Debris Line (Gibson Vaughn)

by Matthew Fitzsimmons

  When she sat up, he licked his lips and took the glass out of her hand as if she’d made it for him. He drank half and kissed her again, then set the glass down on the ground out of her reach. On another day that might have irritated her, but today it only made her wistful. She would miss orbiting Planet Sebastião.

  “How was Lisbon?”

  Rather than answer, he picked up the drink again and finished it. He handed the empty glass back to her and stretched languidly.

  “If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you choose?” he asked.

  The question caught her off guard. Normally, he had an athlete’s disdain for hypotheticals.

  She said, “Right here seems pretty good.”

  “I’m serious. Anywhere in the world.”

  It wasn’t a question she’d ever asked herself, so it surprised her when she had a ready answer. “Salzburg.”

  “Austria is a beautiful country. Have you been?”

  “Two days. When I was injured in Afghanistan, they medevacked me to Germany.” She had given him a sanitized version of the assault that had effectively ended her career in the CIA while making it clear that he didn’t get to ask a lot of questions. He’d always been good about respecting her boundaries. It was one of the things she liked best about him. He understood that intimacy had its limits. “As I healed, they let me take a few day trips, so I got to poke around Europe a little. I liked Salzburg. Never seen so many flowers.”

  “You like flowers?” he teased. “You are a girl, after all.”

  “Don’t tell anyone.”

  Sebastião crossed himself somberly and pointed to the heavens.

  She asked, “What about you? Where would you live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What happened in Lisbon?”

  “Nothing. There is swelling. Again.”

  “It will pass.”

  “Not in time for the start of the season. They think now the middle of October. Perhaps.” Sebastião rubbed his knee thoughtfully.

  “That’s not so far away.”

  “Do you think I would like Salzburg?” he asked.

  “Not really your speed. It’s peaceful.”

  He laughed. “Maybe I am ready for peace.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m an old man. I’m allowed to dream about my retirement.”

  That was a forbidden word around Sebastião. Even to imply that his career might be drawing to a close could result in banishment. Sebastião demanded unwavering optimism from his inner circle, so to hear it from him was shocking.

  “What are you talking about? You’ve got years left yet.”

  “Not at the top. It will take the club this season to discover that I have lost a step. I will become surplus to requirements. They will sell me to a smaller club that will use my name to sell jerseys, and after a few years they will sell me to an even smaller club, and so on, until I am playing in some league no one cares about. Maybe even America.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know it,” he said and rubbed his knee ruefully. “I know. It’s strange. I’ve only ever been a footballer. I don’t know how to do anything else.”

  “I need to tell you something,” Jenn said, wincing at her graceless segue.

  Sebastião stood and moved toward the house. “Come to bed.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Then be serious with me in bed.”

  “Sebastião . . .”

  He peeled off his shirt and threw it defiantly on the ground. “In bed, serious woman. Tell me in bed.”

  “Like you’re going to listen in bed.”

  He stood in the fading daylight, considering that. Finally, he shrugged. “Perhaps you are right. But I’ll listen after. Can you wait that long?”

  “Then we will talk?” she asked, but her feet were already following him inside.

  He held the glass door open invitingly. “Yes, serious woman. Then we will talk.”

  Jenn woke with no memory of falling asleep. Naps rarely worked for her. Nine times out of ten, she’d wake, numb-faced and groggy. For once, though, she opened her eyes comfortable and at peace. Sebastião lay beside her, staring up at the ceiling. One of his hands cradled the back of his head, the other resting on her hip. It was a role reversal; usually Sebastião would be the one to fall asleep while Jenn lay there wired, mind buzzing.

  He felt her stir and rolled onto his side to gaze at her. His hand idly caressed her stomach, which ordinarily she liked but now made her feel vulnerable. She turned to face him, pulling the sheet up to cover herself. He smiled at her. The smile that had sold soft drinks, automobiles, and about a million pairs of cleats. The smile that could unlace her best intentions.

  It was time. For serious talk. She felt rotten. He seemed as low as she’d ever seen him. Spooked to be confronting his own mortality. It was a terrible time to abandon him. Please, she chided herself. Don’t give yourself so much credit. The moment she left, Sebastião would invite half the Algarve to sample the wonders of his three-sink bathroom. She’d seen the way women at the clubs looked him up and down. He was probably sick to death of this one-woman routine anyway. She ran a hand down his cheek and started to speak. He beat her to it.

  “Would you take me to Salzburg with you?” he asked.

  She sighed. “You said we could be serious.”

  “I am serious.”

  “Well, I can’t afford Salzburg.”

  “I can.”

  Jenn lifted her head off the pillow, retreating to get a better look at him. Looking for the trademark twinkle in his eye that meant he was teasing her. It wasn’t there.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “Making this permanent.”

  “Permanent? Is my fugitive lifestyle a big turn-on for you?”

  “I have a lot of lawyers,” he said dismissively, as though she were talking about a few unpaid parking tickets. “Perhaps we get married. That will take care of the passport.”

  He tugged at the sheet, drawing it down while she lay there staring at him, trying to comprehend what he was saying to her. Sebastião Coval talking about marriage was like coming home to find your dog purring.

  From the floor beside the bed, her phone rang once. Her head turned toward it, grateful for the distraction. After ten seconds it rang again, this time twice before it stopped. That was Hendricks letting her know that he needed to talk urgently. Given Baltasar’s ultimatum, she doubted it was about the weather. She picked up as it began to ring a third time.

  “What’s the forecast?” she said.

  “Tsunami. We need to meet. Can you bring George?”

  “Where?”

  “Biv.”

  In case of emergency, they had designated three rally points. Places that none of them frequented or might be recognized. Hendricks had named them Bell, Biv, and Devoe. Biv was a small town called Alcantarilha. They agreed on a time and hung up.

  Jenn rolled out of bed and started dressing. Sebastião lay there pouting—half joking, but more than a little serious.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  “Gibson?” Sebastião asked. She heard the edge in his voice. Neither man cared especially for the other. Both men were recovering from injuries and didn’t like the competition. A couple of divas, if you asked her.

  “No,” Jenn said. “Hendricks.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Baltasar gave us twenty-four hours to be out of Portugal.”

  “I was only in Lisbon for a few hours. What terrible thing have you done now?”

  “I’m serious,” Jenn said.

  “Ah,” he said. “Now we come to the serious talk. Was that what you needed to tell me?” When she nodded that it was, he made a pile of pillows so he could sit up in bed. “So, you and your friends are disappearing?”

  “Haven’t been given a choice.”

  “Yes,” Sebastião said. “You have.”

  She stood staring
at him. He smiled that smile.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  “Will I see you again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He thought about that. “Borrow my car. You know where the keys are.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That way you’ll have to bring it back before you go,” he said with a wink.

  “Sebastião . . .”

  He waved her away. “Then kiss me one more time in case you can’t.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  João Luna stirred his coffee awkwardly with his right hand. Tapping the spoon on the brim of the cup, he laid it on the saucer. He was left-handed but had to keep it balled in a fist beneath the table to stop it from shaking. Only his left hand shook, not his right. He didn’t understand why. At least his head no longer felt stuffed with feathers. Whatever they’d given him felt like the anesthesia a dentist gave him to take out his wisdom teeth. With his right hand, he sipped his coffee and looked out at the ocean that he loved so much. What good was a man whose hands shook?

  His body ached. When he exhaled, his breath whistled as though air was escaping through a leak somewhere inside him. His rib cage pinched like a suit he’d outgrown. There’d been no doubt in his mind that he would die. Sitting in that hotel room while that man punished him with his fists. Luisa Mata looking on with those cold, reptile eyes. Her little clock ticking off five minutes.

  She had accused him of betraying her uncle, but João still didn’t know what she’d meant. He didn’t understand how he’d come to be in that hotel room in the first place. Or how he’d left it with his life. Two men had driven him into Faro and ordered him out of the car. Thrown his things on the sidewalk. Except his passport, which they’d kept. Acting like they had done him a favor. Which in a way, he supposed they had.

  He could have called his father to pick him up, but João wasn’t ready to see him. Didn’t know what he would say when he did. He felt angry. Abandoned. And even though Luisa had let him go, he still feared that they would come back for him. For a moment, he felt proud that it had been him in that hotel room instead of his father. Maybe, he thought, this was what it meant to be a man.

  Instead of calling his father, he’d taken the bus to Olhão and limped down to the harbor. When Luisa Mata had asked him if he had anything of value, he’d thought only of the Alexandria. The way Luisa had looked through him, he’d gotten it into his head that she knew everything there was to know about him. What if she’d done something to the boat? In truth, that would be worse than killing him. The Alexandria belonged to his family. It was his family in a way that neither he nor his father ever would be. Standing on her deck was the only way João would feel at ease again. Once he’d found the ship intact and checked every inch of her, he’d gone for a quiet cup of coffee so he could think.

  The café sat at the corner of the old fish market. When João was a boy, his father had brought him here in the mornings after the boat had been squared away. They would drink coffee in silence while his father read the paper. It had been their tradition, and João kept it up even after his father retired. The café was where they had come the morning his father had finally admitted the family’s debt to Baltasar Alves. Under the table, João flexed and clenched his hand.

  “May I join you?”

  Lost in thought, João flinched at the sound. He looked up to see the well-dressed man from the hotel room standing a polite distance from the table, holding a coffee. The one who had stopped Luisa’s man. João’s heart sank. They’d changed their minds and come back for him. The man saw his fear and took another step back.

  “I’m alone,” he said.

  His Portuguese was good, and João was surprised that the accent was American. He gestured to the seat once occupied by his father. What alternative did he have? The man arranged his seat so that they both could look out at the boats. João watched him expectantly, waiting for him to explain why he was here. To say what he wanted. But the man sat placidly and stirred his coffee. It should have been unnerving, but João found his company strangely familiar. Comforting. They sat together like friends and drank their coffee in silence.

  Up close, João saw the man’s face was etched with scars. His right ear had been pummeled flat like a boxer’s, and one eye drooped lower than the other, as if the foundations of his face had begun to crumble. It gave him a mournful aspect. João didn’t like to imagine what could do that to a man.

  “How do you feel?”

  “How would you feel?” João said.

  “Broken,” the man answered quickly, as if he’d been thinking about the question a long time.

  João nodded agreement. That was exactly how he felt.

  “My name is George Abe. I owe you an apology.”

  “What for? Wasn’t you who broke my ribs.”

  “I should have spoken up sooner.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I was afraid.”

  That surprised João; the man didn’t look easy to scare. Not with a face like that. It made João feel a little less ashamed of his own fear. He’d been waiting for it to fade ever since he’d been dragged out of that hotel room. But even now, out in the open air, familiar place, familiar faces, he still felt afraid. He’d never thought of himself as a coward. He’d worked the Alexandria in terrible conditions as waves the size of churches broke across the bow. This was something else entirely. He felt broken and unsure what to do about it. Or about the anger that he felt toward his father.

  “Are you a forgiving man?” João asked.

  The man considered the question carefully. It took a moment before he answered. “It depends. On what the person did.”

  “Say this person put you in a position where you could have died.”

  “Did the person know?” George asked. “That it would?”

  “He should have,” João said.

  Something passed across the man’s face. An old and grievous hurt. João realized that the sadness he saw there wasn’t an illusion caused by his scars. It was real right down to the marrow.

  “Were his intentions good?” George asked.

  “Yes,” João replied. He felt relief that he could still say that about his father.

  “Then I would forgive him. If his intentions were good.”

  “I see,” João said.

  “But,” George continued, “that’s not the same thing as trusting him again.”

  João agreed with a heavy heart. This was exactly what he had been having trouble articulating to himself. He loved his father. He understood the man’s choices and why he’d made them. There was nothing to say that João wouldn’t have made the same choices in his father’s place. But that didn’t change anything. They were the wrong choices. Naïve and terrible. João could have died in that room, and the worst part was that it wasn’t over. Baltasar Alves still owned the Alexandria, and as long as João was her captain, Baltasar Alves owned him too.

  “Thank you,” João said.

  “One more thing,” George said. “He will know if you don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t trust him again.”

  “How?”

  “He will feel it. You both will. Nothing will be the same between you.”

  João nodded. He already could. It might be that this was part of being a man as well. Taking off the blinders and learning to think for himself. He didn’t know what came next. If Baltasar Alves came back and expected him to honor his father’s arrangement, what would he do? Whatever he chose would have consequences, but he realized now that those consequences would be easier to bear if had no one to blame but himself.

  “I have a favor to ask of you,” George said.

  “What do you need?”

  “My friends and I are no longer welcome in Portugal. We need transportation to North Africa within the next twenty-four hours.”

  “There are ferries in Spain. From Algeciras you can go direct to Tangier.”

  George said, “Th
e ferry is no good for us. Neither are the ports in Morocco. We will need to go ashore somewhere less . . . noticeable.”

  “I see.” João didn’t see and was quite sure he didn’t want to.

  “Can it be done?”

  “People sneak into Europe, senhor. They do not sneak into Africa,” João said. “Why is it you come to me? Because you stopped that filho da puta from killing me?”

  “Yes,” George said simply.

  “So I owe you? Is that the idea?”

  “No. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Then why are you asking me?” João asked.

  “Because you’re the only boat captain I know in Portugal, and I don’t need to lie to you. We need your help. It’s up to you whether you give it or not.”

  Automatically João wondered what his father would advise. This man could say that he didn’t owe anything, but that was not how João felt. His father had always believed in paying his debts. João stopped himself. It didn’t matter what his father would do. What would João do? That was the question now.

  “How many friends do you have?”

  “Three plus myself.”

  “Will this anger Baltasar Alves or his niece?”

  George thought for a moment. “I don’t believe so, but things are not good here. I can’t say for certain. There could be some risk.”

  João thought about it while he finished his coffee. Despite the danger, the idea of helping someone appealed to him. He thought it might give him back some sense of control.

  “I’ll take you to Morocco,” he said. “I know a place where no one will see you arrive.”

  The answer caught George by surprise, and for a moment, his sadness lifted, and João saw nothing but relief and happiness.

  “I have some money but not a lot. What would it take?”

  It was João’s turn to be surprised. This man had risked his own life to stop Luisa Mata. “I don’t want your money, senhor. I will take you to Morocco.”

  “We’ll need a few hours to get ready.”

  “Whenever you are ready to go, but it would be better to arrive at night.”

  George smiled. “You’re a good man, João Luna. Thank you.”