"And your family was okay with that?"
"Well, yes. I don't have much close family left, unfortunately. My parents died during my last year at school."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Just your brother, then?"
"Right. And we aren't that close. There's too big an age difference, I guess. Anyhow, I spent a year kicking around, sightseeing. Europe for a while, a little time in Asia. Then Australia and New Zealand."
"Wow. You've covered some ground. Which country do you like best?"
"They all have something to recommend them, but overall, there's no place like home, you know?"
"The good ol' U.S. of A., huh?"
"Yes. But I wanted to see the Caribbean, and I figured the best way to do it was working my way on a yacht."
"Was Sisyphus your first berth?"
"Yes. I had no clue. Aside from having to deal with the abusive men, being a deck hand is hard work. There's always something to scrub or scrape or paint. Polish the metal, wipe down the brightwork and touch up the varnish. Like I said, I had no idea."
"Boat maintenance is endless, all right. And the workload increases exponentially with the size of the boat. Island Girl is plenty big enough for me to take care of."
"She's a nice boat," Mary Beth said. "Nothing fancy, but she's solid and comfortable. Have you always sailed by yourself?"
"Mostly. I haven't been doing this full-time for all that long."
"What did you do before? If you don't mind my asking."
"I retired a year or so ago."
"Military?"
"Why do you ask?"
She shrugged. "You have that air about you. Like my brother and his friends."
I nodded. "Army. I was commissioned when I graduated from college."
"Where did you go to school?"
"University of Florida. You?"
"USF," she said. "I majored in accounting, because that's what my father wanted me to do. I was supposed to join the family business, but it wasn't to be. And I hated accounting. What did you study?"
"Engineering, but I never really worked at it. And after 20 years, my pension's enough to keep me afloat."
"Ha, afloat, huh," she said, with a chuckle. "Looks like a good life to me. This is what I was expecting the yachting life would be like. How long do you think you'll do this? Got any plans for after you get tired of sailing?"
"No. I just take it as it comes. How about you? Planning your next adventure already?"
"No, I just got here. I can't count the time on Sisyphus. I could do a lot more of this kind of sailing. And Puerto Rico's the only island I've seen."
"Puerto Rico's not typical," I said. "It's beautiful, but it's big, and it's part of the U.S. Wait until you see some of the Windwards and Leewards."
"How about the Virgins?"
"They're nice, but they're crowded and touristy. Not to mention expensive."
"Are there a lot of people like you down here, Finn?"
I frowned. "What are you asking?"
"People I could hitch rides with, just... you know, regular people?"
"I don't know. There are all kinds of people cruising the islands. Guess you'll have to see how it goes. Tired of my company already?"
"Oh, no! Not at all. I just don't want to wear out my welcome with you. And I was hoping to be able to make a little money along the way, but that's secondary."
"Well, you're welcome aboard Island Girl for as long as you can stand me. But if you want to move on, I understand. You're young, yet. Lots of adventures ahead of you."
She leaned in and gave me another kiss on the cheek. "You're sweet, Finn. And I like you a lot; you don't seem so old to me. Thanks again for helping me out."
She picked up the dishes and turned to the companionway. I stood and tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped, surprised, and turned around. I took the dishes from her.
"I'll clean up the galley and sack out for a while, if you're okay taking the helm."
She grinned and nodded. "You got it, skipper."
8
It only took me a few minutes to square away the galley. I poked my head up through the companionway to see if Mary Beth needed anything before I went to sleep.
She was leaning back against the leeward side of the cockpit, her foot on the tiller. Head back, the breeze ruffling her curls, she watched a frigate bird gliding along in the slipstream from our sails. She was the picture of contentment.
I watched her for several seconds, reluctant to disturb her. She sensed my presence and looked over at me, smiling.
"You okay for a while?" I asked. "Need anything before I crash?"
"No, thanks. I'm fine, having a glorious sail. Get some rest."
"Yell if you need me, then."
I crawled into the sea berth and rolled to put my back against the lee cloth. With my knees drawn up against the back cushions, I steadied myself against Island Girl's rolling.
My head cradled in a pillow, I draped my left forearm over my eyes to block the light. I didn't drop off to sleep, though. I was still pondering how I'd come to have Mary Beth's company.
Her answers to my questions did nothing more than whet my curiosity. I didn't learn much about her, at least not much of consequence.
The story of her travels since college was vague. My guess was that her folks left her with some money when they died, but if so, why did she want to pick up work as paid crew? Did she run through her inheritance?
And how long should I ignore her obvious flirtation? Did she really find me attractive, or was she playing me? And if she was playing me, why?
I told her I was happy to have her along for as long as she wanted. But she was curious about whether she could hitch rides on other boats. That could be an effort to avoid appearing too eager to impose on my hospitality. Or her entire story could be fabricated.
Nothing she told me explained the three men who jumped us in Puerto Real. The more I thought about them, the less likely it seemed that I was their target. I was there for a week before Mary Beth showed up. They could have moved on me any time; they wouldn't have waited until I had company.
I wondered again if she could have been part of a setup. If she were in league with those three, she didn't hold back when she pretended to help fight them off.
One suffered a dislocated knee, and the other's jaw was broken. That was more evidence that they were after her rather than me.
She said she couldn't connect them to Sisyphus. As she mentioned, if they were friends of the jerks on the superyacht, they wouldn't have followed her for days before making their move. Unless...
They were motivated by something other than revenge for what she did to the mate. That might be, but what other motive could they have?
Was there more to the Sisyphus tale than she told me? That could well be. A yacht like that was a multimillion-dollar investment. It would most likely have been run in a businesslike manner. Most people hired as deckhands on megayachts had some professional credentials, or at least relevant experience. As far as I knew, Mary Beth had neither.
She might have been hired based on some personal relationship with the captain or the owner, but that didn't fit the situation she described. The captain could have promised employment to lure her aboard for nefarious reasons. But Mary Beth didn't seem naïve enough to fall for that kind of thing. Besides, that wouldn't explain the three men who attacked us. For all I knew, there was no such vessel as Sisyphus. She could have made that up. But to what end?
I should have taken a closer look at her passport, but doing that now would be awkward. If she told the truth about arriving in Puerto Rico from the States, her passport wouldn't have any stamps for that trip anyway.
Only if she arrived from outside the U.S. would the passport tell me anything. It might corroborate her story of globetrotting for a year, but I didn't care about that.
As I was about to drop off, I realized that Mary Beth had the earmarks of an undercover operative. Her vague past, her enigmatic answers to some of
my questions, and her hand-to-hand combat skills fit the pattern. That woke me up.
If she were a government agent, our encounter was surely pre-planned. That would mean whoever she worked for had access to my client contact person, because no one else in the government knew where to find me. But in that case, my contact would have told me. Unless...
Could they have decided I knew too much? Was Mary Beth here to make my retirement permanent? I shook my head.
She passed up a perfect opportunity when I fell asleep in the cockpit while she was steering earlier. Whatever she might be, she wasn't here to do me any harm.
Could she be part of a parallel operation? One that my immediate contact didn't know about? Given the secrecy surrounding my department, that was a remote possibility.
I've dealt with the same client contact for nearly 20 years. While we've never met face-to-face, her track record with me is rock-solid. She wouldn't suddenly betray our mutual trust. If she knew about an operation that could affect my mission, she would have told me.
Mary Beth wasn't part of any government operation. After 20 years, I could just tell. So, I didn't need to call in and have her checked out. I still wondered about her, though. She knew more about what those guys in Puerto Real were up to than she told me. But there would be time to resolve that later, if we were to have a later.
My encounter with Mary Beth must be coincidental. But I would still keep probing her until I made sense of her story. I remembered the sage advice from a long-ago mentor; "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."
I resolved not to pass up any more opportunities to get to know her better. After all, she was sending signals that she would welcome my attention, and we were a couple of days from Bequia. And I really did find her attractive on more than one level.
9
I was on watch for sunrise on the fifth morning of our voyage. When I was far out at sea, I would argue with myself about whether sunsets or sunrises were more beautiful. If I were deprived of anything besides that split-second view when the horizon cuts across the sun, I might be hard pressed to tell the difference. There was no way to test that, though. There were always other sensory clues. The wind and the waves coupled with my sea sense always gave away whether the sun was coming or going.
That fifth sunrise was spectacular. In the tropics, the transition from night to day came quickly. Dawn was brief, just long enough to warn me that something was changing. Then a glorious, fiery ball would pop up on the horizon. As the sun climbed, it appeared to rest atop a column of gold that grew from the sea at my feet. Then the column vanished, and the new day was mine.
This particular sunrise interrupted my musing about what was to become of my relationship with Mary, which sprung up as quickly as the tropical sunrise. I smiled as I recollected her warning back in Puerto Real about that thing that happens between men and women. She turned out to be quite a woman.
The tattoos were out of character. She didn't seem like the type, but maybe I was just an old fuddy-duddy. The one on her hip wasn't so strange, once I got a better look at it.
It was a detailed sketch of Medusa. In the absence of the other one, it might not have been remarkable, but there was still the snake theme. The tattoo of the cobra, though… Well, I still couldn't figure out why a sweet girl like her had such a fearsome —
"Good morning, Finn," she said, handing me a steaming cup of coffee.
"Thanks." I must have been drowsing; I didn't hear her moving around below. "Glad you didn't miss the sunrise."
"Me, too," she said. "What put that smile on your face?"
"Coffee and a new day," I said.
"Bullshit. I've been watching you while the coffee perked. You've been grinning like a fool ever since there was enough light for me to see."
"Just happy, I reckon." I took a sip of the coffee as she settled in beside me on the windward cockpit seat.
"Me, too," she said. "It's been a great ride. What time do you think we'll make landfall?"
I shrugged. "Three or four hours, last time I looked. You didn't plot our position while the coffee was brewing?"
"I didn't want to break the spell. I was worried that if I turned on the light over the chart table, you'd notice. Then I wouldn't have been able to watch you." She gave me a little peck on the cheek. "What's on the agenda when we get to Bequia?"
"Well, after we clear in, I was thinking we might walk around a little. You been there before?"
"No. Just read about it. It sounds pretty different."
"Yep. It's a magical place. There's nowhere else like it. It's way different from St. Vincent."
"But it's only, what, twelve miles away?"
"About that. And there's a lot of traffic back and forth. I mean, it's the same country. People commute to work on the St. Vincent ferry, some of them. But it's like a different world, St. Vincent is. Ask any of the people in Bequia."
"I will. Can I buy you lunch ashore?"
"Sure. That'll be great. There's a place I know that serves good local food, and it's inexpensive. Run by an interesting woman, too. You'll enjoy her."
She smiled and took a sip of coffee. We passed several minutes in comfortable silence, and my thoughts drifted back to how this was going to play out.
So far, I kept my plans from her, but I needed to be on that ferry to St. Vincent tomorrow morning. That would put me there 24 hours earlier than I planned, which suited me well. I could handle my business and get out before anybody was the wiser.
"We need to talk, Finn." Her brow was furrowed as she looked me in the eye.
"Okay. What's on your mind?" Now I was a little worried.
"About us. You and me."
"Okay." I braced myself.
"Relax," she said, smiling. She shifted her gaze to the horizon. "I really like you. I mean a lot. But I'm not looking for anything long-term, okay?"
I nodded. "Okay. I figured that."
"I'm glad things worked out the way they have between us, but I don't want to impose on you. I need a little time alone while we're in Bequia. Is that all right?"
"Yeah," I said. "Sure. I understand."
She looked at me again, holding my eye for several seconds. "Maybe you do. I hope so. Now, you were planning to come here before you met me, right?"
"Well, more or less. Somewhere in the neighborhood, anyhow."
"So, I'm guessing you have stuff to do here," she said.
I frowned, and she went on.
"I'm not prying. What I want to say is that you should do what you need to do. I'll take care of myself. You don't need to worry about me."
Trying to figure out whether relief or regret was my dominant feeling, I put on my best poker face. "Is this goodbye, then?"
"It could be, if that's what you need. I don't want you to feel responsible for me. But if I won't be in your way, I wouldn't mind hanging out on Island Girl for a while."
"That's no problem. There are things I have to do; I'll be away for a day or two, after tomorrow morning. Make yourself at home. I'm happy to have you look after the boat, actually."
"Thanks, Finn. I'll take care of her as long as I can, but I have to tell you, I'll be looking for a crew position. It's not a reflection on you; it's just what I need to do."
I nodded. "We'd better talk to the customs and immigration people, then. We may need to do a little paper work, in case you find something before I get back."
"I'm not sure I understand," she said.
"We'll need to get you off the paperwork for Island Girl before you can leave on another boat. It won't be a big deal if I'm here. But if you find a slot before I get back, it could be a headache unless we prepare in advance."
"I see. Aside from my plans, how long are you planning to stay here?"
"Once I take care of my business, I'll be out of here. Unless you've found something, you're welcome to come along. I hope you will; I like you, Mary Beth."
"Yeah. I know. I like you, too. Let's just see how this turns out, okay?"
I nodded.
"I probably won't find anything in Bequia — not enough crewed charter yachts there. I'll have better luck somewhere like St. Lucia. I've read that there's more big-boat traffic around Rodney Bay. Or maybe Martinique. I'd be tickled to tag along with you to wherever you go next, if that's all right."
"Suits me fine," I said, smiling. "Should we do that paperwork with customs, just in case?"
She shrugged. "If it's not too complicated. It never hurts to hedge your bets."
"Amen to that," I said. "You want to take the helm? I'll go rustle up breakfast for us."
She gave me a kiss on the cheek and took the tiller from me.
10
Mary Beth was standing on the Bequia town dock, waving goodbye as the ferry to Kingstown pulled away. I stood at the rail on the upper deck, watching her until I couldn't pick her out of the crowd any longer. As much as I didn't want to, I admitted to myself that I would miss her while we were apart.
I haven't allowed myself the luxury of becoming attached to a woman in 20 years. I once had a wife and a daughter. Back then, I bought a house in the suburbs, trying to lock down my share of the American dream. But that didn't end well.
We married right after college, before I went on active duty. When my daughter was born, I was crawling on my belly in the jungle in one of those places the government still won't talk about. By the time I was extracted and returned to what passed for a safe place, my daughter was two months old.
I got the notice of her birth and arranged a phone call home, but the number was disconnected. That situation got worse before it got better. "Got better" was relative, and it took a long time -- years. Years when I wondered about my daughter. I didn't wonder about her mother; I knew how she felt about me. The lawyers made that clear right from the start.
I shook off the memories and turned from the rail, working my way to a seat on the open upper deck. It was early enough so that the sun wasn't too hot for me to enjoy sitting outside. Thinking about Mary Beth, I watched the shoreline of St. Vincent change from a gray smudge on the horizon to gray-green details as the ferry drew closer.
Assassins and Liars Page 4