Seize the Storm

by Michael Cadnum

  The three of them crouched, like men in a YouTube training video on how to capture unknown terrain. Shako looked great, a three-point stance, one hand down to steady his body, the other pointing the Ingram out into the blue. Elwood looked good, too, not as graceful but with a rough-hewn intensity, down on his elbows, stretched out, watching and listening at the opposite side of the vessel.

  Jeremy had no weapon, and he felt his virtual nakedness.

  “What do you think, Mr. Quinn?” asked Elwood.

  Shako put his head down on the deck, pressing his ear to the planking. Jeremy was further awed. Where did Shako learn to do that, and how did he learn to sniff the air, like he was doing now?

  Shako rose to his feet but remained at-ready, his knees bent.

  “Both dead,” said Shako.

  “Go find out, Mr. Quinn,” said Elwood. “And look for the kind of gym bag Mr. Tygart uses, a Sleeping Giant Spa bag full of something heavy. You won’t find it—but double-check for me.”

  Shako didn’t say anything, but there was an alteration in his posture, a silent no problem.

  “And if you see the dog alive,” added Elwood, “you know what to do.”

  * * *

  Shako moved fast, his Nikes whispering, squee squee, on the teakwood decking. He eased his way up to the cabin door, steadied his weapon, and waited there.

  He slipped off his sunglasses. It took a long, unearthly moment as he tucked the glasses into the front of his jeans. Jeremy admired his unruffled calm, getting ready, this real-time actual encounter with violence just another athletic event for Shako.

  Shako blinked his green eyes, glancing from Elwood to Jeremy. He made that straight-line smile of his, but this time it was an expression of tense determination.

  Elwood pointed impatiently, go on.

  Then Shako slipped inside the rectangle of dark, the sunlight passing along his body like a curtain until he was gone.

  Jeremy braced for the sound of gunfire, but there was nothing but sea spanking the hull and the moored aircraft gently bumping the side of the powerboat.

  “What does that mean?” said Jeremy. “‘You know what to do’?”

  Elwood did not look at Jeremy. And then he did, and his usual ready-for-anything smile was missing.

  “This is where it gets a little difficult for you, Jeremy,” said Elwood.

  “Difficult how?” asked Jeremy.

  “You are going to have to do what I tell you.”

  Jeremy knew that Elwood had let him land the plane as a gift, a gesture of friendliness—a bonus flying lesson. But it was also a bargaining chip. Because now Elwood was going to do unpleasant things and Jeremy was going to have to help. It worked that way in his father’s world, trade-offs and debts.

  “Let me hear you say, Jeremy,” said Elwood, “that you understand me.”

  Jeremy’s own voice sounded too loud in this sudden peacefulness. He said, “You don’t have to shoot Laser.”

  “I am going to have Shako kill the dog because the animal hates me,” said Elwood, sounding matter-of-fact, even a little bored, stating what everyone knew. “And a dog with a bad attitude is dangerous.”

  The words sounded like plain speech, clearly spoken. But Jeremy was stunned. He tried to parse the words, considering the sounds like a scholar, examining the possible meanings.

  * * *

  Shako dropped low. His eyes adjusted to the interior light.

  After hours of aircraft engine, this powerboat made faint but hard-edged sounds, overhead, underfoot, and each noise could be a firearm being cocked, a slide being racked, a safety being snapped to the off position.

  Shako emptied his body of even more feeling, just as during the other times. Like when he met the Australian couple, met them in the sense of really encountering them, seeing that look in their shocked gaze just before.

  He searched quickly but with care. He was ready to see whatever there was to see. He thought: only one. He knew this guy, too, that guy named Kyle. Just one dead man so far, and I didn’t have to kill him.

  He opened the fridge. The thing was packed. Shako took out a Pepsi and popped the tab, drinking hard. He blinked, the carbonation too strong, the stuff too sweet. He drank it all anyway, and tossed the can into a corner.

  Shako put his sunglasses on again and felt glad he had not broken them. He used the Samsung phone to take a video of his face, holding the device at arm’s length.

  “I’m here in a place with a dead person,” he said.

  That sounded really stupid.

  He started over. “I’m doing recon in the cabin of a big boat.”

  He played it back. Big boat didn’t sound right. He and Jeremy would do a voice-over, re-record the words. People all over the world would see Shako, although he was sorry the video made him look green in this poor light.

  He pocketed the phone. Outside Elwood was pointing again, a football coach flashing signals. Check out the helm.

  Shako climbed the steps, saw what was there, and came back down. This was getting to be routine.

  “Is Kyle dead?” asked Jeremy.

  “YES, HE’S IN THE CABIN,” said Shako.

  Jeremy turned away, taking the news hard.

  “How was he killed?” he asked, his voice shaking.

  Shako felt strange talking about it. The way this sort of endeavor worked best was you carried the gun and at the same time you let words perish, all impressions fade, and just lived out whatever happened. Talking about such matters troubled Shako.

  “I saw blood,” Shako permitted himself to say. “No gym bag.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Elwood. “Our gym bag is on that good-looking yacht heading west.”

  Elwood put down his gun. He found a rope in one of the compartments on deck and tossed one end to Jeremy.

  Jeremy had expected death. He was not surprised. But he was far more sad than he had anticipated. Kyle had been a Frisbee fanatic—Frisbee golf, Frisbee football, sending Laser out on long, arcing passes, Canine Super Bowl Frisbee. Kyle had been taking slack-key guitar lessons and had been saving up to buy a classic Dobro, a serious guitar.

  Jeremy had not let himself think of Kyle—not allowed the picture of his smile, the sound of his voice, into his mind. Jeremy had protected his feelings against this sadness, but now his façade failed.

  He wept.

  “Is Paul dead, too?” asked Jeremy when he could speak.

  “Yes,” said Shako.

  Shako was troubled at Jeremy’s sorrow. He wanted to offer a word of consolation. He had seen Kyle tossing a basketball, playing fetch with the dog. A friendly guy. It was too bad about Kyle. But Shako never gave himself over to feelings.

  “We’ll have to bury them in the sea right away,” said Elwood, “and I’ll need your help. It’ll be unpleasant, but we don’t want to speed across the ocean with two dead bodies getting rotten.”

  He gave Jeremy and Shako a few seconds to absorb this news and then he added, “We’ll secure the plane to the stern.”

  Jeremy asked, “Where’s Laser?”

  Elwood threw him another rope. “We’ll tow the aircraft,” he added, to make his meaning clear.

  Jeremy turned to Shako. “You didn’t see Laser?”

  Elwood put a hand out to Jeremy and took his shoulder. “Use a bowline knot, like I taught you.”

  “Where’s Laser?” asked Jeremy.

  “No dog,” said Shako.

  “Where,” asked Jeremy, “did he go?”

  “I didn’t see him,” said Shako. He was glad he didn’t have bad news about Laser, too.

  Elwood tossed the rope down on the deck and put his hands on his hips. “Did I tell you about that time,” said Elwood, “in the Yucatan jungle, what I saw, dogs nosing around human remains?”

  “Yes, many times,” said Jeremy unhappily.

  “That’s one of the reasons why I hate dogs,” said Elwood.

  “I don’t think that’s why,” said Jeremy.

  Elwood was
getting on his nerves. And he felt empowered by his surprising sorrow, and angry because he was sure that his companion had found Laser just now and killed him silently, with the butt of the Ingram.

  “I think,” Jeremy continued bitterly, “you just like to show off what horrible things you’ve seen.”

  Elwood did not respond to that remark.

  “I’m going to jump-start the engines,” Elwood said. “Then we’re going to run down that pretty ketch and take what we find on her.”

  Jeremy wiped his tears with the back of his hand.

  Elwood continued, “Are you going to help me, Jeremy?”

  Jeremy did not answer him.

  “Or,” continued Elwood, “am I going to go back to your dad and tell him that some women on a good-looking yacht sailed off with his money and Jeremy did not do one thing to stop them.”

  Jeremy did not like to think about the money, being carried away at this very instant. Stolen. The idea of this theft was very objectionable, and it made him angry. He especially did not like considering what his dad would say if he was observing him right now.

  He said, “I’ll help.”

  But he said it in this new, post-successful-landing tone of voice, having second thoughts, grieving over Kyle.

  “You think this is easy, don’t you?” said Elwood.

  The way he said it was scary, and it got Jeremy’s attention.

  “And maybe you think it’s easy for Shako, too,” Elwood added. “Jeremy, you have a lot of compassion for Kyle. And maybe for Paul, too, although I never saw Paul do a kind or intelligent deed in my life. You even have sympathy for a dog.” Elwood made a gesture of easygoing reasonableness, patting the air with both hands. “Maybe you want to start having a dash of compassion for Shako and maybe even for me.”

  “My dad,” said Jeremy, “would be sad about Kyle and Paul, too. And my dad likes Laser.”

  “Sure,” said Elwood with a smile. “Reminding me that you’re the boss’s son all over again, as though I might forget.”

  Jeremy made a flick of his hand, impatient but acknowledging. Maybe playing the boss’s-son note two or three times in an afternoon wore it out.

  Shako wanted to tell him not to worry, this afternoon would work out fine.

  Elwood debated inwardly how to force both compliance and good sense into Jeremy. A moody Jeremy was a bad example for Shako. These youthful hit men had to be kept following instructions; if you started them thinking and emoting there was no predicting what insight or remorse might derail them.

  And Jeremy’s monumental sulk was doing nothing to improve Elwood’s own mood. Mr. Tygart had made a mistake letting his son fly on this mission, but here they were, dead bodies, missing money, vanished dog, and Jeremy about to get a lesson in how the world worked.

  Elwood decided to keep it avuncular, even anecdotal. Jeremy had a soft heart—no need to tell him that Zeta was so badly mauled by the dogs that they found her lower jaw in the next county.

  JEREMY DID NOT WANT TO HEAR any more from Elwood.

  The big man looked haggard, standing in the stern of the boat, leaning on the rail. His unshaven appearance was taking on the serious stubble of a beard. His eyes were red. To Jeremy he looked quietly crazy and utterly dangerous.

  Shako, for his part, had been thinking, maybe he and Jeremy would have a kennel someday. Beagles and Irish setters. A breeding kennel, with many excellent animals.

  “I wouldn’t hurt the dog,” said Shako, unprompted. He felt this was what he had to say, and he said it. “If I found him, I wouldn’t hurt him. I swear it.”

  That’s wonderful, Elwood told himself sardonically. That is simply brilliant. Shako is vowing harmlessness on the one day I need Shako to be a piece of equipment that knows only one thing.

  Because the rich people on that yacht were all going to die, Elwood knew. Shako was going to wipe them off the surface of that pretty decking, blow them out over the water, and they would be supper for the denizens of the deep. Elwood had to smile. He liked thinking about them that way, transformed into chum for the tuna.

  “You are going to locate some of that frozen food, the two of you,” said Elwood, “those Chicago-style pizzas thawing in the galley. You’ll also see if Paul left me any of the Bacardi Gold, and then I’m going to get the batteries running, revise the connections, and see how much work I have to do on the voltage regulator. But before we do that, I’m going to ask you to please take the bodies of our deceased friends and drop them into the sea.”

  “I can’t do that,” said Jeremy.

  * * *

  Jeremy and Shako moved Paul’s body first, the skinny remains with one steel tooth. The man looked like a stranger, nothing like the lively, nervously sketched stick figure he had been in life, always running off to the ABC store for Mexican beer and a fresh carton of cigarettes.

  The body was still somewhat stiff, and they had to bring it down the steps to the main deck, and there was no other way to do it, no ceremony, no prayers. They rolled him over and dumped him into the sea.

  Moving Kyle was more difficult.

  His body made sounds, breathy, groaning noises, and Jeremy nearly burst into tears. The smell was bad, but to Jeremy the unpleasantness was necessary, the rankness of the corpse a definite reminder that an outrage had been committed.

  Shako got a plastic bottle of Palmolive dish soap from the galley and a blue plastic bucket. They used salt water because the water pump wasn’t working yet, washing their hands, and then they used a mop and sponges to wash up the blood, and that was the hardest chore of all, how the sticky stuff dyed everything it touched.

  The main cabin was partly carpeted with Astroturf, and the blood stuck between the little fake blades of grass.

  The two of them scrubbed, and a quiet work flow unfolded, a peaceful companionship.

  “You know Elwood,” began Shako.

  This was an unexpected remark—or fragment of a remark—but Elwood was one of many things Jeremy did not want to consider.

  “I guess so,” he said, in no mood for conversation. He didn’t think even Elwood really knew Elwood.

  Plus, with Shako you might make a mistake and make a flippant remark, Shako might crush you like a tick, and Elwood and Shako together would roll your dead body into the ocean. Once you saw the possibility of such a thing you almost saw the logic.

  “You know how Elwood thinks,” Shako added, wringing out a sponge.

  “No,” said Jeremy flatly. “I have no idea.”

  “You know he has plans,” said Shako.

  Jeremy realized that Shako was being unusually talkative, and so he took a moment to pay close attention.

  But the moment was over, it seemed, Shako taking the mop from Jeremy’s hands. Beneath their feet, the vessel’s engine was grinding, stuttering, grumbling into life.

  “What kind of plans?” asked Jeremy.

  Shako gave him that smile again, that no smile, thin-lipped look, his eyes shielded by the sunglasses.

  But this chance to understand Shako a little, to extend their moment of teamwork, was important to Jeremy. He did not want it to pass.

  Shako was closing up again, turning into the Shako who did not talk, and so Jeremy said, simply to keep the conversation alive, “What does it say on your arm, in Chinese?”

  Shako looked down at the tattoo, a vivid violet on his lower arm.

  “What does Elwood do with the killers?” asked Shako, his tone so level it did not sound like a question.

  Jeremy understood that this was not a translation of Shako’s Chinese tattoo. This was a broader question, and an insight into Shako’s view of his own future.

  Jeremy had considered this before. The youthful killers always vanished, killed in shootouts, surfing accidents, overdoses on liquor and pills. He knew what Shako was suggesting.

  “I think Elwood likes you,” said Jeremy. “More than the others, I mean.”

  But as he said it he knew that this was false reassurance. He was afraid that Shak
o would be disappeared, just like all the others. That was how it worked: there were videos of your target practice on YouTube, watched by millions, and you ended up gone.

  “Elwood gave you a computer flight game, didn’t he?” asked Shako.

  A flight simulator, Shako meant, how to fly the twin-engine de Havilland, with approaches and runway patterns for hundreds of airports. Strictly speaking, it was not a game.

  “He did,” said Jeremy. He was careful, keeping the conversation positive. With Shako, you never knew.

  “Maybe sometime,” said Shako, “you could show me how it works.”

  Jeremy ran Shako’s remark through his mind. Did Shako mean: give me the software? Did he mean, even worse, give me the software or else?

  No, it was all right. Shako was just suggesting. He had the smooth manner of a killer, but for an instant Jeremy saw the human being in Shako, wanting to be a friend.

  “I’d like that,” said Jeremy.

  FOR MUCH OF THE AFTERNOON it looked to Martin as though Athena’s Secret was going to escape.

  The aircraft and the powerboat both receded, dwindling into pinpoints on the ocean, and the wake of the yacht stretched far as she continued to bound through the waves, putting miles between the crew and the possible danger.

  Leonard kept his seat against the gunwale, one hand clinging to the bag of money. Claudette brought out a blanket to cover his legs as the mid-afternoon breeze began to freshen. The wind was off the port bow, and the yacht was fighting not only the breeze but a current, too, as the sea began to work against her.

  Under sail, she would have been a thing of beauty, but under engine power she thrust through the water like an extension of Axel’s stubborn willfulness, and Leonard’s, too, the two men driving the yacht so hard the vibration filled the frame of the hull, spray lashing the deck.

  “Keep a course west by northwest,” said Leonard.

  If you did not know him well, you would think that he was happy. To Martin, however, he looked increasingly discontented, masking his anxiety with great effort. He sat on the deck refusing to look at anyone, staring straight ahead like a man waiting for long delayed bad news.