by Bob Mayer
Parsons continued, as if sensing Chase’s reluctance to share. “You’re in old Doc Cleary’s house. Deeded to you by your mother, who was deeded it by Doc. I did not have the pleasure of your mother’s acquaintance. She was a very private woman from all I heard, and I am sorry to hear she passed. But I knew Doc. Bent an elbow with him, time and again.”
“What happened to Doc?” Chase asked. “I got a letter from him, saying he’d scattered my mother’s ashes, at her insistence, in the Intracoastal. But he’s gone.”
Parsons nodded. “He went missing ‘bout a year ago. Him and his boat. Nice sloop, and Doc knew how to spread the canvas. He could be anywhere by now. Around the world, for all one knows. He always was private, too, although your mother spent quite a few years with him. And he helped anyone who needed it. Even after he retired. Anyone in the low country knew if they needed help, they could go to old Doc. People miss him.”
Chase believed what Parsons was saying. There were times when the measure of a man had to be made on his word. “Why’d you Semper Fi me yesterday?”
“Former warriors in arms,” Parsons said. “There ain’t many of us left around here or anywhere in this country, if you think about it. Less than one percent of Americans have ever worn the uniform. Can you believe that? Not exactly the great generation we’re living with. We’ve got a bond.”
Chase shook his head. “There’s more to it than that.”
Parsons sighed. He got up and went over to the coffee pot. He poured his cup full, then picked up an empty cup, this one also having some sort of military logo on it. He arched an eyebrow at Chase.
“Please.”
Parsons poured it full, then set it down in front of Chase. “When you had your shirt off the other day. Shrapnel and a bullet wound, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Yeah. Seen the like before.”
“Ranger regiment,” Chase said, noting the scroll on the side of the cup. “Not many Marines go through Ranger School, and none serve in the regiment.”
“My son was in the Army,” Parsons said. “Still is. Sort of. If Walter Reed and missing both your legs is in the Army.”
“It is,” Chase said. He lifted the coffee mug. “In honor of your son, and his service and sacrifice.”
They both took a sip of coffee. Chase put the mug on the edge of the desk. “It was gunshots. Mine. The other guys had suppressors. Two of them, at least.”
“You seem to be a shit magnet,” Parsons said.
Chase shook his head. “They weren’t after me. They were after that woman, Sarah. Friends of theirs had already kidnapped her son off the dock behind her house.”
Parsons voice lost a lot of its drawl. “Tell me what happened, start to finish.”
“I need your word that it stays between us. I’ll deny saying anything if you try to go formal on me. Shouldn’t be that hard, since it seems Hilton Head is on the dark side of the moon, as far as you guys are concerned.”
“Pretty damn close assessment of the reality.” Parsons nodded. “You have my word.”
Chase detailed the events, just like he’d done many times before in debriefings after missions. Parsons never interrupted, nor did he make any notes, just absorbing the information. When Chase was done, there was a moment of silence, then Parsons spoke.
“This Sarah Briggs the woman I met at your house that day?”
“Yes.”
“Same one sitting out yonder in the parking lot in your Jeep.” It wasn’t a question. Parsons took a sip of coffee. “It could be the Russian mob.”
“You aren’t dialing the FBI like you should be,” Chase noted.
“I’m not,” Parsons agreed. “Not only because I promised and I keep my word, but because if it is the Russian mob, the best chance her kid has got is if her husband pays.”
“That isn’t the reason.”
Parsons smiled. “You might have made a good cop if you’d done it a while longer. Maybe as good a cop as I bet you were a soldier. And it’s ‘cause you were most likely a good soldier that I’m not calling the FBI. Seems like you’re going after Cole and plan on bringing him back, and I’d put better odds on that than the FBI, given the time constraints. Nearest Fed field office is in Columbia. Will takes those boys a day just to get down here and get set up, and you don’t even have a full day left on the deadline. And the Feebs don’t like coming down here as much as we don’t like having to call them down here.”
“You’re breaking the law,” Chase noted.
“Only you know that,” Parsons replied.
“Tell me about the Russians around here,” Chase said. “I had a little run-in with one in Colorado.”
“You’ll have to tell me about that some day, when you feel I’m worthy of the story.” Parsons leaned back once more. “Ivar Karralkov. Runs a strip club called Tantalize, just this side of the state line, outside of Savannah. It’s a cover for his many other operations.”
“Which are?”
“If I knew for sure, maybe we’d be doing something about it,” Parsons said, “although he is headquartered outside of this county. Our jurisdiction ends about ten miles from where he’s set up. County Sheriff where his club is located gets well-paid to mind his own beeswax. Karralkov comes up to Hilton Head every so often. Owns a house, although not in Spanish Wells. On the ocean side, north of Coligny Circle, not in a gated community.”
“What else is he into?”
Parsons shrugged. “Drugs. Women. Arms. Pretty much anything that makes him money. He’s got some legitimate businesses, also.”
It was a starting point. Chase started to get up, but Parsons spoke up.
“You doing this alone?”
“You want to come with me?”
Parsons smiled. “That would make it a legal matter. But there’s someone you might want to chat with. He knows a bit about Karralkov. And he’s another brother-in-arms.”
Chase sank back down in the chair and picked up the mug, waiting on the detective.
“His name is Riley. Also retired Army. Also former Special Forces. He hangs out at the Shack yonder on Dafuskie Island.”
“You know him?” Chase asked.
“I’ve met him,” Parsons said. “Quiet fellow. But he sees and hears a lot from the people who frequent the Shack. He lives in it during the off-season as caretaker. Get the feeling he’s a stand-up fellow.”
“His first name Dave?”
Parsons was surprised. “Yeah. You know him?”
“Heard of him, back in the day.”
“And what did you hear?”
“Anything else I should know?” Chase asked.
“We never had this conversation, Cuhnel,” Parsons said. “I’m only helping you because there’s a kid involved, and this has got a short fuse with the Super Bowl tomorrow evening. If it blows up, we never spoke.”
Chase finished the coffee and stood. “Thank you.”
* * * * *
To get to Dafuskie Island, Chase was going to need a boat.
To get Cole back, he was going to need a team, especially if it was the Russian mob.
The best way to get the first, and start on the second, meant finding Kono.
“What did you learn?” Sarah asked as he got in the Jeep. Chase relayed the scant information about Karralkov that Parsons had given him.
“So the Russians do have Cole,” Sarah summarized.
“Likely,” Chase allowed, “but it isn’t certain.”
“We don’t have much time.”
“I know.”
“What now?”
Chase turned the key, starting up the engine. “I’m going to need help.”
Sarah nodded. “And you know where to find it.”
“I believe so.”
Sarah reached out and put a hand on his arm. “Everything has been crazy, but I’ve been sitting here thinking, remembering. Walter and I have been so selfish, caught up in the turmoil of our marriage, that we pretty much ignored Cole. Now I see what a f
ool I was, how self-centered I’ve been.”
Chase had never been able to handle a relationship with an adult, never mind a child. On the ride here from Colorado, he’d gotten a text from his ex, Anne, thanking him for the divorce papers he’d finally signed. He’d been served the papers in Afghanistan almost two years ago. Unfortunately for his desiring-to-be-ex-wife, he’d gotten wounded, been notified his mother had died, and ended up in the same Walter Reed where Parson’s son was learning what his new life was going to be, minus his legs. Which snapped Chase out of feeling sorry for himself.
“Marriage is a hard thing,” Chase said, “especially if you were separated for a large part of the time.”
“You were married, then,” Sarah said, “and using the past tense, I assume, divorced?”
“Yeah. My ex just remarried.” Ex was another new term for Chase, and he realized it was the first time he’d used it. It didn’t come up in casual conversation with the waitress at Denny’s as you ate breakfast on a drive across the country. At least not for a man like Chase. People didn’t ‘chat’ with a man like Horace Chase. More accurately, Chase didn’t chat.
Sarah’s hand was still on his arm. “I’m sorry. That must be hard.”
“It’s good for her,” Chase said, and was surprised he meant it. “She wanted what I appeared to be, not what I was. I think she now has the real deal she wanted.”
Sarah cocked her head, indicating she was listening. “Most men wouldn’t admit that.” She opened her mouth to say something more, but stopped.
“Listen,” Chase said. “We need to get moving. We need to get Cole.”
Sarah let got of his arm. “Thank you.”
Chase drove back to Hilton Head, the cool wind whistling around him, and a dark storm brewing inside him. He reflected that on some levels, combat was easier than dealing with people on personal levels.
Coming onto the island, he tapped his brakes, causing the person behind him to slam on his horn in irritation.
“There used to be a museum here,” Chase said, pulling into a deserted parking lot. A faded sign read Coastal Discovery Museum.
“It’s moved,” Sarah said, pointing at a smaller sign bolted on the building. She pulled out her phone and pushed a button. “Coastal Discovery Museum, Hilton Head Island.”
There was a short pause, then the machine responded: “Okay, here’s a hotel matching Hilton. It’s not far from you.”
Chase laughed as he got out of the Jeep. “There are limits to technology.”
The sign directed him to Honey Horn Plantation Drive, which wasn’t far away. Chase drove there and found a mostly-empty parking lot. A handful of cars were near the entrance, and in the distance he could see a cluster of tourists preparing for a kayak expedition, being instructed on how to wear a life vest.
There was a shack next to the entrance to a long dock, and an old black man sat outside of it on a bench. “Give me a minute,” Chase said.
The old black man’s gnarled hands were weaving a casting net out of thin rope. He didn’t look as Chase walked up.
“Good day,” Chase said.
The Gullah were descendants of freed slaves, who lived on the barrier islands of northern Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina for generations. Their language had its roots in Sierra Leone, morphed by English. It was a dying culture, as more and more of the space between ocean and land fell to civilization.
The old man deigned to look up. He raked his eyes from Chase’s worn boots, his khaki pants, and the bulge under his loose shirt, to his face.
“Fr’un’ Kono,” Chase said, throwing his entire repertoire of the man’s language on the table, while pointing out at the tidal flats.
The old man blinked in surprise, either at this buckra daring to speak a Gullah word, or the name, Chase couldn’t tell.
“How you be knowing Kono?”
“My mother lived in Doc Cleary’s house,” Chase said. “I came here when I was a child. Kono and I spent time together on the water.”
“Doc Cleary gone,” the old man said. He nodded toward the right, the ocean. “Long gone sail.”
“I need help from Kono,” Chase said.
The old man laughed. “Kono helps only ‘self and a few bad fella he run with. Maybe that mean you a bad fella.” But he reached into a deep pocket on his faded coveralls, and pulled out the latest edition of the iPhone. He tapped the screen several times, then put the phone to his ear.
It was answered and the old man spoke in Gullah, so low that even if he were fluent in the language, Chase wouldn’t have been able listen in.
The old man glanced at Chase a couple of times as he spoke, and Chase knew he was being described.
The old man held the phone away from his head and nodded toward Chase, while turning the face of the phone toward him. “Name?”
“Horace Chase.”
The old man put the phone back to his ear, listened, then turned it off.
“Wait,” he said, sitting back down and going back to work on his net.
Chapter Four
The sun was finally starting to beat back the mist that had lingered all morning over the island, sending warm fingers to the wide beach left exposed by the inevitable cycle of the tide. The sounds of the thick swamp beyond the beach had shifted hours ago from the occasional outbursts of predators and prey to the more serene symphony of daytime activity. Palmettos, old oaks gray-bearded with Spanish moss, and tall pines rose high, competing for the sunlight.
Between swamp and beach was a thin stretch of grass-covered sand-dunes where storms had heaped all they picked up as they thundered toward the coast, and the ocean in calmer weather could never quite reach to pull away unless it was a storm in concert with a high-high tide, a surge to take away the debris.
It was a long way from the Bronx, and Dave Riley had taken a winding, circuitous route to end up on Dafuskie Island. A career in the Army, mostly in Special Forces, some security and consulting work after retiring, and finally he’d decided he was done traveling. Actually, if he really thought about it, which he rarely did, he’d just gotten tired. He’d started turning down the security gigs because they usually meant traveling to some disease-infested shithole, guarding engineering contractors raping the land, or someplace like L.A., and dealing with some shithead movie star, and then eventually there were no more offers. And then he was done with it. A slippery slope into his present reality.
Resting in a storage unit on the mainland, he had a cardboard box full of plaques and medals, and the handful of photos every Spec Ops guy has of rough-looking men brandishing weapons in front of helicopters, in less-than-exotic but usually distant locales. He got a monthly check from the government for services rendered. He had memories, some good, most suppressed, a handful causing him to wake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.
Dafuskie Island was west and south of Hilton Head, on the landward side of the Intracoastal. Five miles long, and at its widest only two and a half, it was a bit schizophrenic in its population dispersal. On the northeast side was a private, residential community with a little over a hundred year-round residents and over two hundred homes. Then, south of that, along the Intracoastal and across from Hilton Head’s South Beach, was the high-class Dafuskie Resort with its golf course. Then things went less formal with Oak Ridge, a small community of locals. Finally, at the southern tip, was Bloody Point, which was Riley’s current and favorite spot. Like several other locales along the east coast of Georgia and South Carolina, the English and the Spanish and their various Indian allies had battled it out for control of the southeastern seaboard of what would eventually become the United States. Bloody Point had earned its name from several skirmishes between settlers and the Native Americans.
Like much of the land in the low country, in the past fifty years it had been developed, and two golf courses put in.
Both failed, much to Riley’s secret delight. The word was that the two now-overgrown expanses had just been purchased by a new developmen
t group, but so far, Riley had yet to see any action.
Besides being part of a Jimmy Buffet song, The Prince of Tides, and bemoaning development, Dafuskie was the locale Pat Conroy had used in his novel The Water is Wide, and some still remembered when a young Pat Conroy taught in the small school on the island. Thinking of that made Riley think of something else.
“Giannini!” Riley screamed the name across the low country, the grasslands and marshes taking the word and consuming it.
Riley was exhausted. No one had told him how tiresome getting older would be. He’d turned fifty last year, and while most didn’t consider that ‘old,’ his body bore the wear and tear that might be expected of a professional football player. He had the aches and pains of the wounds he’d accumulated over the years. Purple Hearts didn’t make your body feel any better.
Over twenty years in Special Operations had also led to having both knees replaced, and rotator cuff surgery. The latter pained him the most, especially in the cold, one reason he’d moved to South Carolina, among others. He’d also had no other anchor, no other family than here, and even that was a stretch as he’d never been particularly close to his Uncle Xavier.
Riley glanced at his watch. Not yet noon, but it was five o’clock somewhere. He took another deep draw on the bottle of beer. He had two six-packs of bottles in the sand next to him, the three empties neatly arrayed back in their slots. He might be tired, but he would not litter.
He tried to draw up the energy to yell her name again, but knew it was futile. “Fuck the Prince of Tides,” Riley muttered. Screaming the name of the woman from your past did no good. Giannini was dead, long dead, and that was that. He’d had a chance, but he’d been too busy fighting for his country to see there was any other way. She’d been too busy defending the streets of Chicago as a cop that it took her life in a bank robbery before either of them truly appreciated that golden opportunity they’d been presented with in each other.
Riley’s cell phone buzzed and he checked the text message.