by Ted Bell
Now the clock says eleven forty-five! What the—oh, man. He was losing it. Almost. Sitting behind the bar, he’d been looking at the clock in the mirror! It said twelve-fifteen in the mirror. That was only the reflection. It was eleven forty-five in real life! He was okay! He was cool! He had fifteen whole minutes left! He was going to—ouch, there was a light shining in his eyes. He whipped around.
Somebody was shining a couple of flashlights through the windows at the front of the PX, rattling the front doors. Had they seen him?
MPs, had to be. Great timing, guys, really great, thanks a million, no pun intended.
He grabbed the Stoli and RC, ran back behind the bar, and dropped to his knees. He had to boogie on out of here but quick. He crab-walked the length of the bar and quickly reached the back door he’d jimmied open on the way in.
Two seconds later he was sprinting through the swirling curtains of rain toward his car. There was a Humvee pulled up right behind it, blue lights flashing. Goddamn. He looked back over his shoulder at the PX. Saw two lights flickering around inside. By the time those dumbass cops found the back door broken open, he’d be adiós amigo.
He opened his car door and tossed the Stoli and the RC on the front seat. Then he jumped behind the wheel and twisted the key in the ignition.
Aw shit, not now. Piece of crap Yugo, come on! Start, goddammit! Rain must have blown up under the distributor cap, that was it. Of all the times to—wait. Better idea.
He grabbed his bottle and RC, jumped out of his car, and ran back to the MP’s Hummer. Keys were in! Yes! There was a God!
He slammed the Humvee in gear, reversed, and saw the two flashlights bobbing through the rain, headed his way. Going to try and cut him off. No way, girls. He bounced back over the curb, put it in first, and stood on it, swerving up onto the grass, then back down the service driveway to the main drag, hauling complete ass. He looked at his watch. Ten minutes to midnight. He hung a Louie and headed for Sparky’s watch tower, looking in the rearview.
Careening around the corner on two wheels, he was mystified to see another Humvee with its blue flashers going, blocking the street. Jesus H. Christ! He hit the brakes, skidded short of the two MPs standing there, and slammed it into reverse, knocking over some guy’s arty-farty mailbox. Shit happens, neighbors.
Well, now, goddamn it all to hell. Here came the two Keystone Kops from the PX, running around the corner and blocking his “Escape and Evasion” maneuver. Held up his watch. Seven minutes. RC was on the seat beside him, thirty hours and seven minutes to payday. He just had to play it cool was all. The way he’d always played it, right?
The two MPs in front stayed put. Hands on their sidearms, tough guys, watching too many episodes of JAG lately.
He craned his neck around and saw the two dickwads behind him coming toward his car. One guy stayed at the rear on the passenger side, the other one walked slowly up to his window. He rolled it down, nice and polite like, shoving the Stoli bottle under the seat with his right hand. He’d like to hide RC, but here was the guy shining some bright light right in his damn window.
Five minutes. He felt the Vitamin V pumping hot in his veins. Hell, any fool could stay cool for five more goddamn minutes.
“How we doin’ tonight, sailor?” the MP said.
“Just fine,” he said, giving the guy a big smile. He couldn’t even see the guy’s face, the light was so bright.
“What exactly you doing in the PX on a rainy Sunday night, sailor?”
“Just having a little drinky-poo, sir,” he giggled. That’s what Rita called cocktails when she was at somebody’s house for dinner.
“Had quite a few, I’d say. Seein’ as how you picked somebody else’s vehicle to drive home in.”
“No, sir, I have not been drinking quite a few. Only had one, sir. My vehicle wouldn’t start is all.”
“Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“Yes, sir!” He’d been trying to slide RC out of the guy’s sight.
“What the hell is that thing?”
“That’d be your portable CD player, sir,” he said. Damn quick, too.
“Okay, very carefully, get your service ID out and hand it to me.”
“Yes, sir. It’s in the pantleg pocket of my fatigues. Right where I always keep it. ’Cause of the Velcro, you know. Okay?”
“Just show me the goddamnn thing,” the MP barked at him. Touchy, touchy.
He reached down and ripped open the Velcro seal on his pocket. Pulled out his ID packet. An open pack of Rita’s cigarettes came flying out, too, cigarettes spilling all over the floor. What the hell? Oh. She liked to wear his fatigues sometimes, when she went riding. So, that’s where she’d been hiding them! She was going to get an ass-whupping for that all right!
Cigarette. That would steady the old nerves. He reached down and picked one up and popped it between his lips. Then he leaned over toward the MP’s light, put the end of the cigarette right on the glass lens, and started to drag on it, trying to get the damn thing lit.
“Hell’s wrong with your lighter, sir. Can’t even get—”
It wasn’t a lighter, he saw now, hell no, it was a damn flashlight. He’d tried to light his smoke on a flashlight! Sent a bad signal, probably.
“Step out of the vehicle, sir,” the MP said. “Now!”
“Absolutely” he said, moving his foot off the brake and flooring the accelerator. He hit something, felt like a deer, maybe one of the damn MPs who wouldn’t get out of his way, and then his new Humvee was tear-assing across a few lawns and driveways and drainage ditches. He had the ideal “Escape and Evasion” vehicle, all right.
There were a whole lot of flashing blue lights in his rearview now. Shit, looked like the whole damn military police force was on his ass. Too late, kiddies, too damn late! He knew a shortcut to Sparky’s tower. He could be there in two minutes. He banged a wall hanging a hard right and banged walls a few more times going down the alley, sending trashcans flying left and right.
His watch said three minutes till twelve. He was going to make it, goddammit. He was going to pull this big bad mother out of the fire.
He burst out of the alley and there it was. Tower 22. Home of his best buddy, Sparky Rollins. All he had to do now was cross that baseball diamond and then a big open field and he was home free. No flashers in the rearview now. Good, they musta missed his shortcut. He accelerated across the diamond and decided to take out a row of bleachers down the right field line just for fun. Hell, it wasn’t his Humvee.
Then he was tear-assing across the open field, friggin’ airborne half the time. What a ride! His old heap would never have made it across all these damn flooded ditches and bushes and shit. To his left, he could see a train of blue flashers as the Humvees came to a stop in the parking lot of the baseball field. Then they too started racing across the diamond towards him. He managed a peek at his watch.
Thirty seconds.
He skidded to a stop a hundred yards from Sparky’s tower, jumped out, and ran over to the base. Cupping his hands, he yelled up to the tower.
“Sparky! My man! Sparky, you up there?”
“Sparky’s off duty tonight,” a guy up in the tower yelled down. “Identify yourself! Who the hell are you and what the fuck are you doing?” Guy had an M-16 pointed right at him.
“I’ll show you what I’m doing!” Gomez said, jumping back in his Humvee. “Watch this, asshole!”
He reversed back a hundred yards and stopped. The fleet of Humvees was racing across the field toward him, all fanned out, thinking about surrounding his ass.
He looked at his watch and saw the second hand coming around, come on, baby, come on, yes! He had the RC in his lap, staring at it. Twelve midnight on the button! Two buttons actually and he pushed both of them simultaneously just like Julio Iglesias had told him.
The red numbers instantly started rolling backwards.
The Big Bug Checkout Countdown had begun.
The whole U.S. cavalry was maybe two
hundred yards behind him now and coming fast. He rammed the Humvee in first and floored it. He was headed straight for the fence, screaming at the top of his lungs. Glass was shattering and hitting him in the face and he realized the guy on the tower was shooting at him!
One of his own guys was shooting at him! Friendly fire? No such luck, pal. Court-martial time for somebody!
He was going eighty when he hit the wire fence. It slowed him down a little, and he took a lot of goddamn fence with him and he musta hit one leg of the tower by mistake because it looked like it was starting to topple over, but goddammit, he was headed for the promised land now!
He took a quick look over his shoulder. There was the guy on the tower, only now he was pinwheeling in the air, headed for the ground. He saw that all the Humvees had stopped short of the fenceline. Of course. You’d have to be crazy to drive across a goddamn minefield on a rainy night, right? He was peering over the top of the steering wheel, wondering if the mines would be like little bumps that he could steer around, when he felt his pecker humming.
He jammed one hand down inside his jeans and pulled out his cell phone, put it to his ear. Damn, it was hard to drive with one hand but what else were you supposed to do?
“Roach Motel,” he said, realizing that his mind was totally clear but that he was screaming.
“Any vacancies?”
“No. No fucking vacancies for thirty hours.”
“Muchas gracias, amigo. Viva Cuba!” the guy said.
Then there was a click in his ear and then a much louder noise, some kind of explosion, and he felt the entire Humvee lift into the air, seeming to break in half as it rose. Then it was falling end-over-end and he seemed to be upside down and there was this terrible ripping pain in both legs, hurt so bad he couldn’t believe it and then—
He opened his eyes.
He was lying on his back in a ditch full of water. Rain was still falling hard, stinging his face. Stuff was on fire all around him. Shit, his own T-shirt was on fire! He scooped a handful of muddy water from the ditch and put it out. Had to get moving. Had to deliver the RC and get his money. He could even see the Cuban towers now, they all had their spotlights trained on him. He’d been so close!
He’d just have to walk this last part, that’s all. He felt woozy, but he could do it if he could just get his legs to move. But he couldn’t. Couldn’t even feel his legs in fact. He reached down to where he thought they were and—
Oh, God. They weren’t there. Just blood. And some other stuff. What? Bones? Guts? Jesus. He was, what, cut in half? He was—
He felt something humming in his hand. He lifted his arm and looked at his hand. His cell phone! He still had his goddamn cell phone in his hand. He put it to his ear. He could call for help. He was going to make it. He—
“Hello, honey?” Rita said in his ear. It was Rita!
“Yeah, baby,” Gomez said.
“You all right? I’m worried about you. It’s real late. I know you’ve been drinking, but you come on home now and come to bed like a good boy.”
“I can’t, uh ... honey, I can’t move my ... we were going to be so rich and ... uh ...”
“You still there? You don’t sound so good, baby.”
“Well, I’m not ... all that good. I wanted ... see ... I’ve been . meaning to tell you about the teddy bear.”
“The teddy bear?”
“Yeah. The teddy bear’s got ... a tummy bug and—”
“Honey, just come on home, okay? You’re not making a whole lot of sense here, okay? Mommy will make it all better.”
“I wish I could, you know. I just really ... really wish I could.”
“Baby? Baby? Are you there?”
“I wish—”
“Baby? Baby?”
46
Alex was dreaming.
Sound asleep in the top bunk of his tiny berth, he was dreaming of his old dog Scoundrel.
They’d taken a small picnic supper to the edge of the sea. Scoundrel was plunging again and again into the waves, retrieving the red rubber ball. But now some terrible black storm appeared to be howling in from the sea, sweeping the little red ball farther and farther from the shore.
Scoundrel was at the water’s edge, the waves lapping around his forepaws. He was mewling and barking, watching the red ball disappear over the horizon. The dog barked loudly, loud enough to wake Alex, who rolled over in his berth, clutching his pillow, mumbling something in his sleep.
He was so far down, he couldn’t, wouldn’t, come up.
Quiet, Scoundrel. Quiet.
But there really was a voice calling him to come and come quickly.
Someone really was grabbing him, a rough hand on his shoulder, calling his name loudly in his ear. Shaking him, telling him to wake up, wake up now, even though he knew it was still nighttime. He could hear the waves slapping against the hull of the ship, see the blue moonlight streaming through the porthole onto his bedcovers, and hear the faint sounds of activity up on deck.
“Rise and shine, Commander, wake up!” the steward was saying. “It’s 0600 hours, sir! You were meant to be airborne at this time! Sir!”
“What? What?” Alex said, sitting up. Scoundrel had been replaced by a sea of black dots, swimming before his eyes.
“0600, sir, you filed a flight plan for an 0600 hours departure. Flight ops has been calling, wondering where you are. We’re getting ready to receive four squadrons. They’d like to get you out first. And this fax came in for you, sir, middle of the night. We didn’t want to disturb you.” He handed Alex a sealed envelope.
“Tell flight ops I’m on my way,” Hawke said, and the aide slipped out into the brightly lit corridor.
He ripped open the envelope, pulled out the single piece of paper, and read it.
Alex,
Events here require your presence. Urgent. Please contact as soon as you receive this message.
Best,
Sutherland and Congreve
Alex shook his head and tried to clear it. He stuck the fax into his pocket. He’d radio Blackhawke soon as he was airborne. His hand went immediately to his throbbing forehead. He remembered instantly. He’d fallen prey to the demonic whiskey gods once more. They’d had their way with him and now he must pay. Coffee. That was it. Coffee.
He rang for a steward who, since this was Officers’ Country, appeared instantly.
“Yes, sir?” the boy said as Alex, yawning, opened the door, still trying to rub the sleep from his eyes.
“May I please have a pot of hot coffee?”
“Certainly,” the cherubic young ensign replied. “How would you like it, sir?”
“Black. No cream, no sugar.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” The steward nodded and was gone.
Bloody hell, he thought. What a night. There was the single malt before dinner. Make that the double single malts. Then there was, of course, the claret, all the fine claret, with the perfectly cooked rack of lamb. Then there was the port wine. Ah, yes, the port.
An old Royal Navy expression his grandfather had used popped into his brain. He seemed to recall repeating it countless times last evening, to the evident amusement of the Americans.
“The port stands by you, sir,” he’d said.
Which translated: “Don’t hog the bottle, mister, I’m thirsty.”
He had a dim memory of endless oceans of Black Bush whiskey and port wine, pounding against breakwaters he’d spent a hellish lifetime erecting in his mind. Elaborately constructed seawalls had been smashed to bits and ancient feelings had come pouring through. Along with them, he now remembered, came the long-buried memories.
God in Heaven, he thought, rolling his long legs over the side of the bunk and dropping to the floor. He’d had some kind of a breakthrough. The ghosts had come, yes, but it seemed he’d got the best of them.
The evening’s events were all slowly coming back. What else? Ah. Something about challenging that noxious prick Tate to a duel. But the cove never showed. Hardly surprisin
g.
Alex had found a perch on the fantail and waited, watching the billowing clouds drift past the moon, feeling the slow soothing roll of the deck. Feeling everything inside him shift, rearrange, and shift again.
Then Balfour had appeared. An American fighter pilot who’d become one of his closest friends during the Gulf War. During the course of their recuperation in a Kuwait hospital, he and Balfour had formed a close friendship. Then Balfour had taken a turn for the worse, and one day he wasn’t there.
Sitting there on the Kennedy’s fantail in the moonlight, Hawke had found himself doing something he’d never in his life done before. Opening his heart to another man.
God knows how long they sat there. He unleashed a flood of happy memories of his parents and those wondrous early years on Greybeard Island when the world was still a magical place. He spoke of Ambrose, and how his dear friend had tried to help him. And Vicky, of course, how he’d loved her and how he’d lost her.
Finally, exhausted, and miraculously unburdened, he stopped talking and just gazed at the stars, taking the peace and serenity they offered.
It was then that he realized he’d completely forgotten why he’d been sitting there on deck in the first place. Oh, yes, waiting for that insufferable man to come topside and have it out. He must have finally given up, said good night to David Balfour, and somehow made his way back down to his cabin. At least, that seemed to be the case, because it was morning and here he was!
Now, he straightened and touched his toes twenty times. Ouch. He dropped to the deck and did thirty very slow push-ups. His muscles were screaming, and his head was pounding. It had been a very long time since he’d experienced a hangover of this magnitude. Definitely Force Ten.
He stepped inside the tiny head and stood bracing himself, both hands on either side of the little stainless basin. He’d gotten himself bloody well drunk, he had. First time in recent memory. Not tipsy. Tanked. Snockered. He felt goddamn awful. He looked at his bleary, watery eyes in the mirror and was flabbergasted to see a faint smile there, lurking under the two-day beard he’d been meaning to shave off.