| |
Yeager didn’t want to try moving Pettigrew to the Guppy, so when Monalisa idled up alongside the Kekepi, he asked her if she could drive the bigger yacht and get them into Honolulu, “STAT-fucking-fast.” The former Navy master-at-arms nodded and set about anchoring and shutting down the Cobalt. Yeager ducked back into the crew quarters where Charlie had said she’d been held earlier.
Pettigrew lay on one bunk, swaddled in blankets except where red-stained towels wrapped his midsection. The slice across his torso traveled diagonally from under his left nipple all the way across his diaphragm. Shallow at first, the cut deepened, splitting open skin and muscle. He had lost a lot of blood. Charlie sat on the bed next to him, keeping pressure on the wound.
Looking damp and drawn, the old man cracked an eye when Yeager stepped into the cabin. “Don’t suppose you got a butt?” he wheezed.
Yeager put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “I know you’re hurtin’, babe, but can you hold here a bit? I need to clear the rest of the boat and make sure there’s no lurkers.”
She cast a tired smile his way and touched his hand with her cheek. “I got this. Just be careful. And if you find some ibuprofen, bring the bottle.”
The engines rumbled to life, and Yeager had to catch himself as the boat started moving under his feet. He held Charlie’s shoulder a second longer, trying to impart as much strength, or draw as much love, as possible from that simple touch. All he wanted to do was sit and rock her in his arms.
But there was work to do. It was a big boat, and it took a lot of clearing. Yeager was dragging by the time he reached the salon, where he found Victor seated on the torn-up sofa. The muscular Latino was bent over the coffee table—also splintered and shot up—and had several charts and diagrams spread out in front of him. The Asian man in the suit sat in an armchair, trussed with thick-braided rope like a heroine tied to the railroad tracks. He glared daggers at Yeager, though the effect lacked power, considering the bloody snot bubbling at the man’s nostrils.
“Hey, El Toro,” Victor said. “Charlie okay?”
“Yeah.” Yeager slumped to the sofa next to his friend. “Yeah. I guess. Her hand is broke all to shit, and Pettigrew’s holding on by a thread. The boat’s clear, though. No more bad guys.”
“Not so fast, hombre.” Victor stabbed a dirty finger on the chart in front of him. “We got big trouble here.”
“Talk to me.”
“We know these assholes snatched a liquid gas carrier, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And Monalisa said the Coast Guard is sending a cutter to check it out.”
“Good. What’s the problem?”
Victor leaned back, rubbed his eyes. “Well, ain’t no cutter made gonna stop a chip that size, homes, if it don’t wanna stop. They’ll brush that little boat off like a fly. So this big chip is gonna keep on goin’.”
Yeager had noticed that Victor’s low-rider gang-banger accent had magically cleared up when Dr. Alex came into the picture. Now he appeared to be regressing.
“So the Coast Guard sends a bigger chip—I mean ship,” Yeager countered.
Victor wagged his head no. “It’ll take too much time, dude. By the time the Coasties pull their finger out, Mr. Big Fucking Chip is in the channel to Pearl.” He poked a finger at the chart. “See here, this narrow cut? Back in ’41, when the Japanese sneak attacked, one of the battleship skippers—I forget which one, not the Arizona—ran his ship aground to keep it from blocking the channel. The water’s maybe a hundred feet there, so—”
“So if they scuttle the LNG carrier there, it blocks Pearl Harbor.”
“It blocks Pearl Harbor.”
“Cuts off the base from any navy ships coming or going,” Yeager said.
“Fucks up the squids big-time.”
“And,” Yeager added, “if they blow the gas tanks, somehow set ’em on fire...”
“They burn a whole buncha people all to death, dude.”
“So what do we do?” Yeager’s exhaustion pinned him to the sofa. Just moving would require an act of willpower. “I don’t have another ship assault left in me.”
Victor scratched his chin. He held up his cell phone. “Let me see if I can make a call.” His thumb swiped a few times then stabbed. He held the phone to his ear. “Hey, Butch, it’s your old pal, Victor... no, the other old pal Victor, smartass. Listen up, man. You ready to be a hero?”
#
THE Kekepi had been allowed emergency clearance to dock at Aloha Tower, and Monalisa powered the yacht like a Jet Ski into Honolulu Harbor. They were met by a trauma team who jammed Winston Pettigrew full of plasma and transported him to the hospital where, by request, Dr. Alexandra Lopez waited with a surgical staff to receive him.
Charlie and Yeager went in another ambulance, leaving Victor and Monalisa to deal with a large number of hard-faced men in suits and others in military uniforms.
Yeager watched the news on the hospital room TV while the doctors took Charlie in for X-rays. According to reports, the Coast Guard had confirmed the hijacking of the Golden Sun, and the navy had acted on “credible intelligence” of a severe threat to national security and public safety. A team of navy special operations personnel had retaken the Golden Sun, inflicting 100 percent casualties on the Hawaiian terrorists. Tugs had pushed the LNG carrier out of the channel, where demolition technicians would board and disarm the explosive devices.
Yeager lost the thread of the report, and his eyes glazed over. Seconds later, he blacked out.
#
HONOLULU, OAHU
Tuesday, 11 May
1945 Local
Thirty-Six Hours after Taking the Kekepi
Victor found Dr. Alex Lopez in room 364 at the bedside of scrawny gray-haired Winston Pettigrew. The old vet’s bed was lifted to a reclining position, and tubes extended from various points on his body to machines and bags and to the bathroom sink, as near as Victor could determine.
“You’re not dead, dude,” Victor chirped.
“With this angel looking out for me? How could I die?” Pettigrew’s voice came out as though squeezed through a rusty tube, but he had a rogue’s twinkle in his eye. “When I get outta this bed, I’m gonna give you a run for her hand.”
“And some people”—Alex shot Victor a dark-eyed glower—“better do some explaining real soon if they ever want to see my hand or any other part of me again.”
“What?” Victor touched his chest. “What’d I do, querida?”
The Latina woman put her hands on her hips and squared off with a glare. “Don’ you querida me, Victor Ruiz. Running off into the jungle without telling me, getting shot at again, getting... getting...” Alex launched into Spanish and proceeded to describe, with many adjectives and colorful idioms, how stupid and thoughtless he had been over the past three days. By the third chapter, second verse, she was in his face, poking a finger in his chest. “And who is this woman? Huh? This woman with the boat who you just happened to know?”
“A friend, sweetheart, j-just a friend.”
“A friend with boobs, yes? A friend you don’t tell me about, whose number is still in your phone!”
Victor felt sweat drip down his collar. He appealed to Winston with a look, but the old man just spread his palms and wheezed, “Flowers, chocolate, and make-up sex. That’s my only advice.”
Alex showed every inclination of continuing her rant, so Victor did the only thing he could think of. He grabbed her by the shoulders, looked her in the eyes, and said, “Will you marry me?”
“I—what did you say?”
“Will you marry me?” His heart hadn’t hammered half this hard while ducking grenades on the Kekepi. He thought it would slam right out of his chest.
The anger drained away from Alex’s face, replaced by shock. In a small voice, she asked, “Are you... are you serious right now?”
“All the way serious, my love. Marry me.”
“I...” Tears welled from her dark eyes. “I... of course I will!” The last part was muffled by her face buried in his chest.
Winston said, “That works too. Hey, anybody got a cigarette?”
#
HONOLULU, OAHU
Tuesday, 11 May
2320 Local
Thunder jerked Yeager from a heavy sleep. He caught himself an instant before rolling to the floor in reaction to being under fire. He lay under a thin blanket on a couch next to the window in Charlie’s hospital room. Rain sheeted the glass, and lightning flickered through the half-drawn blinds.
His wife slept on the bed with an IV fluid dripping away. Her breathing was deep and regular, mouth hanging slightly open. Bandages wrapped her head, covering a scalp wound where some asshole had clocked her with a hard object, probably a gun butt. A heavy cast covered her right hand. She’d held it up to him before going to sleep and said with a crooked smile, “Looks like I won’t be learning the piano anytime soon.”
Anger clamped his belly at the sight. He wished he could revive the monster—now headless—who had done this to her and kill him all over again. His failure to protect her and keep her safe ate at him. Acid burned his throat. He pulled from his pocket a damp roll of antacid tablets and chewed two of them.
Earlier that day, he had been driven out to Marine Corps Base Hawaii and met Victor’s friend Butch. The Marine officer had escorted Victor and Yeager to a hangar just off the flight line. The place was pristine, so clean the floor shone. Two flag-wrapped coffins on stands waited inside.
Yeager’s footsteps echoed on the polished floor as he approached Betty Pyle, who sat in a chair next to her husband’s coffin, her hand upon it. A handkerchief was twisted around the other. “I’m so sorry, Betty.”
“Don’t you for a minute, Abel Yeager.” The woman’s reddened gaze pinned him. “Ted lived as a Marine and died as a Marine, serving his country. I suspect Ted went out a happy man, helping his brothers, defending his people. He wouldn’t have wanted an ounce of sympathy for doing his duty.”
“He was...” Yeager’s voice was unaccountably hoarse. He cleared his throat. “He was a good man.”
“Damn right he was,” Betty Pyle had said. Then she’d hugged him. “They both were.”
Lightning flared, and the hospital window rattled at the following rumble of thunder. Yeager flipped the blanket off and checked on his wife. She appeared to be resting comfortably, so he resisted the urge to touch her face.
Danny Osterchuk, dead. Jan Osterchuk, missing, presumed dead. Ted Pyle, gone. Lu Kim. Melissa and Austin from California. Countless other lives destroyed. Why?
“We think,” Butch had told them in confidence, “the Chinese are trying to teach us a lesson about messing with Taiwan.”
“The Chinese?” Victor barked. “What the hell?”
“What’s gonna happen?” Yeager asked.
Butch had shrugged, palms up. “Above my pay grade, gentlemen.” He slapped Victor on the shoulder and shook Yeager’s hand. “Semper Fi, boys.”
Yeager stood watch over his wife in a darkened hotel room and listened to the rain and wind beat at the window. “I’m never leaving you again,” he whispered. “Semper Fi, honey.”
#
HONOLULU, OAHU
Wednesday, 12 May
0506 Local
His ringing cell phone pulled Victor up from a deep, contented dream of riding horses and camping somewhere in the high mountains. Alex was there, but oddly, so was Jumbo, the stoned Jeep driver.
Alex mumbled in her sleep and rolled over as Victor fumbled the phone to his ear.
“Dude, whoever this is, it’s fucking early, man.”
The voice on the other end of the sat phone connection was American. Midwestern, if Victor had to guess, though he wasn’t good with accents of native English speakers. Born in McAllen, Texas, Victor’s formative years were spent in a Spanish-speaking household. English sounded to him like a bunch of pots and pans clanging together.
“I’m looking for Victor Ruiz,” the man said. “Is this Victor Ruiz?”
“Who’re you?” Victor said. Giving away information was against his religion.
“Thomas McGuffey, United States consulate’s office.” He paused. “In Hermosillo.”
“Hokay, Señor McGruff. Wachoo waan?” Victor laid on his dumb-Mexican routine whenever he dealt with gringos of the government persuasion. He was one tick away from going all no-hablo-ingles on McGuffey of the US consulate. In Hermosillo.
“Ahhh, if this is Victor Ruiz, I’m trying to find out if you know a Milton Quattlebaum.”
Victor blinked. The name stirred a distant bell. It didn’t so much ring it as brush up against it and gave the clapper a wiggle. “No, I don’ thin’ so.”
“Well, he says he knows you—oh, wait.” There was another pause, filled by the hiss of an open line. “He said to tell you, ‘It’s Cujo.’ Do you know Mr. Cujo?”
“Cujo?” Victor blurted without pausing for thought. “He’s dead. Or, I mean, thass wha’ I heard, anyway.”
According to Yeager, Cujo had flown his plane into a mountain above the village of Rascón. When he crashed, Cujo was flying into a firefight with a highly modified rocket-firing technically illegal aircraft, and he was blowing the shit out of Mexican citizens—bad drug-cartel citizens, but citizens nonetheless. That made Victor want to keep his friendship with Cujo at an arm’s length.
“No, he’s not dead,” McGuffey was saying. “He’s in a prison—Federal Prison Number Eleven to be precise. In Hermosillo.”
“Mm.”
McGuffey paused again as if waiting for more. When it didn’t come, he went on. “Mr. Quattlebaum is charged with terrorism.”
“That sounds really bad.”
Victor had a vague memory that Cujo’s real name was something German, but hearing McGuffey say “Quattlebaum” was like someone saying, “a fermented beverage made from hops” instead of beer.
“It is bad,” McGuffey said.
“What’s it to me?”
“Uh, excuse me?”
“What’s it to me?” Victor repeated. What the American consulate—and by extension, the Mexican police forces—knew about his personal role in the little bang-bang at San Felipe de Christo would go a long way toward how he approached Cujo’s situation. If they were clueless who was involved in the firefight, well and good—Victor could go straight at the problem. On the other hand, if they suspected one tremendously handsome, muscular Mexican of Texas descent—and his butt-ugly jarhead friend—of being involved... well, then, something more devious would be required. Even if Cujo, Yeager, and Victor had saved priests and orphans from certain death, their methodology had been rather... destructive.
McGuffey, at least, acted as if he had no idea of Victor’s role in stamping the shit out of Grupo Verdugo. “Mr. Quattlebaum reached out to the consulate for assistance. The most we could do, we told him, was help him find an attorney. Instead, Mr. Quattlebaum asked us to locate you.” Papers rattled in the background, and McGuffey’s voice changed to a reading tone. “He said, ‘Victor Ruiz is a friend from the old days. He’ll get me a lawyer.’”
“He didn’t say nothing else?”
“No, that’s pretty much it.”
Good for you, Cujo. “Well. Okay, then.”
“Okay what?”
“Okay, I guess I will go see this Mr. Quattlebaum, who I hardly know and can barely remember, and help him find a lawyer.”
“Great, thank you.” McGuffey sighed the way a bureaucrat did when he’d successfully handed off an assignment. “Any message I should pass along to Mr. Quattlebaum?”
“Sure,” Victor said. “Tell him Yeager and Por Que are on the way.”