by By Jon Land
“Whenever you’re ready, Danny girl.”
“What are you doing here?” Danielle asked him, hovering over Ben who had just begun to stir on deck.
Black flashed his familiar grin. “I was sent to keep the two of you alive. Good thing you left me this ride, by the way. We get some time later, I’ll teach you a thing or two ‘bout engines,” he said, and stepped behind the wheel.
“Who sent you, Mister Black?” she asked him once they were underway.
“Friend of your boyfriend’s back in Arab land. Al something.”
“Colonel al-Asi?”
“Yeah, close enough. Sent me here to bring you back safe and sound. I’d say I earned my money.”
“I hope you got all of it in advance,” Ben said, rising gingerly to his feet next to Danielle. His face was swollen, and he mopped the blood and grime aside with his forearm. “Because we’re not going back.”
Danielle took his hand tightly and smiled at him.
Jim Black looked confused. “Colonel Al got word to me this morning he’d arranged for your names to be cleared in Israel and Palestine. No questions asked, considering the embarrassment he can cause over all the shit that’s gone down. Sounds like he’s the kind of man who means business.”
Ben and Danielle exchanged a glance, neither showing any enthusiasm for the proposal. Then both of them shook their heads.
“Thank the colonel for his efforts,” Ben said, smiling slightly as he thought of al-Asi forever working his strange magic. “But we’re not interested.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear what I said,” Black followed, his head cocked a little to the side.
“We heard you just fine.”
Black swatted a mosquito on his cheek and flicked it into the river. “You saying you want to stay here? Give up the chance to go home and be heroes?”
“We’ve tried that before,” Ben told him. “It didn’t work.”
The cowboy nodded in bemused admiration. “The two of you are really starting to impress me.”
“Just drop us at the next pier,” Danielle told him.
“That’s it?”
“Unless you want me to reconsider killing you.”
Black winked. “ ‘Nother day, maybe. Shit, there’s always tomorrow.”
Danielle looked at Ben. “There is now.”