A Few Good Fish

by Amy Lane

  Jackson’s brain exploded.

  “Ouch!” Ernie held his palms to his eyes. “Jackson! It wasn’t bad, I swear! He didn’t hate you! He didn’t want to do it! He took the job because he didn’t want anybody else to hear because they were mean! I swear—it wasn’t dirty. It wasn’t.”

  “It was ours,” Jackson said, voice low and violent. “I… I get that might be why we’re still alive, even, because I don’t know if Lacey knows how close we are. But it was ours.”

  “Yeah.” Sonny nodded at Ernie, like confirming Jackson had a right to be upset. “I’d get sort of upset too. I don’t got a lot that’s mine, but my time with Ace—that’s fuckin’ mine.”

  Ernie nodded sadly. “I’m sorry,” he said, his heart in his eyes. “And I think Burton is too. But don’t you see? He knows how they work, and he knows how to get Ace and Mr. Cramer out.”

  “How’s that going to happen?” Jackson asked, and his head ached fiercely. “And do you have any painkillers? My brain is going to blow out my eyeballs.”

  “You wish,” Ernie said with an almost familiar bitterness. “Then you wouldn’t have to feel anymore.”

  “Right here.” Sonny showed him the cupboard and got him a glass of water. “My head would hurt too if I found out people listened to me and Ace have sex. That’s no good—”

  “They’re louder than alley cats,” Ernie informed Jackson bluntly. “But he means without your permission.”

  “I figured that,” Jackson said, washing down the ibuprofen. “Now tell me what you know about where they’re being kept. We know we’re not dealing with normal military, so driving up and asking for our guys isn’t going to work—”

  “You were just going to do that?” Sonny asked, wide-eyed.

  “Fuck no. But see, this means Ellery’s mom isn’t going to have the leverage she’d need to pop Lacey’s cork and get him to let them go. It’s going to have to be us, or they’ll be moved—”

  “Burton says it’s an old military base—it’s got a small airstrip.”

  “Moved to fuck-all knows where,” Jackson said sourly. “Especially if it’s a paramilitary group. One gassed plane and they could be in South America for the rest of their short lives. Okay. That’s not good. So what else do we know?”

  Ernie pointed to his little diagram. “See—here’s the base. These’re the barracks right here, and Burton says there’s thirty men here. Says they come in, train together, and then take the contracts they get offered through the actual leader of Corduroy, who works there with Lacey too.”

  “Why does he work with Lacey, you think?” Sonny asked, sounding pensive. “He sounds like sort of a tool.”

  “That’s exactly what he is.” Jackson looked at the diagram and saw things like a shooting range and a PT area and a gym and a com room. The base wasn’t full, but there were places a small paramilitary group would definitely need to gather. “He’s feeding them intel, probably intercepting legitimate contracts, and very definitely finding military personnel that fit the mercenary profile. He’s literally training the perfect killers there—the killers who won’t betray their CO.”

  Ernie made a sound of revelation. “Ohhhhhh….”

  “What?” Jackson asked.

  “That’s why Burton had to be the one,” Ernie said softly. “He couldn’t explain it—and Sonny’s right, some of it does have to do with me. But he said he had to be the one to go undercover. It’s because he does question orders. He did. If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here. So he knew he could go undercover and not… not change. Not—”

  “Lose himself,” Jackson said softly.

  “Yeah. His CO cut him loose so the government doesn’t have to admit what’s happening here—”

  “He’d stay true to his code,” Jackson said, knowing that if Burton had been a Marine once, that code was something he lived and died by.

  “Yeah.” Ernie took a cleansing breath. “I feel better,” he told them benignly. “I was starting to worry that I read him wrong.”

  “If you read him any way but stupid dumbassed in love and fighting it, I’m not gonna think you’re a witch anymore,” Sonny said in complete seriousness. “I don’t know people, and I really don’t give much of a fuck most times, but that shit I know.”

  Ernie’s smile made all the world better, and Jackson smiled back weakly.

  “Okay, so Burton’s expecting us—you said that.”

  Ernie nodded. “Yes, and I told him I’d be there and he said he didn’t want me and I said he’d need me and he made that sound he makes when he doesn’t know what to do with me, and I said okay. So I’m pretty sure that’s a no, but it really doesn’t matter ’cause I’m going anyway.”

  Jackson had the sudden notion that Ace, living here in this little house with Sonny as his lover and Ernie as his charge, must be finding captivity someplace quiet and sane like a paramilitary assassin’s camp to be a bit of a vacation.

  “Okay—so that’s four of us counting your friend Jai”—they all heard the sound of a perfectly running Toyota pulling up in front of the mossy yard—“and he’s here. I’ve got an idea for how to get everybody’s attention so we can run in and get our guys. It’ll keep Ernie out of the line of fire, give me and Sonny a chance to arm our bear eaters and sneak out, and use your friend Jai as backup.”

  The front door opened and closed, and Jackson looked up in time to see Jai stomp into the kitchen. He paused to unlace his boots and crowd behind Jackson and Ernie as they studied the computer. Jackson took in the craggy face under black eyebrows and a gleaming dome of a head and realized his memories hadn’t exaggerated: this man was well and truly close to seven feet tall.

  “You’re going to have someone drive a car over the land mines near the airfield,” Jai said, his Russian accent thick and disdainful.

  “Yes,” Jackson said, unsurprised that a guy who was probably former mob saw the plan immediately. “But, you know—use a brick on the gas pedal or cruise control or something and be long gone before the land mine goes off.”

  “Da,” Jai muttered. “So the best place for the other team to come in is the airfield—where are they being held?”

  “Burton says the admin building,” Ernie told him. “The airfield runs behind it, and he says there are planes and hangars and stuff to hide behind.”

  “Da. So, who is doing what, yellow-haired man?”

  Jackson smiled in relief. “I’m Jackson Rivers, Jai. I remember you from September.”

  Jai shrugged. “Remember you, yes. Give a shit, no. But you have a man in there, and you’re not a complete imbecile, so I assume you will work to get Ace out without harm.” Jai looked at Sonny, and his granite features softened. “Sonny is no good without Ace.”

  Sonny nodded disconsolately, and Jackson looked at the diagram again.

  “Okay, guys—here’s the plan.”

  At the Mercy of the Fisherman

  ELLERY LEANED back in the office chair, toed off his loafers, and tucked one foot under his thigh. If death was going to come bursting through the door at any minute, he wanted to be comfortable.

  “How’s the light?” he asked, more for something to do than anything else.

  “Green,” Ace said, from the floor. Apparently comfort for Ace was up against the corner, legs crossed so he could lean forward, stare at Burton’s little light, and brood.

  To each his own.

  “Your guy ain’t gonna get Sonny killed, is he?”

  Ellery glanced at him and smiled briefly. “Himself, yes. Anybody else on his watch, no.”

  “Well. Sucks to be you.”

  Deep breath. Another. “It has its moments.”

  “He’s skinnier than he was in September. And he was right puny in September.”

  Ellery glanced up at him and saw nothing but friendly interest. Not judgment. Jackson’s assessment of this man rang truer with every moment they spent together.

  “He almost died in November. His heart stopped. I had to give him mouth-to-mouth. H
ard coming back from that.”

  Ace nodded, shivering. “Sonny got stabbed once. Surgery. Took him a week before he could walk again.”

  Ellery shuddered for him. “Sucks to be you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who stabbed him?”

  Ace’s face closed down. “A dead man.”

  Ah. “You do know what kind of lawyer I am, don’t you?”

  “There’s kinds?” Ace looked up in surprise, and Ellery suppressed a laugh. Ah, lawyer jokes—except Ace wasn’t joking. Like Jackson, there were things in his life he had to know and things he didn’t. Jackson had joined law enforcement—he knew cops and robbers and defense and prosecution. Ace had joined the Army—he knew rank and file, and he knew cars.

  “I’m a defense lawyer. Which means I spend my life defending people who’ve committed crimes and keeping them out of jail. So if you ever need someone to keep you out of jail for something you felt you absolutely positively had to do, remember we were kidnapped together, ’kay?”

  Ace grunted, and his eyes went shadowed. Haunted.

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “So. Did you?” Ellery was bored, and his defense attorney sense was tingling, and he didn’t want to think about Jackson losing his shit.

  “Did I what?” But Ace’s breathing had quickened. He knew this question, same as Jackson knew what Ellery was asking when he snapped What?

  “Did you absolutely positively have to kill somebody?”

  Ace swallowed. “You’ll be my lawyer if this ever comes out?”

  “You have my word.”

  “Yeah. I absolutely had to kill someone. You know my only regret?”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t kill him before he broke my boy.”

  Ellery nodded. “Jackson’s mother,” he said softly, “was a junkie. And a prostitute. And I don’t even want to know the parts of his childhood he won’t tell me about.”

  Ace grunted. “Sonny had one of those too.”

  “And you think, ‘If this person we love survived all that, and is still someone we can love, what would he have been like if he’d had the shit I’d had?’”

  Ace rested his cheek against his knees. “Yeah.”

  “But there’s no time machine yet, so we just have to be grateful there’s still enough of them to love.” Ellery’s heart, nervous and frustrated after all the shaky months of healing, smoothed a little. These were good words. Suddenly that far horizon, the one where he and Jackson dropped off the map, disappeared. The earth was round, and they were sailing together as long as they could survive the trip.

  “Every day,” Ace said, not surprising Ellery at all. He’d been living with this secret for a while. “Every day together is a good day.”

  Ellery closed his eyes and nodded. “Then let’s make it through today for a good day tomorrow,” he murmured.

  A moment later Ace’s gasp surprised him. “It’s flashing. You got something to write with?”

  Ellery scrambled for the piece of chalk he’d seen in his initial search. He crouched down by the dark green baseboard, prepared to write. “Shoot.”

  “T-H-E-Y….” Haltingly, letter by letter, Ace called the message out while Ellery scrawled it on the vinyl baseboard.

  Finally the light switched to green permanently, and Ellery stared at the string of text.

  THEYRECOMINGWAITFORBOOMHEADFOREASTWINGHANGAR

  “D’ja get it?” Ace asked, eyes glued to the little green light.

  “Wait a sec…. They’re coming. Wait for boom. Head for east wing hangar.”

  In Ace’s hand, the little light switched on and off again, just once. “I think that means yes,” Ace murmured, and it did it again.

  “Wait for boom?” Ellery muttered. “Oh dear God.”

  “Why—what do you think that means?”

  Ellery groaned. “I think it means my mother’s going to need to pull strings to get me car insurance, that’s what I think it means.”

  Ace stared at him impassively for a minute. “Why would he use your car? Isn’t it brand-new?”

  “Why use his car? I don’t know. Maybe yours wouldn’t have the right kind of spring in it. Maybe it doesn’t have cruise control. Maybe there’s a kitten in a tree or a kid in the middle of the road that Jackson can only rescue by sacrificing a perfectly good car that doesn’t even have plates yet. I got no idea—but I would give you money that it’s his car.”

  Ace let out a rusty chuckle. “I’ll tell you what. That boy turns his car into toast to get us the fuck out of here and me and Sonny will make him a car. Tell us what he wants, tell us what he needs, and we’ll get our hands on something unmarked and fucking invincible—”

  “Air-conditioning?” Ellery asked, because as far as he knew, only an idiot wouldn’t want air-conditioning in a California summer.

  Ace shrugged. “If that’s what floats your boat. We sacrificed AC for the SHO so it could have nitrous and really fuckin’ pop, you know? But it’s not the most comfy vehicle in the world, and it smells like steel and armpit, so if you want something with less zoom, AC is fine.”

  Ellery stared at him. He was dead serious. All of it. Building Jackson a car to order. The car smelling like steel and armpit. Giving up air-conditioning when he lived in the middle of the fucking desert.

  “How fast is your damned car?” he asked, voice rusty.

  “Hits sixty in two and a half,” Ace said, like that wasn’t the fastest car in the world right there. “Does the quarter in ten.”

  “You wrecked in that car?” Ellery was horrified. He’d seen the yellow car pull up as he was walking into Walmart, and he’d rolled his eyes to himself about boys and their toys.

  This wasn’t a toy. This was a life’s fucking work is what it was.

  “A kid’s dog got loose at the race. Kid followed it.” Ace shrugged. “Had to swerve in front of the other car—wasn’t fast enough, I guess, ’cause he clipped me.”

  “Holy God.”

  “Yeah. So don’t worry if you come up short a car. I mean, Sonny won’t give up the SHO, ’cause that car’s—”

  “A miracle,” Ellery said, feeling numb.

  “Yeah. Sorta is. Can’t get one like it nowhere else. But we won’t leave you hanging.”

  Ellery took a deep breath and tried not to cry. It was about the sweetest fucking offer he’d ever had from someone not Jackson. “I won’t either,” he said softly. “If I don’t get out of this, Ace, my mother’s name is Taylor Cramer. If shit comes back to haunt you, you tell her one of the last things I said to you was to trust her, okay?”

  Ace’s lower lip wobbled. “That’s real kind. I’m sorry I was an asshole to you back in September.”

  “Yeah, well, I deserved it then.”

  “Don’t now?”

  “God, I hope not. I’m going to be pissing my pants until we see what’s going boom.”

  “I hope it’s okay that I want you to be right that it’s the SUV and not the SHO.”

  “Not at all. I’d love to see your car go zoom.”

  They were quiet then, each in his own thoughts, but then they’d said quite a bit in the last couple of hours.

  About an hour after the message, they heard a tampering with their lock again. The door didn’t open, but as they stared at the handle wiggling, they both heard the distinct pop and click of the latch.

  “Wait for it,” Burton whispered from the other side, and then he disappeared.

  Ellery and Ace were left just staring at the door, wondering if it was really unlocked and who was on the other side.

  “Wait,” Ellery said, his throat gummy. “Which way’s east?” Because who just knew that, right? A soldier might. A woodsman might. If Ellery was outside and could see the ocean to the west and the sun rising in the east he might, but here in this dingy little room, he had no idea.

  “Know how we drove for a while past the property, turned left onto a small road, and then turned in to here?”

&nbs
p; “Yeah.”

  “We were heading east before we turned left, then we were heading north, then we turned left again, so we were heading west. So the airplane hangar is toward the east anyway—you just gotta keep running that way.”

  Ellery nodded, and then something caught his eye. “Oh shit,” he whispered, and Ace looked at the switch in his hand.

  “Oh shit! You don’t suppose—”

  And that’s when shit went boom.

  Fish in the Army

  JAI DROVE his Toyota, and Sonny and Ernie rode toward the base in the Infiniti, Jackson at the wheel.

  “You’re a good driver,” Sonny said, almost clinically. “You tell the car what to do and the car listens. Ace is a good driver too, I mean he’s a better driver, but, you know, that’s cause he’s got the SHO but you’re not bad, I mean, it’d be okay if you wanted to do a quarter in a decent car, you’d come in second, I think you would, don’t you, Ernie?”

  Ernie was right behind them, buckled in by his middle but with the seat belt stretched way out so he was practically in Jackson’s lap. He reached forward and touched Sonny’s elbow.

  “I think Jackson’s a good man to have behind the wheel,” Ernie said softly, and to Jackson’s relief, Sonny nodded and sort of melted back into his seat. Jackson didn’t think he could have taken that manic chatter for the next forty-five minutes to their destination.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. Sonny was staring out the window, biting his lip, but he wasn’t quivering like the little dog they’d put in a crate back at the house.

  “Someone’ll… ’ll come get him out, right?” Sonny had asked plaintively before they left. “I mean, he’s got food and water and….”

  “Da,” Jai said gently. “Alba called me after Ernie sent her home. She’ll check.”

  Sonny nodded and looked relieved, but the tension hadn’t left him—until now. Until Ernie’s touch.

  “You do that a lot?” Jackson asked, to keep out of his own head. Right now his inner home entertainment center was fixed on the moment Ellery and Ace had been hustled out of the store, and he didn’t think he could see that panicked look Ellery had cast behind him one more time.