by Ben English
Resonance.
Epilogue
The most tightly-populated city in the United States—in all the Americas, actually—was Union City, New Jersey. With a population density of well over fifty thousand people per square mile, it made a sort of rough sense to Rogiberto Revillame that he could hide here, among his cousins and second-cousins, and become, himself, perhaps, Americanized.
He had yet to venture out of the small apartment above the bakery owned by his cousin and her husband. She was heavily pregnant, and Rogiberto slept in a room decorated with sunflowers on pink wallpaper. They would never mention it aloud, but they hoped he would find somewhere else to stay, and soon.
The Albanian had left him with enough money to do pretty much anything, and by all rights the future should have felt brighter than it did. No, there was something else. A disquiet. Must be this place. He was not yet accustomed to all these strange faces and peoples. It weighed heavily on him, and Rogiberto found himself yearning to hear familiar cadences of speech.
He spent today as he had the last, sitting well back from the curtain, watching traffic. He’d tired of the news and the Cuban channels quickly—they had nothing to report on Havana but good news and sports scores—and all the locals he met were ridiculously pro-Espinosa. Back home, the airport re-opened to limited use after only a day. Havana had rallied around Espinosa, and the Cuban population in New Jersey echoed those feelings. It seemed like everyone on the street below walked by with a smile on their face. His hate for them grew.
A vent in the middle of the intersection outside his window spewed steam. During the day it was a grayish column, but after dusk, under the lights, it glowed white. When he stared at it long enough he could see shapes inside, rolling and forming with their own intent for a short time before evaporating into nothingness as they met the cold vacuity of the night sky.
Rogiberto blinked back to full mindfulness when he saw the man. What had he been thinking about? No cars had passed the window for some time, and the figure appearing suddenly on the street surprised him. A tall, lean fellow in a dark coat. Must have crossed the street from the opposite corner; he’d gone unseen until he stepped right through the plume of steam.
Back to thoughts of Havana, of home, until after a few minutes there was a soft knock at his door. Rogiberto ignored it until the knock sounded again, more insistent.
His cousin’s husband was such a mouse. When Rogiberto opened the bedroom door, he saw the mouse in question addressing a taller man standing in the living room, a fair-haired American. The man was not overly large or musclebound, but for some reason his physical presence carried the significance of a thunderclap in the low-ceilinged room. He bore more than a passing resemblance to the actor, Jack Flynn. Especially when he smiled.
“Hello,” he said. “My name is Peter Dalton. Thank you for letting me in.”
End Notes
I’m never sure how this comes across to you, readers, but the world that the story of Jack Be Nimble takes place in is much, much larger and more detailed than anything described in the books. I hope you get a sense of that. Victoria Moran Flynn is a great example of this idea—she’s a pretty interesting person, but only a few of the details about her history with Jack and the team found their way into the first four books because her adventures and mini-stories didn’t really serve to move *this* story forward. Got to be faithful to the story at hand.
(Thanks to all the folks who’ve told me that Toria deserves her own story. You’re right!)
The women in Jack Be Nimble are as real as I could make them, and just like the fully-functioning humans in my life on whom they’re modeled, Mercedes, Toria, Nicole, and Irene are strong, smart, and don’t respond well to attempts at coercion or forceful domination.
That’s why Toria just had to be part of the chapter where we get to see Alonzo and Jack start the team. I have mixed feelings about “The First Time.” In our world, human trafficking and slavery in the sex trade is actually worse than I describe. There are over 25 million slaves in the world today, around 80% are women, and “the industry” generates more money every year than Hollywood. Slavery is low risk and high profit, just like always. This is exactly the kind of thing that should fill every real man with blinding, ice-hot rage. I broke a keyboard typing this chapter.
Was so great to see Jack and Alonzo give those particular bad guys a bloody nose. I’m a fan of these two guys, too, and I want to see more of this kind of thing in the future. And Jack is right, the slavers should count themselves lucky that Victoria stayed behind to coordinate the mission and pass them intel.
That chapter took place in the days before Steve the Hacker, who loves to stay behind in the crow’s nest. I imagine him building little forts out of Pop-Tarts and jerky while everyone else is getting shot at. The hacks that Steve uses to eventually get into Raines’ systems are fairly straightforward, by the way. The media might make hackers out to be brilliant techno-wizards, but in all reality, few people realize how easy it is to hack on this level—and that the majority of “genius-level” hackery that recently breached a major Hollywood studio, the CIA’s website, and nearly every bank, transportation, and energy provider in the U.S. in the same month can be learned by watching 12 year-olds demonstrate it on YouTube.
Need to thank the crew of the USS Makin Island for allowing my family and I to wander around the decks and play with the 50mm guns. Bata’an wasn’t available to researching civilian novelists, but the pilots, squids, squidettes, and bluejackets on her sister ship made us feel very welcome. Thank you for your service to our country & for letting my daughter try on your hats.
And, as always, thank you for reading these books and writing in to share your thoughts. Outspoken delight is very gratifying—but I appreciate even more when you enthusiastically explain to your friends that Jack Be Nimble is a fun read, that there really is something engaging about this cross-genre series of adventure-romance-suspense-science fiction-humorous thriller books, and that everyone should rush right out to their local bookstore and order a copy. Or five!
Much thanks!
Ben
Table of Contents
Foreword
Augury
Not Yet
Provocateur
First
Marduk
Motion, Captured
The Prayer of Ajax Was For Light
The F alcon and the Falconer
Any Landing You Walk Away From
Ascendance
Under the Banyan
From a Long Way Off
Miles To Go Before I Sleep
Vantage
Zeroed
Caramel Apple
For Want of a Nail
Trail of Breadcrumbs
Gravity
Born and Bred in a Briar Patch
Contingency
The Story About the Well
Share of Patience
Temple of the Pagan God
A Place to Stand
Not His First War
Treehouse
What Raines Wrought
Slips Past
The Verge
Vertical Sprint
Second Set of Eyes
Sirena
Marionette
Grandfather’s Cello
The Center Cannot Hold
In the Air
Meet Me at the Well
Flanked
Buried
The Prayer of Ajax and the Song of Achilles
Further Up and Further In, Part 2
Beacon and Memory
The Only Cure for Grief
Archimedes’ Principle of Buoyancy
The Signal
Jack Be Nimble
Epilogue
End Notes