by Leigh Barker
“He said…” He took a moment to recall SecNav’s words. “No matter how bad a situation might be, or may become, I make it a rule that something good must come out of it. I want you to be my own personal Special Ops, reporting only to me.” He half smiled and shook his head in mock surprise and sipped his coffee. “I kid you not, this is the Secretary of the Navy talking to me on a replica World War Two PT boat after just missing being blown to bits.”
“Sounds like you made an impression.” She drank her chocolate froth and dabbed her own nose.
He couldn’t decide if she was being sarcastic and decided she was. He was right.
“SecNav said I am a positive legacy of this sorry mess.” He smiled.
She froze with her cup halfway to her mouth. “What, you?”
“SecNav’s own Special Ops,” he repeated, and tapped his chest with his index finger.
“Right, I get that.” She moved her hand in small circles, summing up. “Teddy tried to blow you and SecNav up with Hellfire missiles and you saved him. So you’re his legacy, his…”
“Hellfire legacy,” they said together.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God.”
“That’s what I said,” he said. “Well, nearly that.”
“Please tell me you’re not going to have that on your ID.”
He nodded and poured sugar into his coffee.
“You can’t.” She shook her head, then shook it again. “People will point at you. Men will laugh as you pass.”
“And sweet maidens will swoon,” he said.
“In your dreams.”
“There’s only one woman in my dreams, and she’s no maiden.” He thought that was a compliment.
She fixed him with her deep green eyes and gave him time to realize what he’d just said.
“Let’s finish this and go and wreck your bed,” he said.
Not catching up, then.
“Wouldn’t you rather wait for some young maiden to swoon at your feet?”
“Nah, youth is overrated.”
He was lucky she didn’t have a gun…
“I have a gun,” she said, and leaned across the table.
“Yes, I’ve seen it.” He held up his hand and measured six inches. “A little one.”
“Size doesn’t matter, it’s how you use it.” She scowled at him until she saw his grin and replayed what she’d just said. Then laughed.
She watched him drinking his disgusting coffee and thought, not for the first time, here was a man unlike any she’d ever known. A throwback to an age of honor and gallantry, when a man’s word was his bond. She smiled. A movie hero.
“Your wife.”
He looked up. “Kate.”
“Kate. What happened?”
He put his coffee down and looked away for a moment. “Started off fine; then she got angry. I’m a marine and away more than I’m home.”
“You were a marine when you married her?”
“Yes, always been a marine.”
“Then she should’ve known what she was buying into.”
“Knowing and experiencing isn’t the same. I got angry that she was angry. We stopped… you know.” He shrugged.
“So you kill people instead.” She was half joking.
“I don’t do punishment sex, and I don’t replace it with killing folks. Bad people were hurting my friends and my country. Somebody had to stand up.”
“All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
“I guess. Something like that.”
“So your marriage fell apart?”
“The love you take is equal to the love you make.”
She frowned. “I’ve heard that before. John Lennon?” She raised her eyebrows. “Now there’s a man who was not the saint he’s painted.”
“Who is? We try to get by, get noticed, and get out of life without making complete fools of ourselves.”
“When did you get so cynical?”
“I’ve known good men and brave men and I’ve known crooks and cowards. When they’re dead, we bury them just the same.”
“But you still fight for them and your country.”
“It’s the right thing to do. And I’d make a terrible storekeeper.”
“You would. I’ve seen your paperwork.”
“Paul McCartney,” he said.
“Who is?”
“Telling us that you only get out what you put in. Paul McCartney, not John Lennon.”
She pushed her coffee away.
“Where you going?” he said.
“I’ve a very tidy bed that needs wrecking.”
“What about your coffee and chocolate… thing?”
“Who needs coffee?”
Ethan drank some of his by way of an answer.
She got up. “You coming?”
“Oh right, you want me there too?”
She left him to pay the bill.
Ethan leaned against the old Ford pickup with his sweat-stained cowboy hat pulled down to shade his eyes. He was wearing a checked shirt and blue jeans with the cuffs turned up above tan leather boots with silver tips. He looked like an escapee from a line-dancing troupe. And felt like a jerk, but he was in Jerksville, so fitted right in.
He was thinking about that day, that night, and the next day with Kelsey, wrecking her bed. That’d been a month ago. He should call her.
Five cowboys came out of the bar across the dusty street, looked both ways and gave him a passing glance. They all wore six-shooters in low-slung holsters tied at the thigh, thanks to the state’s new open-carry law. They could’ve been baddies from the Old West.
They started across the street towards the parking lot where Ethan’s red Ford was parked next to the exit. He pushed himself off the dented bodywork, stepped in front of them and touched his hat. “Howdy.”
They stopped and looked him up and down like he was some sort of gutter trash.
“You’re in our way,” the guy in the middle of the group said. He was the boss. Ethan knew Angel Gomez, but would’ve guessed who he was from the way the other treated him with obsequious respect.
“I am,” Ethan said. “More than you know.”
“And what the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means. You’re a bad man, and these fools are bad men. And I’m here to take your guns and lead you away for a long rest in your new home. Huntsville.”
“What’s he talking about?”
That was Diego, Angel’s brother. Not the sharpest banana in the bunch.
Angel glanced at him to shut him up, then looked up at Ethan towering a good twelve inches above him. He checked the street and smiled. “You’re here to arrest us? You, all by yourself?”
Ethan shook his head. “I’ve got a friend.” He pointed at the shaded veranda in front of a store to his left.
Gunny touched his brand-new Stetson.
“Two of you? Oooh, scary.” He grinned at his posse. “Two gringos. We should surrender.”
The other four laughed, as they were required to do. But their hands moved closer to their guns.
“Hey,” Ethan said, “I know what you’re thinking. This loser has only got one friend. But my friend has friends.” He pointed across the street.
Winter and Smokey stepped off the sidewalk and strolled into the street.
Angel stopped smiling. “We start shooting, a lot of your friends are going to be dead friends.”
“Oh, rude of me,” Ethan said. “I forgot my last friend.” He pointed up at the rooftop across the street. “You see Loco up there? He’s one of your countrymen.”
They looked over their shoulders and squinted against the sun. Ethan could’ve dropped them all right there and then.
“See that gun he’s holding?” He shaded his eyes with his hat. “No, probably not. It’s a Marine Corps M40A1.” He smiled. “That’s a sniper rifle. And Loco over there could shoot your nuts off without grazing your leg.”
The cowboys closed their legs.
“W
e ain’t done nothing,” the chubby one said. Ethan knew him as Nathan Slade, from Kentucky by way of Eddyville’s grim penitentiary.
“If that’s true,” Ethan said, “you’ve no reason to get all brave and dead.”
“What you want?” Angel said.
“Told you,” Ethan said, letting his right hand drop to the Sig in his belt holster. “What I want is you to go to prison for the rest of your lives.” He raised his left hand. “Yeah, I know, you ain’t done nothing. Except you kidnapped, raped and murdered two female sailors.”
“You got no proof or there’d be cops all over us,” Angel said.
“Just two young kids home on leave and out for a good time,” Ethan said.
“And we sure gave them one, didn’t we, boys?” Angel’s smile almost split his face.
Ethan put a round in his head and the smile vanished.
The other four had been in gunfights before, and their friend’s head coming apart didn’t faze them. They grabbed their guns.
Loco picked Diago because he was off to Ethan’s left and not likely to bleed on his god-awful shirt. He shot him in the base of the skull to dissuade him from any reflex action.
Winter and Smokey were already halfway across the street when Ethan dropped Angel, and fired twice in quick succession. Slade and his half-brother Stew died before their hands closed on their guns.
Wilf Partridge was from Tennessee, thin, light and fast. He took off up the street like a bear had picked him for lunch. Ethan raised his hand towards Loco, who was tracking the man.
Gunny sighed tiredly, stepped off the veranda into the hot sun and drew his Glock. He took a second to blow dust off it, then pointed it casually at Wilf, who was now fifty yards away and looking to break right down one of the alleys. Gunny shifted his aim and fired, then turned and walked back into the shade without looking at the result.
Wilf had turned right at the very moment the nine-mil hit him in the head. The force threw him sideways in mid-stride and sprawled him in the dust like a rag doll.
“Where’d you leave the car?” Ethan asked Smokey.
“I’ll go get it and pick you up. You rest your legs,” Smokey said.
Winter watched him go, then stepped over the bodies without looking at them, and joined Ethan leaning against the Ford. “Any chance the sheriff and his deputy’ll come riding up the street?”
“None,” Ethan said. “I showed them pictures of the girls. At graduation and after these animals had finished with them. Sheriff said he’d got business out of town.”
“We just going to leave the trash for him to clean up?”
“Says he’s got some John Doe dead or alive flyers he’ll use for them. Maybe a reward.”
“It’s like the fuckin’ Wild West here.”
“It’s not like the fuckin’ Wild West, it is the fuckin’ Wild West,” Ethan said.
“You’re not wrong,” Gunny said, leaning next to them. “You think Loco’s taking a nap up there?”
Loco stepped onto the street, his M40 in a bag across his shoulder, and jumped back onto the sidewalk as Smokey brought the SUV up the street with his foot down.
“You think he knows what flake means?” Winter said.
“He’d think it’s a compliment,” Ethan said.
They climbed into the SUV and wound up the aircon to max.
Ethan’s cell rang and he listened for a few seconds without speaking. “You did good, Ed,” he said at last, and put his cell in his pocket.
“Trouble?” Gunny said.
“Trouble,” Ethan said, and settled back into the passenger seat to catch some sleep.
Ethan pulled his Sierra 1500 rental pickup off Route 77 and up to the side of a wind-blown gas station.
He wheeled the dirt bike down the plank off the back of the pickup, opened the fuel cap and checked that the tank was full. He looked out across the desert towards the snowcapped Catalina Mountains, then turned and went into the store to give the owner twenty dollars to watch the truck. The owner settled on forty. Big responsibility, watching a truck.
Ethan picked up a pair of goggles from the rack by the door and waved them at the storekeeper and ignored his shout that they were fourteen ninety-five.
He swung his leg over the bike and pulled on his new goggles. He had on the silver-tipped cowboy boots from Jerksville, the only piece of the outfit he’d kept. In this terrain they were going to do just fine. And he liked them. A man can have the occasional eccentricity.
He fired up the bike and rode out into the desert southwest of Oracle towards the mountains. Forty-five minutes of bone-crunching ride later he came to a stop at the top of a ridge and looked out across moonscape at the dirt road cutting in from the highway off to his left. He could’ve used that road and be sitting in the air-conditioned pickup, but its dust would’ve been visible for twenty miles. And he wanted to arrive with less warning.
He could see his destination about a mile ahead, nestled in the foothills of Mount Lemmon, a silver trailer pulled up close to a rock face for shelter, what there was of it. The geek’s directions had been right on the money.
He studied the terrain and decided it could work. He killed the motor and coasted down the long slope to the valley leading to the trailer. Stealth approach. Right, him being the only moving thing for miles around. Stealthy.
He leaned the bike against a rock and looked around to make sure he knew where he’d left it, in case he got out of the place in one piece. Then walked the last three hundred yards towards the mountain. The boots, which had been great on the bike, and looked real cool, were a nightmare to walk in, and he was hobbling by the time he reached the open area that would’ve been called an oasis in the movies. Water was coming from somewhere and there was a tree, a scraggy blackbush and a scattering of yellow flowering things that could’ve been shrubs. His botanical knowledge ended at potatoes.
The silver trailer had seen better days, a long time ago. It was dented and its wheels rested on their rims. It looked derelict, but somebody was home.
“I fixed you a drink, I guessed you need it after that ride.”
Ethan took a seat at the rickety table in the dubious shade of the shrub and took the drink Teddy held out to him.
“When did you see me coming?” Ethan said, and sipped the iced tea.
“Couple of miles, maybe. Would’ve seen you sooner if you’d used the road like I expected you to.”
“You expected me?”
“Of course. That’s why I switched on my cell. I knew you’d have a techy watching out for it.”
“What if I thought you were on the boat the F-15 vaporized, and didn’t come?”
Teddy sat at the table. “I knew you wouldn’t believe that.”
“A lot of people did.”
“Ah, you mean Dryer.” He looked up at the pale winter sky. “He believes what he wants to believe. Way it turned out suited him and his masters just fine. Explosion way out in the bay. No witnesses, no press. The whole thing spun the best way to suit the politicians. Neat and tidy.”
“That what you intended?”
“Yes, of course. No way my greedy little helper was going to survive that encounter. If the fighter hadn’t done it, the C-4 would’ve. Then they’d have no reason to look any further, and no desire to stir up muddy water.”
“Then why switch on your cell?”
“Look around.” He swept his hand slowly around. “Could you live like this?”
“You’re dead. You could live anywhere you please.”
“First time I did anything, showed my face and got on any surveillance, I’d be flagged and it would be over.”
Ethan looked around. “Over’s better than this.”
Teddy was silent for a while, just sipping his iced tea.
“You wanted me here. I’m here,” Ethan said. “You blame me for your son.”
Teddy jumped. “Hell no. You were on the ground. You didn’t fire the damned missile that ended the life of the most precious thing in my
world.”
“I was in command.”
“Yes, you were, but you were trying to save your whole unit. That’s why you called in the airstrike. How could you know what would happen.”
Ethan took the glass in his left hand and kept his right loose at his side. He didn’t believe this for one second, but he’d go along with it, see where it led.
Teddy didn’t speak, just stared away into the desert. He was a mess, unshaven, filthy and thin enough his cheekbones stood out like an inmate’s in a death camp.
“What do you want, Teddy?”
Teddy’s eyes slipped back into focus and he blinked slowly. “I want it to be over.”
“Then come back with me.”
He laughed a single, harsh laugh. “What? And give Dryer the satisfaction?”
“Then what?”
He watched Ethan for a long time, his eyes watery and tired. “You should’ve saved Eli.”
“He was a marine, marines die in combat.”
“Yes, I get that. He was proud to be a marine, but killed by his own people? That’s no way for a marine to die.”
“There’s no good way to die.”
“You should’ve made sure those gung-ho flyboys knew where the good guys were.”
“You weren’t there. It was night. There were Taliban everywhere, firing from every rooftop. Tracers bouncing and whining all over the fucking place. And just us. Thirteen marines and one Humvee. I called in air support, and two F-15 Strike Eagles tore the place to shit.” He stopped and caught his breath. He was shaking from anger and the pain of loss. “One of the F-15s turned and came on down the road straight at us. We could see what was coming.” He turned to face Teddy. “Eli jumped into the Humvee and took off up the road. He knew what he was doing. He saved us all.”
“They didn’t find enough of him to send home. We buried an empty coffin, you know that?”
“I was there.”
“It should’ve been you. You were in command. It was your job, not his. It should’ve been you.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I live with it, relive it every time I close my eyes. Eli was a hero, he did what I should’ve done before I even thought about it.”
Teddy was silent, just watching him with dead eyes. “You count the Hellfires?”