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Gator Schwartz liked to say his name had chosen him. Back in basic, when he got a little ferocious over the matter of an unfair call during a bout with improvised weapons. He reverted to hand-to-hand, flipping the trainer—earning a hundred extra push-ups, and the cheering of the rest of his squad. They got the hundred, too, but he figured it was worth it. This little worm, on the other hand, not so much.
Flick held the guy, pulling his head back since he seemed to have lost the backbone to hold up his own head. Flick prompted, "Maybe you'd like to change your answer, before Gator gets rough."
A few of the crew sniggered at that, and Tyrone said, "Yeah, he likes to play with his food, like the real reptiles."
Gator held his fighting stance, ready to launch his fist into the other guy's gut for the seventh or eighth time.
"But the storm, señores. It's not—"
Gator's fist hit low and hard, jolting the guy off his feet, almost made Flick let go of him. "We're making you a fair price, aren't we, Juan?"
Flick snorted. "Even if he doesn't know much English, I'm pretty sure he knows that money talks."
The Mexican hung from Flick's grasp, his glance shifting from Gator to the semi-circle of his crew, to the pretty little speed boat bobbing near the dock behind them. Gator's mistake was asking at all, not just requisitioning the boat they wanted. He was trying to be a nice guy about it, hand over the cash, all of that, but the owner's recalcitrance had gotten under his skin.
"Si, señores," the guy slurred. "But please, when the wind is up, you'll bring it back, si?"
Flick dropped him and the guy slumped to his knees. Squatting in front of him, Gator put out his hand, down low, palm up and expectant.
After a minute, the guy fumbled out his keys and dropped them in Gator's palm. In exchange, Gator grinned and tousled his hair, then he pulled a wad of cash from his shirt pocket and tossed it in the guy's lap. "Don't drink it all at once!" he called over his shoulder.
"Come on." Gator strolled down the dock and boarded the vessel, checking out the sweet lines, the quad motors. This was gonna be fun.
Taking up the gear they'd brought from their trucks, four of the rest piled in, with Flick waiting on the dock to cast off the lines.
"You're not concerned about the weather?" Monty asked, squinting toward the sky as they motored along the serpentine mangrove channel toward the bay proper, passing a few other tumbledown houses, and a few nicer ones, a few boats—but none as fine as this one.
Gator shrugged and displayed the screen of his phone, protected within a clear case and already strapped to his waist. "Far's I can tell, the storm won't make landfall for another four-five hours. We're not going out for that long. By the time the wind kicks up, we'll be back at base, drinking margaritas and planning our move—hopefully with a better view of how these Alliance guys operate."
"Some kind of monitors, Boss said." Monty perched on a bench near the helm and pulled out a rugged laptop, firing it up. "They've got to be capable of distinguishing boats and schools of fish from the whales, otherwise, they'd be inflating their own numbers."
"If anything, they're deflating them," Flick said, "trying to make like the whales are practically extinct."
Smitty chuckled. "According to the Japanese, they're mighty tasty!" He tugged his hat on tighter as they finally emerged into open water. To starboard spread the town of Guerrero Negro, with its tourist whale watch boats lining the docks, and taco shacks studding the beach front. Kinda ironic, given the town was named for a wrecked whaler from the eighteen hundreds. How would those shipwrecked sailors feel, knowing the animals they hunted were now drawing people here just to look at them?
"Shame you couldn't get in bed with that Alliance woman and get all the intel that way," Gator remarked.
"Did my best!" Smitty shot him a glare. "Wasn't for lack of trying, she just wasn't buying."
"I mean—"Monty looked up from his screen—"maybe if you tried treating women with a little respect and dignity."
The boat erupted in laughter, and somebody threw a beer coozy at Monty, who easily snatched the thing from the air before it fell in the water.
"Next time, Monty, my man, you gotta be here early and do it yourself," Gator said.
"Yeah," said Flick, opening up the cooler and rummaging through the ice, "Show her the full Monty."
Gator pumped his fist in the air as they cheered and whistled.
With a shake of his pretty brown head, Monty said, "Hey, sorry, fellas. I'm skilled labor. Boss has all kinds of stuff for me to do, while you-all are down here drinking tequila and chatting up servers. I need to earn my keep. Can't be just another pretty face like Flick over there."
After shooting him the bird, Flick slid his middle finger down the scar that cut his right cheek and blew a kiss.
"Joe, get the depth finder going," Gator ordered, and Joe, the newest member of the crew, jumped up and hustled over. Nice to get the kids fresh out of bootcamp like that, when they still jumped to the voice of command. "Monty, get me a drone up there."
Monty pulled out an instrument and held it up, squinting at the readouts. "No can do, Gator. Wind's already a few knots more than they're rated for, and the Boss'll have my hide if we lose another one."
"Maybe next time, don't do a flyover of an explosion," Gator suggested, but with a smile.
"Maybe next time, a little more warning than, 'cover your ears, boys!' before you push the button," Monty replied mildly.
"I'd hate for anybody to lose their hearing over a Greenpeace boat." Gator throttled up, the wind kicking little white fronds from the waves around them. Still, the boat felt good: responsive and smooth. Juan—or whatever he called himself—maintained it well. He'd probably get it back in good shape. Or not. "Tyrone, I need eyes up front. Don't want to hit a whale before we know what's what."
"Got it." Tyrone grabbed a set of binoculars from their go-bag and made himself a perch at the bow.
"Y'all remember that song from when we were kids?" Smitty asked, cracking open a beer from the cooler.
"Been a lot of songs since then," said Gator.
"Maybe for you," Monty pointed out, and Joe, watching the depth finder, smothered his laugh while the others just let it out.
Smitty sighed, then cleared his throat. "A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go!" he sang like a kindergarten teacher. One who oughta be fired. "We'll catch a whale and pull it by the tail, and then we'll let it go!"
"God, Smitty, where do you get this stuff?" Flick settled back with his own beer.
"'A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go," Smitty sang, even louder now. "'We'll catch a tree-hugger, and make 'im run for cover! And then we'll let him go.'"
Groans from all around, but Gator was getting the game now. "A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go,'" he sang in a meditative voice, still forming the verse in his mind. "We'll catch a green, and then we'll make him scream...and never let him go."
The crew chuckled at that. Wasn't perfect, but there wasn't much call for poetry in his line of work. It paid well. A few more big jobs and he could retire to his own tropical paradise, get himself a real boat and whatever he wanted to drink, smoke, or snort, delivered. Monty wasn't wrong about the Boss being pissed from the last assignment—the both of them were still smarting from the clawbacks for damages. Eh, didn't matter. The Boss gave 'em a new gig anyhow, and one where they might pick up some more side jobs: cartel smuggling, ransom deliveries, local voter intimidation—Gator worked hard to take care of his boys.
"Thar she blows!" Tyrone called suddenly, pointing off the port bow toward their first sign of a whale. So they really were around here. Time to focus on the task at hand.
All Gator had to do was convince a bunch of sensors the whale numbers were up, and the Boss could dredge the harbor at will. Boss had his livelihood at stake—or at least, his client's bottom line—no way a few fish were gonna stop them.