The Gift of the Dragon

by Michael Murray

  Michel

  They ate, and then they sat under the empty building, quietly playing cards, cleaning weapons, and checking gear. Michel wanted to wait until midnight before moving on the house where Sangerman hid. “The Sangerman girl may look like a chubby little Becky, but I’m going to be careful. Also, her friend must have some training, and we don’t know for sure it’s just the spook mama and her twinkie in the house.”

  “So now we hurry up and wait,” said Almaribe.

  Annoyed, Michel asked, “Think you can hack it, Martin boy?”

  “Sure.” Almaribe leaned back on his pack, pretending to sleep. “Good night, Dad.”

  Marsdale worried aloud that their targets might leave.

  Michel said, “My gut says they are settled for the night. Besides, if they leave by car, we’ll see them go by here, and if they leave by that boat, well those are old OptiMax motors on the catamaran. Decent engines but very loud. We’ll hear them start up, and then it’ll be easy. Just go sink them and call it a night.”

  “What if they leave by boat while we are hiking up to the house by land?”

  Michel glared at Marsdale but then thought about it.

  “Sanchez, take the SeaCraft and make sure they can’t get their boat started if they try to run that way. Do it quietly, though, use the trolling motor.”

  “Shee-it, man, that’ll take an hour!”

  “Right, well, if you hear them start their motors, then you fire up and go stop them. Otherwise stick with the electric motor. It’s very quiet.”

  Sanchez held up his Peacemaker. “I don’t want to use this when I’m near the water.”

  Michel groaned. “Shit, Sanchez, you can use your fucking knife, okay? Just be quiet.”

  Sanchez grinned. “Sure, boss. My Night Raider is very quiet.” If Sanchez loved anything in this world, he loved that long, black knife.

  “We don’t have the road covered, though, if they leave by car,” said Marsdale.

  Michel wrinkled his forehead.

  “Right. Pigpen, take that RPG and go sit up by the road. If you hear a car coming, take it out.”

  Siegert said, “Yes, sir,” gathering the long metal tube of the Airtronic rocket-propelled grenade; he walked up the driveway to his new post.

  The rest of the team quietly joked or napped until quarter to midnight, when Thorn gave a low whistle.

  “Time to go, babes. Let’s get this party started.”

  The men grunted, groaned, and gathered up their gear. Thorn estimated it would take about ten minutes to carefully work their way along the tree line to the target house.

  Marsdale and Almaribe led the way up the driveway toward the point where they would split off and head north. With the bright moon and the cloudless sky, the men left their heavy night-vision goggles in the packs on their backs. Soon, they arrived at the part of the road where it emerged from the thick pine and palmetto forest and into a sandy plain with clumps of grass and smaller, spiky bushes that cast long, sharp shadows.

  Thorn held up his hand for a stop and then told Almaribe,

  “Go and bring Siegert back down here.”

  Marsdale added, “Tell him not to forget the RPG.”

  “All right, I’m off. Hey, at least you’re not asking me to work for a living!”

  He trotted off up the drive toward the road.

  Thorn looked at Marsdale. “Fucking Almaribe. What was he talking about?”

  “Line from a show he likes. He’s trying to be funny.” Trying is the right word for it, Thorn thought. Well, I can play that game too!

  “Yeah, well, I need less trying and more doing from him.” Thorn looked expectantly at Marsdale, who stared back gamely.

  Finally, Thorn broke the stare, looked down, and spat. “That was a line from a show too.” Not a Star Wars fan, mate?

  Marsdale said nothing as Almaribe and Siegert trotted back into view.

  As they came from the darkness of the roadway into the moonlight, Almaribe smirked at Siegert.

  “Do you think we’re on a mission from God, Piggy?” Almaribe pointed at the old-fashioned sunglasses perched atop Siegert’s head. Looking surprised, Siegert touched them. “Huh?”

  “Jesus wept, Pigpen’s never seen The Blues Brothers!”

  “Ah, the glasses are for if someone turns on the light when we are in the house.”

  “How will they do that? We’ll cut the power before we go in, right, Thorn?”

  “Nah, we’ll cut the phone, but no reason to cut the power. If we find the breaker, maybe, but don’t anyone cut the power line. Too likely to make noise. If they have fire alarms or surge protectors, it could make them beep. Anyway, we may want the power on later. Siegert’s smarter than you on this one, Martin. Good idea, Johan.”

  “Any alarms?”

  “Citizens with visitors often turn their alarms off. Guests are too likely to set them off.” Seeing Siegert’s worried look, Thorn went on, “Please don’t cry, Johan. Marsdale will go in first to check and shut it down if it’s on. He got special training in that, right, Alan?”

  Marsdale patted a small bag strapped to his belt. “I even have my equipment.”

  Time to move. Standing up, Thorn said, “Form up.” Then he pointed north up the tree line. “Stay close to the trees, in the shadows. My guess is that our three little bears and Goldilocks are sound asleep by now. I don’t want to take chances, though, so play this by the book.”

  “In the book, the bears are away, and only Goldilocks is home.” Said Almaribe.

  “Well, in this book, Goldilocks is the one to be worried about, so let’s hope she is sleeping soundly,” Marsdale said.

  “And I hope she sleeps soundly right up to the moment when I stick my fork in her porridge and call her just right!” Almaribe laughed.

  “In der Nacht der Deve gank,” Siegert said.

  Almaribe raised his dark eyebrows high at that.

  “What does that mean, Piggy?”

  Marsdale cut in. “Sort of a Spezialkräfte prayer, right, Johan?”

  Siegert nodded. “I used to say it before night missions. I… it is from an old poem.”

  “JeSUS, let's cancel this party and hit the library!” Thorn said. “If you ladies are done with your book club meeting, let’s get on with the murder and mayhem we’ve planned!”

  Thorn had been running strike teams long enough to know that some humor before a dangerous mission helped the men settle into the job at hand. Often the waste of time pissed him off, but tonight the more they waited, the deeper their targets would be asleep. The men grinned together, Siegert slapped Almaribe’s back, and Marsdale smiled and winked at Thorn, giving him a thumbs-up.

  Thorn rolled his eyes and then, making a chopping motion with his arm, walked carefully north, staying in the shadows. Marsdale fell in behind him, then Almaribe, then Siegert. Thorn, Almaribe, and Marsdale carried their silenced pistols in their hands. Siegert walked with the RPG slung over his shoulder.

  In the plane, Thorn had talked of pythons and poisonous snakes as though the Keys were crawling with them, making it risky to let your feet touch the ground. Marsdale had pointed out that also on Sugarloaf lived one of the last wild herds of the small, half-tame Key Deer. The air sang with the songs of insects, yet they didn’t see any wildlife that night, and they quickly made it to the next driveway. As they turned down it, Almaribe looked around and said, “This is what they mean by a killing moon.”

  Marsdale said, “Yeah. Good luck, Martin.”

  “There is no luck, mate. Just fate.”

  Alice

  Alice dreamed that she was sitting back on the yurt’s porch in Oregon, talking to Jenny. Jenny said something she could barely hear, something about the people who were after her, how they would never rest until they found her, how they had access to technology that would let them locate her even when she thought she had hidden well…

  The cool forest of Willamette Springs dissolved into the hot Florida night as Alice awoke with a start
, her body shaking with panic. What had she been doing? Drinking and laughing as if all her problems were solved by Guzman’s death!

  She sat up immediately, feeling some wrong thing about to happen. Over the soft lapping of the calm Gulf water she heard a low, electric whine, coming closer. She slid off the bench and crouched down behind the wooden dock box inside which extra life jackets and dock lines were kept. The whine stopped, and she heard something splash in the water. She tried to calm her rushing breath as she heard more splashes, coming closer. The splashing stopped, and something bumped on the dock. Her hands scrabbled for some kind of weapon. She found a short length of line, hanging partly out of the box. She slowly pulled it out. It turned out to be about three feet of braided nylon. I can use this.

  Alice stared hard at the edge of the dock in the moonlight and then nearly cried out as a the dark shape of a man’s head, something long and thin in his teeth, poked up. Swiftly he put an elbow on the dock, rolled a leg up, and in one smooth motion stood, with the thin shape revealed as a long knife gleaming in the moonlight.

  Alice froze behind the wooden box, holding her breath. The man looked around and then moved toward where the catamaran lay moored on the side of the dock away from Alice’s hiding place. He leaped over the low side of the boat and sliced at the thick nest of wires going into the starboard motor.

  Without thinking Alice said, “Hey!”

  The man whirled and suddenly stood back on the dock facing Alice.

  “What’re you doing? That’s my friend’s boat!”

  The man stared hard at her. “Alice?… Alice Sangerman?” While talking, he walked slightly to the side.

  Turning to face him, Alice said, “Who wants to know?” As she spoke, Alice realized he had put the moon behind him as he moved. To get a good look at my face?

  The man shrugged. “It’s not important. You can call me Sanchez.”

  Then he lunged at her with the knife.

  Alice’s body moved as if of its own accord, toward the man! Stepping aside as he thrust his blade through the space she had been in, she turned her back to him, arching her hands over her head, with one end of the rope in each hand. She wrapped the rope around the attacker’s throat and then twisted away from him, pulling hard with her right hand. This move pulled Sanchez backward off his feet, and Alice stepped over him, kicking away the knife.

  She should have kept the tension on the rope then, until Sanchez passed out, but her left arm chose this time to freeze up in a spasm, and the rope fell from her open hand. She spun away, managing to kick Sanchez in the head. She opened her mouth to scream, but at that moment Sanchez landed on her stomach, driving the wind from her, reaching his hands down to grab her throat. Feeling his iron grip close, Alice panicked and grabbed Sanchez’s wrists. She caught his eye then, seeing cold determination. This one meant to kill her. Quickly.

  Swim inside, a voice said in her head. Let go. The training her body remembered took over. She pulled her elbows together and let go of Sanchez’s wrists. She put her hands together, holding them straight down, and then raised them up in a swimming motion, and brought them through Sanchez’s arms, pushing apart, breaking his grip.

  Simultaneously, she gripped his ankles with her own, spreading her legs apart, putting Sanchez off balance. Falling, Sanchez thrust his brow straight down at her. Alice jerked her head to the side, deflecting his blow some, but he still hit her hard, and stars danced before her as she turned. Pulling his knees beneath him, Sanchez reared back for another head butt.

  That was a mistake. Alice got her right hand on his chin, and her left hand grabbed his ear. She twisted Sanchez off her and onto the dock. Now, she rolled on top of him. She rose up and brought her hand back to strike, but then Sanchez exploded up with his hips and rolled to his right, grabbed her love handles, and threw her off. She fell, gasping in pain. She felt something hard under her shoulder. Sanchez’s knife! She leaped back to her feet, the blade reaching forward.

  She struck at Sanchez overhand. He grabbed her wrist, his eyes focused on the knife. She brought her left hand up, pushing his away, and shoved the knife sideways toward his throat. His eyes wide now, he brought his left hand up to block her strike. He moved too slowly. The blade drew a dark line on his flesh. Now he tried to shout, but only bubbling noises emerged from his lips as he fell down, drowning in his own blood.

  Breathing hard and suddenly exhausted, Alice sank down to sit on the dock. She watched the life fade from Sanchez’s eyes, his blood black in the moonlight, pouring through the gaps in the dock and dripping into the sea.

  Alice drew breath then to shout for Jacob, to warn the others in the house, and then stopped herself. Sanchez probably didn’t work alone.

  He was trying to disable the boat.

  That meant there could be more of his kind. If the attack were well timed, they would already be here. Alice looked at the house, the steel roof glowing white in the moonlight and the windows beneath it dark and quiet, like staring eyes watching for movement. She wiped off the combat knife on Sanchez’s bloody shirt and looked over the edge of the dock where he came from. Down there sat a small, narrow, black boat, almost a kayak. Inside it she saw an automatic pistol with the black tube of a silencer attached to it. He must have put it down before climbing up.

  He had been trying to keep quiet. If there were more of them, they were likely trying to be stealthy also.

  She dropped into the rubber craft, balancing carefully. Where she had been sleeping on the bench, he probably couldn’t see her even with the night-vision goggles she also found. As she looked up at the dock, almost level with her head, she thought she knew why he left his stuff in the boat. It would have been hard to keep quiet climbing up carrying all that. Alice guessed the dead man thought to get up, clear what seemed to be an empty area quickly, and then bring his equipment up at his leisure.

  Alice grabbed the gun, and then the night-vision goggles, and placed them up on the wooden boards. Then she vaulted up next to them, wishing her T-shirt didn’t shine so brightly in the light of the moon.

  She looked at Sanchez, at his long-sleeved shirt covered with blood. It looked nasty, but it was black. She stripped that off him and put it on, shuddering as she felt the wetness on her skin. She looked at his pants. Her legs shone bone white in the moonshine, even with her tan. She put the pants on too, rolling the cuffs up.

  Crouching down, she stared up at the house again. The railing on the shoreward side of the dock should block some of the view of a watcher in the house, but if Sanchez’s friends were up there during her fight, they could have seen enough to be alarmed. She counted to sixty, and still she saw no sign of life in the windows. She breathed out then. They must not have made their move yet. They would see the body, though. She tried, but in the warm air the body had grown stiff already, and she could not bend him enough to hide him behind the dock box.

  Putting the rope she had strangled him with under his arms, she eased his body back into the water, gently so as not to make a splash. May the lobsters that are left feast tonight! She felt a little guilty but reminded herself what he had tried to do.

  Alice looked at the long, wooden path to shore. With the moon halfway down the sky, it might as well have been a spotlighted catwalk. Anyone looking out from the house would see her walking up it. Deep shadows lay on the southern side of the dock, opposite the moon. She would have to go in the water along that side to remain hidden. Sighing, she turned back to Sanchez’s boat, crouched low, and moved quickly back to the edge of the dock. She tossed the gun and the goggles down into the boat. With her hands on the dock piles, she released the line holding the boat, and, kneeling in it, she pulled herself from one piling to another around the dock and back toward the shore.

  Slow but sure, she thought and then wondered where that saying came from.

  Jacob

  Jacob woke up, holding himself still. Something felt wrong. He smelled sweat, and not his own. His senses flipped to high alert, and he opened his
eyes to slits. The moonlight streamed in the window. The shade was up. He hadn’t even noticed when he fell into bed. Too many Land Sharks. He saw an arm reaching slowly toward him, something dark in the hand. Jacob thrust his own arms up, throwing the blanket at the stranger and sliding his feet to the floor in one swift move.

  “Fuck me dead,” the stranger cursed.

  Jacob struck out with his left hand. The stranger moved fast, bringing his black stick up and out. Jacob felt a sharp pain in his left arm. He aimed his right hand at the juncture of the stranger’s head and body, leaning his full power into the strike, curving his fingers back. Jacob’s palm connected solidly with the stranger’s throat. Giving a strangled cough, the stranger dropped like a stone.

  Suddenly, the lights came on, blinding Jacob. He felt a poke in the back and then a paralyzing shock. Falling, he saw a big, blond man with a black metal rod and, strangely, sunglasses covering his eyes just as the rod came crashing down on his head. Jacob sank into a blackness of his own.

  Jacob woke up to Nanette’s sobbing. He barely opened his eyes without otherwise moving. This can’t be good! Through the blur of his lashes, he saw that he was back in the kitchen. Nanette sat next to him with her head down. Next to her sat Anna, tears running down her cheeks. With a stab of anger, Jacob saw that Anna’s little face was bruised. There men stood on the other side of the kitchen, talking in low tones. Jacob tested his arms. He couldn’t move them. He must be tied to the old wooden chair. He tensed his muscles, making the chair creak.

  A thickset man with dark, cropped hair and angry eyes turned toward him. Jacob saw that the thin-faced man next to him held what looked like a large smartphone. The big man said, “So, sleeping beauty’s waking up! Good thing, too. We about wore these two out.”

  Jacob glared at him.

  “You would do well to drop your weapons, let us loose, and walk out of here. I’m a federal agent. So is she.”

  “Yeah, we know all about how you are hooked up tight with the fed-er-ales, Jacob Castellan. Except that it seems you were fired a few months ago and have been working as a gun for hire. For a nasty little man, a man you killed. Your sweet sister here is a pencil pusher that resigned to care for her poor little baby. No one is expecting to hear from her, and you are even more naked. See, my buddy Alan over here has one of them Galaxy Pad things, and he is real good at looking stuff up. We know you were burnt, and we know why.”