Bait: A Novel

by Messum, J. Kent

  “That feeding frenzy toward the end should have snagged another body,” said Greer. “I can’t believe they escaped that. At least four sharks picked up their scent, for Christ’s sake.”

  “That was a close call in the shallows,” replied Buchanan. “I tell ya, that Felix must have been one hell of a boxer back in his day.”

  “You would know.” Greer chuckled. “I hear he got a punch over on you a few days ago.”

  “That was dumb luck,” Buchanan replied. “And he barely grazed me.”

  “Sure, sure,” Greer said with a smirk and looked to the beach again. “They’ve all got some fight in them, I’ll give them that. And they’re trying to stick together out there. That’s . . . unusual.”

  Greer thought about the camaraderie that was starting to grow among the stranded. Violence and despair were bringing them together, as they had done with him and others many times before. His mind drifted. Memories came, of gunfire and explosions, of orders shouted and orders followed. Memories of men he was responsible for taken from him for all the wrong reasons. For years he’d been up to his eyeballs in drug interdiction operations, military sanctioned and CIA backed, combing the Afghan countryside for poppy crops and makeshift production facilities that in turn funded Taliban insurgents and terrorist cells. Poisoning the wells was how his superiors described his job. Fucking them from behind was how Greer viewed it. Hacking at the snake’s tail was supposedly easier than trying to cut the head off, but the danger didn’t diminish much. Given the opportunity, a snake’s strike was swift and sure from any angle.

  What a waste, Greer thought.

  “Sir?”

  He remembered trying to put Sergeant Sonnen’s head back together, split above the eyebrow by a sniper’s bullet a moment after Greer had ordered him to check a corner. He remembered the mortar round that came down on his squad a week later, shredding Specialist Wright’s body apart and leaving the rest of them untouched for some reason. He remembered Specialist Craddock disappearing in an IED explosion the following day. The only part of him they’d located afterward was a combat boot, foot still inside. Greer remembered the loss of each and every man who had ever been under his command. The ones he’d risked his own neck to save he remembered even better, dragging them injured and bleeding from an ambushed convoy to safety as machine-gun fire sprayed their position. Three of them were the very men who shared the boat with him now, and each would lay down his life for him. War was indiscriminate, but Greer was not. His men were never expendable, regardless of the “big picture” that the higher ranks loved to refer to whenever discussing the loss of his highly trained soldiers on the battlefield.

  What a terrible waste.

  And then there was Pike, the closest thing to a brother Greer had ever known. Sergeant Major Pike, Greer’s second in command since the start of the war, a career soldier who saved his captain’s life on more than one occasion, an operator who after years of brutal efficiency began to have trouble coming to terms with his actions, a man who returned home after his last tour and hit the bottle hard.

  Two weeks after landing back in Miami on leave, Pike found himself in a dive bar in Opa-locka, downing cheap beer until he was slurring his speech and falling off his stool. At closing he was tossed out onto the street, where he staggered back and forth until a couple of addicts found and cornered him. They demanded his wallet, watch, wedding ring, even his dog tags. Sober, Pike could have killed both of them in seconds with his bare hands, but inebriated he was no match for two opponents. Still, he tried to fight his muggers off. They dragged him into an alley and beat him to death for his efforts.

  After Greer beat the bar manager within an inch of his life for the security cam footage, he’d found the pawn shop where Pike’s effects had been fenced. It only took the severing of one finger before the shop owner gave up the sellers. The information led Greer to a shoddy vacant apartment strewn with drug paraphernalia. He waited, and when the junkies responsible for Pike’s death returned to cook up a score, Greer took his silenced Glock and put a .45 hollow-point in each of their stomachs to ensure a slow, agonizing death. With a framing hammer, he broke both of their jaws so they could not scream for help. Then he sat and watched them for some time as they tried to crawl away, punctured guts leaving blood trails on the filthy linoleum. He watched, ignoring their incoherent moans for mercy, until their bodies stilled, knowing that he’d done something right, something just.

  “Captain?”

  And when a crack whore had unexpectedly hammered on the junkies’ apartment door, demanding drugs and refusing to leave, Greer invited her inside and snapped her neck.

  “Captain Greer?”

  Greer snapped out of it. “Sorry, Sergeant, what did you say?”

  “I was wondering which of our contacts you think is ready for retirement, once we get back to Miami.”

  “You got an opinion on that?”

  Buchanan nodded. “I think that Catraz guy is wasting our time now. I’m sure we can get more out of Curtis Moffat if we put the squeeze on him.”

  “I agree.”

  Greer took a heavy drag on his cigar and peered across the channel of water he and his men affectionately called “the Killing Lanes.” His eyes rested on a dark fin cutting through the shallows. It sailed parallel to the nearby beach, knowing the prey that had escaped it earlier was now just beyond reach. Soon another fin appeared. They were patrolling, waiting for another opportunity.

  “Think these scabs will be as eager to continue after today?” Buchanan asked, stifling a yawn.

  “Once that heroin gets its claws in them, they’ll be more inclined,” Greer replied. “They always deliver during the second leg.”

  Greer finished off his beer. His hand slipped to his hip and patted the grip of the army-issue M11 holstered there, the gun that never left his side. Greer was not an emotional man, but the smile on his face implied a kind of gleeful satisfaction. He raised his binoculars again to look over the stranded on the beach, wondering who would be the last of the lot.

  “I like it when it gets down to one,” he said. “Go get some rest, Sergeant. I’ll take first watch of the night.”

  Nineteen

  The night passed in a euphoric blur. With two dead from the original group, the survivors had plenty of heroin to go around. They indulged, snorting again and again, throwing their heads back to stare at the moon and stars as the opiate seeped into their bloodstreams. The worms in their heads grew fat and satisfied, rolling cool and wet through their disjointed thoughts.

  For the first time they enjoyed each other’s company, laughing giddily as junk coursed through their veins. They strode and staggered around the trunk, shouting, dancing. Every now and then one of them would collapse into a giggling heap. Once or twice the heroin’s potency caused them to forget their ordeal completely. At all other times the horror was kept dulled and distant enough, though they instinctively avoided the water. In the darkened sea a half dozen fins patrolled the shallows, never changing speed, gliding to kill time. Had there been enough light for any of the stranded to see the lurking predators, one or two would have considered taking the easy way out. The intake of one whole pile at once might have been enough to finish someone, yet the thought of overdosing never crossed their minds. When the last of the heroin had been consumed the survivors fell into a deep, uninterrupted slumber.

  But inside that slumber, worlds were turned on their heads. The dreams that came were so vivid, so effective, so rooted in alternate realities of what might have been, that it brought tears to the closed eyes of those sleeping. Felix dreamed of fighting, using his fists to save his deadbeat mother from abusive men, being the protector he’d always wanted to be and not the attacker he’d been groomed to become. Ginger dreamed of pursuit, chasing a small laughing boy around a raggedy garden until she snatched him up and held him tight. Nash dreamed of fame, playing his guitar onstage night
after night to crowds of adoring fans under multicolored spotlights. Maria dreamed of home, walking the white beaches of Cayo Coco with her brothers and sisters, now grown up, pointing at crabs scuttling under shrubs while they consumed mouthfuls of dark rum and talked of a past that never happened.

  Nash woke late next morning in considerable pain. His body felt drained. His joints were rusty, his stomach empty and rumbling. Every muscle in his body ached, his exposed skin sore and hot from sunburn. The others slept nearby, covered in the sand they had rolled in during the night. Nash crawled on hands and knees around the trunk, examining the lid for leftovers, wanting another taste. Not a single speck of white dust remained. He decided to address the issue of hunger, though it was a distant second. He opened the box and rummaged inside.

  Food and water lay within, like the box before, but what grabbed Nash’s attention was the new envelope among the supplies, the one that Felix had discarded the previous afternoon. Nash went to grab it, but stopped short, his fingers tingling, unsure of whether to even touch it. He suddenly remembered the blood, the screaming.

  Don’t leave me, you fuck!

  Everything came rushing back, the horrors of the days before revisited in a single moment—Tal gibbering and drooling, fins slicing through sea, the bump that rocked Nash in the water like a buoy. And then the memory of Kenny came, his cries for help and shrieks of pain echoing inside Nash’s head. He saw it all again, running like a film reel, the boy trying to swim to safety with a stump for an arm before being dragged under the waves by a streamlined shape with glassy black eyes and endless pointed white in its mouth.

  Nash felt sick. A new nausea, brought on by fear and not chemical dependence, cramped his chin and twisted his guts. He glanced nervously at the sea. It was calmer than the day before, small waves rolling toward shore, softer sounds of them crashing on the beach. The ominous yacht was in the same spot. Only one figure sat on the deck. The figure waved to Nash. He ignored it.

  “Up bright and early, I see,” Nash mumbled. “You don’t want to miss a damn thing, do you?”

  Nash’s trembling fingers plucked the envelope from the box. He inspected it, wondering if his tormentor’s fingerprints were on it. They were too careful, Nash knew, too precise. He tore open the envelope and slid out the letter.

  Dear civilians,

  Congratulations on surviving the first swim. You have now successfully completed one half of your ordeal. You will find this box identical to the last one, with the added bonus of your promised heroin. We hope you enjoy your prize. You’ve earned it. There is another island to the north of this one. You must traverse the channel in order to reach the third and final box. Box #3 has a much larger supply of heroin and food within it. There are further instructions to retrieve something more for your troubles. A small boat and navigational equipment have been left for you on the beach, which you may use to reach safety.

  Nash groaned. He wanted the game to be over already. Only the mention of heroin and a means of escape stopped him from losing all hope. He read the letter over again, reaffirming the few details provided. The man on the yacht stood and walked around the deck, attracting Nash’s attention.

  What’s your deal? he thought. Just who the hell are you—

  The tap on his shoulder caused him to scream out in surprise, a primal, pathetic sound. He threw the note up in the air, where the breeze carried it for a moment before ending up crushed in Felix’s grip.

  “Christ!” Nash put a hand to his heart. “Don’t sneak up on a dude, dude.”

  “How much shit are we in?” Felix asked, looking at the paper in his grasp.

  “Neck deep, if we’re lucky.”

  Felix smoothed out the letter and read it over carefully to verify. His expression never changed. He hadn’t expected anything less.

  “Not out of the woods yet,” he said. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

  “At least there is a way out of the woods,” Nash replied.

  Felix looked at the moored yacht. “So they say.”

  “You’re not buying it?”

  “Not buying it entirely.”

  He handed the letter back. Both men mulled over what they’d just read in silence, taking advantage of their newly calmed minds. The heroin in the night had set the clock back on their collective time bomb, but they knew it wouldn’t last long.

  “Can I see the letter?” Ginger asked.

  She’d awoken and was sitting up, wiping sleep from her eyes. Maria lay nearby, curled up in a ball, eyes still closed.

  “Sure, if you want to wake up on the wrong side of the bed,” said Felix.

  “Look around,” Ginger replied, yawning, holding out a hand for the letter. “Someone totally shit the bed. It’s the wrong side no matter what.”

  Felix didn’t laugh and that was enough to snap Ginger out of her grogginess. Nash handed her the letter without a word. She stood and read it over before dropping it back in the box with a grunt.

  “Hell no,” she said. “I ain’t going through that again.”

  “None of us want to,” replied Nash.

  “Good.”

  “But I don’t know if we have a choice. . . .”

  Ginger folded her arms. “Fuck that, Nash. I’ve got a choice and I’m sure as hell gonna trust my instincts over yours this time.”

  “Ginger, your instincts were the same as mine and you fucking well know it.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Felix nodded at the yacht. “Honey, I doubt those guys out there will be willing to give us a choice. They’ve given us orders, and they expect us to follow them.”

  “Felix,” Ginger said, then paused, her resilience crumbling. “I . . . I can’t do it again. You guys can go. I’ll stay this time and—”

  “And do what?” snapped Felix. “Wait until withdrawal kicks in a few hours from now and starts to mess you up all over again?”

  “We can’t stay here, Ginger,” said Nash. “We’ll die if we stay.”

  “We’ll die if we leave,” Ginger protested, pointing toward the open water. “Jesus, does anyone remember the other two guys that were with us when we started? Do we need any more proof?”

  Ginger’s voice stirred Maria from slumber. She raised her head from the sand, appearing to wake slowly, but her eyes were wary and ready for anything. Ginger took one look at her and the animosity between them was back.

  “Go back to sleep, bitch.”

  Maria put her head back down, eyes like daggers flicking between Ginger and the two men. Nash noted the feral look in them. He’d seen cowering dogs act similar, ones in cages that couldn’t be trusted.

  “Swimming that channel was crazy in the first place,” Ginger said, turning to Felix. “And to even suggest doing it again is completely insane.”

  Felix put a hand on Ginger’s shoulder. “Look, I don’t want to be forced to swim in desperation like we did yesterday, full of pain, feeling nothing but sick and tired. It lowers our chances.”

  “Our chances?” she moaned. “What chance do we really have?”

  “What choice do we really have?”

  “You just want more junk,” Ginger said.

  “And soon you will too,” Felix said, looking her straight in the eye. “More and more every minute. . . .”

  He was talking sense, and that irritated her. Had it been the day before, she would have surely lashed out at him. The dope consumed during the night renewed her patience. She would hear the man out.

  “Furthermore,” Felix continued, “I’m not sure those guys on the boat will let us quit. They didn’t invest heavily in this game of theirs for nothing. We’re here to partake.”

  Ginger snorted. “All the more reason not to give them the satisfaction then.”

  Felix sighed. “To be honest, I think they’ll kill us outright if we don’t comply.”

 
Nash looked at the man on the deck of the yacht and gulped. He had no doubt that Felix was speaking the truth. Another man emerged from the yacht’s cabin, followed by a third and fourth.

  “Look, here’s the deal,” Nash said. “We know our kick last night was just enough to get us through the day, and then we’ll be back to pain and puke. That’s our vicious cycle, our lot, and right now we got a little downtime, but soon we’ll need what’s in that third box. And in case you haven’t noticed, this island ain’t the one we can escape from.”

  “You really think they’ve left a boat over there for us?” Ginger asked.

  Nash shrugged. “They haven’t lied about anything so far.”

  “I’d rather go now,” Felix said. “While we feel up to the task and know what we’re up against. Let’s use what little edge we have to our advantage.”

  “You’re fucking nuts,” Ginger said.

  Felix tried on a grin. “I hoped you wouldn’t notice.”

  He knelt in front of the open trunk and rummaged inside, pulling out supplies and laying them on the sand. Sandwiches, apples, energy bars, same as before. He scrutinized the sustenance before him, wishing more nutritional value had been provided.

  “Little more than a snack, but it’ll have to do,” he said. “Y’all get stuck in now and build up your strength to swim.”

  “It would be good if we go close to noon,” Ginger offered, checking the sun’s position in the sky. “I think sharks are more active at sunrise and sunset.”

  “Got a feeling you’re right about that dusk and dawn shit,” Felix said, tossing apples to her and Nash. “I’m down for whatever stacks the odds in our favor.”

  Maria rose from where she lay, licking her lips, taking a few timid steps toward the food that lay before Felix. He stopped her with a glare.