Piranha Assignment

by Austin Camacho

  As they approached land, the sea changed to an opalescent green, like emeralds beneath a thick layer of diamond. Felicity turned and stared at The Piranha’s black form.

  “Hide in plain sight,” she said.

  “Sure. Nothing really top secret would take place out in the open like this. At least, that’s what everybody hopes an enemy will think.”

  Felicity chuckled. “Yes, whoever the enemy is these days, I hope they never read The Purloined Letter.”

  El Porvenir offered a rudimentary marina. Eight or nine tall sailboats rocked in slips there and Barton slipped their craft in among them with the skill of an expert sailor. Felicity watched the play of his back and shoulder muscles through his knit shirt as he secured their line to the dock, thinking that the pretense of attraction was closing fast on reality.

  Several Indian children played on the spare wooden platform serving as a dock. Boys and girls alike wore colorful dress-like garments covered with beautiful, complex patterns. More colorful material covered their legs. Felicity found their faces graced with a consistent beauty. She could only distinguish girls from boys by the length of their straight black hair, and the ornamental shells they wore in it. Their bare feet moved in unpredictable dance patterns as they played hand made pipes, or shook gourds like maracas. When Felicity finally realized they were performing for her, she laughed and clapped her hands with glee.

  “Cuna Indians,” Barton said, helping her ashore. “They live on one of the San Bias Islands east of here.”

  “They’re darling,” Felicity said, hugging his muscular arm to her chest. A white-haired man sat on a crate behind the children. He was dressed as they were, and carving a small wooden doll with a crude knife. At his feet lay a wooden bowl holding a few coins. When she inclined her head in that direction, Barton took the hint. They wandered over to the man, and Barton dropped a handful of money into the bowl, doubling its contents. The Indian man looked up, nodded and smiled, revealing blackened, broken teeth.

  “The children are beautiful,” Felicity said, not at all sure if the man understood English. She tried again in Spanish, and still was not sure he heard. Then the Indian reached forward, offering her the doll he had just completed. Delighted, she accepted his gift as if it were the most precious artifact of antiquity.

  Felicity was examining her prize as they walked into town, and Barton’s attention was on her beaming face. She turned to say a final thank you, but the Indian man was already walking off, toward the end of the pier where their boat was tied.

  Between the sun, the sea, and El Porvenir’s charming people, business seemed an unpleasant intrusion on the day. Barton led Felicity to a small wooden house a few minutes’ walk from shore. The three room structure was neat despite, or maybe because of, its bare minimum of furniture. A large desk dominated the main room. At one end sat a desk top copier. The other end held a small computer console and a fax machine.

  Now Barton was all business, and the change altered Felicity’s view of him. He spent only seconds scanning the personnel files she had brought, then copied them onto the special paper needed. Felicity fished a small notepad out of her purse and handed it to him. A middle page held the fingerprints that she had collected on strips of cellophane tape. He copied them too. Then he picked up the telephone and pushed buttons for a number in Panama City. The response was immediate, as if someone had been waiting for the call.

  “Buenos Dias. I’m just checking up on that order. When will it be ready to ship?” He nodded, and Felicity assumed it was in recognition of some childish contact code to establish his identity and that of the person at the other end. He threw a switch under the phone, engaging what she recognized as a primitive scrambler. Why couldn’t the CIA step into the 21st century?

  After the words, “Report C.A.B.,” Barton repeated his suspicions and those he had heard from Morgan and Felicity in terse, trim statements. Felicity’s eyebrows raised when he voiced concerns about Franciscus, the navigator. Barton was about to end his call but, as if it were an afterthought, he looked up at Felicity.

  “Anything to add before I break contact?”

  “Actually, I think you covered it pretty well,” she said. After Barton hung up she asked, “This is not a very modern area. How did you manage to lay in phone lines and power lines without raising suspicions?”

  “Wasn’t easy,” he said while he put the prints and other pertinent papers through the fax machine. “Actually, there’s not much in the way of wires, it’s all fiber to a hidden dish that hits a secure satellite. Still, you never know if somebody might catch on, but after four years, I’m pretty sure this setup’s secure.”

  The sun had slid over the line of its apex by the time Barton secured his office and led Felicity out. It burned her eyes, making her regret not bringing a hat or sunglasses. She hoped the short walk to the town center would not last long enough to raise a sunburn.

  They strolled the narrow street, smiling, enjoying the perfumed air. Felicity noticed Barton nodding a greeting to several local passersby. From their reactions, they knew him as a neighbor. She wondered if any of them knew his real job here. They may have, and not cared at all. These people lived on a different level. National secrets just were not very important when survival was your primary goal in life.

  Barton guided them to a restaurant within sight of the sea. The small, quaint building was in need of a coat of paint, and bore a chilling resemblance to the tavern they visited the previous night. She hesitated just a moment before spicy smells seeping out lured her in. At least this place had windows.

  The owner was a small, walnut colored man in a white apron. He greeted Barton with a slap on the back, and looked Felicity over with an appraising eye before showing them to a small table facing the big side window. The place was almost deserted, the lunch crowd having already left. While Felicity traced the flight patterns of lazy gulls, Barton ordered for them.

  A moment later, two glasses and a bottle of tequila arrived. Barton poured an accurate shot for each of them. In tandem, they licked the backs of their hands. In turn, they sprinkled salt on their dampened skin. The two lifted their little glasses and stared over their rims at each other. Felicity winked at her date. Then, they snatched up their lemon slices, bit down, sucked out the juice, licked the salt off their hands, threw back their heads and downed their drinks.

  “So you do know how,” Barton said, watching Felicity shudder and suck in air through pouting lips. “I guess you weren’t upper crust all your life.”

  “Before I was a California girl, I learned to travel in a variety of circles.”

  “Well, if you’ll pardon the cliché, what’s a nice girl like you, etcetera, etcetera.” Barton tried to keep it light, but Felicity detected more than a little professional interest in the question.

  “I’m supposed to trust my secrets to you?” she asked. “Well then, you’re going to have to trust me with some of yours. Like, just what’s going on here?”

  Barton shrugged and poured two more drinks. “Hey, we’re on the same team, right? If I tell you what we know, or suspect, will you tell me about yourself?”

  “On one condition. Get some water over here. I’ve no intention of getting drunk with an animal like you around.”

  Two more drinks went down before their salads arrived. Felicity’s was not at all what she had expected, but a very pleasant surprise. A wedged tomato sat on a lettuce lined plate covered with fat, fresh shrimp, which had been chilled in a vinaigrette with pea pods, green onions and capers. Barton gave the pepper mill a couple of turns over her plate.

  “This is fabulous,” Felicity said through her first forkful, “but hardly Panamanian fare.”

  “I tried to tell you. They do amazing things here with shrimp. This happens to be one that I showed him. Wait until lunch comes.”

  “You gave him this recipe?” Felicity asked with raised eyebrows. “I guess you haven’t been an uncouth bore all your life. How’d you end up with the Company?”
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  “Actually, it started when I left the U.S. for Israel. I joined the army to defend my real homeland.”

  “You’re Jewish?” Felicity thought at first he was joking.

  “Doesn’t it show? My parents changed their names from Bartman. Anyway, I ended up in intelligence, tracking down terrorists. When I found that too restrictive I went free-lance. Eventually, I formed this loose association with the American intelligence community.”

  “And what does the community think of this Piranha super sub?”

  “No, no.” Barton wagged a finger at her. “Your turn now. How’d you get in the security business?”

  Felicity was considering her answer when lunch arrived. The little man gently placed a two handled server between them. A huge mound of rice dominated the table. Floating in the rice she saw chicken pieces, those same huge shrimp, clams in their shells and artichoke hearts.

  “Paella,” she said, moving her own small plate in front of herself. It smelled of saffron and garlic and oregano and all the best things south of the border.

  “Answer my question, but make it long,” Felicity said. “I am going to eat until I burst.”

  “I can only tell you the atmosphere isn’t great,” Barton said, filling his own plate. “Even after all these years, there’s still a bunch of Noriega wannabees out there, you know.”

  “Yes, and one of them could take control I suppose, but all I’ve read gives me the impression that the government is pretty stable. The canal is bringing in lots of money, and poverty is the real cause of revolutions. It’s also what lets drug money take hold. Hard to worry, under the circumstances.”

  “Well, not everybody is so confident, which is part of the reason you’re here,” Barton said, prying a clam open. “No place in Central America has much of a history of being stable. And that sub out there isn’t exactly in government control right now. If it fell into the hands of one of those dictators in training, or some drug cartel leader, a lot of our boys could die. Bastidas’ boys appear fanatically loyal to him, but Naval intelligence thinks some of them might actually be tied to some small time local General. They’re afraid once The Piranha’s operational, the next Pineapple Head might end up with it. That’s who you’re protecting against.”

  “Nice of Roberts to tell us in advance,” Felicity said, biting a piece of chicken. “You think the Navy’s right?”

  “I’ve got my own theory. Which doesn’t tell me how you figure in this. You’re cheating.”

  “Sorry,” Felicity said. “This is so good. Anyway, I guess there isn’t much that would shock you. I got into security because I’ve got years of experience defeating it. I used to be a thief.” She held her head down, but looked up, gauging Barton’s facial expression. He did not react at all. He was waiting for something else. “I decided to go straight, and now I do security work for all manner of things.”

  “And Mister Stark? How does he fit into all this?”

  “He was a mercenary when I met him,” Felicity said, glad to move the subject away from herself. “Now he’s my partner.”

  “Why him?”

  “Are you kidding?” Felicity asked. “He’s a real professional. We kind of complement each other. He’s amazingly capable, but a straight line thinker. I supply the creativity, the imagination you might say. We’re partners in a true sense, and best friends.”

  “And what else.”

  Felicity finally realized where his line of questioning was going. “We’re back to back against the world. I love the man, but not in any romantic sense. We’re… well it might sound silly but we’re too close for that. Nobody could take his place, but in the romance department I’m a free agent.”

  “You don’t say.” Barton’s expression didn’t change, but she felt his knee brush hers under the table. His foot slid next to hers, and she could see his pulse in the big vein in his neck. Conversation stopped for a few moments as they ate. Felicity’s last piece of chicken hung on her fork when she whispered her next words.

  “So you’re not really CIA.”

  “Not really.” Barton leaned close across the table. “I was hired by Bastidas to be his contact with the government because I was already in place here, looking for work. After that, the local American intel boys approached me to be their inside man. I already thought there might be some monkey business going on around here, and I was curious, so I decided to go along.” While he talked, Barton ran his fingertips up and down Felicity’s arm. She felt a tingle in her spine, and a warm flush in the last place she needed it right then. He was getting to her and she knew they would need some privacy soon. She cleared her throat.

  “Let’s head back to the boat,” she said, pulling her arm back. “It was a fabulous lunch, Chuck, and I’m ready for another exciting ride.”

  His smile said “me too” but he did not say it out loud.

  -17-

  The children were gone when Felicity and Barton returned to their boat, and she didn’t know why that bothered her. A slight breeze had come up, raising a small chop on the sea. She hopped onto the small craft, while Barton bent to untie it from the dock. In moments they were gliding across the dancing waters, sliding away from shore. At the wheel, Barton turned to smile at Felicity standing beside him, feeling the wind on her face.

  She recognized the tension in her loins with its slight adrenaline rush for the only thing it could be. Despite her years forcing herself into society’s upper strata, Felicity was at heart an earthy girl. She never analyzed love when it came. She did not try to classify or separate her physical needs from her mental and emotional drives. Whatever, when it came she accepted it as an old friend that always made her feel good when it arrived. She had not consciously selected Chuck Barton, but her body or her heart had. Why fight it? She could feel her pulse kick into high gear when she put her arm around his shoulders.

  “Chuck, do you really want to go straight back to the base?”

  “Hell, no,” He answered more forceful than he intended, made a face at his own lack of restraint. “I mean, I thought, if it was okay with you, we could stop off at one of these little deserted islands.”

  “I think I’d like that,” she said. But when she looked into his brown eyes it made her shudder. Was she uncomfortable with something about him? Sure, he was uncouth, but no more so than the Gypsy wanderers she grew to womanhood with in the Irish woods. They were brash and crude, but she had trained one or two to be more than adequate lovers.

  The wind was pushing her shirt against her breasts, making her nipples stand out. It was much more uncomfortable than usual, and she tried to turn her body to avoid the shirt’s friction. She was having a hard time standing still, which Barton seemed to interpret as anticipation. He slid his hand up her back into her hair. Then, with surprising gentleness, he turned her head to him and kissed her. It was warm, tender, passionate, everything she thought a kiss should be. Yet, she pulled herself away after a moment. This was more than nerves. Did she really fear him?

  “Too fast?” Barton’s voice betrayed no anger or resentment, only concern and caring.

  “No, no. It’s not that. It’s just…I don’t know, Chuck.” She walked to the rear of the small boat and stared into its bubbling wake. She had left him hanging. By her personal code of conduct that was wrong. A statement was needed, even if she didn’t really understand her feelings right then. Dear God, was this true love at last? Fear of entrapment? No, it can’t feel this awful.

  “Chuck,” she called first, then turned to him. Her eyes fixed on the infinite blue sky, then slowly panned down to his angular face. “Chuck I really like you. And I’m really attracted to you. Something is…” before the thought could form her mouth dropped open. Her eyes flashed left, then right. Her fingers splayed out like wavering antennae, and the light of understanding dawned on her face.

  “Chuck.” she spoke with urgency now, her self confidence reasserting itself. “Chuck it’s not you. What an idiot I’ve been. I let my emotions blind me to…
shit! Listen, something’s wrong here. There’s terrible danger. It’s right here with us, and it’s getting closer.”

  “What are you talking about? Right here but getting closer? That doesn’t make any…”

  “Shut up,” Felicity said. “Not closer in distance, closer in time. A timed danger. It’s got to be…oh God. Chuck, overboard, fast.”

  “Hold it. We can pull to one of the islands in a couple of minutes.”

  “Because of my stupidity we don’t have a couple of minutes. Come on!”

  Her shouting appeared to take Barton aback more than her words. “Felicity, how can you…?”

  “Damn it, let’s go!” Felicity said, grabbing at Barton’s shirt and pulling him. He stood up and wrapped his arms around her.

  “Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it.”

  “Idiot!” Felicity said through clenched teeth. She pulled back briefly, and Barton reflexively pulled her back toward him. The instant she felt the pressure she threw herself forward. Her strength, combined with his, was enough to throw them both overboard.

  The water was warmer than Felicity expected, but still a shock to her. Salt stung her eyes and the brine taste sneaked into her mouth. She clawed her shoes off and struggled out of her waterlogged pullover before breaking the surface for air. When she came up she saw Barton, still sputtering and treading water. Now he looked angry, with hair hanging into his eyes. She hated being on the receiving end of that stare, but had no time to explain.

  “Dive for cover,” Felicity shouted. “It’s going to blow.” Barton slapped at his own head, trying to free his ears of water.

  “Dive!” she shouted again, then she drove her face into the ocean and her hips flipped out of the water. Her bare feet pushed upward into the air. She was digging for the ocean floor with strong, steady strokes. From underneath she saw Barton, his head still above the surface. His body twisted as if he was looking around, or perhaps trying to clear the water out of his eyes. Against her better judgment, she arced back toward the surface.