by David DeLee
McMurphy leaned over the side of the rescue boat. “What the hell you doing in the drink?” Then he cupped his hand to his forehead which continued to bleed. “Jesus, my head hurts. What happened?”
“Later,” Bannon called out. “Let them take you in to get checked out.”
McMurphy opened his mouth to protest.
“Don’t argue.” Bannon had already turned and began swimming back to Flipper.
“Where you going?” McMurphy asked.
“To settle a score.”
By the time Bannon reached Flipper and hauled himself into her cockpit, McMurphy was yelling at the Coasties to stop fussing over him. The response boat’s big engines rumbled loudly and bubbled up white frothy water behind the stern as the captain swung the boat in a wide, deep turn toward shore.
Once more in Flipper’s cockpit, Bannon hit the ignition switch and pushed the throttle, aiming the hydrofoil toward the beach as well, but he wasn’t returning to where the temporary bleacher stands had been set up and the EMTs were stationed. For him, one race was over, but another had just begun.
From the corner of his eyes, he saw many of the competing hydrofoils were lined up on the wet sand of Hampton Beach already, with only a few stragglers coming in around the last buoy to finish the race. The buzz of their engines on the air. Announcements were being called out over loudspeakers to great applause.
Bannon ignored all that. He pushed Flipper fast and straight to the right of all that.
Once he was sure McMurphy was safe, he’d spotted the damaged barracuda, beached, a mile north of where the spectators were gathered. It laid on its side in the sand, a few feet above the lapping waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
Bannon aimed Flipper in that direction. He left the canopy open. In his soaking wet clothes, the icy January wind and cold sea spray quickly chilled him to the bone. He shivered, but ignored that, too. His focus was on one thing and one thing only. The barracuda and the reckless, irresponsible pilot that almost killed his friend.
In less than a minute he beached Flipper with a jarring stop and hopped out, pausing only long enough to shut off the machine. He was down the beach from the barracuda. Its pale green belly facing him as it laid on its side. He ran toward it, getting angrier with each pounding step he took. His sneakers splashed through the surf. The waves lapped over them, washing sandy foam in and out.
Behind him, someone shouted. “Bannon! Brice! Hold up!”
He recognized the voice. Reginald Singleton. The police chief of the thirty-six member Hampton Police Department. Bannon ignored him, too.
Only when he reached the opened cockpit of the barracuda, did Bannon pause. It was empty. He glanced at the damage to the front hull and frowned, then looked around at the sand, looking for footprints. Something to tell him where the reckless pilot had gone.
Singleton reached him.
The cop was a big man, as tall as Bannon at six-foot, but wider, like a linebacker. African-American. Dark skin and completely bald, he more often than not wore a green baseball cap—as he did now—with the word Chief embroidered in yellow on it. He wore blue jeans and a forest green parka. His badge pinned to it, winking as it reflected the sunlight.
Bannon started to shiver. “Where is he?”
“We saw what happened. But by the time my guys got here,” Singleton said. “He was gone.” He held his hand up to cut of Bannon’s response. “We’re already out looking for him. I’ve got men checking the cars in the lots. I’ve got people at the station pulling traffic cams and beach surveillance footage to see where he went. We’ll get him.”
“I want him charged, Chief. What he did, it was intentional.”
“Seriously?”
“He looked me dead in the eye before coming straight at me.”
“Hell of a thing to do just to win a race,” Singleton said.
“I’m not sure that’s all it was.”
“What are you saying?”
Bannon shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. Overreacting. Being hotheaded.”
“I know you better than that, Brice. You’re the calmest, most rational man I ever met in a crisis. What are you thinking?”
Bannon took a moment to gather his thoughts, clear his head of his anger. “If he wanted to knock me off course, it’s a dirty trick, sure, but I get it. Once I dived, got out of his way, there was plenty of time for him to peel away, surge ahead. But he didn’t. He went out of his way to hit Skyjack.”
“You think you were targeted?” Singleton asked. “Why?”
“I haven’t a clue, Chief.”
“You said you saw him? Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Could you recognize him, if you saw him again.”
“Definitely.”
Singleton put a hand on Bannon’s shoulder. “I’ll have my guys go through the entry forms, see if we can put an ID to this numbskull. In the meantime, let’s get you a coat or inside or both. You’ll catch pneumonia out here.”
Reluctantly Bannon let Singleton steer him away from the beached hydrofoil. Singleton was a good cop. He’d put in twenty years with the NYPD before ‘retiring’ and trying his hand at policing the Hampton Beach seacoast community.
“We’re having a thing at the Keel Haul,” Bannon said as they trudged through the sand, his teeth chattering. “It was supposed to have been a victory celebration.”
“And it will be,” Singleton said, adding, “Just not for you or Skyjack. The charities involved made a ton of money for some really good causes. As for that idiot, don’t let him spoil what was a really good thing.”
“You’re right, Chief. Of course. And thanks.”
“Speaking of Skyjack, how is the big guy anyway?”
“Banged up. Hit his head.”
“Oh, good.” Singleton laughed. “Then he’ll be just fine.”
CHAPTER FOUR
By mid-afternoon, the Keel Haul Seacoast Bar was in full swing. Music played from the jukebox—country—and all the tables and booths were filled. Animated conversation and laughter filled the place. A rarity offseason for a place many considered a local dive, but it held a warm and special place in Brice Bannon’s heart.
Bannon grew up an orphan. Both his parents were killed before he’d reached the age of four. He grew up in the foster care system, having never known his mom and dad. He had no memory of them. He had no brothers or sisters, no next of kin. He’d bounced from foster home to foster home, some good, some not so much. His stays were never long and he formed no lasting bonds with any of the families with which he stayed.
At eighteen, he enlisted in the Coast Guard and served several years in the enlisted ranks before attending their officer candidate program and earning his commission. The Coasties were the only family he’d ever known, one that he loved. But, fifteen years of military service never provided him with a place to call home. That was something he’d yearned for all his life.
He found it in the Keel Haul.
Bought five years earlier, after he’d left the full-time Guard behind, Bannon had lovingly renovated the gin joint to resemble the interior of the sailing ships of old he admired so much. The craftsmanship of the old frigates and galleons, the brigantines, and the clippers, ships like nothing being constructed today.
The bar had polished knotty pine walls. The ceiling had thick timber ribs. Lighted lanterns hung from the beams, candle-like sconces glowed over the booths, and scattered throughout the bar were lashed wooden barrels, sea chests, ropes, anchors, pulleys, fishing nets, and period-appropriate coastal maps and globes. The scent of teak oil filled the air.
Above the bar was a small two-bedroom apartment where Bannon hung his hat as it were whenever he was home.
After his conversation with Chief Singleton, Bannon had gone upstairs to shower, shave, and get cleaned up. He changed into a long sleeve black polo shirt, khakis, and boat shoes before joining the revelry downstairs.
His lead bartender Tarakesh Sardana hustled behind
the bar, serving drinks. One of the closest people in his life, she took great pleasure in teasing him about the lack of business the Keel Haul usually did or didn’t do, as the case may be. Not today.
She brushed an errant lock of jet-black hair from her forehead as she dug ice from the cool and scooped it into drink glasses. “If I ever complain about this place being dead again, just shoot me.”
“All for a good cause, Blades,” he said happily accepting a mug of beer from her. Blades, a nickname Skyjack McMurphy had given her was far more than a simple bartender.
Raven haired with dusky skin, Tara was Egyptian by birth and nationality. A former Algerian National Navy officer she’d trained with MARCOS, the Marine Commando Forces of the Indian Navy, their Special Forces program. They met when she rescued Bannon from a Taliban holding cell after he’d foolishly allowed himself to be captured.
The encounter had been an accidental occurrence. Fate.
She’d been in country with a freelance mercenary group at the time. They’d gotten word from locals about the Taliban base and decided to raid it, because, well, that was their stock and trade; harassing the enemy. Their only goal had been to disturb and disrupt Taliban operations. Luckily for Bannon, they did so on the day before his scheduled execution.
That was the first time she saved his life. There had been many, many times since.
At the time, Bannon was in charge of a team attached to the Deployable Operations Group, the Coasties’ answer to the Navy’s SEAL program at the time. After his rescue, Tara’s group worked alongside Bannon’s DOG team in an unofficial adjunct capacity. When her group disbanded—as those loosely affiliated groups often did—she continued to work with Bannon, Skyjack, and his team until the unit was decommissioned five years earlier.
Due to return stateside and be reassigned somewhere within the Guard’s domestic theater, Bannon and McMurphy decided instead to pull the pin. In doing so, they encouraged Tara to come with them to America, and she did.
Bannon sipped his beer and mingled with the crowd while from the jukebox David Frizzell sang about hiring a wino to decorate his home. Bannon paused and spoke with the locals he knew. He sought out and found the race winners and congratulated them, buying them drinks on the house. All in an attempt to put the bad events of the day behind him.
Until he heard back from Singleton, hopefully with a lead to the reckless pilot’s identity there was little more he could do.
He’d made the decision early in the day to call in his backup bartender, Ken, asking him to work. Eyeing the crowd that lined the bar and filled the tables and booths he was glad he did. The young man rushed around the crowded room with trays of drinks while Tara kept up with the service behind the bar, where people were stacked two deep.
The sight put a smile on Bannon’s face.
Another thing to make him smile was seeing McMurphy sitting at his customary seat at the narrow end of the bar where the service counter was flipped up. McMurphy scowled with his big hands wrapped around a beer mug. He wore a red Evinrude baseball cap. The cap covered the dressing over the cut on his forehead. He looked surly.
Usually warm and gregarious was how Bannon normally described McMurphy. Tara called him a big-hearted teddy bear. And he was, usually, unless someone angered him. When his Irish temper got the better of him it was Bruce Banner and the Hulk time. In those cases, what remained when he was done was usually scorched Earth.
Bannon approached him and slapped his shoulder. “How you feeling?”
“My head’s ringing like a five-alarm fire bell.”
“Not surprising. You cracked your skull pretty good.”
The two had served in the Coast Guard for nearly fifteen years each. Many of those years were together as part of the Deployable Operations Group until the program decommission. In their mid-thirties, each retained his reserve status and commissions and continuing to work part-time in a reserve capacity.
When not serving his country, McMurphy told anyone who asked he was between opportunities. For both men, the truth was far, far different.
McMurphy didn’t thank Bannon for saving his life. There was no need.
He had done it so many times over the years, and McMurphy the same for him, it was understood they were grateful for each incident; every last save. It was also understood either man would move Heaven and Earth, and Hell, too, if need be, to save the other. Giving the nature of their real work, they knew they would save each other’s life many more times in the future. It was just a given. There was no need to dwell on it. So, they didn’t.
“Who the hell was that guy?” McMurphy asked.
Bannon shrugged. “Singleton’s looking into it. When he knows, we’ll know.”
“And then we kill him,” McMurphy said.
“Maybe we don’t go that far, but yeah, something like that.”
“The way my head’s pounding right now,” he said downing his beer even as Tara placed a full one in front of him, “don’t bet on it.”
She wiped the counter with a damp rag. To Bannon, she said, “Looks like someone’s here to see you.”
She nodded toward the front door while Aaron Tippin sang about “Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagles Fly.”
Bannon turned.
At the door stood one of the last people on the planet he expected to see that night: Elizabeth Grayson, the Secretary of Homeland Security.
She crossed the room. Tall and thin. She wore a dark, three-quarter length coat with a faux fur collar, her hands in the pockets. In her early sixties, she wore her naturally gray hair down and bounced around her shoulders. It was a relaxed look as Bannon had only ever seen it up high and in a tight bun, held in place with military exactness. A handsome woman with thin, hawk-like features. She walked with practiced precision, developed from a twenty-year career in the Army where she rose to the rank of four-star general.
She cut a path through the crowd.
“What’s Lizzy doing here?” McMurphy asked.
“No clue.” Bannon put his beer on the bar and turned to greet her. “Madam Secretary.”
She pulled her hands from her coat pockets and tugged her black leather gloves off before shaking Bannon’s hand. Her hand was soft and cool from just coming in from the cold. “Brice.”
She turned to McMurphy who started to get up. She put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him. “Chief, sit. I heard what happened. I trust you’re okay?”
“Be better once I have my hands around that jackass’ neck and I’m done throttling him.”
“I understand the sentiment,” she said. “But I’d advise against homicide.”
“I’ll try my best, Lizzy.” McMurphy’s use of a causal nickname wasn’t a sign of disrespect, but the opposite. A term of endearment. Something he would only do within the confines of this group.
“Drink, ma’am?” Tara asked.
“A beer, Ms. Sardana. Anything in a bottle. And make it two.” She turned to Bannon. “Would you join me for a word, Brice?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Night comes early during the cold New Hampshire winters. Not yet five in the evening and already the sky had darkened to a deep purple. A few stars were visible against the violet canvas overhead. The streetlamps along Ocean Boulevard illuminated the deserted main thoroughfare of Hampton Beach. A few cars were left parked along the street. Snow clung to the retaining wall and curb, browned by road and beach sand.
Bannon tossed on his dark blue parka and together he and Secretary Grayson strolled north along the beach. A few degrees above freezing, the wind off the water brought with it an icy chill that ruffled the fur collar on the hood of Grayson’s coat and turned her thin cheeks pink. They clutched their beers in glove-covered hands. Crews from the town’s park & recreation department had dismantled the bleachers used as a viewing stand from the morning’s race. The iron rails and wood board were stacked in piles waiting to be picked up.
Absent were the almost always present seagulls that filled the skies durin
g the day, cawing, looking for food. The cold and night having driven them to shelter.
Bannon noted the black town car with government plates and tinted windows parked at the corner. He couldn’t see him but knew at the wheel sat a U.S. Secret Service agent named Wheeler, watching. Both chauffeur and bodyguard, Bannon had met him a few times. He considered Wheeler a good guy.
Grayson’s job as head of the DHS wasn’t a mandated protected position like the president, vice-president, and their families, but the Secret Service, like the Coast Guard, operated under her ultimate command. A perk of the job.
They walked and drank their beers. Their breath clouded the cold air. Wheeler followed their progress in the car, cruising slowly northbound along the boulevard.
Grayson remained quiet and pensive. Bannon waited. They reached the New Hampshire Marine Memorial without a word exchanged between them.
The monument was a statue of a kneeling woman, her gaze turned toward the open sea, holding a laurel wreath in her hands. It had been dedicated in 1957. Carved in the base is the inscription: “Breathe soft, ye winds, Ye waves in silence rest." Written by the poet John Gay in 1714. Around the statue is a semi-circular granite seat, twenty feet in circumference. Cut into the granite are the names of the two hundred forty-eight New Hampshire servicepersons lost to the sea during World War II and Vietnam.
Grayson stared at the ten columns of names and then gazed out to sea. At night under a dark sky, the water looked cold and inhospitable. Unforgiven.
Bannon threw their empty bottles in a trash can. The rattle of glass against metal was loud in the quiet night air. He couldn’t contain his curiosity any longer. “Not that it’s not great to see you, Liz. But, what’s up? Do you have an assignment for us?”
Several years earlier, after Bannon retired from the Coast Guard, Grayson had come to him—she and Bannon had first met on the battlefield in Afghanistan—with what he thought was a harebrained scheme that would never fly.