of the Millennium. Jack shook his head. Londoners were more worried about the location for the new Harrods than whether or not the building’s shell would fall on them. The announcer segued into weather. It was going to be a summer for early hurricanes, though at the moment the Atlantic was calm as a millpond.

  “Hey, there I am,” Ian said.

  And there he was, on television in front of a Chicago apartment building, ringed by lights and speaking to someone off-camera.

  “ –Chicago area police and FBI have discovered no more material evidence in what FBI experts are calling one man’s pathetic grasp at fame. Hubert Caulfield, also known as ‘Screwy Huey,’ was sought by police for questioning in conjunction with several stalkings in California before firing three shots from a handgun at Mayor Strine’s car two weeks ago. The mayor was out of the country at the time. In sports, the San Francisco Giants began –”

  Ian’s laughter covered the rest of the words. "That was aired just yesterday. How'd you get it so fast?"

  Steve fidgeted. "It was on CNN this morning. I made a media bot that watches all the news feeds for any mention of us, or our pictures. You broke the rule, you talked directly to the press. I thought that was rule number one."

  "Rule number one is not getting your ass shot off." He tapped on the keyboard. "I've got to send this to my wife."

  Steve hesitated. "When I signed the deal to be a part of the team, they told me absolutely no contact with the press."

  Ian snorted and picked up a different gun to clean. "No. Caulfield was different. I was doing my job. It's different if you talk to the press for your job, or part of a cover. Look at Jack." Steve wasn't convinced. "Okay, the Bureau spent a month on Hubert Caulfield, the press was all over the case. They were spinning it in the wrong direction. I did what I thought was right."

  Ian holstered his pistol. "You want to talk about rules, what exactly were you and Brad up to outside Prague?"

  Steve hesitated, and Jack leaned into the light. "Okay. It's all right, Ian." He waited until they turned. "We all have lives outside the team. Some of us even get married.”

  He sat in front of a big plate of beans and rice. "Sorry I forgot the beer." From an inner pocket of his jacket he took the pack of Alonzo's cigars. "Al couldn't take his eyes off the planes," he said. "I probably could've gotten his wallet, too." The smooth leather sheaf still held four thick Havana exports. Each cigar tapered rapidly at one end. "Nice." Jack held the length to his nose, inhaling deeply. "Tobacco's fresh," he said.

  He looked over the plates of food, and found a plastic bowl. “Ian’s right, Steve.” He found a bottle of water and poured a tiny bit into the bowl. “He talked to the media in the course of Bureau business, and from what I heard, actually got reporters to listen. More than I’ve ever done." He glanced up at Ian and looked back again quickly, nearly spilling the bowl. “What the hell did you do to your beard?”

  Ian grinned as his hand went to his pink face. None of them had ever seen him without at least a goatee. “I was pretty visible on the ground last night, and you know somebody in the crowd outside the Tower had to have a cameraphone and an upload to the web. Figured I needed enough of a change to throw off the competition.” His grin widened, an odd addition on the bare face, then he hesitated. "You going to need a light for that? I didn't think you smoked."

  Jack looked at the cigar as if seeing it for the first time, and laughed. "Not today, thanks." He produced a knife and slit the cigar lengthwise, ignoring the red paper band at the top. He used the flat of the blade to fish all the loose tobacco into the small bowl.

  "That was a Montecristo, Jack."

  “Also the name of one of my favorite books,” Jack replied.

  “A three hundred dollar cigar.”

  "Worth every penny." Jack repeated the operation on the remaining three cigars and threw away the bits of paper each had been wrapped in. “They make Montecristos using the leaves nearest the top of the tobacco plant. Thick leaves, always exposed to the sun. Healthiest part of the plant.”

  He paused long enough to set out a few small packets of roots and herbs. Conscious of their curiosity, he picked up a spoon. “I stopped by Chinatown on my way over here.”

  Ian frowned. “Did you go to the Joss House? Meet with the old man?”

  Jack opened his mouth, then merely nodded and began to use the spoon to knead the mass in the bowl. "Where's the first aid kit?"

  Ian set his food aside and looked over the duffel bags. "I put it in with your age makeup and colored contact lenses. Hope I never have to wear any of that stuff."

  "Nah." Jack emptied the contents of the packets into the bowl. "Getting rid of the beard really changed your look. Smart idea."

  “Better take the initiative than let you pick a disguise for me.” Ian tilted
his head toward the inner hanger. “After watching you shoehorn Alonzo into his clown outfit last night, I didn’t want to meet my wife at the airport dressed as an ‘80s glam rocker, or a professional chicken-swallower, or a chimney sweep.”

  “Right,” Jack said, but his eyes smiled. “Best to keep the costumes to a minimum during the first year of marriage.”

  Ian started to reply, but suddenly looked at their companion, who remained silent. Steve’s eyes focused somewhere above the plate of food in his hands. His spoon hesitated.

  “What’s really on your mind?” Jack asked.

  Steve shifted, looking back and forth at neither of them. Ian set his plate down and looked fully at the younger man. Jack opened his mouth, then closed it. Drawing upon my fine command of the English language, he thought, I said – nothing.

  There was something here that needed a bit of time to work out.

  When Ian finally spoke, his timbre, speed, and tone changed ever so slightly. Even without the beard Jack recognized the reasonable, steady FBI man from the video clip.

  “Steve. You weren't actually talking about me breaking a rule, were you? And your question before that, about Jack," he hesitated, eyes still on Steve. "It wasn't really about him breaking any of the rules, was it?"

  Steve set the plate down and fished a candy bar from an inner pocket. The look he leveled at them, Jack thought, held a muted mix of surprise, accusation, and maybe just a touch of terror.

  Jack set the bowl down. The chemical compound needed to be finished soon or the ingredients would go inert, but he had a bit of time remaining before that happened. "Last night took a lot out of us," he began, not sure where he was going.

  "And we've still got a long road ahead." Ian continued. "Never know what's going to happen on the job."

  Alonzo stirred within the hangar, just beyond the inner edge of light, a hollow, sad set to his face.

  Completely frit. Jack understood. Steve was frightened.

  Steve set the candy bar down, unopened.

  A fly looped in through the open door, flew a fat, slow ring around the men.

  "Last night was as close as you've ever been to the front line on a job, wasn't it?" Ian asked.

  Steve brushed at the fly. It wobbled away.

  "Last night was the front line," Jack said. "Steve was the entire front line there, for a little while."

  The fly spiraled down towards the open plates, sliding down the rising aromas and scents toward the odd combination of guns and food. Jack waited until the fly was near, then held his concoction near the insect. As soon as it moved through the air above the bowl, it jinked and angled straightaway for the door.

  Ian looked frankly at Steve. "We all owe you our lives. You did the right thing. Your first toe-to-toe fight, and you did the right thing."

  Steve set his computer on the table. “Before, see – I’ve always been in the crow's nest, away from the actual fight. I knew it would happen sooner or later, but …it came up on me a lot quicker than I figured."

  Jack let his hands busy themselves with the mixture. Ian looked out at the movement of aircraft on the field, then back at Steve. Alonzo counted the rivets on the B-29 above him. Steve forced himself to breath.

  "I know we'll all get to write the after-action report, for the team history. I'll get to tell all this to the Doc. I want you to know, all of you, that I think I did everything the way you told me I should.

  "The past year I’ve been shooting three times a week, just like you guys taught me, and I knew I could hit a target pretty well, but up in the tower, when – I just started shooting and moving. ‘Shoot and move laterally, again and again. Throw all your grenades and don’t save anything,’ like Jack says.” Steve considered the tip of a gun brush, poked it halfheartedly into the barrel. “So I didn’t hold anything back.”

  “Like Jack says,” echoed Ian, watching the younger man closely.

  “After that, I got up close to one of the guys I hit. He’d gone down so fast that he seemed to disappear, and I forgot about him, but when I had a minute, he was right there, and…” He trailed off.

  Ian offered a cloth. “You needed to be near him, didn’t you?” Steve took the rag and nodded. “How did you feel when you saw him up close, saw what the bullets did?”

  Steve winced. “Sad, I guess. I felt like I was in control, and it felt weird. Solemn. I wanted to be really quiet. Now when I think about that, all the guns and noise, I feel different, but then? When everything was moving fast—"

  "When you had to kill," Ian interrupted, quietly.

  "I felt alone. Even with you guys right there with me.”

  "It’s different now, though," said Jack.

  Steve's face was abject, wracked. Above and behind him, Alonzo's face twitched in shallow reflection of Steve's expression.

  The younger man groped the air with his words, desperate. "I don't feel alone anymore, but it’s worse."

  Alonzo shifted his balance, dust scooping the air around his feet.

  Steve pursed his lips. "It’s almost like I'm being watched. Like I'm being judged, like—oh, I can't explain this right."

  “Like God has you under a lens," Alonzo said. "Like He’s looking right at you, up close, and He can see everything.” Alonzo’s voice held an odd note, a singularity Jack couldn’t quite place until he realized the smaller man had mentioned Deity without the least trace of sarcasm.

  Steve turned in his chair as if to respond, but Alonzo spoke first.

  “Did it make you proud?”

  Steve swiveled his body in the chair, even as his face turned back toward the table. He looked first at Ian and then Jack before answering. “No, but am I going to feel like this every time? Even if I never have to shoot again, how am I going to hold up my end of the team if I'm clutchy like this on every mission? This isn’t my—I don’t –"

  A plane taxied by on approach to the runway outside, the vibration and breakneck clatter of the engine throwing a temporary blanket over their conversation. Light accompanied the noise; fresh sunlight reflected off the windows and brightwork of the aircraft.

  Jack looked down through the waves of light at the table, at the roll of bandages, the gun cleaning kits, the open plates of food, and his own blend of arcane ingredients. He set the mixture aside and drew his own gun.

  “Sol would be better at explaining this,” he said, removing the clip of ammunition. “Everybody has their own version of reality, Steve. There’s always a set of lines we live by.” He wiped the gun down quickly.

  “Lines, principles, morals—these are truths we need. Principles that exist outside ourselves, regardless of our existence, whether there’s a God watching you, like Al said, or not. Think of a computer program, working according to its code, or the fact that the best way to clean this gun is to use a .40 caliber brush to clean out the chamber,” he said, matching action to word, “and a 9mm brush to clean the bore.” He wiped the weapon down, reloaded, and returned it to the catch at the small of his back.

  “Even if we’re just drifting through life, ‘going for it’, there are truths outside ourselves which let us do that. You’re looking for a truth to give meaning to what you did, and we probably can’t do that for you. When I think of what Raines and his men would have done to innocent people, I know your violence was the right thing, even though society might not see it that way.”

  Jack cut three equal lengths of bandage. As he spoke, he carefully painted each bandage with the crushed mixture of herbs. He could barely smell the tobacco, and worried he hadn’t used enough.

  “Society has its own versions of the truth, and big chunks of it are wrong. When the world pushes us to reject age-old, proven Truth, we can be tempted to find meaning in our own truth.” He said it with enough inflection that Steve could catch the capital T. “These truths will rarely be Truth at all, just collections of personal preferences and prejudices. The less depth a belief system has, the greater the desperation with which the true believers embrace it. The noi
siest, most fanatical are those whose personal truth—whether built up over the years or cobbled together like their own personal Frankenstein’s monster—- is built on the shakiest foundation.”

  “When their weak foundation washes away,” Ian said, “those people can fall really far, really fast. Do terrible things.”

  Jack looked quickly at Steve, and smiled. “I’m glad you’re not all of a sudden a gung-ho gunman, asking for more weapons.”

  “Why’s that?” Steve asked.

  Alonzo sat next to Jack, favoring his side. “The kill can be addicting. You can get drunk on it.” He shared a quiet look with the other two men. “Lord knows we’ve each gone over that edge a few times.”

  “Al, let me see your ribs.” Jack waited until Alonzo lifted his shirt as far as he could, then carefully removed a section of his friend’s bandages. “The medics did a good job with this,” he said. “Got something I want you to try.”

  Alonzo held still while Jack applied the tobacco poultice. “Just as long as you don’t make me drink any more of that moss tea crap, we’re fine. And I’m not dressing up like a clown again.”

  Jack’s grin widened, and he glanced at Ian and Steve. “Once when we were kids Al told me that there was no way I could ever get back at him for all the practical jokes he pulled on me. Not even if I pranked him every single day for the rest of our lives.”

  “That was before I knew about your freak memory.” Alonzo lowered his shirt and ran his hands over his side. “Feels better.”

  Jack shook his head. “That’s all in your imagination. It’s going to feel like a bus hit you in a few minutes.” He handed Alonzo the rest of the mix. “Put more on before you sleep next. Then it will feel better.”

  Steve found the edge to his candy bar wrapper. “Where did you learn that?” he asked Jack.

  Before Jack could frame a reply, Steve’s computer sounded off the first few bars of the Star Wars Imperial March.

  “Email,” said Steve. The tiny speakers trumpeted again, this time replaying the Imperial March as rendered on a honky-tonk piano. “Email from Brad,” Steve amended.

  “How?” Ian leaned in for a closer look. “He’s barely out of surgery; the guy’s gonna sleep for a week.”