29

TERUMBU ISLAND, LATE JULY

Everyone aboard the Kona Wave stood on the ship’s fantail. With heavy hearts, they looked across the disappearing darkness of the early morning toward the center of the bay’s mouth. A newly arrived vessel blocked their departure. They could see the square splinter shields that protected the crews of two swivel-mounted machine guns facing them from the main deck. One gun was near the bow, just forward of the superstructure, and the second was closer to the stern, just aft of the superstructure. Sailors, wearing light-blue or gray battle-dress naval uniforms stood next to the weapons. The rising dawn also revealed a large bow gun on what looked like an eighty-foot patrol boat. While everybody looked at the boat, Havok did so as well but noticed something that gave him alarm.

“Now what?” Pilar asked, her tone heavy.

Havok noticed the heaviness in her voice. He also thought about the odds they had suddenly been presented with. They did not appear good.

“I’ll let them make the first move,” he responded as he turned to Kilgore and BB, who stood on either side of him. “In the meantime, though, we need to ready what automatic weapons we have: the small arms and RPGs too. Get them stashed where you two think best. Height will be our friend. And do it without being noticed by our friends over there.”

“I agree,” Kilgore nodded. “I don’t think they’re here to ask if we need a jump.”

From there, Havok’s group of survivors dispersed and made ready for battle and their escape. Cheng, the ship’s chief engineer, checked to make sure the main engines were ready, while Stone, Fetu, Kilgore, and Lafitte readied the weapons and transported them discretely to the bridge and the bow. Havok, along with Captain Morgan, examined the vessel anchored in the mouth of the bay. They watched as the foreign crew lowered a whaleboat from its davit on the main deck. Once in the water and loaded with several men, the boat left the shadow of the patrol boat, joined the early-morning sun on the water, and sputtered its way toward the Kona Wave. The monotonous mechanical knocking echoed across the still water and early-morning air.

Havok turned his attention from the boat and looked at Captain Morgan with a determined face. “Come on; let’s tell them we’ve got Triple A coming for us.”

Minutes later, Havok, Stone, Pilar, Kilgore, BB Lafitte, and Morgan stood on the starboard quarterdeck watching as the whaleboat’s crew, all of whom were Asian and, with the exception of the coxswain, holding AK-47s in their hands, made their landing at the foot of the Kona Wave’s accommodation ladder. While holding an AK-47 in one hand, one sailor jumped onto the landing with the whaleboat’s bowline in his other hand. He bent over and quickly wrapped the rope around a cleat. The coxswain pulled the throttle in reverse idle, holding the boat against the platform. Another man, also holding an AK-47, jumped onto the platform, stepped up the angled ladder, and looked at the people staring down at him. Havok inspected the sailor and took full warning.

The man on the platform, like his mates in the boat, wore sun-faded blue camouflage BDUs, but what alarmed Havok was that they bore no sign of rank or nationality; instead, there were dark spots on the cloth where patches had once been sewn. Havok looked over at the patrol boat at what had alarmed him earlier. On the bow, he could see fresh spots of gray paint covering the ship’s identifying numbers. He also saw that the patrol boat did not have any flags hoisted from the halyards of its mast. The cover-up work meant only one thing: these men played pirate when convenient, and navy when necessary. They might serve their country faithfully at other times, but today they were serving themselves.

When the unmarked seaman reached the quarterdeck, Havok stepped from the crowd to face him directly. “Can I help you with something? Captain . . . ?”

The man ignored Morgan and looked over the Kona Wave.

Havok continued to look at their visitor.

The man had a narrow face with pointy features and a scraggly mustache. After a moment the man spoke. His squeaky, high-pitched voice matched his rodent-like appearance. “Is this the Kona Wave?”

“Why is that any of your concern?” Havok countered.

“Do you know that you have been reported missing and lost at sea?” the man asked.

The hairs on Havok’s neck snapped to attention, but before he could say anything, Captain Morgan spoke, sealing their fate.

“I suppose we probably have been. See, we had some mechanical misfortune over the last couple of weeks, but we’re leaving for Manila to report in.”

“So you haven’t made contact with the outside world?” the sailor said as his squinty eyes became even narrower, with a growing smile.

“No, we . . . ,” Morgan started, then hesitated before finishing, “haven’t.”

“It seems strange that you have remained out of contact with the outside world,” the man countered. “Perhaps you are, or were, up to something that you do not want others to know about. Where are your students?”

Pilar jumped in, trying to hide her panic: “They’re all asleep but will be up soon.”

“Ah, you must be Professor Pilar Bonne-Bouche,” the man stated. “Have your students discovered anything of value?”

“No,” Pilar said. “They’re only students, not prospectors.”

“Prospectors?” the man repeated. “Who said anything about gold or silver? Isn’t that what prospectors do?”

The smug look on the man’s rat-like face, and his comment, told Havok that he didn’t believe Pilar’s statement. Instead, Havok was sure they were just about to receive their ultimatum, which the man had probably repeated a hundred times.

“Let us waste no more time,” the man said. “This island belongs to my country, and you people are trespassing. Before I can let you leave, you must pay a fine.”

Kilgore spoke up, but his voice was terse: “You’re right. We have something that might be a bit problematic. The students discovered a small cache of Philippine silver pesos left over from World War II. We’d be happy to hand them over if you let us go.”

The man turned to Kilgore and surveyed him for a few seconds before speaking. “That was rather quick. And I think you are not the type to give in so quickly. We will take your silver, but it will not be enough.”

“You bloody bastard!” Morgan exploded. “You are not acting on behalf of your country. Otherwise, you’d be wearing insignias and displaying your hull ID proudly. You’re just using your country as an excuse to rob us.”

Ignoring Morgan, the man finished vocalizing his ultimatum while pointing the barrel of his AK-47 at Havok. “I will have a boarding party come back in thirty minutes. You will turn over all cash, tobacco, liquor, jewelry, weapons, and portable electronics that you have on this ship—along with the pesos you mentioned.” The man’s voice became ominously threatening. “If I am not satisfied, my men will search this vessel. They will also search every woman on board, if you know what I mean.” He leered at Pilar’s crotch before turning his attention back to the group. “Any questions?”

He received hateful stares instead of a verbal response. The man gave one final warning before stepping down the accommodation ladder: “Do not disappointment me.”

A minute later, the stunned people aboard the Kona Wave watched the whaleboat plow through the water back to the vessel anchored in the bay’s mouth.

“You know, we could pile up everything he mentioned here on the quarterdeck,” Stone said, “but that wouldn’t stop him.”

“You’re right,” Havok said. “He just came over for a recon, and his demands of booty were just to make things a bit easier for them. I’d say that in about thirty minutes they’ll return with at least two boats and more men in each boat.”

“He can kiss my arse,” Morgan fumed, his normally red face taking on an even darker scarlet hue. “That pinched-faced rodent ain’t getting a bloody stick of gum off this ship.”

Havok, lost in thought, absently reminded Morgan of their position. “I think those two heavy-caliber machine guns on the stern and that gun on their bow may say otherwise. We have quite a mixed bag of RPGS, squad automatic weapons, and small arms, but nothing that can match that gun.”

“What kind of gun is that, Joe?” Pilar asked.

“It’s at least a twenty-five millimeter. Probably a forty millimeter,” Havok replied, rubbing his chin. “And after a few well-placed shots, it could sink us where we sit. But they don’t want to sink us, at least not just yet.”

Pilar was becoming frantic. They had just escaped one death, now they were facing another, and the men around her were acting as if a southern sheriff named Bubba were ripping them off.

Morgan looked over at Pilar’s wide eyes. “Pilar, I’m sorry,” he said with a heavy heart. “They’re not going to let us go no matter what we do or give them. They know that the world thinks we’re already dead, and our good friend is going to take advantage of that fact.”

“We could radio out now,” she said. The desperation in her voice was apparent to everybody.

“They got us trapped, Pilar, so it wouldn’t do any good at this point,” Morgan said.

Havok responded, “Remember that we weren’t supposed to be here. In the meantime, however, our friends here expect to have a boatload of goods and a slightly used research vessel that can either be converted or cut up for valuable scrap and be on their merry way before anybody shows up.”

“I’m sorry,” Morgan apologized. “I just wasn’t thinking.”

“Don’t sweat it, Cap,” Stone said. “None of us were. We’ve been so busy the last few days, no one has had time to think. We’ll come up with something, won’t we, Joe?”

Havok did not answer right away. He just kept staring at the patrol boat that blocked their escape. It was a single-decked ship about eighty feet long, with streaks of rust staining the gray hull. Finally, he answered, and expectant ears heard his instructions. “Pete, get me a set of scuba gear. Captain, get me a small grappling hook with about thirty feet of knotted line.”

“It’s now time for the cold face,” Morgan answered without question as he turned to collect the gear.

“Scott and BB, go ahead and take an RPG launcher and two rockets, a loaded pistol, and an extra magazine, and wrap them all in plastic.”

Kilgore did not question the order either. He knew Havok had a plan and that it would be a waste of time to ask him what it was. Instead, Kilgore and BB left the quarterdeck to collect those items.

Pilar looked at Havok with hesitant eyes. “What are you going to do?”

Havok took his eyes away from the pirate vessel and planted them firmly on Pilar. “I’m going to get us out of here.”

The Kona Wave needed a good captain and crew to get back to Hawaii, and they needed good machine gunners to escape. His plan offered their only possible chance at survival.

Minutes later, Havok was sliding down a rope that hung over the Kona Wave’s side opposite the pirate ship. He wore a faded blue wetsuit with a weight belt around his waist, along with a strip of duct tape wrapped around his chest, which held a hand-sized, plastic-wrapped package against his wetsuit. Over that, he wore a scuba tank strapped to his back. Clipped to one of the shoulder straps was a coil of knotted line and a small grappling hook, all bound together with more duct tape. Clipped to the other shoulder strap was a length of line that dangled away from Havok. The other end was in the water. The line was taut because it was tied to the plastic-wrapped RPG and extra grenades.

Pilar watched him, and halfway down the rope, he looked up at her. Her eyes were red and puffy from a constant stream of tears, and he almost changed his mind about going. That single second scared him more than the prospect of a violent and lonely death. He was used to making his own way on sure footing, but that second of confusion was frightening. He knew what was happening, and he refused to admit it. The only thing he did admit to himself was that this was their only way out.

***

Within thirty minutes, Captain Minh of the Vietnam People’s Navy stood on the port quarterdeck of his patrol boat. He watched his boarding team, all armed to the teeth, load themselves into the two whaleboats tied alongside the port accommodation ladder. They didn’t bother hiding their greed and lust for the liquor, tobacco, cash, and women, all of which awaited them just across the bay. The loot was a mouth-watering supplement to their meager pay. For these men, piracy had become a worthwhile venture. With five men, aside from the coxswain, already loaded in the first whaleboat, Minh stepped into the second whaleboat, becoming the fifth member of the boarding team in that boat. He looked at his men and assured himself that he and his men were enough to subdue everyone on the research ship, while the twelve men left aboard the patrol boat were enough to man the two machine guns and bow gun. Minh turned to his coxswain and signaled for him to start the boat’s engine.

Once started, the coxswain pushed the throttle forward, and the little four-cylinder marine diesel engaged the propeller. The men on the two whaleboats held AK-47s in their hands and held their eyes on the research ship in the middle of the bay. They all failed to notice the few bubbles that rose from the depths below to erupt between the ship and the patrol boat.

Twenty feet beneath the surface of the water, Havok heard the inboard engines come to life and was glad to hear their echoing rumble fade away. Now he would have a smaller number of sailors to deal with. Havok rolled over underwater to look up. The wakes of the two boats scarred the smooth pale-blue barrier above him as they pulled away from the patrol boat. Havok knew he had to work fast, as he had a lot to do and couldn’t risk the boarding teams figuring out what he was up to. He passed under the hull of the patrol boat and then angled upward, watching his exhaust bubbles race to the surface and gambling everybody left on the patrol boat was watching the boarding teams and not the surface of the water around them.

Finally his hands touched the hull, and he glided up along the starboard side until he surfaced amidships. He surveyed the length of the patrol boat and was relieved to see nobody leaning over the handrail smoking a cigarette. He won that gamble.

Now, alongside the hull, he kicked off his fins and unbuckled his weight belt, letting it fall away into the depths below. He then unclipped the coil of knotted line and the grappling hook from the shoulder strap of the scuba tank along with the length of rope clipped to the other shoulder strap. Now, holding the items in one hand, he unbuckled the scuba tank and let it fall away too. The two lead weights that he had secured to his tank quickly sank the tank. The wetsuit he wore gave him slight buoyancy, which allowed him to loop the rope that he’d used to tow the RPG and extra grenades around his waist. He then unwrapped the coil of knotted line and grappling hook. He loosened the coil and tossed the hook up over his head. It sailed up over the deck railing, reached its zenith, then dropped, and one of the hooks snagged the deck railing. He grabbed the rope and pulled himself out of the water, up to the deck, eight feet above the waterline. After he climbed over the railing, he lifted the grappling hook free of the railing and dropped it back into the water before he pulled at the lanyard that trailed behind him.

He yanked the bundle from the water, and when the bundle was in his arms, he threw himself against the superstructure behind him. His only protection was the overhanging bridge deck above and a steel ventilation trunk in front of him, which ran straight up and down, providing ventilation to some space below. Behind him, there was nothing, except an unmanned swivel-mounted machine gun, clear to the fantail.

He poked his head around the foot-wide trunk and looked forward along the starboard side. Up on the fo’c’sle, beyond another unmanned swivel-mounted machine gun, was his target, the cannon. It was almost completely surrounded by a skirt of steel, gapped only in the back for the gun crew and ammunition handlers to walk in and out. Inside, two sailors sat in their hard steel seats on either side of the weapon’s breech. They lounged at their stations while watching the boarding teams.

Havok removed the package duct-taped to his chest and unwrapped it. It contained his pistol and another magazine. Sticking the extra magazine in the neckline of his wetsuit, he squatted and put the pistol down on the deck. Next, he ripped the plastic from the four-foot-long bundle he had towed, and pulled out the long green rocket launcher with the oblong warhead already in its muzzle. He removed the tape that held the second RPG round to the weapon and laid that on the deck in front of him as well. With no time to waste, he stepped out from behind the trunk, shouldered the loaded RPG, and kneeled. He took aim down the tube’s open sights, looking through the gap in the gun tub, and pressed the trigger. The weapon roared on his shoulder.

Just as Havok fired, one of the gunners, sitting in the right chair, shifted in his seat and exposed his leg. Havok watched the trail of lazy smoke fall behind the warhead as it entered the gun mount. The thick round punched through the seaman’s leg, amputating it at the knee. The round missed the gun mount itself and smacked into the side of the tub, already splattered with flesh and bone. Just like the sailor’s leg, it fell uselessly to the deck.

“Shit!”

It took about one second for the sailor to realize he had just had his leg knocked off and for everybody else to realize something had happened. Cursing the dud, Havok picked up the second, and last, grenade. He slammed the short broomstick-like tube down the weapon’s muzzle and shouldered it to fire again, but before he could take aim, a sailor with an AK-47 jumped between him and the mount, filling the open sight. Havok moved behind the vent just in time to avoid a burst of gunfire. The bullets marched in line down the deck to where he was kneeling, throwing up flecks of metal, sparks, and paint chips.

Havok dropped his RPG next to his feet, snatched up his pistol, and, without taking aim, pointed the pistol at the advancing sailor and blindly fired two rounds. The rounds tore into the sailor’s chest, and as the dead sailor collapsed, Havok heard a noise behind him. Still kneeling, he spun around and saw another dressed in greasy coveralls and carrying a pipe wrench. Once again, he held the pistol in front of him and fired twice. The bullets ripped into the man’s stomach and he doubled over, falling first to his knees and then to his face, dead. An exploding fusillade of gunfire tore down the already-scarred deck from the bow of the patrol boat, with bullets tearing into the dead sailor and striking the ventilation trunk. The sailors were firing blindly from around the corner of the forward superstructure. Havok could hear the rounds punching their way through the vent’s metal on the other side. He knew that under the withering fire the metal would be perforated like a cheese grater and no longer provide any protection. He also knew that all they had to do was drop a grenade from somewhere above him. Either way, the only chance he had at survival was to jump overboard and swim for the swampy shore.

Trying to ignore the flying bits of paint and metal erupting from the main deck as bullets chewed at the steel, Havok saw the invitingly green jungle, but he thought of the people who depended upon him. He could not desert them. With a fatalistic resolve, he put his pistol down and grabbed the RPG. Many things went through his mind at that particular moment, and the one picture that stayed was the Kona Wave steaming out of this bay. With that billboard firmly plastered in his mind, he swung out from behind the vent into a hail of bullets.

Havok leveled the weapon on his shoulder, looked down the open sights, and, with bullets passing him, squeezed the trigger. The rocket bucked on his shoulder, but the swoosh of the ignition failed to mask the agonizing impact of bullets as they tore into his right thigh and shoulder, knocking him on his back. The next thing he felt was the force of the explosion as shock waves reverberated through the ship’s hull. The small-arms fire ceased. When Havok lifted his head and looked down at his chest, he saw a most wondrous sight. A dense swirl of black smoke encircled the gun mount, and from under the smoke escaped the bright flashes of a building fire.

Shaking from severe pain, he rolled back behind the holed vent. He picked up his pistol, ready to take on all comers. The abrupt silence ended with the echoing blast of a ship’s horn. The long, rolling blare of the horn reached his ears and the near shore, a signal that meant his friends had seen the deck gun knocked out of action and were on their way.

The distant blare of the horn disappeared over the canopy of the jungle only to be replaced by the crackle of small-arms fire. The gunfire came from the portside, and the symphony of machine-gun fire joined the choir. Havok knew all the attention was back on the Kona Wave as she attempted her escape. He stood with his right leg throbbing painfully and pulled the extra magazine from the neck of his wetsuit. With his half-empty pistol in one hand, a magazine with fifteen rounds in the other, and two bullet holes in him, Havok hobbled aft down the starboard side. He had almost reached the end of the superstructure when a watertight door flew open, knocking him against an overhead deck support. The door slammed into bruised muscle, and the stabbing waves of agony forced him to release the grip on his extra magazine, dropping it over the side.

In nauseating throes of pain, Havok looked into the dark interior of the ship and saw a surprised sailor standing in the doorway. He lifted his pistol and fired a bullet straight into the man’s face. From only inches away, the impact blew off the back of the man’s head. In a bizarre, surreal moment, Havok watched as a chunk of bloody skull splattered against the bulkhead behind the dead sailor, where it stuck. As the man’s body crumpled, Havok saw something still clasped in his hand. It was an old-fashioned US Army pineapple grenade with its safety pin still in it. He snatched up the grenade and continued hobbling to the end of the superstructure and toward the din of machine-gun fire.

He looked across the deck and saw two men standing at the aft swivel-mounted machine gun on the portside. One man was firing at the Kona Wave, which was still out of Havok’s view. The other man helped feed the cartridge belt into the machine gun. Both of them were intent on the Kona Wave and ignored the growing pile of empty shell casings at their feet.

Inching up behind the gun crew, Havok could now look around the corner of the superstructure. The research vessel, which was pointed directly at the patrol boat, was building up speed. Between the patrol boat and the Kona Wave, Havok could see the two whaleboats racing back to the mothership and safety. He could also see an occasional white splash near the boats, which told him that Kilgore, BB, and Stone were pouring accurate fire into the boats. He could hear the distant thumping of the machine guns mixed with reports of AK-47 fire as survivors in the boats tried to fight back. But the fight did not last long as the last of the survivors in the boat were cut down, falling backward onto their dead shipmates. Over their heads, two strings of tracer rounds from the pirate ship struck the high bow of the Kona Wave, creating flashes of intense sparks and angry tufts of black smoke. Kilgore, BB, and Stone continued their deadly fire, but now at the patrol boat itself. From a closing distance, two sets of machine guns dueled with each other in a grudge match. Havok could see that, in the narrowing distance, the pirate gunners were finding their mark. Two arcs of tracer rounds sailed murderously into the bridge of the Kona Wave, while the bullets from the American machine guns were bouncing harmlessly off the splinter shields protecting the gunners crowding behind them.

With their escape too close to lose, Havok squatted and placed his half-empty pistol on the deck. With both of his hands free, he held down the firing handle of the hand grenade with one hand and pulled at the safety pin with his other hand. Throwing the safety pin over his shoulder, he held the grenade while holding down the firing handle and reaching for his pistol. Now, armed with a weapon in each hand, he stepped toward the machine-gun crew in front of him and emptied his pistol into their backs. After firing the last round, he jumped over their bodies while throwing his now-empty pistol over the side and continued toward the second machine gun. They were so intent on the Kona Wave that they failed to see Havok or the hand grenade that he flung at them. Both of the sailors were sliced to ribbons by the grenade’s shrapnel as it exploded at waist level.

Silence now commanded the firefight. Among the acrid clouds of spent gunpowder and carnage, Havok stood alone. A torrent of blood and sweat ran down his heaving chest as he looked at the results of his work, then at the approaching bow of the Kona Wave, her steel hull coasting to a gentle stop twenty feet from the pirate ship. Up on the fo’c’sle he saw Kilgore, Stone, BB, and Pilar looking down at him. The look on their faces revealed the shock of the unholy sight. The water around the patrol ship was turning crimson from the blood that ran off the deck of the patrol boat in the bay. Havok tried to raise his right arm and wave to them, but he found he was too weak for even that. He realized he was too dead to stand. To the horror of the people watching from the bow of the Kona Wave, Havok folded, his body striking the deck hard. Now only a company of broken bodies manned the ship.

Seeing their friend collapse, Stone and Kilgore hurled themselves over the bulwark, falling to the water below, and swam to his aid, not knowing if he was alive or dead.

***

The task of collecting the dead bodies that littered the deck of the patrol vessel and filled the two boats was finally complete. After all the cadavers were stowed below and locked inside the patrol boat, Captain Morgan, with the help of Cheng and Fetu, rigged a towing hawser to the bow of the dead ship and raised her anchor. Once ready, Captain Morgan, standing at the helm of the Kona Wave, took the damaged ship and its macabre load into tow, and both ships headed eastward.

Below deck, in the cool confines of Havok’s stateroom, a nervous Kilgore extracted the last slug from Havok’s body. It was a good thing he was unconscious because, even though Kilgore was a corpsman as well as a SEAL, it had been years since he’d performed combat surgery. His shaking hands held a set of forceps, and as he dug for the last piece of lead in Havok’s body, he managed to twist and pull torn muscle. After long minutes and a lot of sweat, Kilgore finally put this medieval operation to a merciful end by sewing up the last bullet hole.

At dusk, and in water over four hundred feet deep, the towline was released and Captain Morgan brought the Kona Wave around full circle, bringing her portside against the starboard side of the patrol vessel. He and Fetu, armed with sledgehammers, boarded the boat and went below to the engine room. They smashed every valve and pipe fitting that led to the sea. When they finished their mission, they jumped back aboard the Kona Wave and minutes later, armed with beers, watched it settle in the sea.

“What do you think their nationality was?” Stone pondered aloud.

“They weren’t Filipino,” Havok said as the bow settled lower in the water.

“I’m guessing Vietnamese,” Kilgore answered, but then sighed. “I’m going to have to report this mess, and my boss is going to hate having a hot, steaming turd in his lap.” He turned to face Havok. “Why the hell did you have to run into a drunk Aussie?”

Havok smiled. “If I hadn’t run into that drunk Aussie, I think our government would’ve had an even bigger mess on their hands.”

Kilgore didn’t answer but turned his attention back to the sinking boat.

With its engine room filling, the boat began an increasingly faster slide stern first, and as the burning red sun dipped below the western horizon, so did the bow of the vessel. Leaving behind only a whirlpool and a few bubbles to mark the grave of twenty-two unknown souls.

The next morning, clear and bright, found the Kona Wave halfway to Manila. Everyone on board was sleeping through a majestic sunrise, all except two men. One at the helm, who watched the floating compass face, and a second man, who sat on a white lifejacket locker on the bow, wrapped in bandages and sipping a mug of coffee.

Havok sat on the locker watching the orange-blue horizon, staring at the rising sun, but not seeing it. Not only was he lost to the world, he was also lost to himself. Though clean strips of cloth tightly bound his torn and bruised flesh, nothing could bind the thoughts running through his mind. All his life, love had been a death threat, something he always kept at arm’s length. He thought back on the many years, about women he had known, and his thoughts settled on Apple: simple, little, loving Apple.

While he sat there battling with himself, he felt the light touch of a hand on his good shoulder. He looked up to see Pilar.

“Mind if I join ya?” she asked with a bright smile while holding a cup of coffee.

He didn’t bother answering; he just patted a spot on the locker next to him.

She sat, sharing the dawn with Havok. After moments of silence and a few sips of coffee, she spoke. “How you feeling?” she asked, placing her left hand on his thigh.

“Well, other than being turned into a poster child, I feel super,” he lied.

“You know, that was a pretty brave and stupid thing you did yesterday.”

“Tweren’t nothing, ma’am,” said Havok as he pretended to tip an invisible hat.

“If you had gotten killed, how could I take you back to Hawaii and show you off?”

Those words hit him like a shotgun blast to the gut. He felt like he was going down for the last time, and he grabbed at the only life ring in sight: desperately he lied. He turned to Pilar and looked into her eyes. “Pilar,” he said and then halted, as the words were hard to find.

Pilar sensed his uneasiness. It scared her.

“You know that I make it a habit of burning toast and I always leave the toilet seat up.”

With a confused look, she responded, “I don’t care.”

“I already have somebody else!” He didn’t know where those words had come from, but he regretted saying them as soon as they escaped his mouth.

It was Pilar’s turn to feel a gut-wrenching blast now as the painful betrayal gripped her. While she knew practically nothing of this man’s past and his other lovers, the last few days with him had made it seem as if they were meant to be. Her world just splintered into a million pieces. Numb and mortally wounded, she stared at Havok, who shamefully turned his face downward, avoiding her eyes. “You pig!” she scorned. “The love that I gave you, the time we spent together, I thought you wanted all that!”

“I don’t know what I want,” Havok groaned honestly.

“You know what you want, and it’s only yourself!” she spat angrily, tossing her coffee cup over the handrail. “All you do is trample all over the world like some sort of 1930s comic-strip hero.” All the pain that had built up over the years finally let loose, and she struck Havok across the face with a vengeance. Then she left, crying.

Havok continued to stare at the deck. After several minutes, he reminded himself of something June Johnson had said, what seemed like a century ago. I am that douchebag.