by Vince Milam
“Doesn’t matter.” I took the final step, stood on the deck, and scanned the perimeter. The Glock remained tucked in my back waistband.
Her voice rose from the dark of the lower bunk rooms. “Well, anyway, thanks again. You going to bed?”
“Later. Good night, Jessica.” It was hard to discern if an invitation came with her question, but it didn’t matter. I eased back to the front-deck throne and planned tomorrow’s mission. Within two minutes, light snores drifted from the secure internal warmth of the Ace as Jessica slept.
A four-hour run to Chesapeake, Virginia, just south of Norfolk. Dive the dark web, and shoot Jules a message, requesting a Clubhouse appointment around noon. My satellite cell phone had the best encryption money could buy, but Jules remained prickly about voice-to-voice communication. She lived down deep. The dark web existed on overlay networks within the public Internet. It required specific software, configurations, and authorizations to access. Search engines like Google didn’t index the dark web. It offered a murky and brackish hiding place for people who sought anonymity.
With this new assignment in Suriname, Jules would sell me her available information on that place. This assumed she’d agree to meet at her Chesapeake Clubhouse—a small, windowless, steel-walled room above a Filipino dry cleaner. Infamous, a woman of indeterminate middle age and origin, Jules met by appointment only. Close to Norfolk and DC, she plied her trade as an information broker, and the Clubhouse received visitors from clandestine civilian and military services. If you wanted information, she’d provide it—for a price.
While she did communicate to set up appointments through dark-web encrypted means, she conducted business face-to-face and with hard copy—specifically, plain index cards with written contacts, descriptions, and actionable information. She also bought information, as long as you provided such on an index card, a task I’d perform during the run north.
Interactions with Jules resembled a poker game, and I had a few jacks, queens, and kings. It kept her price down. She calculated the balance of the information dollars with the clack of an abacus. Jules of the Clubhouse—what a piece of work. But underneath her unfathomable facade, she always indicated a soft spot toward me. Go figure.
Jessica’s light snores joined the Ditch nightlife chorus—frogs, the occasional swirl of a fish surfacing, and the death-knell call of a rabbit or other small creature as it succumbed to the night hunters. The old recliner protested with a creak as I shifted to survey the dock area. Once I was downstairs, the early alarm system on the Ace would alert me to any intruders. But now, exposed on the foredeck and surveying my kingdom, the standing orders were to move swift and be ready to kill.
I considered a silent trip belowdecks. Retrieve a bottle. I dismissed the thought and invited another. Rae Ellen Bonham. My wife. A Memphis girl, graduate of the University of Tennessee, majoring in graphic design. She’d worked at a Savannah design company when I’d met her. The connection had been instant.
I’d retired from Delta Force, along with my other team members. Delta was a young man’s endeavor. We’d all left that chronological category. A hard decision, and I’d missed the focus on mission, team, doing good. Taking out the bad guys. Somalia, Syria, El Salvador. Malaysia, Iraq, Yemen. Insert, take care of business, pull out. A known place in the world, spear point for the good guys.
Once retired, I’d drifted, sought meaning, and wandered my hometown of Savannah. Then I’d met Rae. She had anchored me. Pulled me into a new world, a different picture. Stable and fulfilling in its own way. We’d dated, I’d gotten a job at the Port of Savannah, and we’d married. Delta Force faded, left behind.
I’d long heard speculation of a bounty. Rumor had it our tight team of Marcus, Bo, Angel, Catch, and I all had prices on our heads. Somewhere, we’d stomped on a hornet’s nest with deep pockets. But it was human nature to shove bad thoughts aside, coupled with the hope that inactive duty would remove the alleged reward for our deaths. I was a civilian now, far removed from the intensity of special operations.
Life in Savannah settled into a satisfying tempo. We talked of starting a family. There was work, lazy walks, and Trivial Pursuit night with friends. Rae excelled at the entertainment, art, and literature categories of the game. Geography and history for me. We made a great team across a wide range of endeavors. My mate, my lover.
Neither of us had felt like cooking that night, so I’d gone to get takeout. Chinese. I returned; the front door of our small bungalow was ajar. The internal warning sounded, shrill. Leaving the food on the sidewalk, I circled to the back. The kitchen door remained quiet when opened. A strange man, pistol with silencer at his side, stood over Rae. Blood pooled around her head.
An explosion filled me, a flash of pure animalistic fury, the kill switch on. He didn’t hear my approach across the linoleum floor but sensed me, too late. I snapped his neck.
He turned out to be Lebanese. A run-of-the-mill bounty hunter.
I moved my mom and sister to Charleston, away from our home base, and swept our tracks. And I bought the Ace of Spades, starting a low-key, lost life. Through backdoor contacts, wealthy business clients communicated with me. They asked for my services. Former Delta Force members were in global demand.
Somewhere in the muck and haze, a personal formulation developed. A line drawn, lived. I’d find answers for clients but wouldn’t murder. A moral framework, a road map. Something that helped define this next phase of life. Kill to protect myself and my loved ones, but never murder.
A splash off the bow drew my attention. A fish, feeding. It surfaced again, the circular ripple visible in the moonlight. Stars cast great swaths across the sky, the distance impenetrable, unfathomable. The universe, with my sorry ass a minuscule pinpoint on the blue ball called Earth. That universal force—God or cosmic energy or an interwoven power—knew me, acknowledged me. Had to. I felt it, sensed it. Absorbed it among the life all around me, the emotions, the efforts. And among the brutality of what we called nature. But my ability to reciprocate, to communicate, had been slapped, thwarted. I tried, reached, but couldn’t formulate that connectivity.
I caught myself starting to doze, and sack time called. Ditch night sounds diminished as I set alarms and trip wires and then made my way to the forward bunk. Jessica slept, the Ace cradled us both, and violent dreams came easy.
Chapter 3
The still of morning greeted me with its usual muted manner. I padded past the sleeping girl to grab bacon and eggs from the fridge, emerged on the top deck, and scanned the area. Barefoot, shirtless, and dressed in green Walmart running shorts—my Glock tucked in a pocket—I shivered awake in the morning cool. The topside propane grill accommodated a coffeepot and griddle. The two-burner setup also offered heat. A busy day ahead, and the aches and twinges said nothing, but it’s great to be alive, and here we go again. I shook off last night’s musings and acknowledged the inarguable fact that millions this morning were doing a lot worse than me. A flock of ducks splashed nearby, the sky cloudless, and I huddled over the propane burners, rubbing my hands.
I’d make sure Bo watered the tomatoes. Plenty of grocery stores lined the Ditch at irregular intervals, and their fresh produce was more than sufficient, except for the tomatoes. You couldn’t buy a decent tomato anywhere except for the occasional farmers’ market. I loved the heirloom varieties not found in commerce. The lineup of black plastic pots held a Caspian Pink, a Cherokee Purple, a Yellow Brandywine, and an Aunt Ginny’s Purple. Four heirloom plants filled with promise.
Bo Dickerson would tend them well. He took such things seriously. Bo was one of four true friends. Our Delta Force team. Our former team leader ranched in Montana. Another lived and worked near Portland, Oregon. The fourth resided parts unknown.
Bo called the Great Dismal Swamp home, a couple of hours south of Chesapeake via its own canal. His boat, unnamed and unregistered and tucked back in a swamp slough, made the Ace of Spades look like the Queen Mary. Bo kept a pickup at an abandoned house he
owned off Highway 17. This conveyance would rumble me to the Norfolk airport for the flight to Suriname. The Ace would stay with him.
My buddy had kept the scraggly beard and long hair from his Delta Force days—bright-red hair, hence easier to identify for those who wished to kill him. He’d once told me, “I want them to know it’s me, Case. I want them to know exactly who it is that’s canceling their birth certificate.”
Bo Dickerson might have been semi-batshit-crazy, but he’d found a weird sort of peace—a behavioral attribute I envied. Besides, I’d die for him, and him for me. Those types of friends are hard to come by.
Sounds of life drifted up from below.
Jessica decided to emerge, either due to the smell of coffee and bacon or my poorly hummed rendition of Willie Nelson’s “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.” She climbed to the deck with a large, loud yawn. “I used your bathroom.”
“Good. Hungry?”
She had washed her face and hand-combed her hair and now stood as the child she was—wrapped in a bed blanket, vulnerable, curious, and blinking. “I guess. Aren’t you cold?”
“Bacon and eggs okay? Coffee’s ready soon.”
She wandered over, ran a hand along the deck rail, and stood next to me—pretending to stare into the distance. She cast glances in my direction while facing the Ditch. “Cool tat.”
The tattoo comment danced around her real question, but she’d arrive there soon enough. The early light, prior to the sun’s direct rays, accentuated my scars from bullets, knives, and shrapnel.
“Thanks.” She had referred to my sole tattoo: a small passion cross on my left shoulder. A remnant from a wandering relationship.
I poured coffee into two thick ceramic cups. She accepted hers and took a deep inhale. “Man, this smells good. So, what’s with all the scars?”
That discussion wasn’t going to happen, but I had to smile at her youthful directness. The coffee did smell good, and the bacon began to pop. “Altercations of one type or the other. I’ve got to leave after breakfast. You’ll be okay. The town’s waking up.”
She drifted toward the bow, plopped on the throne, and pulled her feet beneath her. The blanket stayed wrapped as a large shawl. “Sure. You coming back here to Joiner soon?”
“Eventually. Scrambled okay?”
“Sure.”
We ate, her in the throne while I leaned against the wooden rail. The morning coolness faded, vehicle sounds drifted over from Joiner, and a small tug pushed down the Ditch. She spoke about Billy and attempted to confirm my assessment. “Basically, you think I can do better.”
“I think you can do different. That boy has a mean streak. It might help if you acknowledge it.” I’d spoken my piece and had no intention of a Dr. Phil moment, so I added, “How do you spend your days, Jessica?” I held up a bottle of Cholula hot sauce as an offering.
“No, thanks. And I get to go first, and I’ll bet anything whatever you do is related to those scars. You some kind of badass spy? Did you get those in foreign countries? I want to travel.”
The circular statements back to Jessica, center of the universe at her age, were normal and smile-inducing.
“Simple private investigator. That’s it. How about you?”
She attended community college and worked part-time at a supply store. Once unleashed, she flew the conversational gamut from home to work to boys and back again. She appeared young and fresh without all the makeup. A pleasant scene with a nice young lady to start the day, but the time to be underway approached.
“So Mom thinks office skills—you know, Microsoft Excel and Word and PowerPoint and stuff—but graphic design is a lot cooler, but Mom doesn’t think the jobs are there, you know? But then she sent off for these stupid commemorative plates, which makes no sense. So I’m not sure she’s in a position to offer great advice. Good eggs and bacon. Thanks. And I’ll do the dishes.”
She did, while I checked the mechanical status of the Ace, shoved memories of a lost graphic designer aside, and fired the lone diesel. A quick check of the satellite phone and laptop confirmed connectivity to a geostationary big bird in the sky. Jessica climbed the steps from below as I headed down to find index cards to populate with handwritten notes for Jules. A quick glance showed that Jessica had done a more than adequate job of cleaning up. “Thanks for doing the dishes.”
“No problem.”
I retreated and let her exit. She threw one leg over the Ace’s rail and prepared to step on the dock when she reversed the process, came over, hugged me, and kissed my cheek. I reciprocated with gentle back pats. Then off again as she climbed onto the dock and turned to say, “Thanks again for putting me up. You’re cool, Case.”
She shuffled along the dock toward Joiner central while I untied, settled among the clutter of the wheelhouse, and turned north. The old navigation charts, empty booze bottles, and various paper receipts and notes shifted with the breeze coming through the wheelhouse windows. The Glock was used as a paperweight. Busy day ahead. We plowed along the Ditch, fish broke the placid surface, and fragile watery vegetation bobbed and weaved in the Ace’s wake.
Chapter 4
The Intracoastal Waterway emptied into Currituck Sound and allowed me to switch the Ace of Spades to autopilot. Currituck offered a ten-mile passage across open water, straddling the North Carolina–Virginia border. The breeze off the Atlantic generated a slight chop, which the Ace handled with aplomb. The old diesel engine belowdecks sounded its soothing blue-collar rumble, the air thick with the primal smell of estuarial saltwater.
A stack of empty index cards represented potential trading currency, so I got to work. Contact information for a Yemeni arms trader made for a good start, followed by a Colombian smuggler for hire. Southeast Asia was always in-demand currency, so I added several cards with contact details pertaining to arms dealers and pirates. I added some foreign-consulate staffers who could be transformed into conduits of information with a few Benjamins. In short order, I’d compiled a dozen trading cards.
The Clubhouse meeting request had been left on the dark web for Jules. Confirmation was always iffy—Jules had her own peculiar set of rules and moods. More than once she’d disappeared for weeks, throwing the clandestine community from DC to Norfolk into a rumor mill of kidnapping, a defection to the Russians or Chinese, or an early retirement either through her personal decision or a violent death. Then she would return, refuse to talk about the disappearance, and move forward with her usual insouciance.
Cruising the Currituck and waiting for a response from Jules afforded an opportunity to catch lunch and catch up with Mom and CC. I put an earbud in the phone and speed-dialed prior to rigging a simple hook-and-sinker combination on my fishing rod. Mom answered after two rings.
“What’s shaking, Mary Lola Wilson?” I asked. Mom and my mentally challenged sister lived in Charleston, South Carolina. Mom had taken back her maiden name after Dad had died of cancer. Moving her to Charleston after Rae’s murder had worked out well. If any headhunters of the deadly serious kind swept through my hometown of Savannah, sniffing my trail, they’d come up empty. Mom’s name and location change offered a degree of safety for the two of them, and I never lingered long when visiting. Just in case I had been trailed.
“Case, Case. Before you get wrapped around the nearest axle, just know Ginger Hendrik’s daughter is both a lovely intelligent girl and available. That’s all I’m saying, and next time you do one of your flybys in your rickety boat, it wouldn’t hurt one little bit to go have coffee with the girl. That’s all I’m saying.”
She could always make me smile. Her voice and the fine day lifted me. “Does she tango, Mom? I like a girl who knows how to tango.”
“Hush and tell me where you are and what you’re doing.”
I baited the hook with a piece of squid and tossed the line forward of the Ace. I intended to catch a few small croakers. Given the Ace’s mellow speed, the bait would stay on the bottom for twenty or thirty seconds before it began to d
rag behind. I’d reel back in and repeat.
“Cruising north of you. I’m going to be out of touch for a week or so.”
“Oh, honey.” I heard a slurp of coffee as she fueled up for another admonition. “You are a fine young man with vast potential, child of mine. It’s time to settle down, stop traipsing around the world, and find a nice girl.” Mom declined to qualify it—another nice girl—and I appreciated it.
“Well, given my sterling attributes as per Mary Lola, it’s probably best to wait until that president of the United States gig opens up.”
“I’m serious, and when you get back from your trip to what I’m sure is some godforsaken place, I fully expect you to visit. And have coffee with that lovely girl. And CC misses you.”
CC, eight years my junior, never responded to her given name of Celice. She had been born with what the docs called an intellectual disability. She required considerable support from Mom, but she had learned simple health and safety skills and participated in activities.
She was my polestar. Despite my failings and flailing and path-seeking, CC never ceased to fill me with joy and appreciation of life’s small wonders. She lived in the immediate and observed and digested the events I passed off as mundane. CC painted verbal pictures with vibrancy and amazement and fed them back to me, wondrous.
“And I miss her. And you. Is CC handy?”
Mom put her on the phone. “Case! You cannot believe. I mean it,” CC said.
Focused intent and awe of the world came over the line. I reeled in and cast the bait again. “What, my love? What?”
“Roses. Miss Johnson next door. You know her?”
“I do.”
“Roses. Red and white. Some with red and white on one flower. Together! On one flower!”
“I bet they are beautiful.”
“So beautiful. Miss Johnson said she would cut me one of the red ones, for me, but I told her no. No because a flower belongs in the ground where they grow. That’s why.”