Troublemaker

Chapters

1:1

Another story from the Battleships Universe. Thanks for reading.

Troublemaker
Part One

I’d been in the place often enough that they knew what I drank. Nodding to the bartender, I went out the back door to the deck. There were maybe half a dozen tables outside. A breeze was coming in off the bay and the stars were beginning to come out.

I found David Goldstein out there. He was part owner of the place and insisted that I should call it a “club,” as if that made it different than a bar or tavern. To be fair, there was a man out front that decided who got in, and there were a lot of young, rich, good-looking people and ponies who frequented the place.

I sat down across from David and leaned a little in the chair, putting one foreleg on the deck rail. It was maybe seventy degrees, about what was expected of an evening in May.

“What’s the news?” he asked.

“Not much,” I said. A waitress brought my drink with a straw, kindly considerate of my lack of fingers or telekinesis. Even with salt, vodka and grapefruit juice tastes terrible. That kept me from drinking it too fast.

David was a lawyer from nine to five, Monday through Friday. My lawyer, in fact, although he handled a lot more of my business than just legal things. He got paid for it, so he didn’t care. The man was short and a little rotund with dark curly hair and glasses. He drank tequila. I didn’t know if that was Kosher or not, but he didn’t seem to care.

Seeing as how it was Sunday evening, we were nearly the only ones there. In the background, I could hear a TV playing coverage of the 2016 Presidential Election that was about six months away. I looked out at the ocean for a while. Nothing I hadn’t seen before.

“You still hurt about Lilly?” David asked.

I was, but said, “Define hurt.”

He sighed. “Come on Sail, we meet like this every week. I know how you are. You haven’t been right since the breakup.”

“I thought we had something,” I muttered. “She was important to me.”

“I told you not to burn down her apartment building,” said David.

“I didn’t.” I paused. “I wish I did.”

He leaned back and took a sip. “I might be able to help you. Guy I know thinks his wife could be cheating on him. He was thinking about hiring a private investigator to check it out. You’ve got a lot of free time. Sound like something you want to do?”

I thought about it. It did sound interesting. David was right; I did have a lot of time to myself. I suppose I had a pretty sweet deal on life. I had inherited the family shipbuilding business. The board of directors had stipulated that I had to come in for a weekly meeting, but that I could do pretty much anything else, including give myself a seven figure salary.

“Okay,” I agreed.

David nodded and pulled out his cell phone. He opened his wallet and rifled through a few business cards, finding one and dialing from it. “Mr. Larson, this is David Goldstein. Do you have a minute? Maybe take a walk with the phone? You’ll want to be alone.”

David paused a moment. “All right. I remembered what you said the other day about your wife. I have somepony here who I think can help you. Right. His name is Sail Canvas.” He listened. “Kind of a seafoam green pegasus with a silver mane and tail. Right, I’ll let him know. Have a good night.” He ended the call.

“You’re hired.” He put away his phone and began organizing the mess of business cards in his wallet. “His name is Neil Larson. He’s an accountant that one of my clients brought along to make sure I wasn’t screwing him. That guy was nuts, but Larson and I had a laugh after he left. We talked a little and he told me his troubles.”

Neil Larson’s card had remained on the surface of the table. He slid it across to me. It had a simple two line title – Neil Larson, CPA. His office and cell numbers were listed along with his office address.

“He says you should show up at nine tomorrow,” David told me.

“Sounds easy enough.” I slid the card into a space beside my cell phone in a pocket of the cloth band I wore around my foreleg.

David gave me a look. “Don’t do anything stupid. Please.”

I said I wouldn’t. It took me a few more minutes to finish my drink. I said goodbye and left money at the bar.

My car was where I left it. It was a sleek silver machine called a BMW M6. It was a little irresponsible to buy, but that’s me for you. It’s easy to tell a pony-owned vehicle at a glance. The steering wheel and seats are different. Most manufacturers offer the conversion as a dealer-installed option. I got in and navigated my way out of the parking lot.

I didn’t have enough alcohol in me to seriously affect my driving, even being a lightweight pegasus. I lived in Edgewater Haven, a subdivision near Norfolk, Virginia. It was situated on a spit of land that jutted out into the bay west of the city. To the north and west was the Navy base. To the south was Old Dominion University and the coal terminal of Norfolk Southern Railway.

My house was too large for one pony or even two, but Lilly had liked the location. It was out at the tip of the peninsula and could be reached by a maze of narrow streets, or by boat. I found the second option easier, but it was faster to drive.

I usually met David at nine. I didn’t check the clock when I got home, but I knew it was bedtime.

I had a strange dream that night. I dreamed that the interdimensional portals between worlds had never been invented, and that I’d been raised in Equestria.

Whew, for a second there I thought I’d lost all my material goods. It’s not that I’m addicted to wealth, I just happen to have a lot of it. When you’re only twenty three and your parents leave you an entire company that has lots of government contracts, it takes a little while to get used to spending so much. I figured I would probably catch up sooner or later. Now that Lilly was gone, that might take a little longer.

I walked out the back door of my house and made for the pier. The sun shone brightly on a thirty-two foot cabin cruiser was tied up there. Tiger Lilly had until recently been painted on the transom. I glanced at the terrible spraypaint job that covered the letters and kept trotting.

At the end of the pier I simply stepped into space and plunged into the water. The spring weather hadn’t managed to warm the coastal ocean areas yet, and the temperature was about sixty degrees. It did wonders for a hangover.

Coming up for air, I decided I wasn’t in the mood for a swim at the moment. After climbing back onto the pier and shaking off, I headed in to find something for breakfast.

A little water dripped on the tile of the kitchen floor. I spread my wings to help the feathers dry while I opened a box of cereal. I didn’t use the upper cabinets in the kitchen. The house, like the others built along Edgewater Haven, had been constructed to human standards and didn’t really fit. Once again, it had been Lilly’s choice.

Thinking about the mare that had done me wrong brought to mind the task David had suggested. While eating, I found the card he had given me and gave it a look for the first time. Neil Larson, CPA. His business address in Virginia Beach was listed. The clock on the wall showed that it wasn’t yet nine, but it was close.

Any problems with being late were quickly solved by my car. When the engineers were designing it, one of them probably said, “The Americans like speed, right? Fine! More than five hundred horsepower ought to keep them happy.” Of course, I don’t know if he actually said that. I don’t speak German.

Between the numerous tributaries that connect to the ocean and a general lack of city planning, the whole Norfolk area is difficult to navigate. It’s only about twenty miles from Edgewater to Virginia Beach, but there’s no direct way to get there. I managed to make it to Neil Larson’s office right on time.

Larson’s office had its own building. His name was even on the sign. I walked in. The secretary was a blonde with black plastic glasses. They were the latest in human fashion, I had been told. She looked like she belonged in high school. The little nameplate on her desk told me her name was Sherrie Waldron.

“I’m here to see Mr. Larson,” I told her.

“Your name?” She smiled, perhaps a little too friendly for the serious world of accounting.

I told her who I was. She hunted around on her desk, apparently looking for something that told her I had an appointment. It didn’t look like she found it. She picked up the phone on her desk.

“Mr. Larson? There’s a pony named Sail Canvas here to see you.”

She listened and then nodded, despite the fact that Larson couldn’t see her. She put the phone down and smiled. “His office is at the end of the hall.”

I went down to the door. It helpfully had Neil Larson’s name on it. I knocked and voice asked me in.

Larson was maybe thirty-five. His dark hair matched his mustache. He stood about six feet even and looked like he ate well, but not to excess. His clothes seemed to say that he had money. He had the kind of shoulders that I would expect from someone who used to play football.

Neil extended a fist and I bumped it with my hoof. The dimensional portals had been open for around twenty five years now, and it was rare to find someone who didn’t know that ponies don’t shake.

“You’re younger than I expected. You must be good at what you do, though.” He glanced out the window at my car. “That’s a nice set of wheels.”

He asked me to have a seat. The customer chairs weren’t as nice as his, but nice enough. He sat down and folded his hands. “So what did Mr. Goldstein tell you?”

“You want to find out if your wife is sleeping around,” I said.

He nodded. “She’s been acting differently lately. Every time I’ve tried asking her about it, she says it’s nothing.”

Neil was lucky that he’d noticed early, instead of getting a bolt from the blue. I nodded. “How long ago did you notice?”

“Maybe two weeks.” He shook his head. “I really don’t want to think that she’s cheating, but I can’t think of anything else that might be going on.”

“So what do you want me to do?” I asked. “Should I follow her around?”

“If that’s what it takes. I want to be sure.” He told me about the advertising agency where she worked, her schedule, the silver Toyota Avalon she drove, and a little about the woman herself. I pulled out a small notebook that I had brought with me. I thought it might help me look like I knew what I was doing. I had to borrow a pen, though.

Her name was Tabitha. She was blonde. Neil said she was good looking and only two months younger than him.

I spent maybe twenty minutes on the conversation with Larson. I got some nice things to write in my notebook. When he seemed to be done talking, I started to get up.

“Hang on a minute,” said Neil. “What do you charge?”

I shrugged. “I went through similar relationship trouble once, and you’re a friend of David’s, so how about pro bono this time?”

His face broke into a forced smile. “Thanks. Thanks a lot. If there’s anything I can ever do for you, let me know.”

As I got up to go, he said, “If you don’t mind me asking, what do you do for a living?”

“I own a shipbuilding company,” I answered. “We do a lot of things for the Navy.”

He glanced at the mark on my hip and nodded. “That’s about what I guessed. Well, I want to thank you again for this. If you need your taxes done, keep me in mind.”

I said that I would and left the office, sliding the pen into a loop on my leg band beside my phone. Most people don’t want to keep a pen once a pony mouth-writes with it.

He bumped my hoof again and I gave him my card in case he needed to talk to me. Sherrie smiled at me on the way out of the office.

I sat in the car for a moment and read over what I’d written in the notebook. Tabitha got off work at three in the afternoon, while Neil worked until five. I decided to go to their house first.

The Larsons lived out in Virginia Beach, on Ocean Shore Avenue. The house was just west of First Landing State Park and within sight of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

The dwelling was square and two stories tall. It was smaller than I expected. Size had been traded for location. Real estate in that neighborhood wasn’t cheap. Behind the house was the beach.

I parked the car at the curb and got out. Ocean waves breaking could be heard nearby, and there was a dusting of sand on the street. I went over to the neighbor’s house and knocked on the door. No one answered. There were a few cars parked on the street, but there was only one house in the area around the Larson place that had cars in the driveway. I figured that everyone else was at work.

I walked to the house and went up to the front door. An old lady that looked like somone’s grandmother answered my knock. “Can I help you?”

I had created an artificial identity for use whenever I wanted to use something different than my real name. That way, I had a fake name ready and didn’t have to think one up on the spot. “Yes ma’am. My name’s Dinghy Oar. I’m investigating a report of suspicious activity for the Virginia Beach Police Department. Have you seen anything out of the ordinary?”

“No, I don’t believe I have.” She looked worried. If it had been a cold enough day for her to be wearing a shawl, she probably would have clutched it closer.

I nodded. “Have you noticed any people or cars around that you haven’t seen before?”

“Well, down the block just a little ways is a car that I first saw a few days ago. That little green one.” She pointed. “It’s been around since then. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the driver.”

I wrote it down in my notebook and took the pen out of my mouth. “Anything else?”

“I don’t think so.” She still looked worried.

“Thank you for your time.” I went back down the block. There was a green Mazda Miata parked on the street across from the Larson house. Earlier, I had noticed that it didn’t have a front license plate like Virginia requires. I walked around to the rear of the car. It was from Pennsylvania.

I wrote down the plate number and got back in my car. Skimping on breakfast had caught up with me. On the corner a couple of blocks away, there was a Food Lion with a couple of other things scattered around it. None of the restaurants were open, so I decided to just go home. The drive from Virginia Beach back to Edgewater Haven was about as far as you can go from one end of the Norfolk area to the other. I ate some animal crackers on the way.

If I have a habit for snacks, it’s for Barnum’s. They taste reasonably good, they’re cheap, and they’re easy to eat. I usually have some in the glove box.

At home I ate lunch and then sat down to figure out who owned the green car. There are plenty of websites that will give you a detailed rundown on a person – for a price. I found one that would allow you to search anyone for criminal records, ancestry, and cell phone traces from the US, UK, Canada and Australia. All for the low price of sixty dollars for a year subscription.

The owner of the car was a man named Joseph Hauser. I dialed his cell phone number and got an answer almost immediately.

“Mr. Hauser, this Dinghy Oar of the Virginia Beach Police Department. I don’t want to alarm you, but there have been reports of suspicious behavior in an area of the city. While on patrol, officers noticed your car. You drive a green Mazda, correct?”

“Yes I do,” he said. “What’s this about? Has something happened?”

“No, there’s nothing wrong with your car. I’m just doing a routine check. As you are from out of state, would you mind telling me what your business in the area is?”

“I’m staying with some friends,” he said. “Tom and Jody Schleman.”

I asked him to spell the last name. “They live on Ocean Shore Avenue?”

“Right.”

“Okay Mr. Hauser, thank you for your time. That should be all.” I hung up and typed the Schlemans into the investigation search engine. I dug up their cell phone numbers and gave them a call. They confirmed Hauser’s story.

That left me with nothing. The only thing I hadn’t done was follow Tabitha Larson around. Well, better get started. I left home a little early to have a look at the area around her office.

The office building was a four story brick structure that looked like it had once been apartments. There was a fire escape down one side. I walked up to the front door to read the sign that listed the companies with offices in the building. The advertising agency took up the whole third floor.

The silver Toyota was in the parking lot next door. There was a parking tag hanging from the mirror because the lot was for employees only. Other than that, there was nothing of note inside the car. Tabitha kept it clean.

As I walked around the front end, I thought that the hood might have been slightly bent. I crouched down to eye level with it. There was a slight ripple in the metal, like the car had been in an accident and the hood had been straightened instead of replaced. The compound curves of modern cars make it really difficult to get sheet metal back to perfect condition. Still, it was a good job. I almost hadn’t noticed it.

I copied down the car’s Vehicle Identification Number and walked back to my BMW, where I sat for a while until Tabitha came out of the building. I didn’t know her on sight, only when she got in the car.

She was pretty by human standards. It seemed like she exercised regularly. I gave her one block of head start and then pulled into the street behind her. When she got to the corner, she turned right.

Tabitha went straight home. I was a little disappointed, actually. I parked a couple of houses away and sat there. No one went into the house and no one left before Neil got home.

He saw me sitting in my car and waved as he drove by. After he went inside, I started up my car and left.

On the internet at home, I typed the VIN of Tabitha’s car into Carfax. A little money later, and I had a history of the vehicle. Two weeks previously, it had been in the repair shop—about the same time Neil mentioned her behavior changing.

»«

I got up late the next morning. I trusted Tabitha to get to work without my escort. I had some personal business to take care of.

At David’s suggestion, I had started seeing Dr. Mind Games once a week for psychotherapy. He told me that I needed to learn more public skills. He was probably right, but I still hadn’t liked the idea. After I opened up a little to Dr. Games, I begrudgingly admitted to myself that having someone to talk to was nice.

I had an hour starting at ten a.m. on Tuesday every week. Dr. Games had a space sandwiched between a hair salon and a pizza place in one of those faceless strip malls that seem to be everywhere. The interrogation chamber, as I thought of it, was nicer than the outside might imply. It was decorated to be comfortable, but not too in-your-face. She had two different sized couches, one for ponies and one for people.

The doctor was an elderly mare who had closed her practice in Canterlot. Like many older ponies were beginning to do, she’d retired to Earth for a change of pace. As it turned out, she was a workaholic and couldn’t stay retired.

I walked in just a little late. Dr. Games didn’t say anything. After all, her payment was by the hour. She was a sand-colored unicorn with a brain for a cutie mark. The glasses she wore were some kind of thin rimless variety that looked like they would break if you touched them wrong.

“So Sail, what’s happened in the past week?” the doctor asked once I was on my back.

“There’s really only been one thing to note. David introduced me to a man who’s been having marital troubles.” I’d mentioned David’s name enough that she knew who he was. “I agreed to help him find out if she’s having an affair.”

“What are you going to be doing?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll just follow her around and see if anything happens.”

Dr. Games looked like she didn’t think that was a good idea. “What are you getting out of it?”

“Satisfaction, I suppose.” I paused. “Before you ask, yes, this has everything to do with Lilly.”

The doctor nodded. “I remember that you said you wanted to kill her. Do you still feel that way?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think that if you help this man you might get some closure and that feeling will diminish?”

“It might.”

Dr. Games sighed. “When did you begin?”

“Yesterday,” I said. “I met him at his office and he told me the details.”

“What did you do after that?”

“I went and talked to some people in the area. I didn’t learn anything that might suggest the wife was sleeping around.”

“What if they talk to the wife? Won’t she find out what her husband thinks about her?”

“I said I was looking into suspicious activity for the police. I never said anything that would point directly at the two of them.”

“You impersonated a police officer?” said, Dr. Games, her eyebrows going up.

“No, I never specifically said that I was a cop. I did lie about my name and my affiliation with the police, though.”

She sighed. “Sail, you know you shouldn’t do that.”

“It got results.”

“You should still do your best to find a way that doesn’t involve lying.”

“I’ll try it a different way next time.”

I didn’t know whether I would or not. I would still probably tell Dr. Games the truth no matter what I did. I didn’t feel guilty about it. No real damage had been done, and it had worked.

We talked a little more before the hour was up. I didn’t think she had anyone scheduled at eleven o’clock because I had never met anyone coming in as I was leaving. Maybe it was her lunchtime.

Thinking of that, I pulled out my phone and called Andy Newhart. He was one of the few people—or ponies, for that matter—that I’d kept in contact with after high school. He taught Japanese at Old Dominion.

“Hello?” he said. His voice was neutral and professional.

“It’s Sail. How about lunch?”

“Sure, I can do that,” he replied. “I’ll be at the usual place.”

I disconnected and drove to campus. Andy was standing outside his office smoking when I rolled up. He knocked out his pipe and got in the car.

Andy was a short, thin man with glasses and dark hair that was pulled back and tied. I would have called the hairstyle a ponytail, but I try to avoid puns whenever possible. While at school, Andy wore various tweed suits with elbow pads. Very professor-like.

“I’d like to have your help with something,” I said.

“What, exactly?” His tone was guarded. Admittedly, I’d asked him to help with some irresponsible things in the past.

“Do you want to help me spy on a woman you don’t know?” I replied.

He thought for a moment. “Sometimes I worry about you, Sail, but sure. Is there tailing involved?”

“Part of the deal is following her home from work, yeah.”

I saw Andy’s eyes sparkle with sudden interest. “Where do I fit in?”

“I need your car.”

Andy was surprised. “Huh? What for?”

I gestured at the dashboard. “She might notice a BMW following her several days in a row.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “True. Okay, but I get to come along. And you’re buying lunch.”

“Yeah, sure,” I agreed.

“Barbecue?” he asked.

I sat up a little straighter. “I could go for that.”

1:2

The realization that humans are omnivores must have been hard on early person-pony relations. Maybe it still is for Equestrians. Having grown up with people, it didn’t bother me. Well, actually it did when I was in college and, “try to trick the pony into eating meat” had been a game everyone played. They’d succeed a few times, too. If nothing else, it was hell on the digestion.

I did like barbecue, though. A smart restaurant will offer their house sauce with vegetables or bread as an alternative to meat. Piggy’s in Norfolk was such a place. The proprietor was a native of North Carolina, so the sweet tea was spot-on. The seasonings were like nothing else on Earth. Or Equestria, for that matter.

At lunch, Andy told me his schedule. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he was able to sneak away early. Monday, Wednesday and Friday his classes kept him from it.

The waitress came by and took our orders. She seemed to wonder why Andy and I were so cordial. Most ponies hadn’t been on Earth long enough to be old friends with a person. Me, I'd been born here.

I liked Andy because he was lucky, and occasionally that rubbed off on me. All his classes had lined up perfectly and he was able to graduate college in two and a half years. He didn’t need to work because of big scholarships. He’d started tutoring Japanese, and had gotten an unexpected promotion when one of the professors over him quit suddenly. While he wasn’t officially qualified for the position, the management had overlooked it because he did a good job. In his spare time, Andy wrote detective novels under a pseudonym. They were generally well-reviewed and provided him some extra income. On top of all that, he’d hooked up with a woman through World of Warcraft who turned out to be a British porn star that was considerably wealthier than he. Her name was Hawker Hurricane, and she actually didn’t mind being seen in public with Andy.

Our food came. Andy, lucky as he was, managed to eat a plate of sauce-coated ribs without soiling his professor clothes. Between bites, he said, “The studio called. They still want to do a shoot on your boat. They might even title the film Troublemaker.”

“We’ve been over this before,” I said. “No porn on my property.”

Andy grinned to show that he’d been kidding. “When are you going to pull that old boat out of storage?”

I shrugged. “Mostly it just sits there tied to the pier. Mom and dad did a little cruising, but I haven’t.”

“It’s an expensive buoy,” said Andy. His phone rang. We were in an isolated corner of the restaurant, so he set it on the table, propped it up so the screen was visible, and continued eating. “Hi honey. I’m having dinner with Sail.”

“Good to know you boys are keeping each other company,” said Hawker with her distinctive voice. She was displayed on the video screen on the phone, wearing a robe and probably not much else. She fluffed her blonde hair. “I heard you had a spot of relationship trouble, Sail.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” I said. “So how have you been?”

“Another long, hard day,” she answered. It was a joke I had heard before.

Hawker and Andy continued talking for a while, making plans for a Warcraft raid that night. My thoughts turned to the Larsons. I pulled out my own phone and did a little searching. I was eventually able to track down both Phil and Tabitha through various social media sites. Both of them seemed security-conscious, and didn’t give up much information.

I’m an engineer, not a hacker. I had no idea where I should begin if I wanted to dig deeper on someone. Andy finished up his call about the same time I got bored of finding nothing of value.

After lunch, we got in Andy’s car and drove to where Tabitha worked, parking in about the same spot where I had been the day before. We got there at about five to three.

“Are you going to the reunion?” asked Andy, making conversation.

It took me a moment to remember what he was talking about. The get-together for the five year anniversary of our high school graduation was only a few weeks away. I’d gotten an invitation, but had forgotten.

“Probably not. I wasn’t well liked.”

“Just because you were the rich kid doesn’t make you an outcast. Heck, even if they don’t like you personally, they should at least flock to the money.”

“Maybe. I’ll talk it over with my therapist.”

“She’ll tell you that you should go.”

“Probably.” I decided that I wouldn’t go.

A few minutes passed and Tabitha Lawson showed. I pointed her out to Andy. He nodded, and did a quick check of his mirrors to make sure they hadn’t come out of alignment while we had been sitting still. When she drove past, he pulled out and followed.

I will say this about Andy: there is very little he isn’t good at when he sets his mind to it. He followed Tabitha at a distance of about a block. He always kept in position hiding behind another car, and timed the traffic lights perfectly. He made it look easy.

Tabitha got home and parked in the garage. Andy stopped the car about a block away. He was still wearing his jacket and commented that he felt warm. I told him to roll down the windows.

After he shut the car off, it was fairly quiet. To the south, I could hear traffic from U.S. 60. To the north was the sound of waves breaking on the beach and seagulls. The traffic made the rest hard to hear.

I had told Andy about how long we had to wait, but he seemed excited nonetheless. He reached into the back seat and came out with a case that contained a set of high powered binoculars.

I thought we looked suspicious enough to be sitting in a car in a suburban beachfront neighborhood without the binoculars, but didn’t say anything. When Andy realized there was nothing much to see, he put them away.

»«

Andy woke me up. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. He told me someone had just pulled in at the Larson house. While I was asleep, I’d slid down in the seat and the belts were digging in.

I sat up. It was Neil’s car in the driveway. I checked the clock. It was about time for him to be home.

“That’s it,” I said. “That’s the husband.”

“We’re off duty now?” he said.

I laughed. Andy drove me back to my car. He told me he’d be ready for Thursday. I drove home. Previously, I had decided to take my boat out in the morning, so I spent some time making sure it was ready.

My parents had bought Tiger Lilly about four years before under a different name. After they were gone, the boat had gone to me along with the family business. They’d also left a one hundred twenty foot yacht, but that was far too large to keep tied up behind the house in Edgewater Haven. The larger vessel was called Troublemaker, supposedly after me.

The smaller boat had a five liter inboard engine that would move it at any speed you wanted. The exterior was white with a lot of chrome and polished maple decking. I boarded Wednesday morning with my camera and some lunch. The camera was Nikon’s newest hoof-compatible model. The lunch was a sandwich and a beer.

I slipped the lines and shoved off. Once I reached the no wake buoy, I advanced the throttle. Edgewater Haven connects to the Elizabeth River, which forms part of the greater Chesapeake Bay and Hampton Roads Harbor area. The river joins the bay just south of the Navy base.

I often went to Naval Station Norfolk to think. I suppose I wasn’t actually obligated to do any real work for the company, but more money for them meant more money for me. I found that if I took a look at the ships, it helped me to visualize improvements the company could sell to the Navy.

I held to the east of the Norfolk Harbor Channel. The Navy piers that had ships tied up to them had a string of floating rope that encircled the area, drawing a clear “keep out” line. There was an engine exhaust system on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers that I had been thinking about. I moved down the row until I found one of them tied to the pier.

Cutting the engine, I let the boat drift a little. The channel was about fifty feet deep and there was no danger of running aground. I picked up the camera. After I finished shooting what I wanted, I began taking pictures of the rest of the ship. I might think about something later and want to have a photograph.

I was so busy taking pictures that I didn’t notice the Navy security boat until it came alongside. There were four men aboard. It was one of ours, actually, the Model 28 Utility. The company had sold the Navy eight of them for patrolling Norfolk. It was a twenty-eight foot aluminum v-hull with a pair of 250 horsepower outboard engines. It had a windshield and roof over the wheel and hard points for mounting weapons on the bow. There were no machine guns attached, but three of the men carried M16 rifles.

“You’re trespassing on military property,” said one of the men.

“I’m still outside the rope.” While I had been drifting, the wind had pushed the boat up against it.

One of them said, “You’re going to have to leave.”

“I’m not done taking pictures,” I protested

The man who was doing the talking grinned. “Fine. You’re under arrest.”

One of the men reached across to grab the handrail of my boat. Once he had pulled the two boats together, two of them boarded. When David had asked me not to do anything stupid, this was probably what he meant.

Their handcuffs wouldn't fit, so they tied me with the anchor line and put me in their boat. One of the men tied a rope to my craft and they towed it back to the security boat docks.

On the way, one of the men took my ID and began telling someone my information over the radio. When we got to shore, two more sailors were there to meet us. They helped the others secure my boat and took me ashore. The patrol boat went back out.

I was taken into the security building and they put me in a windowless room with a table and two chairs. After a few minutes, a man came in. He was older than everyone else I’d seen that day. I suspected that meant he was in charge. The name tape on his uniform said McCullough. He sat down at the table across from me. “What the hell were you doing?”

“Taking pictures of a destroyer,” I said.

McCullough seemed a little taken aback by my straightforward answer. “Why?”

I shrugged. “My company built half the things on it. I was doing a quality control inspection.”

Somewhat cautiously, the man asked, “Your company?”

“Norfolk Shipworks,” I explained. “I’m Sail Canvas, company president and majority shareholder.”

He looked at me. I might have been in the neighborhood of half his age. He laughed.

“I’d like to talk to Rear Admiral Nevis,” I said. “He won’t appreciate a direct call from you guys though, so call his aide, Chief Stanton.”

“What makes you think he wants to talk to you?” asked McCullough.

“He knows me,” I said simply.

The man regarded me for a moment. He appeared to come to the decision that dealing with me was above his pay grade, and he walked out. I waited for maybe twenty minutes. Eventually the door opened and McCullough showed Admiral Benjamin Nevis in and left me alone with him.

Nevis was in charge at Naval Station Norfolk. He was of average height and thin. He still had his hair but it had gone grey. There was a silver star on the collar of his khaki uniform. His most prominent feature was his nose. It was huge. Nevis had been a pilot, and I was willing to bet that his call sign had probably been “Nose.” It was that distinctive.

Nose wasn’t happy to see me. We’d met on unfavorable terms before. He asked me what I had been doing. I told him what I’d told McCullough.

“Give me one good reason not to prosecute you,” he growled.

“I noticed that your Model 28 patrol boats are using an older version of the electronics suite. Norfolk Shipworks has a newer system available and would be happy to retrofit them free of charge.” I smiled.

He stared at me for several seconds and then shook his head. “Get the hell out of here.”

He opened the door and we exited the room. A sailor handed me my camera back. The pictures had been deleted. Nevis left without another word.

I was escorted back to my boat by the same security team that had brought me in. They took me out to the edge of Navy restricted waters. I was instructed to go fly a kite, or words to that effect.

“I don’t even know how a pegasus got into the shipbuilding business,” one of the men muttered.

How I was born to a family of seagoing earth ponies was a long story that probably involved some adultery. Mom and dad didn’t really like each other, and sometimes I think dying in a plane crash gave both of them some much-needed peace and quiet.

Rather than explaining all that, I instead answered, “Well, I don’t know how a monkey got into the Navy.”

The four men were remarkably less courteous after that. When I was finally released from custody, I found that my sandwich had been tromped flat by a boot, and my beer had been poured out onto the upholstery. The anchor line I’d been tied with had disappeared, and there were scuffs on the side of the boat where someone had neglected to use fenders when tying up to the pier.

It hadn’t been the greatest of experiences, but any day you can talk your way out of doing time in federal prison can’t be too bad.

That afternoon, I followed Tabitha in my truck. It was a huge black Dodge that I drove maybe twice a month. I only used it for pulling my boat trailer and hauling large things. Both rarely happened because the boat seldom left the water and I would rather pay people than do things myself. I’m wealthy. Hate me.

I preferred to drive the car, but the truck had the advantage that Tabitha had never seen it before. On my way to her office, I stopped for fuel. I didn’t remember how long ago I had last put diesel in the tank. I should have gone to a truck stop. Most regular gas stations have diesel pumps with small diameter hoses attached to them. Filling a thirty-five gallon tank takes forever.

I was late. I knew it when I drove by the office. Her car was already gone. I figured it was just my luck that this was the day she would sneak off. I drove the route she usually took back to her house. I did significantly more than the speed limit.

I didn’t catch up, but her car was in the driveway when I got there. I calmed down and settled in to wait. As usual, I left when Neil arrived.

I was beginning to have doubts that Tabitha had an extramarital relationship. She hadn’t done anything to make me suspicious. On top of that, women seemed to be better at hiding the fact that they were sleeping around. At least that was my personal experience. I thought that Tabitha must be upset about something else.

Thursday came. I dressed a little better than usual for my weekly company meeting, which is to say I put on a polo shirt with the company logo. It was still legal for ponies to go without clothing, so I didn’t really need to, but I thought the board of directors disliked me enough without adding personal appearance to the mix.

I had a reserved spot in the parking lot. From the door, it was a short walk to the elevator. The conference room was on the top floor with a view of the bay.

There were three men and a woman seated at the table when I got there. I wasn’t late, although it was close. I sat down at the head of the table.

The director of sales began to read from a few of the files he’d brought with him. His name was George Coates. All of the members of the board were in their fifties or sixties and well dressed, so individual physical descriptions were irrelevant. George informed us that revenue for this quarter was probably going to exceed revenue of last quarter.

Next up was Leon Vanke, the director of marketing. He talked about placing an advertisement in the Navy Times. It wouldn’t generate direct sales, but it would be good for morale and would let the military know just who was working for them.

Sharon Cotter was the director of internal affairs. Her comments were about how many employees the company had hired, fired and retired and how many more of each were needed to balance things back out.

Lastly, John DeMotte gave a rundown of Research and Development’s activities. It seemed that we were almost ready to begin testing our new gas turbine intake silencers.

Everyone looked at me.

“I took a trip to the base yesterday,” I said. “Admiral Nevis mentioned that he was having some problems with the electronics package in his Model 28s. They’re still under warranty, so I told him the company would replace them with the newest model. While I was there, I wandered down to the piers. There were a few things I thought about.”

I pulled out my notebook and pretended to read from it. I had memorized what I wanted to say, but thought that since everyone else had notes, I shouldn’t show them up.

“I don’t think we’ve ever taken a good look at the Arleigh Burkes to see what we can accomplish. They cut down the exhaust heat signature, but I think we might be able to do a little more. Also, we might think about starting a radar division in the company. The Aegis system is the best in the world, but it’s old. Lockheed’s had the monopoly on that for too long.”

There were nods around the table. Yes Men, all of them. Still, putting up with them was easier than running the company myself. Internal affairs could easily be taken care of by the various department heads instead of a director. Marketing, why did we need it? The customers already knew who we were. What was so hard about Sales? Pay us money, and we’ll give you a product. Sure, I could do it myself, but why bother?

Of them all, though, John Demotte’s title of director of R&D was probably hanging from the thinnest thread. I had gone to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a degree in mechanical engineering. I actually knew what I was talking about. Quite a few ideas from me had gone on to become successful projects. Not only that, but I had patented them. I really could run it myself.

I knew that none of the directors liked me. I showed up once a week and got paid. The only thing I had done to deserve it was be born to the right family. On top of that, I probably did treat them like lower forms of life. From a social point of view, an outside observer would probably find it fascinating how we all managed to work together and put a thin shell on the loathing going on below the surface. It was there, and we all knew it.

When the meeting broke up, I left as quickly as possible. Part of it was a desire to get out of the formal clothes. Part of it was that I wanted some animal crackers.

I met Andy that afternoon. He’d changed into a different outfit than his usual, jeans and an ODU Lions t-shirt. He also took off his glasses. It didn’t change the fact that we were still looking suspicious while sitting in a car watching a house, but at least his elbow pads didn’t draw stares.

“Has she done anything interesting at all this week?” asked Andy.

“No. I suppose I might watch her this weekend, but if nothing else happens, I’m going to quit.”

For four days now, I’d watched Tabitha be a normal human being. It was really getting on my nerves. I figured that with more free time on the weekend, she might be more likely to visit her boyfriend – if he existed – but I wasn’t sure how I would go about keeping track of her. Sitting outside the house waiting all day Saturday and Sunday didn’t sound like something that I wanted to do even if I was being paid to.

“So what do you think is happening if she isn’t cheating?”

I shrugged. “The damage to her car was interesting, but if Neil didn’t make a connection, there might not be anything to it.”

We lapsed into silence. This time, Andy fell asleep first.

Friday morning it was raining. I stayed inside and watched it fall for most of the day. It kept kept up until about the time I was leaving to go watch Tabitha. The sudden clear skies suited me just fine. I parked in my usual spot across from her building.

When it came time, Tabitha exited the building looking a little different that I remembered. She seemed a little preoccupied, more than most people would be on a Friday. She got in her car and left the parking lot.

At the corner, she made a left. I was so surprised that I nearly missed the turn. This was new. I followed further back than I normally did. Maybe the sudden change of circumstance made me more cautions.

Tabitha followed a path that only she knew. It was definitely not towards her house.

1:3

A short ways down the road was a bank. Tabitha was probably going to cash her paycheck, I thought. She parked and went inside. After a little while, she came out with a white envelope and got back in her car. She pulled out of the bank lot but didn’t head for home.

Now I was back to feeling nervous. I could understand going to a bank on a Friday, but what now? Groceries, maybe? After a few minutes, Tabitha pulled over at a Starbucks. It seemed like an odd time to get coffee.

I pulled into the parking lot and waited. She didn’t go to the counter, instead heading to a table where a lone pony sat. He wore a white t-shirt and baggy pants falling down. Around his neck were a few gold chains.

Tabitha didn’t seem the type to meet with “gangstas,” especially when they were unicorns. I realized she didn’t know what I looked like, so I got out of the car and walked in.

I got a cup of coffee and stood near the door, pretending to check my cell phone. Surreptitiously watching Tabitha and the pony, I spotted a white envelope on the table between them. The pony had his hoof on it, as if judging the thickness. I wasn’t close enough to hear what he said to the woman, but she seemed surprised and upset. Maybe it wasn’t enough money.

Tabitha got up to go. I started out the door, turning to hold it for her as a friendly stranger. She nodded, but looked too preoccupied to give me a proper thank you.

I stood on the sidewalk, still checking my phone as the stallion came out. He headed for a white Mustang with big gold-colored wheels and a huge eyesore spoiler on the trunk lid. It looked so tacky it had to be his car. He’d even replaced the little chrome mustang emblem on the grill with a unicorn one.

As the pony got in his car, I pulled out my notepad and wrote down the license number. By the time I was finished, Tabitha was already leaving the parking lot with her car. I tossed my still-hot coffee into a trash can and hurried to catch up.

She went home this time. As I sat outside the house, I puzzled over what the new developments could mean.

She’d given the pony money, obviously. Well, it could also have been something from a safe deposit box, but that seemed less likely. Tabitha didn’t seem like she’d been doing it out of goodwill. What could she possibly owe somepony like that?

When I got home later that night, I ran the license plate numbers. The car belonged to Mr. Cash Flow. He had a criminal record. One drug charge and a few minor things. He should have been booked with having a terrible sense of fashion and driving an ugly car.

The next day, I left the house and went to the address listed for the stallion. It was an apartment building with a row of front doors facing the street. An older mare answered the door. She was maybe fifty, and not an easy fifty, either.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Yes ma’am. My name’s Dinghy Oar. I’m working with the Norfolk Police.”

She leaned out the door and looked at my car. “That’s an awfully nice ride for a cop.”

“I’m with the undercover unit. We get toys like that to play with.” I laughed. That seemed to satisfy her. I went on. “I was hoping I could ask you a few questions about Cash Flow.”

“He isn’t here.”

“But this is where he lives?” I pressed.

She shrugged. “Sometimes.”

I studied her for a moment. She didn’t seem to like talking to me, but that was too bad. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

I was interrupted by the sound of Cash’s car coming around the building and shooting off down the street. I stared after it and then turned back to the mare. “I thought you said he wasn’t home.”

“I – I tried to raise him differently,” she said, her voice suddenly cracking. “I don’t know what I did wrong. I’m sorry. Why don’t you come in?”

She stepped back from the door and I stepped forward. Considering Cash lived there, the apartment was cleaner than I expected. She asked me to sit at the kitchen table. I declined her offer of something to drink. I pulled out my notebook. “For the record ma’am, I’d like to have your name.”

“Flower Power. I’ve gone back to using my maiden name.”

“I’ve seen your son’s record. Did jail time affect him at all?”

“It didn’t seem to.” She sighed. “I just keep praying that someday he’ll change his ways.”

“Does he have a job?”

“No. Not that I know of.”

I nodded. Figures. “Where does his money come from?”

“I don’t know. I have a good idea, but I don’t want to think about that.”

“Please tell me,” I said, leaning forward.

Flower nodded and took a deep breath. “I think he’s selling drugs.”

I, for one, wasn’t surprised. I asked, “Do you know where he might have been going when he left in such a hurry?”

“No. I think he has a place of his own, but I don’t know where.”

“Do you know who might be able to tell me?”

She thought for a moment. “He hangs around with a man named Terry Ives. He owns a bar.”

“Where is that?”

She told me the general location. I recognized it as near Little Creek Amphibious Base. Standing up, I said, “Thank you for talking to me. I’m going to try and find Cash and see what I can do to help him.”

She showed me to the door. I gave her my phone number and asked her to call me if she saw her son again.

»«

I knew I came to the right drinking establishment because the place was called Terry’s. It was the kind of originality that spelled out the fact that the owner didn’t give a darn about it.

It was located directly south of the amphibious base, and I suspected that it got a lot of business from military personnel. I wasn’t sure if the place would be open at midday on a Saturday. There weren’t hours listed on the door, but it was unlocked.

A large man with a shaved head sat at a table against the wall. He was maybe my age and looked like he pumped iron for a couple of hours each day. He was the only one in the room.

“What do you want?” he growled.

“I’m looking for Terry.”

“Who is it?” called a voice. There was an open door behind the bar.

“Nopony in particular,” I answered.

I heard a sigh as if someone in the back room had been working on something and now had to get up from his chair.

The man appeared. He was maybe forty, although he looked to be in worse condition than a man his age should. He also needed a haircut.

We looked at each other for several seconds. Finally, he said, “Well?”

“I want to know where Cash Flow lives.”

“What makes you think I know who that is?”

“I’ve got good sources.” I shrugged.

“What’d he do to you?”

“Nothing personally. I’m checking up on some things for a guy and Cash just happened to come into it. I want to talk to him.”

“You a private eye or something like that?”

I smiled. “Something like that.”

“What’s it worth to you?” Terry asked.

“Twenty-five to life, depending on what you’ve got in that back room.” I gestured to the door he had come out of.

It took him a second, but he realized what I meant. Behind me, I heard the other man get up. Without taking my eyes off Terry, I said, “Did you really think I’d be dumb enough to come alone? I’ve got two unicorns outside. You want to find out what a magical lobotomy looks like?”

Terry thought about it for a few seconds.

“Ah, screw Cash.” He told me where the pony had an apartment. I nodded and turned to go.

“Bobby, escort the stallion out,” said Terry. The big man followed me to the door. Outside, he looked around. Seeing no backup, he scowled.

I opened my car door. “That’s a nice set of wheels,” he rumbled.

“Oh this? I got it out of a box of Captain Crunch.”

“Terry Ives is like fire. You play with him, you get burned.”

“Did you think of that or did you borrow it from a movie?”

He knit his brows and frowned so hard I thought his face was going to collapse. He turned and went back inside.

As I put the car in gear, I noticed myself sweating. Popping a couple of animal crackers helped me calm down. I made a mental note that maybe the next time I tried something like that, it might be better to actually have help waiting outside.

I pulled up a map of Cash Flow’s place on my phone. I still had time to visit him that day, so I went.

I’d never really explored Norfolk’s slums, so I didn’t know much about them. The buildings were drab, and some of them appeared to be in danger of actually falling in. Cash’s car was at the curb. I noticed a few other vehicles around that appeared to have been modified with a similar approach to aesthetics. The place must have been a drug dealer commune.

I was a little apprehensive leaving my car on the street, but I set the alarm and hoped I wouldn’t be gone too long. I went up the stairs until I came to the right number and knocked on the door.

I didn’t know if Cash had seen me, or just heard me say I was with the police when he ran from his mother’s place. The peephole was set at human height, and I didn’t have to duck out of sight to put my ear to the door.

I heard steps approach. “Who is it?”

“I’m Arleigh Burke.” I figured he might have heard my standard fake name at his mother’s house.

“Are you a cop?”

Many people think that if asked, police legally have to identify themselves. In certain situations, maybe. Chris evidently thought it mattered.

“No, I’m not a cop.” I heard his steps come closer. I straightened up and stood to one side.

Several seconds passed. “What do you want?”

“I heard you got some stuff, man. I’ve got money.”

Several more seconds passed and then the door opened. I bumped it open wider with my foreleg and hit Cash square in the face with my other hoof. Judging by the way he stumbled back, my surprise had worked.

I came in and hit him in the face again. The tail of his shirt jerked up with magic and a handgun slid out. Twisting sideways, I smacked Cash in the face with one of my wings and reached behind him, knocking the gun away.

I had ended up in a good position to put him in a headlock, so I did, smacking him around a little more. The key to fighting unicorns is to keep hitting them in the head so they can’t concentrate. Come to think of it, that works for a lot of ponies and people, too.

I glanced at the pistol on the floor. In my line of work, it pays to know your weapons, big or small. The gun was a Glock 19. Wow, just when you thought a pony couldn’t get more gangster…

Cash struggled to get up. I held my hooves down on his throat until he began to struggle for air instead.

“What the—” was all he seemed capable of saying.

His nose was bleeding from where I had hit him a couple of times. I squeezed it between my hooves. “What do you have going with Tabitha Larson?”

“I—I don’t know—”

I resisted the urge to scream at him. The brief fight had already made more noise than I wanted.

“Listen, I saw you meet with her. I saw her give you money. Why?”

“She’s a friend. She’s helping me out a little.”

“Horse dung.”

“I told you—”

I twisted his nose. “Why?”

“I helped her get rid of a body!”

I let go of his nose. “Really? Tell me about that.”

“She called me one night. She said she’d pay me. She hit a guy with her car.”

“When? Where?” I asked.

“A couple weeks ago. It was out at the park.”

I rolled my eyes. “Which park?”

“First Landing.”

“Why did she call you? Was it because you’re the kind of guy who would know how to dispose of the body?”

He shrugged. "We met through Terry Ives. It's complicated, but Neil Larson does his legitimate financial stuff."

“How much did she pay you?”

“She was going to give me a grand from every paycheck.”

“Was that her idea, or are you blackmailing her so you don’t tell the police she killed someone?”

He shrugged.

I couldn’t think of anything else to ask him, so I stood up and kicked the gun across the room. The door was still open, so I went out and closed it behind me. My vehicle was still parked on the street. It even had all its parts. Before I left, I keyed Cash’s hideous car.

Well, it looked like Neil didn’t have to worry that Tabitha was cheating on him. I suppose he would be happy to hear that. The news that a drug dealing pony was shaking down his wife probably wouldn’t sit well with him, though. Neither would the news that she’d killed someone. The bookkeeping for Terry Ives was something entirely different, and I decided to let that be.

I called David. “Do you think you could get Neil to come to our Sunday drinking session?”

“Probably,” he said. “Something important?”

“I think I’ve just about got things wrapped up. It seemed like a good excuse to get him away from the wife.”

“All right, I’ll ask him,” David promised.

I got my fishing pole and went out to the pier in my backyard. I didn’t fish with the intent of catching anything, and in fact wouldn’t know what kind of bait to use. It was a remarkably relaxing hobby, though, and I spent the rest of the day out there, thinking.

»«

The next evening, I got to the club a little early. I ordered my drink and went out on the deck.

David was there, but Neil hadn’t arrived yet. We made small talk. The lawyer didn’t press me for details, although I could tell that he was interested.

Neil came out. He didn’t have a beverage with him and explained, “I don’t drink much.”

He sat down and all three of us subconsciously leaned towards the center of the table to talk.

“I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news,” I started.

Neil nodded. “Let’s hear it.” He seemed a little hesitant, but willing to go forward.

“Hang on,” said David. “Is this something I should be privy to?

“Maybe not,” I said. “Don’t want to be an accessory to anything.”

David nodded and got up and went back inside. When he was gone, I said, “The good news is, Tabitha probably isn’t having an affair. The bad news is that I think she killed someone.”

Neil started as if he’d been kicked. “What makes you think she killed someone?” His voice was barely above a whisper despite the fact that the club was practically deserted as usual.

“I checked her car. It’s been repaired recently, right?”

The man nodded. “She told me she came out after work one day and it wouldn’t run. She said she had it towed to a shop and they spent a couple of days fixing it. Covered under warranty.”

“Did you actually see the car?”

“No,” he admitted.

“The front end had been damaged. Adding to that, I spoke to Cash Flow. He claims he helped her hide the body.”

“That dirtbag,” Neil said.

“Now keep in mind, I’m going with only circumstantial evidence here. The car could have been damaged by the repair shop. Cash, being a dirtbag, could have said that to get me to stop hitting him. We can’t be sure.”

Neil stared at the table and was silent for several seconds. “Have you gone to the police?”

“No,” I told him.

“Can you find out for sure if she really did do it?” Neil asked slowly. “If I’m going to turn in my own wife, I want to be absolutely sure.”

“I can do that.”

He sighed. “I suppose I could use a drink after all.”

I thought about what the Larson household was going to be like now. She might be keeping a secret about a killing, and he was keeping a secret that he knew. It sounded like some kind of twisted romantic comedy. I would have laughed, except Neil was sitting right there.

1:4

The next day I did an internet search for all the newspapers around. The Virginian-Pilot covered the area I was looking for.

The newspaper office was on Brambleton Avenue near the Scope Arena, home of the Norfolk Admirals hockey team. I wandered in and bought some back issues. After that, I went over to Pagoda Garden. It’s a little park north of where the USS Wisconsin is docked as a museum ship. I found a bench and spread out my newspapers.

After a few minutes, I found what I was looking for. Steven Janes, age 43, of Virginia Beach, had disappeared. It was suspected that he had gone jogging in First Landing State Park. There was a picture included.

That did it. I called Neil.

“I have a newspaper article here that describes a man who went missing at the same time and place that Cash told me about. The date lines up with when Tabitha’s car went into the repair shop.”

He sighed heavily. “I really don’t know what to do. I suppose I’ll have to talk to her.”

Surprising myself, I said, “I’ve got a picture of the man here. I could go talk to her and explain what she needs to do.”

“That might be best. Please have her call me.”

My business was through. I was stupid to keep working on it, especially because I wasn’t getting paid. However, I tore the picture out and carried it with me. The newspapers were of no use anymore, so I left them on the bench.

On the way to Tabitha’s office, I rehearsed what I was going to say. It wasn’t easy. Hi, I think you may have splattered a pedestrian.

I got there at about a quarter to three and went into the building. The third floor where Tabitha worked was one large open space with a line of private offices around the outside near the windows and cubicles in the center. I didn’t see anyone who was obviously in charge.

A woman in a cubicle near the door noticed me. She wore some kind of glasses that had lenses that turned up and came to a point at the temples. They were red. Nothing else in her outfit matched the eyeware.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I need to speak with Tabitha Larson.”

“Why?”

“I’m a private investigator working for her husband. I’ve got some important things to discuss about the case.”

“What sort of things?”

I stared at her, annoyed. “That’s private.”

“Couldn’t you do that over the phone?”

“I could, but then I wouldn’t be able to call you a nosey hag to your face.”

Several people poked their heads up over the edges of their cubicles. I’d said that last remark a little too loud.

The woman turned away. “She has her own office. Near the back.”

I walked to the other side of the room. Most of the people in the cubicles were watching me. I was a little self conscious and wished I hadn’t said that, but it had sure gotten results.

I knocked on the door to Tabitha’s office. Through the glass, I saw her look up from her desk. Confusion showed on her face, but she motioned me in.

I came inside and closed the door behind me. “Ma’am, my name is Sail Canvas. Your husband asked me talk to you.”

“About what?” She gestured to the chair across from her desk. I sat. Her furniture was not as comfortable as her husband’s. Tabitha’s office was a little more artsy and less plush. There were a few modernist prints on the walls and some kind of heavy glass vase with flowers sitting on top the filing cabinet. There was one window that appeared to open onto the fire escape.

I sat down and began taking things out of my pockets. My card, the picture of Steven Janes, my notebook. Keeping the picture covered with my hoof, I said, “Mrs. Larson, your husband said you’ve been acting strangely for a few weeks now. He said he asked you what was wrong, but you wouldn’t tell him.”

“I don’t see what business it is of yours,” she said.

“He asked me to find out. I saw that your car had been in an accident. I saw you pay Cash Flow. I talked to him and found out what happened.”

Tabitha’s face had slowly been losing color. I uncovered the picture and slid it across the table. “Does this man look familiar?”

She nodded slowly. “It was dark. I didn’t see him until it was too late.” He voice was very quiet.

“I haven’t gone to the police yet,” I told her. “I thought that you and your husband should talk about this and make arrangements to turn yourself in.”

She nodded and appeared to regain some composure. “Can I…have a few minutes to pack up my office?”

“Sure.” I got up and grabbed my notebook. I left her office and leaned against the wall, facing the cubicles. Everyone seemed to have forgotten me already because no one looked my way while I stood there.

I gave her three minutes by the clock on the wall. She hadn’t come out. I gave her another three. I turned and looked through the glass. The office was empty.

I threw open the door and went in. The window was open. I put my head out. The fire escape had steps that went all the way to the ground for an easy getaway.

A quick check of the office showed that nothing obvious had been disturbed. My card was gone from her desk. She might have gone out the window as soon as I’d left. With a six minute head start, she was as good as gone.

Despite that, I went out the window and spread my wings. Hovering over the building, I couldn’t see her. I checked the parking lot. Her car was gone.

No point in hurrying now. I glided down to my car. I got in where the street noise was quieter and called Andy. His voicemail answered. I had forgotten he taught late on Mondays. He would be out soon, though, so I left him a message asking him to call me back.

Neil answered when I called him. He sounded nervous.

“I visited Tabitha at work and told her what the situation is,” I told him. “She snuck out the fire escape and I don’t know where she went.”

“I haven’t heard from her,” he said.

“Do you know any places she might have gone?”

“No, not really.”

I thought for a moment. “She asked Cash for help the first time, what are the chances she’d go to him?”

“I don’t feel like I really know anything anymore. Things are moving so fast.”

“I’m going to go check at Cash’s place. I’ll let you know.”

I pointed the car towards the drug dealer’s apartment. On the way, Andy called me back.

“I don’t have much time, but here’s the story,” I said. “I told Tabitha just how much trouble she’s in and she ran. Neil and I don’t know where she is or where she’s going. I’m going to go visit Cash now. Can you go and watch the Larsons’ house in case she goes home?”

“I can do that,” he said. “I’ll call you if I see her.”

“Thanks.”

I pulled up to Cash’s place and got out. At the top of the stairs, I knocked on his door. I didn’t hear any footsteps. I knocked again. Still no sound. I decided to try the knob. It was unlocked.

I stepped in and closed the door behind me. There were no lights on. I waited a little while to let my eyes adjust. Walking into the kitchen, I found Cash dead on the floor with three gunshot wounds spaced across his chest.

I hadn’t been expecting that and I think my eyes might have bugged out a little, cartoon style. I looked away down the hall and saw something glint on the carpet. I walked over and knelt down.

It was an empty casing. I poked it with my car keys and rolled it over. Nine millimeter. A few feet away, there were two more.

I walked back to the kitchen. Without looking at him too hard, I touched Cash’s neck. It was still fairly warm. I turned and walked out of the apartment.

As I fastened my seat belt, I happened to glance in the rear view mirror. There was an old Chevrolet Caprice coming down the street. I expected it to pass by, but instead it appeared to be slowing. I started my car.

I looked to the left and saw Bobby, Terry Ives’s hard man, pointing a gun at me. I didn’t think, I just dropped the car into reverse and smashed down the gas pedal.

My car jumped backwards almost forcefully enough to give me whiplash. I cranked the steering wheel over hard and the car spun in the middle of the street until I was pointing the opposite direction. I put the transmission in drive and tromped down on the accelerator again.

In the mirror, I could see the Caprice spin around the street. Judging by the tire smoke, it might have more power than it looked.

I looked forward again and swore. A traffic light was red. Regretfully, I slowed down enough to make sure I could get through without getting into an accident. Just my luck, the light changed green behind me. The Caprice gained considerably.

I heard a few shots from behind. I don’t know how close they came, but it made me nervous. Bobby was following uncomfortably close. I don’t know how he kept missing, but the potholes in that section of town may have had something to do with it. At the next block, I cut the wheel hard to the right. The Caprice might have had power, but it didn’t handle nearly as well as my car.

Bobby’s car started to turn, but not well enough. It went up over the curb and smashed into the building on the corner. I didn’t see what it was, maybe an apartment house or something. I slowed down, but kept my eye on the mirror. No one followed me after that.

I thought about calling 911 to tell them about Cash. I probably should have done that as soon as Tabitha had run. I didn’t want to use my phone to report a murder, though, and I couldn’t remember where there was a pay phone without a camera nearby. Oh well. Someone would find him eventually.

I thought about joining Andy at the Larson’s, but on the off chance Tabitha had found out what I drove, the sight of my car might keep her away.

I went to Neil’s office. Sherrie was at the desk.

“Is Neil here?”

“No, he went home. He seemed like something was wrong. He never leaves before five.” She checked the clock. “It’s only about ten till, now.”

“How long ago did he leave?”

“Just a few minutes.” She arched an eyebrow. “Since when are you on a first name basis with him?”

I turned around and walked out without replying. If Neil had only left a few minutes ago, he was probably just getting home. I walked back to the car. As I slid behind the wheel, my phone rang. It was Tabitha.

“Mr. Canvas, I’m sorry about earlier. I’ve thought about what you said. I’m ready to turn myself in.”

I thought her voice still sounded a little stressed, but more collected than when I’d talked to her earlier. “Where are you?”

“I’m at my office.”

“I’ll be there soon.” I called Andy. After explaining what was going on I asked him to repeat it to Neil and then both of them should come to Tabitha’s office.

I hung up and started the car.

»«

The office building was deserted when I got there. All the doors were unlocked, though, so I went up to the third floor. There were a few security lights on, but other than that the only illumination came from Tabitha’s office. She sat at her desk with her hands in her lap. I opened the door and came in.

“I’m sorry for all this,” she said.

“We can fix it.”

“No you can’t. A man died. I’m not going to get out of this. Neil and I are going to cover it up.”

“You’ve had some time to put together a defense,” I reassured her. “Plus time for good behavior, you won’t be in too long.”

“I can’t do that.” Her hand came up from behind the desk holding a small revolver.

“Now hang on.” I put my hooves up. “Have you really thought this through? Two bodies double the chances of getting caught.”

She stood up and came around the desk, backing me into the wall.

“Cash said he hid that man so well no one would ever find the body. He can do it again.”

“What are you going to do now that Cash is dead?”

“He’s dead?” She looked confused. I realized that her revolver wouldn’t have ejected casings onto Cash’s floor. What were the chances that the drug dealer had been killed because of something entirely unrelated? Well, pretty high, actually. However, what were the chances that Bobby would have showed up outside shortly thereafter? What were the chances that Tabitha didn’t know anything at all about Chris being dead? There was something else going on here.

“Someone killed him earlier today,” I told her. “I don’t know who.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What have I got to lie about?” I saw something through the glass door out of the corner of my eye. Tabitha saw it too and whipped her gun towards it, pulling the trigger.

The door seemed to shatter in slow motion. I could see someone on the other side of the door jerk back, flinching away from the bullet.

I seemed like a long time for the glass to stop falling. Tabitha took a step towards the door, still holding the gun out. She had completely turned away from me. On the floor with a bullet hole in his stomach was Neil.

Tabitha dropped the gun and her hands covered her mouth. I grabbed her heavy glass vase from on top the filing cabinet and conked her on the head with it. She dropped like dead weight.

The vase was unharmed and I set it back down and retrieved the gun, carefully moving it away from Tabitha. Picking up the phone on her desk, I called the police.

It didn’t take them long to arrive. Reports of a shooting between a white middle class husband and wife usually get a quick response.

When the emergency services got there, the police handcuffed Tabitha and shoved her in a car. Neil was still conscious and they put him in the ambulance.

A crowd of uniformed officers and detectives spread out and investigated or whatever it was they did. One of them came up to me. He introduced himself as Detective Martin Wade. He was a black man of maybe forty years of age, average height and build. He wore about the same suit and tie as the other detectives and his head was shaved.

“Mr. Canvas, I understand you reported the incident.”

“That’s right.”

He took out a notebook similar to my own. “Walk me though the events that led up to this.”

“Last Sunday, I was drinking.”

Wade looked at me, trying to decide if I was kidding.

“I was with my lawyer, David Goldstein. It was social, not business. I’d recently been through a breakup. She was a cheating bi—uh, you know.”

Wade nodded.

“David told me about Neil Larson. Neil thought his wife Tabitha was cheating on him. Since David told me not to do anything to get revenge on my ex, he thought that maybe I might like to help Neil check on his wife.”

“Do you have a license for private investigation?” asked Wade.

“I wasn’t getting paid. Virginia law says I only need one if it’s my occupation.”

Wade shrugged.

“I saw Tabitha talking with a pony. His name is Cash Flow.” I talked about Cash like I didn’t know he was dead. “I think he’s a drug dealer, and I think he associates with a man named Terry Ives.”

I gave Wade Cash’s address and the location of Terry’s bar. I also gave a description of Bobby and a few ideas about what his profession might be.

“Cash admitted that he’d helped Tabitha dispose of a body.”

“He just admitted that?”

I shrugged. “He wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box. He said that Tabitha hit a man with her car in First Landing State Park. I went through some old newspapers and found a guy who I think is the victim. His name was Steven Janes.”

Wade nodded like he might or might not have recognized the name. He kept taking notes as I spoke.

“I told Neil what I thought was happening. He asked me to go see Tabitha and talk to her about turning herself in. I did, and when I left her office to give her some time to pack up her things, she went out the fire escape.”

“So how did we end up back here?” asked Wade.

“A couple hours later, she called and said that she had calmed down. She told me to come to her office. I had a friend watching the Larson house in case she went home. I called him and told him to get Neil to come to the office too.”

I stopped. It was then that I realized that I hadn’t seen Andy.

From the look on my face, Wade must have guessed that something was wrong. “What’s the matter?”

“My friend. I haven’t heard from him since I asked him to get Neil. I thought he would come too.” I pulled out my phone and called Andy. His phone went straight to voicemail.

A sudden thought struck me. Tabitha had said that she and Neil were going to try and cover things up. Besides her and Neil, only Andy, Cash Flow, and myself knew what had happened. Cash had been murdered, Tabitha had held a gun on me, and Andy… Andy had probably knocked on the Larson’s door and told Neil exactly who he was and what he knew.

I quickly explained my theory to Wade. He listened in silence. After I was finished, he motioned for me to follow him. He grabbed his partner and had him come with us.

On the street, the three of us got into an unmarked Ford. At my direction, Foster, Wade’s partner, drove us to the Larson house.

We passed Andy’s car and pulled up in front of the house. The three of us got out and looked around. The front door was locked and no key was immediately obvious. Wade shrugged and used the butt of his gun to break a window next to the door. He reached through and unlocked it.

We searched the house. On the plus side, we didn’t find a body. Unfortunately, we didn’t find Andy gagged and bound, either. The garage was empty, as both of the Larson’s cars were at Tabitha’s office.

About that time I got a call from Hawker. “Sail? Do you know where Andy is? He said he was going to be with you.”

“Actually, I don’t know where he is right now. I talked to him earlier.”

“He isn’t answering his phone.”

“I know. I tried calling him too.”

“I’m worried.”

“I think he was kidnapped.”

She gasped. “What? What happened?”

“I’m not really sure. I’ll call you back if I hear anything.” I hung up on her.

“Where do we go from here?” asked Fowler.

“Got any ideas?” Wade asked me.

I thought for a moment. The idea I had was a long shot and probably wouldn’t work, but Andy needed to be found. I made another call.

Admiral Nevis didn’t like to answer his phone at home. I could tell by the way he grumbled “Hello?”

“Sir, it’s Sail Canvas.”

I held the phone away from my ear as Nevis let out a long string of profanity. I probably wasn’t supposed to have his home number.

“Sir, I need you to do something for me.”

“What?” His tone of voice hadn’t changed.

“A friend of mine was kidnapped. If you have any satellites pointed at this area, they could be helpful in finding him.”

“What we do with intelligence assets is classified.”

“I’ve got security clearance. Remember, the government trusts me to build stuff.”

“No.”

“Sir, I’ll owe you a favor. Anything.”

There was silence on the line for several seconds. Finally, “What are the details?”

I quickly told him the location, the time I’d called Andy, and the description of his car. I explained that he’d disappeared shortly thereafter. I could hear the scratching of a pencil on the other end of the line.

I finished and Nevis read it back to me.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He grumbled something unintelligible and hung up. I told Wade and Fowler who I had called. They seemed impressed.

Our work at the Larson house was finished. There didn’t seem to be any hidden spaces or anything else to indicate Andy was still there. We headed back to Tabitha’s office to get my car.

About twenty minutes after I called Nevis, my phone rang.

A young male voice I had never heard before said, “Sir? We have the information you requested.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Sir, the man in question exited his car and went to the front door of the house. He appeared to be invited inside. About ten minutes later, a car exited the garage. No one entered or exited the house until quite a while later when two men and a pony arrived by car and appeared to break in.”

“Where did the car that left the house go?”

“One moment, sir.” I heard keyboard keys tapping. “It drove to an office building and one man got out. It wasn’t the same man who went into the house.”

“It didn’t make any stops along the way?”

“No sir.”

“Thank you.” I hung up.

“He must be in Neil Larson’s trunk,” I said to Wade.

“That car’s already been towed away, said the detective.

Fowler turned the wheel and we went to the impound lot. By flashing their badges around, the two cops were able to get us in fairly quickly.

When Neil had arrived at the office, he had been in such a hurry that he forgotten to lock the car. I opened the door and found the trunk release button.

Andy had been draped in what might have been an entire roll of duct tape. His mouth had been covered, his hands had been bound behind his back and his legs were bent at the knee. He was also taped to the metal on one side of the car. The carpet only covered the floor of the trunk and I guessed that tape wouldn’t stick very well to it. I assumed he had been taped to the side to keep him away from the emergency trunk release in case he had found some way to pull it.

“Took you long enough,” were the first words out of his mouth. He smiled. He stopped smiling when I ripped some duct tape off his skin.

He was a little unsteady when he got out because he legs had fallen asleep. I put my phone in his hand and told him to call Hawker. As Andy talked, Wade put out a call to have Neil Larson cuffed to his hospital bed.

Wade and Foster took Andy back to his car and then me back to mine. The detectives told me to be in contact for a while. The Virginia Beach police were also involved because that’s where the Larsons lived and where the crime actually occurred. It looked like I was going to have a busy time over the next couple of days.

I was allowed to go home, though. In the morning, I went to the hospital and told the uniformed police officer outside who I was. I said I needed to formally end my employment with Larson. He let me in.

Larson may have been sleeping or just resting when I came in. Judging by the location of the bullet wound, it might have gone through his stomach or liver. Whether on accident or on purpose, Tabitha had shot him perfectly in the center of mass. His eyes opened when I kinked his oxygen line.

“Why did you put my friend in your trunk?” I let go of the line.

“I was trying to help Tabitha. He knew what she did.”

“Were you going to kill him?” I asked.

“I…don’t know.”

“Who killed Cash?”

“I don’t know.”

I pinched the oxygen line again. “I don’t know! I hired Terry Ives to take care of it. I don’t know who he sent.”

I gave him some air again. “Did you also tell him to kill me?”

He nodded. He seemed a little more scared now.

“I’m guessing getting shot wasn’t part of the plan.”

“I was trying to help her. I did all this for her.”

Wade had speculated what the Larsons might be charged for. Tabitha would be charged with manslaughter for the jogger and for brandishing a deadly weapon at me. Depending on how the jury felt, shooting Neil could be anything from an accident all the way up to attempted murder. I told him that.

His face fell. I told him, “Don’t even get me started on the charges that you’re looking at.”

I left. It was nearly time for my appointment.

When Dr. Games asked me to talk about the past week, I’m sure she wasn’t expecting what I had to say.

I told her the results of my investigation. I told her about the long hours of boredom sitting outside the Larson house with only animal crackers for company. I told her about Andy and what had happened to him. I told her about getting shot at.

“Sail, this seems a little farfetched.”

“You can read about it in the newspaper. I’m not mentioned, but it’s all there.”

She folded her forelegs and contemplated for a moment.

“So how did it make me feel?” I prompted. She shrugged and motioned for me to answer the question.

“Well, even with the boring parts it was the most interesting eight days I’ve ever had. I might even go so far as to say that it was fun. I guess I enjoyed the feeling of being part of the good guys who beat the bad guys.”

“I remember you said you started on this as a kind of revenge on the woman who cheated on you. Do you still feel that way?”

I realized that I hadn’t thought much about Lilly in the past week. “I suppose not. I think some resentment is always going to be there, but I feel like I’ve had my mind somewhere else for a while and I’ve calmed down. I might even be able to carry on a civil conversation with her.”

“Did you learn anything especially profound from all this?”

I thought for a moment. “I learned that sleeping around is terrible, but it’s still better than murder.”

End of Part One

2:1

Part Two

Six weeks later, Nevis cashed in the favor I owed him. I got a phone call from his aide, Chief Stanton. I’d talked with Stanton a couple of times before. He probably wouldn’t have appreciated the title of secretary, but I figured that was pretty much what he did.

“Mr. Canvas, the Admiral would like to have a meeting with you.”

“This is a surprise. What about?”

“You’ll find out when you get here. The Admiral would like you to come as soon as possible.”

It was about nine a.m. on a Monday morning, so I didn’t have anything else to do. I jumped in my car and went up to the base. It took me a moment to remember where the front gate was. I realized I didn’t have any credentials to show, but after taking my name, the guard let me though.

I’d been to Nevis’s office a time or two. Besides the security boats, we’d done business on a few other things.

In addition to manning the telephone, Chief Stanton was the gatekeeper posted outside Nevis’ office. He was a big man with a high and tight haircut and a mustache. His khaki uniform was flawless.

He opened the door for me, and I stepped into the office. It had blue carpet and wood paneling on the walls. Some memorabilia from Nevis’s career was scattered around. I knew he’d been some kind of a pilot. The pictures seemed to support this.

Nevis’s desk was huge and made of polished wood. His personal coffee cup had his old squadron logo and gold leaf around the rim. Overall, the office was not a bad place for government work.

The Admiral was at his desk. Another man was there with him. The man wore a light suit to go along with the summer weather.

“Mr. Canvas, have a seat,” said Nevis. “This is Carl Hanley of the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Hanley extended a hand to me. He was slightly overweight and had a round baby face under an honest-to-god bowl cut. His hair was medium brown.

“Mr. Canvas, it’s good to meet you.” I bumped his fist to be polite.

“Mr. Hanley.” I nodded. I turned to Nevis. “What’s this about?”

“I want you to help the CIA with whatever they need,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because they asked me if I could think of anyone who was in the shipping business, had few friends or family, and didn’t mind a bit of dirty work.”

Well, I suppose that technically described me. “What am I going to gain out of it?”

“Not much. But you’ll do it.”

“I’m not seeing much incentive,” I said.

“You said you’d owe me a favor.” He let that sink in for a moment.

I sighed. “Just what is this going to involve?”

“I believe you own a yacht?” said Hanley. “We’d like you to take a trip to Russia and gather some intelligence for us.”

I hadn’t taken Troublemaker out in months. It was probably in ready-to-go condition because I paid a guy to keep up the maintenance, but I didn’t know for sure. “That sounds simple.”

“Well, that’s just the general gist,” said Hanley. “I can’t tell you too much until you officially agree to the operation.”

Annoyed, I said, “If you looked at me enough to know I have a boat, you also probably know how deep my background’s been checked. I’ve got a security clearance.”

“Not for this. It’s too high.” He sounded a little smug that he knew and I didn’t.

“So just take a cruise and play James Bond.” I rolled my eyes. “Right. I can do that.”

Nevis looked like he wanted to say something nasty to me, but held back in front of Hanley. The CIA man said, “I’ll talk to some people and we’ll get back to you.” He got up and went out of the room.

I turned to Nevis. “Do you know anything more about this?”

“Only what I told you. They’re looking for someone, and you fit the description. Maybe CIA will give me a medal for the assist.” He smirked.

“Do you know how much I hate you?” I said.

“No, but I’m sure it’s mutual.” His grin didn’t drop.

I didn’t quite storm out of his office. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I would probably end up going to Russia. I didn’t have any other plans to get in the way.

I went home and waited around. It was unknown how long it would take Hanley to get things organized. Eventually, I went out and fished for a while.

At about four in the afternoon, the phone finally rang. “Mr. Canvas, please meet us at your yacht at eight a.m. Don’t be late.”

I started to reply, but the line was already dead.

In the morning, I was at the boat like I was requested to be. The yacht was a little different design than most, with the cabin pushed forward to make room for a helicopter pad at the stern. My father had named it Troublemaker, after me, he said.

As I walked up, I was surprised to see half a dozen people working on various things on the topside. Hanley appeared and walked down the gangway to me.

“What the hell are you doing to my boat?” I demanded.

“Oh, nothing serious. You’ve got a nice yacht here, don’t get me wrong. I just gave myself a tour through the cabins. It’s missing some things we’d like it to have, though.”

“Like what?”

“A secure satellite radio, for starters.” He motioned to a man who appeared to be welding something on the roof.

“That’s it?”

“No, not by a long shot. I’ll get you a copy of the work order. Come on, I want you to meet someone.” Hanley led me down to the cabin deck. The day wasn’t very old, but it was already starting to get hot. Inside, the air conditioning was on.

There was a man in one of the cabins going through some papers in a three ring binder. He was older, maybe sixty, with grey hair that bracketed his face. There were a few tattoos on his arms that had faded and become unreadable with time. He had about two days’ worth of beard stubble. He stood as we entered.

Hanley said, “Allow me to introduce Greg O’Doul. He’s in charge of this project.”

“You must be Canvas.” O’Doul looked genuinely pleased to meet me. He stood up and offered his hand. He appeared to be of about average height but thick. I got the impression that none of it was fat. He rapped my hoof hard enough. I figured he probably gave crushing handshakes.

“Greg here is going to be managing on this trip. He’s be handling the information and giving the orders.”

“It’s my boat,” I protested.

“Sure, you’re the Lieutenant. He’s the Captain," said Hanley. I wasn’t sure I liked that analogy.

“Anyway, I’ll show you around to see a few other things we’re doing.” I followed Hanley out of the cabin. At the end of the hallway, a man was attaching a rack to the bulkhead and deck. It looked like a gun rack.

“Is that what I think it is?” I asked.

“We didn’t want to send you in feeling naked.” I suppose I was grateful for that, but I didn’t like the idea that someone thought we might get into a shootout.

We went up to the bridge where there was another gun rack and two technicians working on installing new radar and sonar controls.

“We’ve got a diver in the water right now working on the sonar array,” said Hanley.

“Sonar array?” I said, my eyebrows going up. “All the boat’s got is depth finding sonar.”

Hanley grinned and said nothing. I walked over and had a look at the new radar interface. It was completely flat with no buttons or knobs. I figured it must be a touch screen.

“If you think I need all these gadgets and weapons, why don’t I just paint a Navy frigate white and call it my yacht?” Hanley laughed, although I hadn’t thought I’d said anything funny. He started back down to the gangway.

There was a third gun rack being installed next to the door that lead out onto the helicopter pad. Hanley escorted me to the bottom of the gangway. “One more thing, we need to make sure you’re up to this job. We don’t anticipate anything too dangerous, but you have to be able to do what we ask.”

“What does that mean?”

“We’ve got a little test for you. Admiral Nevis has graciously agreed to let us use the base. The idea is, you have to get in, place something that lets us know you were there, and get back out without getting caught.”

“You want me to show you how sneaky I am?” I asked, skeptically.

“Don’t take this lightly. Nevis is going to alert the guards to be extra careful. We will give you the benefit of night, though.” Hanley smiled maliciously.

“What if I get caught?”

“You'll probably go to prison. As Nevis tells it, you deserve to be there right now.”

“You’ve already started working on my boat," I said, fighting to keep panic out of my voice. "You can’t get rid of me.”

“We can always declare eminent domain and take it.” He said it lightly, but I could tell he was serious. “Your time begins tonight at nine. I’ll show up at your house and verify that you’re there. You need to get in, and get back by three a.m. Whatever you leave behind must found by midnight. Any questions?”

I had a lot, but said, “None.”

“I’ll see you tonight.” He went back up to the bridge.

Later that day, Dr. Games asked me how I was. I told her truthfully that I was a little stressed. Of course, she asked me to talk about it.

“During the adventure a couple of weeks back, I promised a favor to the man in charge of the local Navy base. Yesterday, he asked me to pay that back. I’m supposed to take my yacht to Russia. I’m going to be traveling with people I don’t know. When I got down to the dock this morning to look at my boat, there were people all over it making changes that I don’t entirely approve of. On top of that, I haven’t yet been told what exactly I’m supposed to be doing. That’s not the worst of it, though.”

“What is?” she asked.

“To be qualified to do what he asked me, I have to pass a test that I haven’t had time to study for and there are going to be people trying to keep me from it. If I fail, they’re going to take possession of my boat and go ahead without me. Oh, and probably send me to jail. Hopefully only for trespassing”

“I don’t quite understand what you’re talking about,” she said.

“It’s probably against national security to go into more detail," I told her.

The mare nodded slowly. “Well, it sounds like it’s your own actions that got you into this position.”

I sighed. “Probably.”

I still couldn’t tell Dr. Games what was going on, but talking about it helped me put things into perspective a little. By the time the hour was up, I hadn’t developed any strategies to succeed, but I’d come up with groundwork to begin. A plan to help make another plan.

I went home and got out my nautical charts. In a couple of hours, I had put together a rough outline of what I wanted to do. It was crazy, but I didn’t have much choice. I made a list of things I needed and went to buy them.

At an off-road shop, I got a thin fiberglass pole with a small orange flag on it. At the hardware store, I got some large zip ties and a can of black spray paint. I also picked up a large magnetic hook. Lastly, I stopped at a diving shop and got some tanks of gas.

Back at home, I got my kayak out and set about painting the topside. Straight black isn’t the best camouflage, but it’s better than the bright yellow the kayak originally was.

I installed the gas tanks in my rebreather. It’s like a scuba system, except you can use it longer without refilling it and it doesn’t put out tell-tale bubbles.

After that, I packed up the rest of my gear. When the paint dried on the kayak, I hauled everything out to the pier.

Hanley showed up at the house around nine. I let him inside. I hadn’t geared up yet, because I had a sneaking suspicion he would tell Nevis anything that would help catch me.

He checked his watch. “Aren’t you getting ready? It’s nearly time.”

“Just waiting for you to go. I work best when I’m not under supervision.” Hanley waited a few more minutes until his watch had ticked over to nine. I watched him get in his car and leave. Then I sprinted for the pier.

Thanks to daylight savings time it wasn’t dark quite yet, but it would be by the time I got where I was going. I didn’t have any waterproof night vision goggles, but I knew roughly the direction I wanted to go. The sky was partly cloudy. I had read the weather report, and it looked like there would be about half a moon. The sky was darkening rapidly by the time I reached the southern tip of the container yard.

Intermodal containers are handy things that make transporting cargo easy. They usually measure twenty feet long by eight feet wide by eight and a half feet tall. You can put them on trucks, railroad cars or ships. The container yard was where all three forms of transportation came together.

On the western edge of the yard was the wharf where the container ships were loaded and unloaded. I headed to the north, keeping as close to the seawall as possible.

I approached a ship being loaded by cranes. There were bumpers that kept the ship from rubbing against the seawall and causing damage. It created a gap a few feet wide.

I entered the gap. It was very dark. I didn’t think I had been seen by anyone when I was going in. The ship looked like a Panamax, so it probably weighed in the neighborhood of fifty thousand tons. Something like that would squish me against the seawall and no one would notice. Putting my faith in the bumpers was all I could do.

When the kayak was out of sight behind the ship, I took out the magnetic hook and stuck it to the rusty metal of the seawall. I tied the kayak to it.

After I put on the rebreather and checked all the lines, I slipped into the water. I had the fiberglass flagpole tied to my weight belt along with some zip ties.

All the underwater gear had been especially made for ponies. It can be difficult to get a tight seal on a facemask when your face is covered in hair. I had thought about flying in to do my dirty work, but that’s exactly what they would expect from a pegasus, right?

I kicked off, “flying” gently underwater. It was nearly a mile to get to the base. I paced myself, trying not to overstress my legs and wings. I remembered that I also had to come back.

I steered by a lighted diving computer strapped to my foreleg. There were a few piers along the way I had to navigate around. I needed to find a submarine for my plan to work. I hoped there was one docked at one of the piers closest to me.

I reached the floating line and ducked under it. I had to be more careful from this point on. They wouldn’t just leave billion dollar ships out where divers could get to them without at least some surveillance. Probably some kind of electronic sensors.

They sky was now fully dark. I eased my head barely above water and had a look. The nearest pier had a ship tied to it, so I submerged again.

At the next pier, I was in luck. There was an older Los Angeles-class sub there. I debated on my approach. If I went in fast, I might be able to get out again before anyone came in response to sensors going off. If I went in slowly, I might trick the sensors, but if I didn’t manage to fool them, the slow approach would give security more time to respond.

I checked my dive computer. Slightly more than two hours had passed. I opted for the slow approach. Trying to move as little as possible while still traveling forward, I crept towards the submarine.

I eventually reached the hull. Putting a hoof on it, I guided myself to the stern. The big bronze propeller was there near the surface of the water. I untied the flag and got out some zip ties.

The propeller shaft in a submarine is so heavy that it will actually begin to bend under its own weight if it’s stationary. A small electric motor keeps it turning slowly while the sub is in port, rotating at about one revolution every four minutes.

I began to zip tie the flag horizontal to the waterline. Hopefully, the shaft would rotate the flag to an upright position sticking out of the water. If I got it set up almost breaking the surface of the water on one side, it would take a few minutes to make the half revolution to get to the other side where it would begin to rise out of the water.

I secured the last zip tie and kicked off towards the bow again. Those two minutes might be valuable time for me to get away before anyone noticed the flag. I had written SAIL CANVAS WAS HERE in permanent marker. I hoped that qualified as leaving something behind.

As I exited the floating line, I heard a pair of high-pitched boat engines coming closer. I went as deep as I could. Two engines running together create interfering sound waves. This can cause a sort of “beat” that varies in volume. High pitched engines probably meant small outboards. I figured the boat was probably another Model 28.

I leveled out with my belly practically in the mud. I didn’t know what security might use to try and find me, but I wanted to stay as far away from the boat as possible.

I kept heading west until I reached the channel. The extra depth made me feel better. I had to be careful, though. If I stayed with the channel too long, I would end up far to the south and miss the kayak.

I swam for a while longer and didn’t hear any more boats. I decided to check topside. I was surprised and delighted to see that I was exactly at the point where I needed to be at to turn towards the container yard.

Several minutes later, I popped my head up again to locate the ship. It looked like it was nearly full of containers now. As I continued swimming towards it, I heard a rumble in the water. It gained in intensity until I recognized it as the sound of large ship engines. I wondered how I had missed seeing another ship coming towards me until I realized that it was the sound of the ship my kayak was hidden behind starting up.

I swam faster. I needed to be out of there before the ship started to move. I came up to the hull and swam down under it. I could feel the vibrations of the engines through the water.

I surfaced against the seawall and swam to the kayak. I heard sounds from above as the cranes were being drawn back away from the ship. I scrambled into the kayak and took off the rebreather mask. The fresh air was heavenly as I began paddling.

I had almost gotten out from behind the ship when it gave a lurch towards the wharf. I saw it coming and rolled into the water, diving as deep as I could while holding my breath. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I came back up.

The kayak was toast. There were cracks in the hull with water coming in. It might stay afloat by itself, but it wouldn’t support me.

Panicked, I started swimming back towards home as fast as I could. In the back of my mind, I knew I couldn’t keep that pace up for long, but I was going to run out of time.

I noticed a ladder that went up the wall. I suddenly changed plans and climbed it. The area around the cranes was brightly lit, and I ran for the field of containers, not knowing if anyone saw me.

When I got out of the bright lights and into the safety of the containers I stopped. I took a moment to gather my wits. I checked the time. One hour, ten minutes to go.

I remembered my map of the area. The southern tip of the container yard was only about another mile across the water from my house. I was maybe half a mile from that point. I took off at a jog. I hadn’t gone very far before I ditched the weight belt.

After a few minutes, I came to the water. I took a quick look around before dropping over the edge of the wharf. Without the weight belt, it was harder to stay below the surface, but I managed.

I crawled up the ladder to my pier at about fifteen minutes to three, completly exhausted. I shuffled inside without bothering to take my gear off.

Hanley was there. He checked his watch. “Not too bad.”

“Am I in?”

“Yeah. Come down to the docks around noon and we’ll go over what you need to know.”

“Thanks. Now get the hell out of my house.”

2:2

All things considered, I didn’t have too many aches and pains when I woke up. Those would come in a metaphorical sense later in the morning.

When I got to the boat, there seemed to be fewer workers around. They must have finished most of what they were doing. I came aboard and went down to the cabin where I had gone the day before. Hanley and the other man were there. Hanley stood as I entered.

He handed me a manila folder. It didn’t have any markings on it. I half expected a Top Secret stamp. “Here’s what you need to know. My involvement ends here. Don’t be surprised if you never see me again.” He left.

I turned to the other man. “It’s Greg, right?”

“Call me Scorpion.”

I laughed. “What, was Snake taken?”

“Yes. Have a seat. I’ve got some things for us to discuss.”

I sat down on the bed. Scorpion turned and grabbed a folder identical to mine from the desk he was working at.

“You have the same information,” he said. “This is stuff that no one else can see. Make sure you don’t lose it.”

I opened my folder. The first page detailed the cover mission. The CIA had somehow found out that I had been planning on talking with Saint Petersburg harbor security. With all the business the United States Navy was giving the company, dealing with Russian police had not been very high on my list of things to do.

I was supposed to contact them to say that I was going to be in the area and maybe they’d like to make a deal. A working vacation. Meanwhile, “operatives” would be off doing other things in the city.

“Who are these operatives?” I asked.

“Me, for starters. We’ve got a couple of guys who’ll be traveling with us. There may be a few on the ground that we pick up along the way.”

“Just what are you planning on doing? I saw all the gun racks.”

“That’s more of a plan B than anything else. We’re not planning to tear anything up, but it might happen. I’m sure you’ve seen a few other things being done to make the boat more capable. I like to be prepared, but it’s a shame we can’t do anything too drastic while we’re parked here in front of the prying eyes of the public.”

“I’m in the shipbuilding business, remember? I’ll call the yard superintendent and get us a covered dry dock.”

Scorpion grinned. “I like you already.”

Dave Hillenburg was the man I needed to talk to. He kept his mouth shut and got things done. I liked that. When he answered the phone, I told him I was bringing my personal boat in. Testing a few things for the civilian market, I said. Secret stuff that required a private crew to install. Dave understood. Grunt employees can be foreign spies as well as corporate ones.

Dave was standing near the water when I rolled up. I was the only person allowed to drive a private car in the shipyard. It pays to be in charge.

I didn’t know who the CIA man piloting was, but he knew how to handle a boat. Troublemaker eased into the enclosure straight as an arrow.

“It’s a good boat,” said Dave. “I remember when your father bought her.”

“Yeah.” We watched until the dry dock doors were closed and the water began to be pumped out.

Balancing a boat on dry land is tricky. You want it to be supported adequately and in such a way that it won’t fall onto its side, while still keeping the bracing to a minimum to save on time and money. The framework for holding up the boat was put into position while the water was drained.

Scorpion said that we were originally scheduled to leave in only a few days, but he decided that he’d rather do a more complete refit of the boat than stick to the schedule.

I asked for the barnacles to be scraped off the hull and a good once-over to be done. A hull checkup wasn’t really needed, but while the boat was out of the water, why not?

I was there for the next few days to watch while the crew installed CIA-funded bulletproof glass in the bridge, worked on the engine, and raised the bow.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to get into a situation where thick polycarbonate windows were necessary, but given the choice, I’d rather have them than not. Down in the engineering spaces, a few technicians were modifying the engine for more power. I was told that it might hurt the reliability, but the CIA would pay for a new engine if that became necessary. Finally, with all the weight of the additional gear, the boat sat a little lower in the water. Since we were going to be crossing the ocean anyway, plates were installed up to the level of the handrail on the bow to deflect larger than usual waves. It looked like they also might provide cover if, say, you were on deck and being shot at.

It looked more and more like my boat was being turned into a fighting ship. There wasn’t any offensive weaponry besides small arms, though. I had entertained the idea of telling Scorpion that we needed a five-inch deck gun, and I probably would have, too, if I could think of a way to conceal it.

I remembered a project the company had been working on a while back. The Army had wanted a smaller version of the Phalanx Close in Weapon System. The system was usually installed on Navy ships and Army semi trailers, but the Army was looking for something more compact that could be mounted in the back of a truck. The project was eventually canceled. It was a shame, because now only Raytheon made them.

The CIWS (sailors pronounced it “sea-whiz”) consisted of a gatling gun that could fire 4,500 twenty-millimeter armor piercing bullets per minute. The bullets were directed to the target by a built-in radar system that was cylindrically shaped and mounted above the gun. It sort of resembled R2D2 from Star Wars.

Our modification reduced the 13,000 pound weight by a little bit and incorporated a new mount that allowed the system to roll onto its side in order to lie flat and take up less space.

I left the dry dock and got in my car, heading for the engineering concept warehouse where the unused and discarded prototypes were kept. I called Dave Hillenburg and had him meet me there.

The prototype CIWS had been packed in a crate and then forgotten for several years. From outward appearances, it was nearly impossible to tell what was in the crate. It had a serial number stenciled on the outside, but that was it. Dave tracked down the number for me and figured out where in the warehouse it was. I got a forklift driver to take the crate over to the dry dock.

“What’s this?” asked Scorpion.

“I got you a little gift.”

When the forklift was gone again and the doors were closed, a worker cracked the crate open. Scorpion’s eyes lit up like he’d won the lottery, but then immediately fell again. “Where are we going to put it?”

“I’ve got that worked out.” I showed him a sketch of what I had planned. A rectangular box would be built to surround the CIWS when it was not being used. Hydraulic actuators would then open the box when needed. The box sitting on deck might raise a few questions, but it would be much less suspicious than a device that looked like a robot with a machine gun.

An order was immediately sent out for hydraulics and the materials to build the box. I looked through the parts in the CIWS crate and realized some of them were missing. I got on the phone to Raytheon to send us the parts while Scorpion made preparations for the dock crane to lift the CIWS onto the deck.

I would have liked to stay and see it installed, but I had to go to my weekly board meeting. I was a little late getting there. The shipyard actually isn’t anywhere near the office building. It didn’t help that I was wearing a little dirt and grease.

I dropped into my chair and the meeting began. Nothing notable was reported by any of the four. They all finished speaking and looked at me.

“I sold the CIA an old prototype weapons system we had lying around.”

John DeMotte said, “Which weapons system?”

I shrugged. “I don’t remember. We hadn’t used it for a while and they wanted it. I already sent them the bill.”

“What did they want it for?”

“It’s the CIA; who knows? Oh, and I’m also getting ready for a trip to Russia. Saint Petersburg harbor patrol wants to buy some boats.”

“We could send a sales representative,” said George Coates.

“I’ll go. I need a vacation anyway. Don't worry, I'll teleconference while I'm gone.”

No one else seemed to have anything else to say, so I left. Thinking about vacations, I called Andy.

He was on summer break from his teaching. Hawker would probably not approve of him running away to Russia with me. Scorpion would probably not approve of it either, but I had a plan for that.

“Sail, what’s new?” he asked when I called.

“I’m going to be taking the yacht out for an extended trip. I was wondering if you wanted to go along.”

“Do you have a destination in mind?”

“Saint Petersburg.”

“Florida? Sounds good.”

I almost didn’t tell him the truth. Waiting to see his reaction on the boat when he found out we were going to be crossing the Atlantic instead was almost worth it. I couldn’t do that to him, though. “Ah, no. Russia.”

“Wow. I’m not sure about that.”

“Think of how many novels you’ll write.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to want to write while I’m on a cruise.”

“You’ll have nothing but empty water to look at for about a week. There won’t be anything else to do.”

“All right. When are you leaving?”

“I don’t know. Maybe five days. Maybe more, maybe less.”

Andy agreed to think about it and we said goodbye.

I took the rest of the day off. It’s not like I do a lot of work to begin with, but I’d spent more time at the shipyard in the past few days than I had in the past few months. What I needed were animal crackers and some time with a fishing pole in my hooves. I got both, and the afternoon and evening were pretty relaxing.

The next day I was back at the covered dry dock. Scorpion had revised my box design to include a walk-in door on the side. He’d positioned it forward and butted it up against the superstructure. It was built of pre-made fiberglass panels to save weight.

I’d thought about it and decided that the best place to put the CIWS would have been aft, in order to be more effective as a defensive weapon, if someone was chasing us, for example. However, I could see that Scorpion had been right to modify the plans. With the helicopter pad, there wasn’t much room to put it back there.

Next to the box, a davit with a winch installed. Scorpion explained that along with the door, it made the box resemble a place to store jet skis. It sounded like an effective disguise to me.

The parts to complete the CIWS had been flown in overnight and were being put together. There was a small control panel that was supposed to be mounted in the cab of the truck carrying the CIWS in the original design. It was now being installed in the bridge.

The control panel turned the CIWS on and off, programmed how far it could swing side to side in case there was an obstruction like the superstructure in the way, and told it to engage air and sea targets.

I decided to take a look around the boat. I knew it pretty well, and was surprised to see how many small things had been changed. They’d swept through and fixed everything that was wrong or could go wrong. They even tightened the loose screws in the furniture. I supposed that I could get used to this government treatment.

While I was below decks, Scorpion called for me. When I came out, he was standing with two men I hadn’t seen before. They each had a suitcase.

“This is Gene and John. They’re going to be coming with us.”

Gene was tall and thin with sandy hair. John was shorter with a darker hair. They were both about thirty and looked to be in good shape.

Gene put his out his fist. “Nice boat you’ve got.” His voice was something from the deep South.

John gave me a hoof bump, too. “Here’s to hoping for a good trip.” His accent was neutral, maybe Midwestern.

The two of them went to stow their gear. “Is there anyone else you’re planning to bring along?” I asked Scorpion.

“Nope. Just them.”

“Great, because I’ve got someone to go with.”

“Who?”

“A friend of mine.”

“Who does he work for?”

“The Foreign Language department at Old Dominion.”

Scorpion looked about as surprised as if I’d told him the President of the United States had issued an executive order to change the name of the country to ’Merica.

“A college professor?” he asked.

“I thought it would help with the cover story. If I’m on vacation, I’d want to have some friends along. He doesn’t have to know there are other things going on.”

“The racks of guns sitting around might tip him off!” Scorpion shouted.

“I’ll tell him I’m afraid of pirates.”

“You can’t do this.”

“I already told him he could come.”

“Tell him you changed your mind.”

“Now hold on, he could be helpful to the operation.”

“How, exactly?” Scorpion crossed his arms.

“He’s pretty nerdy and good with codes.”

“We’re with the goddamned CIA. One man is not going to be able crack things better than us.”

“He’s a great cook.”

“I’ve eaten rats when I had to.”

“He knows Vladimir Putin personally.”

Scorpion just looked at me.

“I’ll come up with something better by tomorrow.”

He shook his head and walked away.

I stopped by Andy’s place on the way home. “A couple of problems have come up on this trip,” I said.

“Like what?”

“Well, it’s not a pleasure cruise. It’s purely business, but not for my business.”

“What’s that mean?”

I debated what I could tell Andy. Really, I shouldn’t tell him anything, but I’ve always been a rule breaker. Still, I exercised a little restraint in not telling him everything.

“I was foalnapped by the CIA and I’m supposed to take a trip to Russia as cover for an operation.”

“Okay,” said Andy slowly.

“If you still want to go, you’re going to have to come up with a really good reason.”

“Is any of this illegal?”

“Well… probably.”

“I’ll have to think about it.” He looked interested, but fearful that he too might be kidnapped by the government.

As I drove away from his house, I had an idea. It would have to wait until the next day, though. Hanley didn’t seem like the type to appreciate phone calls outside of business hours. As it turned out, I was right.

“Kind of early, isn’t it?” he said. It was nine a.m. I wondered if he would still have been asleep if I’d called any sooner.

“I just needed to ask you for something. I’m the only one who knows how to handle my boat, but I can’t do everything by myself.”

“I thought O’Doul said he knew boats.”

“Well, yes, but neither him nor the other two have ever been on a boat this big before.” I was bluffing. The three of them could have been former Navy for all I knew.

Hanley thought for a moment. “So you’re saying you need help?”

“That’s the long and short of it. We’ve got an extra cabin.”

“All right, I’ll send a message to O’Doul to let him know you asked me to send someone else.”

“Well, we’ve had some issues getting along. Could you leave me out of it? I wouldn’t want him to think I’m going over his head to get things done.”

“I understand how that can work sometimes. Alright, I won’t mention you. Let me know if you need anything else.”

When I got down to the dry dock that day, I found Scorpion checking his smartphone. It seemed a little out of place for the grizzled old man to be holding it, but the march of advancing technology waits for no one.

“Hanley thinks we need a sailing expert,” he said. “I told him we know what we’re doing, but he wants to be on the safe side.”

“My buddy knows how to sail.”

“We’re done talking about your buddy.”

We didn’t speak for the next few hours, until Scorpion informed me that the sailing expert was on his way. I volunteered to go meet him, saying that I knew the shipyard best.

When I got in my car, I called Andy. “Get down to the shipyard right now. I’ll tell you what’s going on when you get here.”

At the front gate was a young man with a short haircut and a tattoo of an anchor on his arm. He looked me up and down and glanced at my car. “You must be Sail Canvas. They told me about you.”

He pulled out a letter and handed it to me. It was from Hanley and basically said that this was the guy we were looking for.

“Come on, I’ll show you around,” I said. He got in the BMW appreciatively and off we went. His name, I learned was Jim Ross. I took him to the small boats area.

I stopped at the place where the utility boats were tied up. Jim looked confused. “I thought there was supposed to be a one hundred twenty foot yacht around here.”

“One hundred twenty? Someone must have screwed up. We’ve got just a twenty-footer like this one.” I gestured to a small utility boat tied up at the pier.

“You’re planning to cross the ocean with one of those?”

“No way. We were just planning to train here in preparation for what we’ll be doing later. We’ll get strategic airlift to take us across the ocean.”

Jim nodded. “All right. Where’s this Greg O’Doul? He’s in charge, right?”

“That’s correct. Right now, he and the other two are out testing the top speed of the boat when it’s loaded. You’ll meet him eventually. We probably won’t need your services until next week, though. That’s when we’re planning to start tactics. If you give me your contact information, I’ll give you a call when we’re ready for you.”

We got back in the car. Jim wrote out his phone number in my notebook as I drove. When we got back to the front gate, I shut off the car and asked Jim to come into the security building nearby.

“I’ll get you a VIP pass so you can come and go as you like,” I said. I covertly felt to see if the small magnet I’d put in the pocket of my leg band was still there.

The security people took Jim’s picture and made him a pass to use. The clerk handed it to me for inspection. I memorized as much of the information on it as I could as the ID lay in my hooves, hopefully close enough to the magnet to ruin the magnetic strip on the back.

I gave the card to Jim after a moment. “Good to meet you. I’ll give you a call when we’re ready.”

He left. Behind me at the security counter, they were busy putting together a print that reflected his VIP pass. It would be put in a folder and every time someone claiming to be a VIP came in, security was required to check the folder and find the matching print.

I went out to meet Andy. I handed him the letter from Hanley.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“It’s your authorization to come on this trip. You just have to pretend your name is Jim Ross.”

“I don’t like this idea.”

“Come on, when was the last time you had an opportunity to impersonate a government employee?”

He shook his head. “Is this the only way? I mean, I don’t actually know anything about sailing.”

“Just make yourself scarce as much as possible. If anyone asks questions, just tell them you weren’t trained for that specifically.”

We got in my car. I kept up the conversation, explaining things that I thought he might need to know.

“You have to act like you only met me today. O’Doul knows I wanted to get a friend of mine aboard, and he might be suspicious of you.”

We rolled up to the dry dock and went in. Scorpion came up from the boat. “So you’re Jim Ross.” He looked Andy up and down as if he wasn’t what Scorpion had expected.

“That’s right.” He handed Scorpion the letter. I was impressed with his acting skills. He seemed confident.

“I’m Greg O’Doul. You can call me Scorpion.” He took the letter and glanced at it briefly.

“Scorpion? Was Snake taken?” said Andy. He laughed. I laughed with him.

Scorpion cut his eyes back and forth between the two of us. “Anyway Ross, we’ll be pulling out in a few days. I don’t know how much help you’ll be in the meantime. Right now we’re working on the mechanicals.”

“Yeah, that’s not my field of study.”

“What is?” asked Scorpion.

“Astronomy. Navigating by the stars is a specialty of mine.” I was impressed how smoothly Andy lied. He’d be a great politician.

“All right. We’ll get you down here when we’re ready to go.”

“I’ll take him to get a security pass,” I said.

Scorpion shook Andy’s hand and walked back to the boat.

When we were outside, Andy said, “Christ, I was so nervous back there.”

“You did alright. We’re going to have to wait a while on the security pass, though. Come back this evening and we’ll get it sorted out.”

I dropped him at the gate and went back to the dry dock. I found Scorpion below decks. “What do you think of the navigator?”

Scorpion shrugged. “I don’t think we need him, but, to be fair, I don’t know how to steer by the stars.”

I did, but that was beside the point. “Well, if we’re accepting passengers based on skills, my friend knows how to speak Japanese like nobody’s business.”

“Just how is that going to help us in Russia? Besides, Ross took the last cabin.”

“We’ll put him up in a closet or something.”

“Like I said yesterday, we’re done talking about this.”

I wandered out and watched a couple of technicians testing the CIWS. The open and close mechanism on the concealment box worked perfectly. The side to side swing of the gun barrels was limited by being so close to the superstructure. It wouldn’t be able to hit targets outside of a one hundred eighty degree sweep on the bow. Still, better than nothing.

I met Andy back at the security building later that evening. The shift had changed, and the people there now wouldn’t recognize him.

The woman behind the counter had a nametag that read Brenda. I didn’t know her personally. After taking a picture of Andy, I gave her the information needed to make a copy of Jim Ross’s pass.

Brenda handed me the ID and the printout to compare. I handed Andy the ID and checked my watch.

Brenda smelled like a smoker. I had an idea. “Brenda, is it about your break time?”

“In just a few minutes, Mr. Canvas.”

I smiled. “You look like you’re working hard. Why don’t you take off early? I can file this.” I pointed to the VIP folder. “Is that where it goes?”

“That’s right. Thanks Mr. Canvas.” She pulled out a pack of cigarettes and left.

I pulled the real Jim Ross’s VIP printout and replaced it with Andy’s. I ran the old one through the paper shredder.

“Congratulations,” I said to Andy. “You’re now officially guilty of identity theft with a side order of fraud and breach of national security.”

“I hope I’ll be good at it.” He looked a little ill.

I laughed. We walked out of the building and went our separate ways.

On Sunday, Scorpion said that we would be leaving on Tuesday morning. Up until that point, I hadn’t thought about what I was going to do for therapy while I was gone. I said something to that effect to Scorpion.

“What are you in therapy for?”

Actually, I hadn’t thought about that either, despite how long I had been visiting Dr. Games. “I don’t know. I started going and never felt the need to stop.”

“Why did you start going in the first place?” he asked.

“A friend of mine told me I needed better personal skills. Apparently, I have a touch of sociopath in me.”

“In this business, that isn’t all bad.” Scorpion shrugged.

I called Dr. Games on Monday. She was a little surprised to hear from me. I’m not one of her needier patients. “I’m going to be leaving for Russia in the morning and going to be gone for a while.”

“I wish you’d told me sooner.” I could hear her turning pages and writing something. Canceling my appointment, I guessed.

“It was a little sudden. I was wondering if we could continue to communicate over the phone.”

“That would probably work. Remember the time zone difference.”

“Right. Depending on what happens while we’re leaving tomorrow, I probably won’t have time to call you then.”

“If you need to, you can call after hours. Otherwise, I’ll expect you at ten on Tuesday.”

I said I would call then and hung up. Then I went to buy a satellite phone that would work anywhere in the world.

Cheap sat phones aren’t really that much more expensive than a regular cell phone. It’s the network connection cost that makes up for it.

My local RadioShack couldn’t help me, so I went online. Next day delivery jacked up the cost even more. After that, I downloaded the owner’s manual so I could begin reading immediately and wouldn’t have to figure out how to work it later. Yes, I do read owner’s manuals. It’s easier.

When I got to the boat that day, there wasn’t a whole lot left to do. Someone was painting the CIWS disguise box and the new raised bow to make them look like they belonged.

I met Scorpion as I came aboard. “She’s just about ready. I think we’ll be able to get going later today,” he said.

The reason that sailors refer to boats as she has long since been lost to the mists of time. Most people refer to their boat or boats they know well with that particular term of endearment. Interestingly, the Russians say he.

I didn’t know if Scorpion had come to like Troublemaker that much, or if he was just being polite. I personally hadn’t thought too much about my position on the subject, but the boat had gained a lot of likeability since the beginning of her refit, what with the guns and stuff.

I hung around all day. True to Scorpion’s word, the water began to flow back into the dry dock at about three p.m. That evening, the doors opened, and we all took a ride back to the boat’s original mooring. Scorpion said we would do a little more work under cover of darkness, so I laid down for a nap in my cabin.

Scorpion came over the intercom at about ten p.m. and asked for me. I went topside. There was an unmarked delivery truck sitting on the pier.

Gene, John, Scorpion and a few miscellaneous CIA workers were there. I noticed that the truck had government plates. The driver rolled up the back door.

There were a few cardboard boxes and a quite a few wooden crates. Everyone helped get them onboard as quickly as possible. Some were much heavier than others. All of them were put down in the passageways until we could get around to unpacking them later.

When everything was onboard, the rest of the nameless workers climbed into the back of the truck and it left. The four of us who were staying went back onboard and began opening boxes.

A few of the cardboard boxes contained food. I figured it was two weeks’ worth for five men, maybe with a little extra in case the trip went long. A few of the cardboard boxes contained ammunition. I counted about three thousand rounds of 5.56 x 45 mm cartridges and five hundred of 7.62 x 51 mm. There were also rifle magazines to hold both.

We cracked open the wooden crates next. They were filled with weapons. We began to pick through them. All told, they contained twelve M4A1 carbines, three of which were fitted with M203 grenade launchers, three Mark 14 EBR rifles, three AT4 anti-tank rocket launchers and two Stinger missile launchers. It was all a very nice surprise for me.

Other crates contained 40 mm grenades for the M203 launchers and an assortment of hand thrown grenades of the flash and fragmentation variety. There was one reload each for the Stingers and a 1,550 round belt of 20 mm ammunition for the CIWS.

Looking at all this hardware was impressive, but I began to think there was something missing. It took me a moment to realize what it was.

“Where are the pistols and knives?”

“Those are personal choice,” said Scorpion. He pulled a M1911A1 handgun out and showed it to me. It had come from a hidden holster inside the waistband of his trousers. His shirt had been untucked to cover it. I felt a little bad that I hadn’t expected that from him and been looking for a gun on his person. Even if I wasn’t paying attention, I should have noticed. The 1911 was a large pistol, although it was helped in concealment by the fact that Scorpion was fairly stout. Big guys have an easier time hiding weapons.

Before we left, we closed all the crates back up. Gene and John stayed while Scorpion and I walked up the pier. I had left my car back at the shipyard when we’d moved the boat. Scorpion gave me a ride in his old Jeep Cherokee. I didn’t think he got paid chicken feed for the kind of work he did, so he must have liked being nondescript.

Scorpion dropped me at the shipyard gate. “I’m probably going to go home and sleep for a few hours,” I said.

“Bring the navigator with you when you come,” he said. “We’ll sail with the tide.”

This wasn’t the age of wind and sail and the direction of the tide didn’t matter much anymore, but it was a nice bit of theatrics. I said goodbye to him and he left.

2:3

When I got home, I checked the tide tables in case Scorpion was serious. I came up with the time he might have meant and called Andy. He sounded groggy. Considering it was about two in the morning, that was understandable.

I told him what time to show up at my place so we could go to the docks. He asked, “Anything else I need to bring?”

“If you’ve got one, a gun might not hurt.”

“Right. Okay, I’ll see you in a few hours.”

I set my alarm clock and glumly realized how little sleep I was going to get.

In the morning, I hunted through my closet and found a knife that I’d bought at a show when I was a teenager. It was supposedly an authentic Marine Corps KA-BAR. I remembered that it had had a price to match. I had never used it for anything other than decoration, but I decided to take it. Not that I was planning on spending much time ashore, much less running around with Scorpion and his people, but I figured bringing the knife couldn’t hurt.

I practiced drawing it a few times. The oiled leather handle tasted terrible in my mouth, but it was better than nothing. I put the knife in with my suitcase. I was finishing up with packing when Andy showed up.

We made small talk on the way to the docks. Andy seemed nervous. I was only a little twisted up from the anticipation, but then, I wasn’t under false pretenses.

Scorpion certainly seemed excited. He was all over the boat, going over a final checklist. I showed Andy to the cabin that had been designated as his.

In my own room, I dropped my luggage on the bed. The naval term is usually “rack” but since I hadn’t chintzed out and had actually spent the money for real mattresses, I figured I would call it what it was.

I went back up to see what I could do to help get us moving. There was a fuel truck on the pier filling up the tanks with diesel. I found Scorpion and asked him what route we would be taking.

“Direct.”

“Just a straight line?”

“That’s right.”

I thought about it. I knew the boat carried enough fuel to go up the coast to Newfoundland and then across to Ireland. Mom and Dad had made that trip once, actually. However, with the modifications to the engine and the deeper draft, I didn’t know if we could still do that, let alone go directly from Norfolk.

“What are we going to do about fuel? I don’t think we’re going to have enough.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s going to be taken care of.”

I would have been comfortable strapping about two dozen fifty-five gallon drums of diesel down to the deck to carry along, but I trusted Scorpion to know what he was talking about.

The truck finished filling up the boat and pulled away. Gene came up to us. “We took on over a thousand gallons.” He grinned. “Heck of a bill for somebody.”

Scorpion went over his checklist a final time and nodded. “I think we’re ready.” He pushed the intercom button. “Mr. Ross, would you come to the bridge please?”

When Andy showed up, we went through the engine starting procedure. Gene went down to the bow to cast off the lines. John did the same at the stern.

“Mr. Canvas, you have the most experience here, you’ll take her out.” I set the throttle ahead and turned the wheel away from the pier. I engaged the bow thruster and used it to help turn. Once we were clear, I advanced the throttle a little further and the boat began to cut a nice little wake.

John went back and raised the stars and stripes flag over the stern. Scorpion picked up a map. “Well, Mr. Ross, where are we going?”

Andy pointed directly ahead. “That way,” he said with a straight face.

We steered for the Thimble Shoal Channel, heading roughly east. It passed over the Bridge Tunnel. I picked up a pair of binoculars that were kept on the bridge and looked out over the water to the south. The Larson house was two or three miles away. Even if it had been closer, I didn’t know what it looked like from the backside, and most likely wouldn’t be able to pick it out at that distance anyway.

“Give it another hour for us to get away from shore, and we’ll start unpacking those crates,” said Scorpion. “Don’t want the prying eyes of the public around.”

Gene and John began pulling the crate of 20 mm ammunition towards the CIWS. Scorpion was at the bridge with the binoculars, checking to make sure we were alone. I looked to the west. The land had disappeared over the horizon.

Scorpion worked with some controls on the CIWS panel and the box began to open up. The lid lifted and the sides folded down flat on the deck. The weapon itself turned ninety degrees on its mount and lifted into position. The whole process had taken about five seconds. I knew that because we’d timed it while in the dry dock.

Andy was up on the bridge with Scorpion. He seemed impressed with our secret weapon. I helped the other two men lay out the belts of 20 mm. We fed it into the magazine of the CIWS. Scorpion activated the loading control.

The magazine is tied in with the barrels of the gun. If you run it slowly, it helps you pull the ammunition into the magazine. It was a little unnerving to see the barrels of the gatling gun rotating, because that was also part of the firing sequence. At least it wasn’t pointed at us.

We got the weapon loaded up. I would have liked to see a test-fire, but we only had one magazine’s worth of ammunition.

Scorpion lowered the CIWS back down and closed the box. The disguise worked perfectly. Gene, John and I went back to get more weapons.

A waterproof metal box had been placed against the aft superstructure. It looked like a large cooler. Into it went one of the Stingers and one of the AT4 launchers.

The rifles and the other launchers were spread out among the gun racks. Andy seemed to be showing a nonchalant attitude, but I knew him well enough to realize that seeing all this weaponry was better than Christmas for him.

The men spent quite a long time loading magazines for the weapons. Not having fingers, I was exempt. When they were done, Scorpion brought out some balloons.

The rifles were brand new and would need to be test fired to make sure the sights were lined up. The M4s were equipped with their standard iron sights. I thought this was odd and commented on it.

Scorpion shrugged. “It would be nice to have some fancy ACOGs or reflex sights, but someone evidently didn’t see fit to spend the coin to get them. I’ll have a talk with my superiors about it.”

At least the Mark 14s came with very nice scopes. They were adjustable from 1x to 6x magnification with an attachable night vision module. At minimum magnification, the scope functioned as regular optical sight, but at higher magnifications, it made the rifle able to hold its own against many true sniper rifles.

After checking the horizon for company, Scorpion began blowing up balloons and tossing them off the back of the boat. I had found some noise canceling earmuffs in one of the crates and passed them out to Gene, John and Scorpion, keeping a pair for myself.

Andy had volunteered to man the bridge, but was watching over his shoulder as the weapons were fired. The M4s that had the M203 launcher attached were a little heavier and bulkier, but not as heavy as the Mark 14s. Part of the reason the military had stopped using the bulky M14 battle rifle for frontline troops was because of its weight, but the same basic design was kept around for long range shooting and redesignated as the Mark 14 EBR. It was great for that.

The M4s seemed to be right on, but the telescopic sights of the other rifles needed some adjustment. Still, it was hard to get them perfect because of the rolling boat and balloons rising and falling on waves.

I figured that all of the mysterious men would be good shots, and they were. Fantastic, really. Being around them made me feel a little safer.

When the weapons were reasonably dialed in, we broke them down for cleaning. I’d never had to clean such things before, but Scorpion told me to take it apart into the smallest pieces I could, wipe them off, wipe on fresh oil, and put them back together.

“How much oil?”

“Well, don’t drown it, but firearms seldom malfunction from being too lubricated.”

It sounded like decent advice to me.

I went to bed that night when the eastern sky was just starting to get reasonably dark. As we traveled further east, the days would be artificially short. Boat lag, I had heard it called. Not as bad as jet lag, but still inescapable. I figured the solution was to get as much sleep as I could.

In the morning, I had a quiet conversation with Andy in his cabin. He was still nervous, but was gaining confidence. He thought that he probably came off as a wimp to the rest of the crew, but it didn’t appear that they suspected him of not being the real Jim Ross.

When I asked him about it, he said his ability to navigate by the stars was real. Besides writing, he had a second hobby as an amateur astronomer. He was a busy guy.

The next few days were slow. There wasn’t anything to do, because the CIA maintenance people had fixed everything that could go wrong. There wasn’t anything to talk about because everyone was so tight lipped. There wasn’t anything to see other than the open ocean, except when a far-off ship would go by, and those distractions were few.

I found myself missing animal crackers. I had forgotten my bag in the glove box of my car. I supposed I would have to see what they had to offer in Russia.

I had been keeping an eye on the fuel levels and the GPS readout of our location. At the rate we were burning fuel, we weren’t going to make it to England, much less Russia. I told Scorpion what I thought. He told me not to worry about it. I did anyway.

One day when we were about halfway there, I was on the bridge sitting in the chair behind the wheel. I glanced at the radar screen and saw that there was a surface contact nearly dead ahead. The radar array was mounted above the bridge, so it could see farther than I could. I gave it a few minutes and the contact didn’t seem to be shifting course.

I grabbed the bridge binoculars and looked out at the horizon. There was a shape of something out there, but it must have been painted a color that bended with the sea and sky, because I couldn’t tell what it was.

I was about to call Scorpion on the intercom when he came up to the bridge. He checked his watch and glanced at the radar.

“I’ve got a visual contact,” I said. “It must be painted battleship grey, though. It’s hard to see.” Suddenly, I put it together. “We’re getting fuel from a Navy ship?”

“Something like that.”

The ship on the horizon continued to come closer. I began to realize how big it was, probably five or six times as large as our boat. Scorpion asked me to reverse course.

I turned the boat around and the supply ship came alongside. The company didn’t do a whole lot of work on Navy Auxiliary supply ships, so I wasn’t familiar with the type. Several cranes for moving supplies lined the tall, grey sides.

The radio crackled to life. “Unidentified craft, identify, over.”

Scorpion picked up the radio. “This is Langley. Authenticate, over.” Langley, Virginia, I knew, was the headquarters of the CIA.

“Code Delta November Oscar Whiskey, over.”

“Code X-ray Kilo Charlie Delta, over.”

“Glad to see you can keep an appointment, Langley, over.”

“You too, Navy, over.”

Scorpion continued to talk to the ship on the radio as I went to help with the fuel hose that was being passed from the ship over to our boat.

Through some winching and physical exertion, we got the hose strung from the ship to our fuel tank. John signaled to Scorpion, who radioed to start the fuel flowing. It pumped a lot faster than the tanker truck back in Norfolk did. In not very long at all, the tank was full and overflowing onto the deck. The pump operator on the ship quickly shut it off.

We gave them the hose back and Scorpion turned us on a course back towards England. I went down to the galley to find a mop to clean up the spilled fuel. The boat may have been taken over by the CIA, but I still wanted to make sure it looked good.

As I mopped, I saw a line of clouds coming up from the west, chasing us. Several hours later, they had caught up to us. The clouds were dark and stacked up like columns. Generally, that means that there’s a squall on the way.

I caught myself thinking that I wouldn’t mind a good storm. We could use the rain. Well, Norfolk could use the rain. The ocean didn’t care.

A couple of hours after that, I decided that we didn’t need a storm after all. I’m no landlubber, but the boat was rolling uncomfortably as I tried to sleep. I decided to go up to the bridge. On the way, I passed the rest of the cabins. All the doors were closed and no lights shone underneath them.

Andy was up there all alone. He held the wheel with a white knuckle grip. Rain pounded on the bridge glass and outside there was nothing but blackness to be seen.

“Sail, thank God you’re here. Am I doing something wrong?”

“Come about to port. I’ll tell you when to stop.” Andy cranked the wheel to the left. As we turned, the waves began to split on the bow, instead of hitting the ship on the beam and rocking us back and forth. When I told Andy to return the rudder to center, there was some gentle fore to aft movement, but that was it.

“I should have thought of that,” he said. “Aren’t we going off course now?”

“Maybe a bit.” I pulled the throttle back until the ship was just keeping up with the waves. “You can still steer a little and work us eastward. When the waves slack off, go back to normal speed and return to course.” I turned down the bridge lights to the dim red night lights. They helped with night vision quite a bit.

“If you get tired, let me know.” The intercom could communicate with just one cabin if the right button was pushed. I checked the radar screen and then I went back below decks.

I slept pretty well for a while, but woke up to the boat rocking again. There was a dim light coming through my porthole. I checked the digital clock on the wall that displayed the local time. It was morning.

I went back up. Scorpion was on the bridge. He nodded as I came in.

“I got up a little early and decided to take over from Jim,” he said.

“Did you have to take the waves off the bow?” I complained.

“It’s not a tight schedule we’re on, but a schedule nonetheless. We don’t have time to wait the storm out.”

The sun must have been up, but it was nowhere to be seen behind the clouds. A layer of fog had also come up. I decided to go back below decks because the bridge was higher above the water and was rocking more than the rest of the boat.

The rain seemed to taper off for a moment and that’s when the hail started. I paused on the stairs. It lasted for several long seconds, but then died down and returned to rain. I continued downwards.

I slid my bed out from the bulkhead and aligned it in a better position to deal with the rocking. I didn’t usually get seasick, and I was going to do everything to keep that from happening now.

I was just about to lay back down when Scorpion called for me. I sighed and went back up. When I got there, Scorpion pointed at the radar screen. It flashed the word ERROR.

“I think the hail might have damaged it. Why don’t you go up and check on it?”

For a second, I thought he was kidding. Then I realized that when you’re in a fog bank and can’t see, having a functioning radar system is a must.

I went down to the gear locker and got a safety strap. It’s a short piece of nylon cord that has a carabiner on both ends. You hook one end to a belt and the other end to something that will hold you. You use them when you think you might be in danger of going overboard.

I went back up and stepped out onto the catwalk around the bridge. The rain was freezing cold and I regretted not taking the time to find a raincoat. I put on the safety harness and clipped the strap to the ladder that went to the roof.

When I got to the top, I clipped the strap to the top rung of the ladder. It was the closest thing I could see that I could hook to. When I turned towards the radar, I could immediately see that it was broken. The dish was bent and had little dents in it. It must have been some hard hail.

I felt a little angry that the CIA would install radar equipment that couldn’t take a few licks, but then, no one had anticipated hail. While I was up there, I checked the other gear. The radio antenna was bent into a C shape. The only way that could have happened is if a piece of hail had landed exactly straight down on the wire antenna and it flexed until it wouldn’t spring back. Sometimes, you have the worst of luck.

I couldn’t reach the antenna to straighten it with the strap holding me down. The boat had been rocking fairly consistently, so I unclipped from the strap and moved carefully across the roof of the bridge. When I got to the antenna, I saw that the base had flexed far enough to crack the metal. As I touched it, the fracture opened wider.

I turned to go back down the ladder. There was a dark shape in the fog. As I watched, it grew larger and larger until it resolved itself as the wide bow of a Very Large Crude Carrier.

A VLCC oil tanker is in the neighborhood of a thousand feet long and too heavy to even joke about getting into a collision with. I didn’t know how in the world we had stumbled into the path of one.

Scorpion had seen it too. The boat heeled over against the waves and the engine began to drive us faster. I grabbed for the safety strap but didn’t have time to hook it to me. I laid down flat on the roof and managed to hook my legs on the base of the broken radar.

I put things together and realized what had gone wrong. We couldn’t see them because our radar was broken, and they couldn’t call us to give a warning because the radio was also broken. Huge ships like that aren’t known for their maneuverability, so it fell to us to get out of the way.

About that time, the tanker’s horn began to sound. Now that was their fault. Had they started blowing it earlier, we may not have been able to tell what direction the sound was coming from in the fog, but we would have at least had a warning much sooner.

Scorpion straightened the boat out and we passed within a few hundred feet of the tanker. On the open ocean, that isn’t very much. A row of sailors in raincoats stood along the railing of the tanker and made rude gestures at us.

I came down from the roof and stepped into the bridge. I was completely soaked and cold, but made my report. “The radar’s out and so is the radio.”

“Well, that explains that,” Scorpion said, gesturing to the tanker. He got on the intercom and called up Gene and John to act as lookouts while I went to put the safety strap away and went to take a hot shower.

As I was going back to my cabin, I saw Andy. He looked rather pale.

“Seasick?” I asked.

“I think so.”

“Don’t throw up on anything important.”

“I won’t. What just happened? I heard a horn.”

I explained briefly and left him to his sickness. It wouldn’t look good to have a supposed sailor get seasick, but it was some heavy sea action we were experiencing. I went up to the bridge a couple of hours later. It seemed like the storm was slacking off and the fog was lifting.

Scorpion was on his own satellite phone talking to someone about getting new radar and radio antennas. He sounded disappointed that it wouldn’t be possible to have someone bring them out to us. We would have to wait until we got to shore.

We landed at Plymouth, England a day or so later. It’s where the Pilgrims left from to go the new world, hence why they named to first boulder they saw Plymouth Rock.

Plymouth was a fairly nice city of perhaps a quarter of a million people. It had a long history, but by the look of the place someone was evidently trying to keep it modern.

Some anonymous man with CIA credentials came up and handed us a box of spare parts. Gene stowed it and came back to help the rest of us with the refueling.

We got underway and headed up the English Channel. I went up on the roof again to install the new antennas. I’m no electrician, but I was able to splice the wires together and get everything working. The old equipment was unceremoniously heaved over the side. The Channel was nice and all, but none of us were willing to keep broken junk on board just to satisfy Greenpeace.

The rest of the cruise was fairly uneventful. We sailed up around Denmark and into the Baltic Sea. The weather was warm and the sun was shining. In a couple more days, we were passing through the Gulf of Finland and coming near Saint Petersburg.

I had done a little reading about the place before coming on the trip. Saint Petersburg is the northernmost city in the world that has more than one million people. While the Soviet Union was still in business it was known at Leningrad. It’s also home to the largest art museum in the world.

We had come far enough north that the sun was having real problems setting at night. It was getting into the evening, but the sun was still overhead. It helped that all the portholes had curtains, but it was still hard to adjust to it. It only made the boat lag worse.

With Saint Petersburg in sight, Scorpion called us all to the bridge. He had a large envelope in his hands. When everyone was present and accounted for, he opened it.

“It’s about time we had the mission briefing,” he said. He dug a picture out of the envelope and held it up.

“This man is Grigori Nikitin. He’s an intelligence asset working for the CIA and has been passing information regarding the Russian black market.”

The man in the picture was fairly average looking with dark hair and a mustache. I thought he looked a little like Stalin, but maybe that was my imagination.

“Does he have a codename?” asked Gene.

“We call him Pike. That’s only Agency-internal, though, so he won’t respond to it.”

Got it, I thought. Don’t call Pike and expect him to come. But that meant I had to remember a name like Grigori Nikitin.

“Nikitin doesn’t like electronics. He’s a little paranoid. All intelligence he collects goes on paper transported by a courier. Things have been getting a little risky lately, so the Agency has decided to offer him a free pass to get out.”

“We’re his ride?” I guessed.

“Right. I don’t know why they don’t just put him on a plane. I assume there’s a good reason, but I wasn’t told what it was. Anyway, we’re going to go meet him and he’ll tell us if he wants out or not.”

“We came all this way and we don’t even know if he wants out?” said Andy. He didn’t sound happy.

“We have a dual purpose here. Nikitin is priority one. The other is discrete contact with the Russian FSB. We have a package for them.”

I had heard of that organization before. I saw Andy nodding, evidently he had, too. FSB stood for Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. The acronym didn’t match after you translated it. The FSB was the replacement for the infamous KGB after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Scorpion fielded a few more questions and then the meeting broke up. We came into the harbor at Saint Petersburg and headed for a marina with quite a few luxury yachts present. I noted with some satisfaction that there were very few as big as mine.

Plans had already been made for our arrival. A crew was waiting on us to help tie up the boat. I guessed that there was a dock rental fee, and I assumed that it had been taken care of ahead of time.

Thanks to Scorpion’s pushing, we had made better time through the storm than expected. We had until tomorrow before things started happening. It was decided that John and I would go to the meeting with the harbor security and later meet up with FSB agents to give them their package. Scorpion and Gene would go meet Nikitin. Andy would watch the boat.

I checked the time. There was an eight hour difference between Saint Petersburg and Norfolk. My phone took a moment to interface with the communication satellite and then beam back down to earth across the ocean. Dr. Games answered on the first ring.

“Good morning, Sail. Or is it? Where are you?”

“I’m in Saint Petersburg, Doc. It’s six p.m. here.”

“Glad to hear you made it.”

I lay down on my bed to simulate her couch. “We had a pretty decent storm a couple hundred miles west of the British Isles, but for the most part it was uneventful.” Except for traveling with three secret agents and a Japanese teacher on a boat with a military-grade air defense system mounted to the foredeck.

“Is there anything specific you’d like to talk about? What about that situation you said you were getting into?”

“Well, I can talk about how I feel. I probably shouldn’t go into detail about the situation itself. This isn’t a secure line.” I smiled to myself. They’d make a spy out of me yet.

We talked a bit about how I was nervous. If everything went well, there would be nothing to worry about. But you know what they say about the best laid plans. I was a little less worried about the deal with the police. There probably wouldn’t be a large order placed, and even then, they were just little boats.

After we finished the call, I went to the galley. Everyone else was there playing poker. I thought that they all had brought a surprising amount of United States currency for a trip to Russia.

Since I had some money myself, I sat down. I’m not a great poker player, but it didn’t stop me from trying. I knew Andy wasn’t too bad. I supposed that I would find out about the other three.

We played a few hands in silence. I took one. After a bit, Gene, not normally talkative, said, “What kind of gear do y’all carry?” It took me a moment to make sense out of his drawl.

“I brought along a Five-seveN,” answered John. I knew that he was talking about a high-tech pistol made by FN Herstal in Belgium. It was high capacity and fired armor piercing bullets.

“I’ve been carrying the same 1911 forever,” said Scorpion. He referred the famous Colt .45, a classic American pistol that had seen service with the United States military from World War One all the way until the mid 1980s.

“How about you?” I asked Gene.

“Seeing as how we were going to go to Russia, I decided to bring my MP-443.” That was surprising. It was a 9 mm pistol made for Russian military and law enforcement and was very uncommon to find in other parts of the world.

All eyes turned to Andy, who seemed embarrassed. “I have a Smith & Wesson J-frame.” The rest of us laughed. That was a small revolver that held five rounds of .38 Special. It was reliable and easy to conceal, but was rather low performance and completely different from anything else the rest of us had.

As if he were angry about us laughing at his gun, Andy won the next two hands.

2:4

The mission was laid out later. According to my contact information, I was to go down to the Saint Petersburg Harbor Patrol office and tell them who I was. The problem was that neither John nor I knew where it was. We had a rough map, but nothing in the area appeared to have a sign out front.

“I suppose we could ask someone,” he said. “How’s your Russian?”

I think he was surprised when I answered, “I’m not too bad at reading it. I haven’t had a chance to practice speaking it since I took the class in college.”

Through simple conversation and reference to the map we managed to find the place. We even got there on time.

I thought the meeting went pretty well. The Russians seemed impressed that the company president would come to meet them. John carried the briefcase with charts, pictures and other information about the patrol boats. I also included some paperwork for our other boats in case they decided to go with something a little bigger.

In the bottom of the briefcase, untouched, was the package. It was a large manila envelope that had been sealed in Langley. It felt like it had maybe a dozen sheets of paper in it.

I told the harbor security people that I wasn’t planning to spend much time in the city and if they wanted to pursue some kind of a deal with Norfolk Shipworks, then they should contact the home office. I gave them George Coates’ contact information.

The meeting had run longer than I expected. We arrived at the place where we would meet the FSB agents on time, but I would have preferred to be early.

It was a small landscaped park not far from the security office. There were a few benches to sit on at the western end. John and I had just barely taken a seat when we were approached by a man and a woman. She was brunette and probably attractive under her business suit. He was shaved bald and was about the size of a T-72 tank. Despite the summer weather, both wore jackets. Probably to cover concealed weapons, I thought. The man also carried a briefcase.

“It’s good to see you,” said the man. He spoke pretty good English. It was much better than my Russian. “Did you read the Tolstoy I recommended?”

“Yes. I found it to be dry, but insightful,” said John.

The man accepted the exchange of code phrases and extended a hand to each of us in turn. “Sir, stallion, welcome to Russia. I am Veniamin Demidov. This is Nika Ivanova.” He gestured to the woman.

“I think we have something for you,” I said, and took out the envelope. Demidov looked at it and checked the seal before transferring it to his briefcase.

“We know about your current operation in the area,” said Ivanova. “We will do everything we can to assist you. Accomplishing the mission will not be easy, though.”

“Why’s that?”

Ivanova and Demidov exchanged glances. Demidov said, “Certain people cannot be trusted. That is the reason we are meeting here instead of receiving the files by e-mail.”

“It is possible that your operation has been compromised,” said Ivanova.

And that meant Gene and Scorpion might be walking into something they weren’t prepared for. I stepped away, dialing my sat phone while John attempted to get more information from the two agents.

Scorpion answered on the second ring. “What is it?”

Remembering the unsecured phone line, I chose my words carefully. “The business meeting went well. After that, we met up with some friends and gave them the present we wrapped for them. They gave us one, too.”

He paused for a moment. “Really? What was it?”

“They said it was a gag gift for Grigori. When you open it, you should be careful.” I put extra stress on the last two words.

“I understand. Thank you for letting me know.”

I disconnected the call and went back to talk to Ivanova and Demidov.

Ivanova handed me a card with a phone number on it. “Call this if we can help you further.”

John and I thanked the two of them and parted company. We debated stopping for lunch, but I had no taste for Russian food, so we went back to the boat.

The other two came back a few hours later.

“Damn glad you decided to call and warn us,” said Scorpion. “Someone must have been following Nikitin, because we were shot at while talking to him. It’s a good thing he was prepared and brought along an armored limo. We hopped in and got away from there.”

“So where is he?”

“Nikitin said he had to go collect his things and he would meet us. He dropped us off on the way back to his place.”

“Screw his things,” I said. “If they’re on to him, he needs to come with us.”

“That’s what I said, but he claims he’s been working on something big and needed to make sure we knew about it. Gene and I offered to go with him for extra protection, but he said it would most likely result in all four of us being killed.”

“Four?”

“His driver was with us. He’s nice young fellow named Eduard.”

“What time are they supposed to get here?”

“Later today, although he seemed pretty doom and gloom about it. He said he had to collect quite a few things and that he had quite a few enemies after him.”

“The FSB agents John and I talked to gave me a number to call if we needed help with this.”

“How do we know we can trust them? Someone obviously knew we were meeting with Nikitin.”

“Well, they were the ones who told us there might be a leak. I think that at least the two of them are on the level.”

“All right. Call them. Let’s see what we can put together.”

I made the call. Ivanova answered in Russian. I was tempted to try replying in the same, but I didn’t think we had that kind of time.

“They found out about our friend. He needs help.”

“Where is he?” she asked.

“I don’t know. He said he was going to collect some things and bring them to us.”

“Did he go home?”

“Maybe.”

“I will do what I can,” she told me. “If necessary, we will take him under escort. Does he know where to find you?”

I held the phone away from my mouth and asked Scorpion that question. He said Nikitin knew about the boat.

I returned to the phone. “He’ll tell you where he needs to go.”

“Very well.” She hung up.

We sat around for a while. I tried to get more details out of Scorpion, but all he would tell me was that whoever had shot at them had probably been using a 9 mm submachine gun based on the sound. I wondered how many he’d had fired at him before.

It was nearly two hours later when Ivanova called me.

“We are on our way to you.” I heard someone say something in Russian in the background. It sounded like Demidov’s voice. “We should be there in a few minutes.”

“How many people do you have with you?”

“We have Nikitin and his driver in Nikitin’s automobile. Myself and Demidov are with them. Two others are following in a FSB car.”

“Have there been any problems?”

“There have been none so far, but none of us like this situation. It’s very important to the criminals that Nikitin does not reveal what he knows.”

“Call me back when you get here, and I’ll tell you exactly where to find us."

I ended the call and relayed what Ivanova had said.

“Can’t hurt to be prepared, then,” said Gene. He began putting loaded magazines into rifles.

In a few minutes, Ivanova called and I told her where in the marina to look for us. Scorpion said, “The FSB agents know what you look like, and Nikitin knows what I look like. You want to go with me to the end of the pier and meet them?”

“Sure.” I was a little more excited than I should have been. It actually felt like I was getting into the real world of secret black ops now. If I’d had any sense, I should have been scared, but with four trained Russian law enforcement agents coming to meet us and Gene and John backing us up from the boat, I felt fairly confident.

Scorpion and I walked to the end of the pier and waited. I thought I heard the far-off sound of tires squealing. Scorpion heard it too, and looked concerned.

Next, there was the sound of gunfire and a big black Mercedes limousine appeared from around a building, moving fast. Scorpion drew his pistol and held it at the low ready position.

Behind the limo was a nondescript white car. It looked like there were two people in it. The limo’s windows were tinted and I couldn’t see in. Behind them, there were two more cars that had armed men hanging out the open windows.

The limo slid to a stop and four people got out. I recognized Demidov and Ivanova, as well as Nikitin from the picture that was in the briefing file. He was carrying what looked like a computer case. There was another man with them who must have been Eduard, the driver. He was young and thin with dark hair and he looked terrified.

“That way!” shouted Scorpion, pointing down the pier towards the boat.

I saw a puff of smoke from somewhere in the vicinity of the bad guys’ cars. One of the men leaning out the window had fired a rocket propelled grenade. Scorpion grabbed my shoulder and shoved me down. The RPG slammed into the FSB car and the whole thing exploded. The burning hulk skidded into the back of the limo. Scorpion and I got up from the ground to run.

The limo passengers had sprinted past us down the dock, but hadn’t been far enough away to avoid the shock of the explosion. We helped them up and pushed them towards the boat. I didn’t see Eduard at first, until I spotted him in the water. He had either been blown—or jumped—off the pier.

At this point, the fear I should have been feeling earlier had come on in full force. The two bad-guy cars were rolling up and I had to make a decision fast. Did I run or grab Eduard? Was he worth anything to the CIA? If I joined him in the water instead of pulling him up, would that make us less of a target? If I wasn’t on the boat, would they leave me?

I went down on my knees to pull Eduard out. Thankfully, I heard Gene and John open up with automatic fire from the boat to cover me. I yanked Eduard’s arm pretty hard but considering the situation, I don’t think he minded too much.

I got him out of the water and he set off on a dead run towards the boat. I spared a glance over my shoulder at the men who wanted Nikitin dead. The cover fire from the boat was pretty effective at keeping their heads down. I got up and ran.

When I got to the boat, Scorpion had already got the lines cast off. I heard the engine RPMs rev up and the boat began to move away from the pier. Gene and John kept firing sporadically, keeping the hostiles on shore from shooting back until we were well out of range.

There was blood on the deck. I traced it to Nikitin, who was down with a bullet wound that had gone in his back and come out through his upper chest. He had been wearing a FSB-provided flak jacket that had been intended for protection from pistol bullets. Evidently, someone had fired something a little more powerful than that at him.

Nikitin had blood running down his chin. He spit up some more while I watched. There’s no “good” place to get shot, but if you’re coughing up blood, you picked an especially bad place. Gene and Scorpion were trying to stop the bleeding. Scorpion kept talking to him while they worked.

I went over to Demidov and saw that he had been wounded, too. There was a shallow groove cutting across the muscle on the outside of his lower leg. It probably wasn’t too serious, but after the adrenalin wore off, it would probably hurt like a bitch.

John brought hemostatic powder for Gene and Scorpion to use and tossed a package our way. I helped Ivanova put it on Demidov’s leg.

Hemostatic powder is a nifty thing to keep in your first aid kit. The kind that I had on board used a substance called chitosan which is found in the shells of crustaceans like shrimp. I went to school for engineering instead of medicine, so I don’t exactly know how it worked, but it sure stopped blood flow.

I decided that Demidov would get along okay without me. There were already enough people working on Nikitin, so I went inside to wash my hooves and get the mop. Diesel fuel, blood, they should clean off the deck about the same, right?

About half an hour after our hasty exit from Saint Petersburg harbor, Nikitin died. I was on the bridge when Andy came up to tell me the news. He looked a little shaken. I couldn’t blame him. It had been a rough day.

I put our FSB friends on a sat phone and they called for a transport. A FSB helicopter came out and settled down on the helipad. Demidov walked with a limp, but he made it to the helo under his own power. We wrapped Nikitin’s body in a spare blanket and loaded it. It would have been a little easier to bury him at sea, but since we’d thrown out the broken radar, we didn’t have anything heavy to weigh the body down. Eduard went with them.

After the helicopter left, I checked the entire boat for places that bullets had hit, even hanging over the side to check the water line. To my surprise, I only found three. We didn’t even get to test our bulletproof glass.

There was a hole on the aft part of the superstructure that I patched with repair epoxy that I’d found in the maintenance locker. The other two had just left small dents in metal. No big deal.

Scorpion had gotten Nikitin to tell him his computer password. He made a call over the secure radio and then sat down with Nikitin’s computer and spent a few hours digging through it until the next helicopter arrived.

It was a big United States Air Force bird that was so large that it couldn’t actually land on our deck. It was loaded heavily with auxiliary fuel tanks.

The pilot flew it sideways at our stern, almost but not quite touching the deck. Scorpion walked out and handed up the computer case and all the other information to the airman in the back. The helo took off to the southwest, I figured probably for a United States base in Germany.

“Was there anything interesting on Nikitin’s computer?” I asked.

“Well, for a guy who would only pass paper intelligence, he sure kept a lot of electronic records. Most of it just seemed to be records about miscellaneous black market dealings. Guns, contraband, and the like. What I found most interesting was a gentleman with a middle eastern name who was buying various radiological items.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“I think we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but no, it doesn’t.”

As we rounded Denmark and made for England, a call came in over the secure radio. Scorpion spoke on it for quite a while before ending the communication. He addressed the rest of us.

“There’s been a change of plans. Langley's read the intel, and they want us to go find out some more. We’re going to go up and around Scandinavia to Murmansk.”

Gene groaned. “What in the world could possibly be up there?”

“Rusting hulks of old Russian nuclear submarines is the first thing that comes to my mind,” I said.

“Besides that.”

Personally, I didn’t mind too much. Murmansk was located near the home of the Russian Northern Fleet. Assuming they didn’t still shoot outsiders, it would be interesting to take a look at. Andy looked a little uncomfortable. I knew why.

That night on the bridge, we quietly talked through what he would say to get out of going with us. He’d told Hawker he would only be gone two weeks.

We knew that at some point, the boat would have to dock in Norway to get fuel and food. Andy would announce that the agency only hired him on for two weeks and would get off the boat. He would then catch a plane back to the United States.

We did indeed stop the next day at some no-name little place on the Norwegian coast. We picked it because it was on a fairly straight bit of coastline, so we didn’t have to waste time sailing all the way up a fjord. The coast of Norway is absolutely jagged with fjords. It must be frustrating to try to drive the coastal Norwegian roads, having to constantly divert inland to swerve around all of them. I don’t have a high opinion of fjords.

Andy did as planned and announced that the home office had called and told him to come back. Over the course of the trip, I had gotten the feeling that Scorpion didn’t really like the man called Jim Ross. He didn’t plead with Andy to stay.

We fueled up and got some groceries. Norwegians seemed to eat a lot of fish, and, strangely, meatballs. There also seemed to be a large coffee selection. I once read somewhere that Norway is the world’s leading consumer of coffee.

Once we got underway again, it was a nice leisurely cruise all the way up the coast and around to Murmansk. At least, it would have been leisurely if we didn’t have a job ahead of us. New information that came in over the secure radio suggested that we might have to go ashore and do unpleasant things. Who exactly it was going to be unpleasant for I didn’t know.

Murmansk and Saint Petersburg didn’t have much in common. Saint Petersburg had two hundred museums. Murmansk had just two. Saint Petersburg was a cultural hub with many public works. Murmansk was a nuclear waste dumping site. They both suffered extensive destruction at the hands of the Germans in World War Two, though.

The rich peoples’ marina was smaller than in Saint Petersburg. Fewer rich people, I guess. We tied up and Scorpion went to go find some fuel. I wasn’t surprised to learn that he spoke perfect Russian.

I was more surprised to see Agents Ivanova and Demidov there to meet us. I invited them aboard. I figured meeting with Russians was as good excuse as any to drink to vodka. As it turned out, so did they.

I asked Demidov about his leg. He said it was nothing. I asked what they were doing in Murmansk.

Ivanova explained, “Our intelligence agency is working with your intelligence agency. If there are people buying nuclear material illegally, we also want to know about it.”

“Sounds good to me.”

The two of them were staying at some ex-KGB resident facility that had been converted into quarters for traveling FSB agents. I found a map of Murmansk and marked the location so we could find it if we needed to. Of course, they already knew where to find our boat.

When Scorpion came back, the two Russians held a brief for everyone. Despite the cultural differences, it was remarkably similar to the briefs I had experienced in Scorpion’s presence.

Demidov took out a photo and let us look at it. “This man is known as Ali Al-Azhem.” Triple A, I thought. “He has been seen in both Saint Petersburg and Murmansk. It is strongly suspected that he has connections to one or more terrorist organizations operating in Libya.”

John rolled his eyes. “Are there any terrorists these days who aren’t Arabs? I’d really like to see some, just for variety.”

Demidov ignored the comment. “Al-Azhem has also been linked to black market sales of low level radioactive material. It cannot be used to make nuclear weapons, but it may be part of manufacturing dirty bombs.”

He didn’t define “dirty bomb” but I had a pretty good idea. Say you don’t have enough refined radioactive material to produce an atomic weapon. You can take your nuclear junk and add it to a regular bomb in order to spread radiation over a large area when the explosive goes off. Put one of them in the center of a busy city, and the nationwide panic it would cause would probably be worse than the actual bomb damage and subsequent fallout.

“What kind of radioactive materials are we talking about?” I asked.

“Many pieces of scientific and medical equipment use radiological material of some kind. Our primary focus, though, are on radioisotope thermoelectric generators. They are small power sources that contain radioactive elements. The radioactive decay of elements like plutonium, strontium, polonium and curium produce heat that thermocouples convert the into electricity. There are perhaps one thousand RTGs in Russia.”

“What are they used for?”

“Many outer space satellites utilize them for power. The primary use in Russia, however, is for powering navigational beacons or unmanned lighthouses.”

“Isn’t someone guarding them?” asked Gene.

“Most RTGs are spread out along the coasts. Many have simply been forgotten about, or maps to find them have been lost.”

Yeah, a thousand or so radioactive electrical generators just lying around waiting to be stolen sure sounded bad to me. I thought I had read something similar in a Tom Clancy book.

Ivanova and Demidov finished their brief and left. Before we had a chance to scatter, Scorpion stepped up.

“We’ve got some orders to carry out. Headquarters specifically said to do it tonight.” I understood. There are some things that just work better at night. What small amount of night we were going to get. Sitting above the arctic circle, Murmansk was even worse than Saint Petersburg.

“Canvas, you get to watch the boat tonight.” I surprised myself by being fairly comfortable with that assignment. Being shot at will do that to you.

When the other three had left, I kicked back on a reclining chair on the bridge. I left the lights off and sat there in the dark. I didn’t even leave the night lights on. Being shot at not only turned off your appetite for action, it made you paranoid.

I kept one leg twisted behind my back to keep me awake. When it started to go to sleep, I switched legs. As far as I could see, no one even gave the boat a second look.

Along about one in the morning, my sat phone rang. It was Hawker, asking for Andy. I had given her my number and had been discretely slipping the phone to him when she called. As far as the rest of the crew knew, “Jim” was unmarried.

“He isn’t here, Hawker.”

“Where is he?”

“The last time I saw him was in Norway.”

“What?!”

“Calm down. We’re still over here in Europe. He wanted to come home before we did, so we let him off.”

“How long ago was that?”

“A few days ago.”

“I haven’t heard from him! It shouldn’t take that long to get on a plane and come home!”

“I’ll do what I can,” I promised. After disconnecting, I called David Goldstein.

“Hey Sail, it’s been a while. What can I do for you?”

“A friend of mine is trapped in Norway.” It looked like Andy's famous luck might have run out.

He whistled. “I’m tempted to ask how that happened, but go on.”

“As you know, I’m on a boat trip right now, and he decided to go home early. We dropped him off at a little hamlet on the coast a few days back. His girlfriend called me just a little while ago and said she hasn’t heard from him.”

“What kinds of things did he have with him? Identification? Money?”

“He had a passport. I don’t think he had any local money. A small place like where he got off probably wouldn’t have any kind of money exchange. To get to a larger place that would have something like that would probably require money, but he doesn’t have any. It’s a Catch 22.” I couldn’t believe that no one, including me, hadn’t thought about this before Andy had left.

“Tell me what you know, and I’ll see what I can do with it.”

I gave him Andy’s name and physical description, as well as the name of the place we’d dropped him off. David said he’d find somebody to take care of it.

I put down the phone and told myself that there was nothing else I could do. It was probably true, too.

Maybe an hour later, Gene, John and Scorpion came back. They were all dressed in dark, ordinary clothes and didn’t have anything flashy about them. Perfect for blending in while in a city at night. I also knew they were all armed, but the general public didn’t.

“We went and had a look down by the docks," said Gene. "Can’t prove anything yet, but there’s some kind of shipping operation going on.”

“What now?” I asked.

“We send the data back and see what Langley makes of it,” answered Scorpion. “If they or the FSB come up with something, maybe we’ll get permission to move. Otherwise, we’ll just sit tight.”

At around noon the next day, the Russians came out again. John and I had just returned from a trip to McDonald’s. Fast food was about the last thing I thought I would find in Murmansk, Russia, but when I found out that there was a Mickey D’s in the area, I wanted to go.

I was surprised how much the restaurant resembled a McDonald’s in the United States. There were some differences, sure, but it was sort of surreal how I could come halfway around the world and get the same salad I could find in Norfolk. John looked disdainfully at my lettuce, but said nothing.

Ivanova and Demidov knew about McDonalds. I heard that in Russia, McDonald’s actually gets about twice the traffic per location than in the United States. The two of them turned down our offers of burgers, though.

While we ate, the two FSB agents laid out what they had learned since we’d talked last. They’d fingered a Libyan-flagged freighter ship as a possible transport for getting the RTGs out of the country.

“The name of the ship is Kursk Star.”

I knew Kursk was a place in Russia. “What kind of name is that for a Libyan ship?”

“The ship is Russian owned and crewed, but has a Libyan flag of convenience.”

That was a common practice among merchant vessels. Companies would find a country whose shipping regulations worked to their advantage and register their ships under that flag. Mongolia, an entirely landlocked country, was popular one.

“We also believe that in the next few days, they will be collecting more RTGs,” said Ivanova. “The cargo ship will be leaving to return to Libya soon. At some point, it is likely that the RTGs will be brought on board. The ship will probably pass near a peninsula to the north and west of here. That is where the transfer will likely occur.”

“I think it would be a good idea to get there first and see what the place looks like,” said Scorpion. “Can you two watch the ship and let us know if anything changes?”

Ivanova and Demidov nodded.

“All right, we’d best be getting underway, then.” He escorted the Russians back to shore and then came back to prepare for departure.

Author note: The outline for this story was actually written as part of NaNoWriMo a while back. Less than a month after I finished it, Tom Clancy published Dead or Alive, so maybe he stole the RTG idea from me. No way am I going to put my lawyers up against his lawyers, though.

2:5

After slipping the lines and getting up to cruise speed, we had a meeting to discuss what we were going to do. Since there was little hope of a big white yacht going unnoticed cruising close to shore, we had to come up with a disguise.

Scorpion pointed to the flag at the stern. “Leave the ensign flying. We’re going to pretend to be sightseers, so wear your most obnoxious shirts. Strictly Hawaiian. Make sure to show off a camera or two.”

Dumb tourist mode: engage. I spent some time polishing the chrome handrails. It seemed like a nice, frivolous thing to do. While I worked, David called me back.

“I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that we found your buddy. He somehow had managed to get himself to Oslo, but the American embassy wouldn’t lend him money for the flight home.”

“Well, give it to him.”

“I figured that’s what you would want. It’s been taken care of. Now for the bad news. Your board of directors is staging a hostile takeover.”

“What!? How?”

“It’s stipulated in the company policies that you have to come in once a week for a meeting.”

“I told them I was going on vacation.”

“The president’s rules of order don’t say anything about that. You missed a meeting and now they’re kicking you out.”

“They can’t do that!”

“Sail, I read the rules. Yes they can.”

I sat down heavily on the deck and leaned against the superstructure. The polish rag was gone and I didn’t remember dropping it.

“There can’t be a new company president. That’s supposed to be passed on to family.”

“They aren’t looking for a new president. They’re electing amongst themselves a Chief Executive Officer. There’s nothing in company organizational rules that says they can’t do that, either.”

“Who’s going to be the CEO?”

“John DeMotte. He’s the one who led the charge against you. And before you even think about it, physical violence is not what you should resort to.”

I took a few breaths to calm down.

“Thanks for telling me about all this, David. I’m going to have to think about my plan of action on this.”

“Don’t wait too long. The longer you let it go, the harder it will be to do anything about it.”

“I know. Thanks again.”

I hung up and sat there for a while longer. My company was gone and my income had gone with it. I didn’t mind the money so much, but being shoved aside by any of those bastards on the board hurt.

I went back to polishing, my mind whirling. Calm down. Think about what I still have. I still had stock in the company. I still had knowledge of what the company did. I still knew who the company was doing business with. Slowly, I began to put a plan together.

I decided to call Dr. Games. I’d never talked to her at any other time than at ten on Tuesdays. Wow, would she be surprised.

“This is Dr. Games.”

“Doc, this is Sail Canvas. I’m sorry for calling without an appointment, but I really need to talk to you.”

“You’re lucky you caught me between clients. What is it?”

“I was just the victim of a hostile takeover. I’ve lost the company.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“But I have a plan. I’m going to bankrupt them.”

“Why would you do that? Don’t you still own stock?”

“Yes I do, but it’s one step on the way to getting control back.”

“Do you know how many people will lose their jobs if the company goes under?”

“No, but I’m hoping only four. If I do everything right, no one else will be affected.”

“So why did you call me?”

“If I do screw up, then yes, there is a chance that many thousands of people will get laid off. I was trying to wrestle with the moral dilemma there.”

“You seem like the kind of guy who would be smart enough to save some money. Don’t you have enough in the bank to live on for a reasonable amount of time? Or do you feel like you want to have that income back?”

“Are you asking if I’m greedy?”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking.”

“I suppose yes, that might be part of it. Mostly it’s about revenge.”

“Sail, we’ve been over this before with Lilly. In the long run, everyone involved, including you, will be better off with the forgive and forget policy.”

“I’m not doing that again. It’s been over two months since the breakup, and I don’t feel much different. This way if I screw up, I’ll at least feel regret instead of anger.”

Dr. Games sighed. “Well, good luck, I suppose. Just promise me not to commit any crimes while you’re at it.”

“I can’t promise that, but I do promise to try.”

“Thank you.”

We said goodbye and I began dialing another number.

Chief Stanton was a little reluctant to let me talk to Admiral Nevis. He’d already heard that I got kicked out.

“I just want to ask him for help,” I said. “Heck, if he wants, I’ll owe him another favor.” Eventually, Stanton patched the call through.

“What is it, Canvas?”

“Sir, you’ve probably heard that I’m no longer the president of Norfolk Shipworks.”

“That’s right. It caused a little stir around here. Stock prices dropped a little bit, but they should recover soon enough.”

Then I needed to act before they came back. Every little bit would help.

“Sir, I believe you’re a consultant for the Naval Procurement Committee?” They were the bean counters that authorized the purchase of stuff from defense contractors.

“Get to it, Canvas. You only call me ‘sir’ when you want something.”

“I’d like you to recommend the cancelation of the Carrier Up-Armor contract.” That was a project the company had been working on to refit aircraft carriers with lighter, stronger materials to reduce combat damage. Considering that aircraft carriers, at about a thousand feet long, were the largest ships in the United States Navy, and there were eleven of them in the fleet, that was a lot of refitting to be done. It was a huge contract.

“Just why would I do that?”

“Because once you get it canceled, I can get you a new contract for fifteen percent less.”

“Fifteen percent?” I could almost hear his mind working on how much money that was. In addition, he would win admiration from Committee members for bringing it to their attention.

“You don’t have a company. How are you supposed to do that?”

“Trust me.”

He laughed. “That’s like trusting a fox to guard a henhouse. Why should I go along with you?”

“With what I have in mind, Norfolk Shipworks is either going to cease to exist or come under new management very soon. Either way, you’re still going to need a new contract.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what. The reason I knew your stock went down was because I own some myself. Whatever you do, I’d probably get burned if I don’t sell now. For the advance warning, I’ll advise against the contract.”

“That’s insider trading.”

“So I’ll sell only half of it.”

“And if the company survives, I’m sure you can buy back in at a lower price.”

“Exactly. Whatever you do, I’m not out too much, and I might even stand to gain.”

The slimy eel. “Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you, Canvas.”

He hung up on me. I didn’t mind. So far, everything was working out like I’d hoped.

I called David back. “Okay, here’s what I need you to do. Check the headlines and see if the Navy cancels a big contract. After that, I want you to dump all my stock at once.”

“All of it? Do you know how many dollars that is? I mean, it’ll be less when stock prices fall because of the news that the company lost the contract, but I imagine that it’ll still be at least—”

I cut him off. “Just do it. I own more than half the stock the company has issued. Selling it all at once will hopefully put them in a hole so deep that they’ll declare bankruptcy. After that, use the money from selling the stock to buy the company.”

“What if they won’t sell?”

“Are you kidding? If I know those rats that are in charge, they won’t go down with the ship. They’ll take their money and get out. With no leadership, I can grab it.” I realized how cold and ruthless that sounded. I was nearly intimidating myself.

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I once made a list of things wrong with the company that could help get them shut down or drive down the price of stock. I don’t want to damage the company any more than I have to, so that’s a last resort.”

I thought of the bright side. “If we get outbid on the buyout by Northrop Grumman or General Dynamics, then I’ve still got enough money to start a new company. Either way, I’ll be all right.” Even more with the cold and ruthless.

“Okay then, Sail, I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but hopefully soon. I’d kind of like to supervise in person.”

“I’ll see you then.”

I put the phone down. I was excited, honestly. It wasn’t every day you could stage a hostile counter-takeover.

It was getting towards evening when I finished communicating with everyone across the ocean. The initial eagerness to getting the plan rolling had mellowed and I went to bed feeling content.

The next morning, I got a can of paint and a safety strap and hung over the side of the boat covering up the scratches and scuffs where the boat had rubbed against the many piers it had been tied to on the trip. Boat maintenance is a chore that never ends.

Later that day, we drew near the peninsula where the FSB had sent us. There seemed to be very little ocean traffic around the place.

“We can’t get close enough to get a good look at the shoreline without raising suspicion,” said Scorpion.

“What if we sent someone in to take a closer look? I asked.

Scorpion grinned in a way I didn’t like. “That’s not a bad idea.”

Before I knew it, I was setting up to do an amphibious landing. Gene had volunteered to come with me. We’d modified a couple of waterproof survival suits to help us swim in the cold water of the Barents Sea. We cut off some of the floats that made the person wearing them stay above water. We also spray painted them a mix of brown and green, because bright orange doesn’t work for infiltration. The suits made us bulky like marshmallows, but it was better than hypothermia.

Gene took one of the M4 rifles and covered it in three layers of plastic garbage bags, sealed closed with zip ties and waterproof tape. We each carried another, smaller bag with other gear. I threw in my sat phone.

That night, when it was the darkest that it was going to get, Gene and I stood near the railing while the boat approached within three miles of land. We stayed on the opposite side of the superstructure from shore, in case someone had eyes on the boat.

We both had snorkels, but I also brought along my rebreather. Ivanova and Demidov had called to say the cargo ship had left Murmansk, but there was no way of telling how long it would take to get there.

I rationalized it by telling myself that it was like we were going camping and would rough it in the wilderness for a few days. Hopefully not actually a few days, but we were prepared just in case. Gene watched me as I strung my knife on the outside of the survival suit. Saltwater isn’t good for metal, but I had put a light coat of grease on it and I intended to dry it off as soon as I could.

The boat was traveling fairly fast. We didn’t want to make it look like we were planning to spend too long in the area. When we got to the closest point of approach to the shore, Scorpion gave us a signal, and we jumped over the side.

I knew immediately that I had too much weight on. Trying to stay on the surface to keep my snorkel up was going to take extra effort. Sure, I’d swum quite a bit back in Norfolk, but never with such a bulky suit. I sighed inwardly and got on with it.

Gene had a small periscope that he used to periodically check the surface and the distance to shore. The sun was coming from the north, at our backs. That might help a little to make it hard to see our snorkels.

Eventually, I saw the bottom coming up to meet us. We came up into the shallows and Gene took one last look around. He flashed a thumbs-up and we came out of the water and ran for the nearest cover. It was a patch of scraggly brush. I realized that we were so far north that we were officially into arctic tundra. There weren’t many trees or vegetation to be found. Not much to hide behind.

“I haven’t done something like this since I was in the Marines,” said Gene. “This was an easy one, though. Nobody was shooting at us.”

I was thankful for that.

The ambient temperature of the air wasn’t too bad, and if we left the insulated suits on outside of the water, we would overheat in a hurry. It seemed likely that when we left the peninsula, it would be after the bad guys were gone, so we could bring the boat right up to shore. Either that, or we would be leaving in a hail of gunfire. Whatever happened, I doubted that the suits were going to be used for swimming back out.

I dried off my knife and we set up camp for the night. Gene agreed to take the first watch and disappeared further inland.

I lay down on top of my survival suit. The temperature was a little cool, but I could deal with it. It added to the whole “it’s just a campout” feeling.

Gene came back and woke me up in the morning. “Maybe two miles east of here there’s some men moving around. There wasn’t any cover to get closer than a few hundred yards, and the light wasn’t good enough to see what they were doing.”

We ate some of the food we’d brought and packed up our gear. Gene pointed us to the east, following the shore. Out of the water, the things I had brought along were even heavier, although walking only two miles along a flat shoreline, even under load, isn’t that bad.

We came to a low ridge that ran perpendicular to the water. Gene eased up it and peered over the top. He had a small set of binoculars.

I came up beside him. I could vaguely see some man-shaped things moving around. He handed me the binoculars.

“I’d say they’re almost five hundred yards away,” Gene commented.

With magnification, I could see that they were definitely human. They wore clothing that blended into the surroundings. Not military camouflage, but someone obviously had put some thought into the color. I could see that they had weapons, although I couldn’t identify what they were. I guessed AK-47s.

The terrain between us and them was flat, save for some scrub. It might be possible to work our way closer, but I didn’t see any use. We were only two up against at least a dozen.

I got out the sat phone and called back to the boat. Scorpion said he would pass the location along to the FSB.

Seeing something glinting from the water, I raised the binoculars to check it out. It turned out to be the sun reflecting off the bridge glass of a small work boat that was coming closer. Based on the relative size of the men standing on deck, I guessed the boat to be about forty feet long.

I handed the binoculars to Gene and he looked at it for a while. “It’s coming in,” he said. “That’s probably what they’re going to take the RTGs away with.”

He passed the binoculars back and I looked at the crowd of men again. They appeared to be taking camouflage netting off several crate-like objects. I was betting they were the RTGs inside their cubic protective casings that made them relatively harmless when out in the open. The netting must have done its job, because I hadn’t seen them sitting there until just then.

The boat approached and was able to come in fairly close to shore. It must have had a fairly shallow draft. I had a sudden thought and scanned the horizon. “If they’re loading them up now, that ship should be getting close. What was it called, the Kursk Star?”

Gene nodded. “I think so. Call the boat and see if they know where it is.”

Scorpion said that he couldn’t see the ship and didn’t have anything on radar. He put the phone down for a minute while he talked to the FSB back in Murmansk.

He came back. “Sail, they said that the Kursk Star only left earlier today. Unless it can travel at fifty or sixty knots, there’s no way it’s even close to here.”

Fifty or sixty knots was roughly sixty or seventy miles per hour, faster than any freighter could travel and faster than most boats period.

“So it looks like they’re not going to meet up just off the coast,” I said. “What do we do?”

“What’s your situation with the RTG pickers?” Scorpion answered.

I told him about how we were situated with the ridge and how the men were armed. I also advised that it would be difficult to get any closer.

Scorpion thought it over for a minute. “You packed the rebreather, right?”

I had a bad feeling that I knew where this was going. “Yes.”

“Can you get over to the boat and somehow stop it from leaving the area?” That was exactly where I thought it was going. Still, it was probably the best option. I tried to sound upbeat.

“You want it to still be seaworthy or am I allowed to use whatever means necessary?”

“I don’t care, but try not to let them know you’re there until you have to. Don’t want to spook them.”

“It’ll be taken care of.” I disconnected and told Gene about the conversation. We talked over strategy for a few minutes.

“We don’t have any tools to disable the propeller or rudder,” Gene said.

“We could try surprise and do our best to capture them.”

“If these guys are religiously motivated terrorists, they’re going to go down fighting. That’s not going to work.”

I gave the boat a look. It had dropped anchor in the shallows. “If I managed to dig up the anchor, the boat might drift into shore and get stuck.”

Gene shrugged. “We could try it. I don’t want to go in shooting because there’s a chance these guys could just be down on their luck Russians trying to make a buck. How about I give you half an hour to try and move the boat. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try to capture them. You pop up out of the water, and I’ll fire some shots over their heads to let them know you aren’t alone.”

“Or you can swim out there and I can stay here.”

“Can you fire accurate shots from this distance?”

I looked at the M4 in his hands. It was an assault rifle, not a sniper rifle. It didn’t even have optical sights. Also, there was the large-hooves-small-trigger problem.

“No,” I said. “Can you?”

He grinned. “You might be surprised. Besides, it’s your rebreather.”

I crawled back down to the bottom of the ridge and put on the marshmallow suit and the rebreather. The knife went back on and I slipped into the water, leaving the sat phone with Gene.

I sure hoped he was as good with that rifle as he thought he was. I didn’t think an RTG would blow up if a stray bullet hit it, but it might spread radiation around.

I waded into the water and checked to see how much time I had left. I didn’t know how long it would take to sabotage the boat. I hoped I had enough.

As I got over to the boat, the visibility dropped. The men wading in and out of the water and the boat’s propeller had churned up silt and made the water cloudy. I couldn’t see very well, but I couldn’t be seen, either.

In the cloudy water, I nearly ran into one of the anchor chains. I swam up and discovered that it was the bow anchor. I quickly came up with a plan and dropped back to the bottom to dig up the anchor.

I pulled sand away. I was unsure if I would be able to lift it, but I had to try. When enough sand was pulled back, I grabbed the anchor’s shank and pulled on it. It moved a little, so I reset my stance and lifted again. This time, I was able to move it several feet. I began to pull the anchor out to sea.

I’d almost got the boat perpendicular to the beach before the anchor chain went tight and the anchor was hauled out of my grasp. They’d realized that the anchor wasn’t set anymore, and they were pulling it up to reset it.

I quickly swam to the rear anchor and began digging it up. If I could get it loose before the bow anchor was dropped again, then the boat would be completely free. I cleared the sand away and then pulled on the anchor. It popped out and I pulled it towards shore.

The boat was now pointed stern first at the beach. If I could get it backed into the sand, it might damage the propeller. I heard a whine and then the engine began to crank. It fired up and the propeller began to turn, pushing the boat away from the shore.

Swearing to myself, I waited until the boat came back around to anchor again. I was close to the thirty minute deadline, but I hoped Gene would see that I was making progress, and give me a little extra time.

When the stern anchor dropped, I grabbed it before it could bury itself too deeply in the sand. I took it a few feet towards shore and dropped it. At the bow anchor, I moved it a few feet towards shore, too.

Hopefully, by moving them gradually, I could get the boat to shore before they noticed again. Back behind the ridge, I had been watching the place where the waves lapped the shore, and I had determined that the tide was on the way out. If I could get the boat aground, it would be several hours before the tide would come back in and it could refloat.

For a while longer I worked. The boat was definitely closer than it had been, but the men were bound to notice eventually. I picked the stern anchor up and gave it a good pull, swinging the stern hard towards the beach. The aft corner of the hull brushed the sand, and then a wave gave the boat a shove and it set firmly. I saw a paddle stab into the water, trying to push the boat away. They remembered how close the propeller had come to damage the last time, and didn’t want to start the engine now that it was so close.

I swam hard for the bow anchor and towed it towards the beach. The boat settled further onto the sand. More people began splashing into the water in an attempt to push the boat into deeper water, but to no avail.

I hung out a few more minutes to make sure they wouldn’t be able to get it refloated and then headed back. Even underwater, anchors are heavy, and my back and shoulders were sore. I took my sweet time.

2:6

Gene met me on the beach when I got back. “Your lawyer called.”

I remembered that I had a company to save. Or destroy, depending on the viewpoint. “What did he say?”

“He said you’re now richer by over a billion dollars. Must be nice.”

“Yes, it is.” I got out of my gear while Gene called the boat. I dried my knife off again and checked the rebeather to make sure I’d turned the gasses off. It wouldn’t be good to have them leak out and be gone when I needed them.

Scorpion said that FSB agents were on the way in a helicopter. It was a good thing our boat had a tank for aviation fuel, because I imagined that we were too far out for most helicopters to come to and get back without refueling.

We waited for a few more hours. The men on the beach had ceased loading the RTGs and sat around waiting for the tide to come back in. I found myself pining for animal crackers.

“So is there a mare in your life?” asked Gene. I guessed he had had prior experience breaking up the monotony of a long time spent watching people from far away, so I continued the conversation.

“Not at the moment. What about you?”

“I’ve been married almost fifteen years. I’ve got two kids.”

“How does your family deal with you going away like this?”

“We set up a system where they don’t ask where I went and I don’t tell them.” He grinned. “The money’s good enough, so that helps. So if you’ve got money, then why don’t you have somepony?”

“I did, not so long ago. I liked her quite a bit until I found her in somepony else’s bed. I found out that it wasn’t the first time that it had happened.”

“What, aren’t you any good in the sack?”

I shrugged. “The point is, if she really loved me, she would have stayed true regardless of any shortfalls I might have had. So I kicked her out. I almost burned down her apartment building, but my lawyer, who you spoke to on the phone, talked me out of it.”

“Smart man.”

“Instead he suggested that I take up marital private investigation. If I was helping out those in a similar situation that I had been in, it might bring me some closure.”

“How did that go?”

“Well, on my first case the husband and wife both tried to murder me because I knew too much. She’d killed a man, and he was trying to cover it up. There were drug dealers involved. Ironically, the only thing that wasn’t going on was sleeping around. They were both still faithful.”

Gene shook his head. “I don’t know if you’ve led a more interesting life than I originally thought, or you’re really good at coming up with lies on the spot, but it sure makes for good storytelling.” He cocked his head. “Do you hear a chopper?”

Now that he mentioned it, it did sound like a helicopter was on its way. I scanned the sky and spotted a dark shape moving above the ground to the east. The men we were watching had heard it too. They abandoned the boat and began crawling under the camouflage net with the RTGs.

The helicopter was black with no markings. It banked low over the boat but didn’t stop to check it out. It flew on, heading out to sea. I figured it was heading for the boat.

When the helicopter was gone, the men began to come out again. A few minutes later, the phone rang.

I picked it up. It was Scorpion. “Agent Ivanova is here with a few heavily armed men. They say the Kursk Star is on its way. When the tide comes in, let the boat go. If we catch them transferring the RTGs to the ship, it gives the FSB evidence they need to be able to board and seize it.”

“Ask him when we’re getting out of here,” said Gene.

“How and when are we getting back to the boat?” I asked the phone.

Scorpion had a quick conference with someone and came back. “When the boat leaves, we’ll send the helicopter after you.”

“All right. See you then.”

In a few more hours, the boat appeared to be floating again and the loading operation recommenced. It didn’t appear that the boat was going to be able to hold all the RTGs in one trip. It fired up its engine and began to move away. I relayed the information back to Troublemaker.

In a few minutes, I heard the helicopter again. I stood up and waved. Gene suddenly grabbed me and pulled me down.

“There’s one out there!” he said. I looked out across the expanse to see one man standing up. He threw down something, maybe a cigarette. We probably hadn’t seen him up until that point because he had been sitting down and not moving.

I grabbed the binoculars. The man looked like he was working on something. A weapon, maybe? I suddenly recognized it.

“He’s got an RPG!” I said.

Gene grabbed his rifle and lay down on the ridge. He braced his elbows on the ground and appeared to be taking his sweet time setting up.

“We can’t let him shoot down the helicopter. Hurry up!”

The RPG was unguided, but against a hovering helicopter it would be devastating.

“Screw you,” said Gene. “I don’t see you taking a five hundred yard shot.”

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. His finger squeezed the trigger. I looked through the binoculars. He missed. The man looked around as if he had heard the bullet passing close by, but didn’t appear to realize what it was.

Gene swore softly and took another deep breath. Downrange, the man stood up and lifted the RPG to his shoulder. Gene fired again.

This time, the bullet struck the man in the hip. He twisted and fell to the ground, although he didn’t stop moving.

The helicopter was almost on top of us now and the rotor wash was beginning to kick up dust. Gene and I grabbed our gear.

When the helicopter touched down, we ducked under the blades and climbed inside. Besides the pilot, Ivanova was the only one there. We had the back area to ourselves.

I quickly grabbed an intercom headset and told Ivanova about the man who’d tried to take out the helicopter. She translated for the pilot and we swooped over the ridge to go collect the man. Gene had found a safety harness and put it on. He now leaned out the open door with his rifle at the ready.

The man had crawled a little way from where he’d been shot. Gene and I jumped out and dragged him to the helicopter. I went back for the RPG. I’d never handled one before. Gene took it and did something that he said would keep it from going off accidentally.

If the beard was any indication, the man we’d picked up looked Arabic. Gene and I attempted to stop the blood flow. I didn’t know if he was going to live, but I wasn’t great at guessing things like that.

The boat was only a few minutes away. As we flew back, I asked Ivanova where Demidov was.

“He decided that his leg hurt too much to come. He’s never liked boats.”

We touched down on the helicopter pad a few minutes later. We dragged the man out and laid him on the deck while the helicopter’s engines spooled down. His condition had been called ahead and Scorpion and John were waiting with the hemostatic powder.

By the time the helicopter had gotten quiet enough for us to talk in a normal voice, the bleeding had been stopped. The man wasn’t exactly alert, but alive.

Ivanova asked him a few questions in Russian. He didn’t seem to understand. We tried English. Same story.

As it turned out, the helicopter pilot spoke a little Arabic. That got a reaction. The two of them talked for a few minutes.

The pilot spoke to Ivanova who spoke to me. “He says that he won’t tell us anything. I suppose it doesn’t matter. We know that the boat with the RTGs on it is going to rendezvous with the Kursk Star.”

Talking with Scorpion, Ivanova came up with a plan. We would go in with our boat and the helicopter at the same time. The boat was crewed by Russian sailors who knew that they were illegally smuggling, but would probably give themselves up without a fight when the realized the FSB agents were heavily armed.

The terrorists, on the other hand, probably would not go quietly. We still had the AT4 anti-tank rockets, but it would be nice to capture them without resorting to that.

We headed off to where the RTG transfer was probably going to take place. A Russian flag was hung from the stern of our boat. It would help us look as if we belonged in the area and maybe put the Russians aboard Kursk Star at ease. I talked with Ivanova on the way.

“If they left an RPG with the one man who was guarding the other RTGs, what kind of weapons do you think they’ll have on the boat?”

“It doesn’t matter. Igor—” The pilot looked around upon hearing his name— “is a veteran of Afghanistan. He knows how to avoid missiles.” She sounded confident, but appeared a little apprehensive about assaulting the two vessels as they were transferring RTGs. I knew the feeling. I had it too.

All the Russians piled into the helicopter and took off, circling around to approach from a different direction. Gene took the prisoner below deck to keep an eye on him. Scorpion and John each grabbed one of the AT4s and stood on deck while I steered from the bridge.

We came upon the boat tied up alongside the freighter. A crane on deck of the ship was lifting the RTGs aboard. When someone noticed our boat, the operation was stopped and the boat began to cast off.

The helicopter arrived from the other side of the ship. The heads of all the men on deck swiveled to look at it. Then the shooting started.

Most of the fire was coming from the men on the boat. The helicopter slid sideways behind the ship’s superstructure to avoid it. With that target gone, they started shooting at us.

John ducked down behind the raised bow to escape the bullets. I couldn’t see Scorpion from where I stood on the bridge, but I assumed he had taken cover behind the aft corner of the superstructure. With them out of sight, the gunfire turned to me.

Their weapons were only AK-47s. A heavy machine gun might have been able to penetrate the tough polycarbonate bridge windows. Still, it didn’t feel great having nothing but a piece of clear plastic between you and incoming bullets. I covered behind the bridge controls.

With John and Scorpion forced to keep their heads down, we had no offensive capability. Wait, that wasn’t true. I reached over to a control panel near the wheel and flipped the CIWS power on, setting it to manual target acquisition mode. When the weapon had righted itself into position, I fired a long burst into the boat. The 20 mm armor piercing bullets cut through it like tissue paper. Suddenly, they stopped shooting back.

A gatling gun fires much faster than an assault rifle. You can’t hear the individual rounds being fired. Instead, it blends together into one continuous burst of sound. Everyone in the area seemed stunned by the noise, particularly John, who had been up on the bow near the CIWS.

The noise was nothing compared to the destruction, though. The boat had been completely riddled. Most of the holes in it were quarter-sized, but in places where a few holes had randomly come together, areas that were fist sized or larger had been punched out. I didn’t see anyone aboard who was still capable of fighting back.

Some of the RTGs were bound to have been hit, but it looked like the boat was beginning to sink, so they wouldn’t be a problem much longer. We might have been able to get over to the boat and pick a few up with the davit mounted near the CIWS, but I sure didn't want to go anywhere near the radiation.

The helicopter hovered low over the deck of the freighter and the men began jumping out. They’d made a radio broadcast beforehand telling the ship crew who they were and why they were there. It didn’t look like any of the sailors were resisting.

I saw Ivanova get out with them. The helicopter came over to our boat and Scorpion and I got on to be ferried to the freighter while John took the wheel. I looked back at our boat.

The bulletproof glass had done its job. Some of it was chipped and pitted, but none was broken. There were numerous holes in the fiberglass, but only scratches on the metal.

We took the captured ship back to Murmansk. It was not immediately clear who was going to end up in prison. Obviously, transferring cargo in the open ocean was suspicious, but that hadn’t stopped any of the crew from protesting the legality. Technically, they were all guilty, but maybe only the captain would go down for it.

The crew stayed on board and performed their duties all the way to the dock. It helped that the CIA/FSB group stood around with firearms watching them. There was a crowd of FSB and other Russian law enforcement gathered on the pier to meet us.

Troublemaker, back to flying the flag of the United States, docked unobtrusively at another location. The scarred bulletproof glass would catch someone’s attention, so the bridge glass had been removed and clear plastic sheeting installed in its place as if it was meant to be, creating a kind of open bridge. The holes in the fiberglass had been patched and painted.

When we got back, we learned that Ali Al-Azhem had been observed taking a flight out of Russia a few days previously. By now, Ol’ Triple A had probably heard what had happened to his shipment of radioactive junk.

At least I was done and could go home. Or so I thought.

End of Part Two

3:1

Part Three

When Troublemaker left Murmansk, Ivanova was on board. The CIA had agreed to work more closely with the FSB. We were headed for the Mediteranian to support an operation to go after Al-Azhem.

I had taken a plane home to set the company back on its feet, but had promised to be waiting at Gibraltar to get back on the boat as it passed by on its way to Libyan waters.

It had taken all the money I’d gotten from selling the stock as well as most of my personal bank account, but the company was mine again. Because of the stigma associated with the huge loss in stock prices, I had been advised to change the name of the company. I picked Canvas Shipbuilding. All four members of the board of directors had fled, and some of their understaff as well. With the costs to change all the signs and company stationery to match the new name, the costs to rebuild the price of stock and the cost that giving Nevis his fifteen percent less would entail, the company wouldn’t begin to make real money again for a while.

I went to see Nevis, who seemed quite pleased that I’d been able to keep my end of the deal. I signed the new contract.

I also went to see Dr. Games. I quickly warned her that I was only visiting, but at some time in the future I would hopefully be home for good.

We talked about my fight for the company. I had pulled it off with even less effort than I had thought it would take. I supposed that the board of directors wanted to get rid of me so badly they didn’t take the time to figure out what I could do to throw a wrench into their plans. I guess annoying people to the point of hostility does have its advantages.

I told Dr. Games that I probably shouldn’t talk about the trip to Russia and what I did there. She didn’t press it.

I also went to see Andy. He was only slightly angry at being left in Nowhere, Norway. He also said he had gotten ample material to write a spy thriller, so he figured he had been well compensated.

Before I left Norfolk again, I picked the highest ranking member of the management team to run the company in my absence. His name was Matt Hawthorne. He was younger than some people under him, so I figured he was good at his job. Or maybe he was a backstabbing conniver, but either way he would get things done. I appointed him acting company president and got on the next plane out, animal crackers packed in my luggage.

Gibraltar Airport has one runway. About half of its mile-long length is on land and about half is on a manmade peninsula. There are very few flights in and out, and most of them go through London.

Luckily, the airport isn’t too far from the docks. I was able to get back on the boat almost as soon as I landed. Without too much fanfare, we shoved off and headed for Libya.

Ivanova had taken the stateroom formerly occupied by Andy. She had been issued her own satellite phone and a SR-1 Vektor pistol. She was cleaning the weapon in the galley when I came aboard.

The pistol used an odd 9x21mm cartridge that I heard was hard to find, but was pretty powerful. The pistol’s parts lay on the table, the magazine off to the side. I noticed that it was loaded with armor piercing bullets.

In Ivanova’s hands, the pistol was massive. She’d taped the grip safety down, I presumed because her small hands couldn’t reliably engage it. It had been designed for burly men in the Russian special forces.

“That’s a heck of a gun you’ve got there,” I said.

“FSB issue.”

“What are you supposed to use it for, killing criminal elephants?”

She smiled. “We must always be prepared.”

Scorpion came in. “Canvas, I need you up on deck to help secure the helo.”

“What helo?” I didn’t know we had a helicopter arriving.

“A Navy Seahawk. We’re going to be doing a brief with everyone involved in this operation.”

Over the radio would have been easier, but that meant the communication would have to go through a radio operator on either end, plus whoever carried the messages to and from the radio console. Face to face meetings limited some of that and the potential for intelligence leaks.

I went out and leaned against the aft superstructure as the SH-60 Seahawk approached. The downdraft from the rotor threw my mane in my eyes and ruffled my feathers. The pilot circled the boat once to get a feel for the wind and then set the aircraft down gently. I’m sure he would have preferred a little bit larger deck to land on.

John and I put wheel chocks under the helicopter and used straps to tie it down. They would be staying a while. As the blades slowed to a halt, people began getting off. All of the passengers wore flight suits, but only two looked as if they wore them often. The helicopter pilots stayed in their seats.

We led the guests down to the galley. There weren’t enough chairs to go around. Names weren’t formally announced. Security reasons, I assumed.

Gene was up in the bridge. The rest of the crew and Ivanova were at the meeting. Our guests were two Navy men and two Marines. The oldest man was introduced as an aide to the commander of the United States Sixth Fleet. The other sailor was the commanding officer of USS Nitze, an Arleigh Burke destroyer. The Marines were the pilot and gunner of a SuperCobra attack helicopter.

Scorpion gave the brief. Spy satellites and other intelligence sources had located what was believed to be Al-Azhem’s hideout. The bulk of the Sixth Fleet would distract the Libyans by sailing near Tripoli, while we headed further east. The Marines would refuel from both Nitze and Troublemaker on the way to take out Al-Azhem.

For the operation, we would be flying Russian flags. The FSB wasn’t involved directly, but they had lent us Ivanova and given us permission to pretend to be Russian. Relations between Libya and Russia were much better than those between Libya and the United States. The Russian flag would attract much less unwanted attention.

Libya really wasn't much different after Gaddafi was taken down. There was a different government, but terrorist sites and training camps were still in the country.

We talked with the Marines a little. Their radio call signs were Jigsaw and Cuddles. There were probably some interesting stories behind those, but I didn’t ask. They went over their plan to get into and out of Libya without being detected. None of us yet knew where the place was that Al-Azhem hung out, but that information would hopefully not be long in coming.

We discussed a few more things like radio code and what to do in case it all blew up in our faces. When everything had been discussed, the vsitors got back on the helicopter and left.

Late that night, the boat was on course for the Libyan coast. I sat alone on the bridge in the dim red night lights, watching the waves roll past the bow.

We were on about the same latitude as Norfolk, so there was a meaningful period of darkness during the night. To the north and west, the lights of airplanes could occasionally be seen when landing or taking off from the aircraft carrier that occupied the center of the Sixth Fleet battle group. The ships themselves were over the horizon from us.

The weather was warm, but pleasant after the sun had gone down. I set the boat for autopilot and stepped out on the bridge catwalk to take a little break.

There was no light pollution to be seen anywhere and the stars were brighter and more clear than I remembered seeing in a long time. It reminded me of songs by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

The door to the bridge opened and Ivanova came out. Her eyes immediately turned skyward to take in the stars.

“Come to get some fresh air?” I asked.

She nodded. “I had trouble sleeping. I grew up in a city. Boats are something I am not used to. Also, it is too quiet. It makes me uneasy.” She smiled.

We spent a few minutes looking over the railing at the water sliding by.

“What made you want to join the FSB?” I asked.

“It was how I was raised. I basically grew up with a gun in my hand."

Badass, I thought.

She asked, "What made you want to join the CIA?”

“Actually, I own a shipbuilding company. This is just what I do for fun.”

She looked at me, trying to decide if I was kidding. “That’s very remarkable.”

“Well, I’m kind of a patriot. When the CIA asked me to lend them a boat, I did. I even included myself as crew.”

She gave me a curious look. “I’m a US citizen,” I clarified.

“You’re very interesting, Mr. Canvas.”

“Call me Sail.”

“In that case, call me Nika.”

We talked a little more, mostly about personal things. I may have gone a little overboard in describing my luck with mares, but Nika was an attentive listener. Seems she had had similar problems. Amazing how many of us went though things like that.

Looking back on it, that night somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, I think that’s when I finally got over Lilly. Russian law enforcement agents are not who you would typically pick to have a heart to heart, but they’re surprisingly effective at resolving relationship issues.

The next day, the clear of the night before had been replaced by an overcast sky. That was good news because it would make the night darker and work to our advantage.

We began putting together everything that we would need for a successful mission that night. The tank on the flight deck had been filled with JP-5 jet fuel in preparation for the arrival of the SuperCobra. We also had an infrared beacon that the pilot would be able to see with his night vision goggles.

The helicopter was to depart from an amphibious Marine landing ship sailing with the battle group and refuel on Nitze before heading over the beach. Not that we aboard Troublemaker needed the information, but we had been given copies of the satellite pictures of the compound where Triple A was. After ripping the place up with Hellfire missiles and 20 mm rounds from its gatling gun, the SuperCobra would land on our deck for fuel. Another stop on Nitze and then it would go back to the amphibious ship.

Jigsaw and Cuddles had a very long night of flying ahead of them. We decided to leave the coffee pot on for their benefit. Since everyone on the boat would also be up all night, it was probably a good idea anyway.

About an hour after sunset, Nitze radioed us, using call signs.

“Blue Streak, this is Cold Autumn. Johnny Cash is full and is headed out, over.”

The names had probably been chosen by some pencil pusher in the Pentagon. Or maybe they’d gone to the computer and pushed the “generate random codename” button. Either way, it was sometimes hilarious what they came up with.

We didn’t respond to the message from the Navy ship. Radio signals could be detected. Encryption just made it so the enemy couldn’t listen in. If the signal was detected from more than one place, triangulation could be used to figure out where it had come from. A signal from out where Nitze was might make the Libyans a little suspicious. In close to the coast where we were might worry them enough to send someone to check things out. Of course, there was no guarantee that they were even listening for hostile radio signals, but just in case.

After the helicopter departed from Nitze, there was nothing to do but wait. The overcast skies were still with us, making it very dark. To help out our low-light vision, we only used the red night lights.

International waters begin twelve miles off a country’s coast. We held just outside that with fishing lines in the water. Russian fishing boats in Libyan waters were nothing new, although we were outside the best fishing areas.

I drank some coffee and waited. Gene and John began cleaning the assault rifles. They hadn’t been fired since the last time they had been cleaned, but I joined in to have something to do. During the time that I was off the boat, we had taken on more ammunition from another supply ship. The CIWS was fully loaded and we were practically tripping over all the rifle magazines.

Cleaning the M4 rifle is relatively simple. Pop the receiver pins and pull out the bolt and charging handle. Pull the retaining pin out of the bolt and remove the firing and cam pins. Swab the barrel bore and chamber. Scrub all small parts. Coat the internals with oil. Put it back together. Some people can even do it blindfolded. I can’t do it without help. Freaking small parts.

That occupied us for a little while. We probably should have been waiting and alert for the helicopter, though. Because of radio silence, our first indication that the SuperCobra was getting close was supposed to be the distinctive sound of its two bladed rotor.

That’s not how it worked out, though.

“Blue Streak, this is Johnny Cash. We have a problem, over.”

Scorpion was closest to the radio and he picked it up. “Roger Johnny Cash. Authenticate, over.”

“Bravo Seven Zulu. Authenticate, over.”

“Delta Delta Three. What’s the problem, over.”

“Blue Streak, mission complete. I say again, mission complete. We got shot up on the way out, though. Small arms fire, over.”

“How’s it look, Johnny Cash? Over.”

“One engine dead, flight controls feel sluggish and getting worse. Hydraulics may be damaged, over.”

“Cold Autumn, this is Blue Streak,” he said, calling Nitze. “Are you hearing this, over.”

“Roger, Blue Streak. We are moving to your location, over.”

It was a smart move. Nitze had a much larger deck to land on. With a damaged helicopter, you wanted all the room you could get. The question was whether the destroyer would arrive in time or if we would just have to make due.

“Blue Streak, this is Johnny Cash, we are crossing the beach now. A vibration is developing in the remaining engine, over.”

“Get the IR beacon on,” said Scorpion to no one in particular. I went to get it, and also grabbed a night vision monocle.

I figured the best place to put the infrared beacon would be above the bridge, the highest point on the ship. I exited the bridge and flew up to the roof because it was faster than using the ladder.

I scanned the horizon to the south. From the height of the bridge, I couldn’t see all the way to the coast, maybe only six or seven miles.

I heard someone on the ladder and looked over to see Ivanova climbing up.

“What are you doing up here?”

“I had nothing to do, so I thought I would join you.”

I handed her the monocle. She took it and put it to her eye. After a few moments, she said, “Using this device, I have determined that it is dark tonight.”

I laughed. It wasn’t the greatest time for jokes, but I appreciated it.

I turned on the IR beacon after she took the monocle away from her eye. Infrared was invisible to the naked eye, but through night vision, it would practically blind you if you were so close to it.

The beacon clicked softly every time it flashed, just to let you know it was working. It quickly became unnecessary, though. The door to the bridge was open, and I heard the radio come to life.

“This is Johnny Cash. The other engine is shutting down. We’re going in.”

Scorpion swore and cranked the boat’s throttle wide open. Nika and I climbed back down the ladder.

Scorpion spotted the monocle. “They should have a beacon of their own,” he said. He steered the boat directly towards the Libyan coast.

I went back out on the catwalk and moved to the front of the bridge. I was probably blocking Scorpion’s view, but without night vision, he couldn’t see anything through the darkness anyway.

Within a few minutes, I caught a small flash on the horizon. I waited until I saw it again asked Scorpion to change course about twenty degrees to starboard in order to line up on it.

When we arrived, we found that the two Marines had managed to get out of the helicopter before it sank. We got them on board and weighted down their gear so it would sink along with the helicopter. We didn’t want to leave any evidence behind.

Jigsaw and Cuddles wore black flight suits with no identification. That’s how secret missions go. If you’re captured, the military denies you’re with them. We began getting them dry clothing to wear. As it turned out, we’d guessed right. They did want coffee.

Since the helicopter had obviously been spotted, the alert was out. There wasn’t much reason to be stealthy after that, so the surface search radar was turned on. Unfortunately, it immediately picked up a target.

Scorpion turned the boat away from the coast and applied full power. The Libyan vessel was still several miles away, but closing. Judging from the size of the radar return, it was probably a boat a little larger than our own.

“What can we expect the Libyans might have in terms of firepower?” Scorpion asked me.

“How the hell should I know?”

“You’re the warship expert.”

“All right.” I stopped to think for a moment. The Libyan navy was composed of ships and boats made mostly by the Soviet Union and a few European countries.

“They could be armed with 1950s-era Styx missiles made by the USSR or maybe 1970s-era Otomat missiles. Those are Italian made.”

“What kind of explosives do they have?”

“The Styx has a thousand pound warhead. The Otomat is only 210 kilograms. That’s about 460 pounds. Either one would completely devastate our boat.”

“How far can they fly? Any chance we can get out of range?”

“No chance. The Styx is good for eighty kilometers, or about fifty miles. The Otomat is maybe double that.”

“At least tell me they’re inaccurate as hell.”

“In the India-Pakistan war, Indian ships supposedly fired thirteen Styx missiles and twelve of them hit. Those were against a little bit larger targets than us, though. I don’t think the Otomat has ever seen combat.”

“In case they decide we aren’t worth a missile, what kind of guns do they have?”

“Thirty- or forty-millimeter auto cannons. It would basically do to us what the CIWS did to that boat back in Russia.”

“Swiss cheese. Goddammit.”

I checked the radar. The Libyan boat had gotten closer. There was now about two miles separating us and we were still inside their territorial waters. Since they were getting so close, Scorpion may have been right about not having missiles fired at us.

The radio began making noise. First Arabic, then some terrible English, as if the person speaking was reading from a tourist phrase book. We ignored it.

Gene and John were getting set up on the stern with the rocket launchers. Sure, shooting at a Libyan boat would cause an international incident if discovered, but being captured would be worse. Not that a tiny anti-tank rocket would seriously cripple what might be a 150 or 200 foot boat, but it was the thought that counted. Maybe fire one at the bridge and damage the steering and throttle controls.

We were getting close to the twelve mile limit. Not that that would make the boat stop chasing us, but it would make it less of a global shitstorm if we fired on them. Or if we called the Navy to blow them out of the water.

One of the Marines came up to the bridge. He was about John’s size and wore some of his dry clothes. I couldn’t remember which Marine was which, but I thought it was Jigsaw.

“Anything I can do?” he asked.

I glanced around. The AT4s were being manned. The CIWS, mounted to the forward part of the boat and away from the Libyan vessel, was useless. We were already cranking all the speed we could get out of the engine. We’d decided not to respond to the radio, and Scorpion had the helm.

“Not really,” I told him. “Just sit back and enjoy the show.”

A few minutes later, according to the GPS, we were now twelve point one miles from the Libyan coast. The Libyan boat didn’t stop. They were now slightly under a mile away.

I didn’t know what would happen when they caught up with us. They would probably demand that we stop and be boarded. If we didn’t comply, then they would shoot the hell out of us. Neither option was very attractive.

Of course, they hadn’t actually seen us cooperating directly with the helicopter that had raised hell in their country. It did look suspicious that we crossed into their territorial waters, but that was all they had on us. We still flew the tricolor Russian flag, and good relations between Libya and Russia might even get us off with a mild questioning. The problem with that was, only one person on the boat was actually Russian, and several didn’t speak the language at all.

After traveling for several more minutes, the Libyan boat had closed to half a mile. It was only a matter of time. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye I saw a grey shape emerge from the night. It almost looked like it was on a collision course with us. At the last second, the sharp bow sliced past our stern and I caught a glimpse of the number 94 painted on the side. It was Nitze.

The destroyer turned sharply and placed itself in the path of the Libyan boat, which was forced to back down quickly to avoid a collision.

Angry words were exchanged on the radio while we continued putting distance between us and Libya. The Libyans were understandably pissed that someone had come between them and a boat that had something to do with an infiltration and destruction mission carried out on their country. They weren’t going to force the issue, though, because while a 120 foot yacht might have been an easy target, a heavily armed 500 foot destroyer was not.

After arguing with the Libyans for a few more minutes, Nitze simply sailed away. When we were well away from Libya, the Navy ship sent a Seahawk over to collect the Marine fliers. They both promised to buy us all a round of drinks the next time we met up. Nitze stayed with us until within sight of Malta before going back to rejoin the battle group.

We docked at Malta for a little rest before going home. Of course, I had already learned on this trip that when dealing with the government, you should expect the unexpected. It couldn’t hurt to hope that nothing else would happen, though.

Everyone spoke English on the island. Nika said she was going to find a nice restaurant and invited me to come along. I jumped at the opportunity because it had been a long time since I’d had food prepared by a professional. Scorpion, Gene and John may have been good at what they did, but chefs they were not.

I had never been to Malta, and the menu was hard to decipher. “Salad” was easy enough for the waiter to understand, however. Nika and I did some talking as we sat there. She was going to boarding an airplane soon to go home.

“Come see me the next time you come to Russia,” she said. “Maybe I can help you get a contract with the FSB.”

When I got back to the boat, Scorpion, Gene and John were all still sleeping off what appeared to be a very hard round of drinking.

We made ready to pull out the next day. The wind was blowing inland, so the bow thruster came in handy to help pull us away from the pier. Scorpion was at the controls when we shoved off, and, hangover or not, he did a decent job of getting us pointed out to sea.

I took the triangular folded stars and stripes flag and went aft with it. When I got it on the flagpole, the stiff wind snapped it smartly.

I went back up to the bridge. Gene and John were there listening to Scorpion’s end of a secure radio communication.

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Scorpion. He held the microphone away from his face. “They say the Cobra knocked the place flat. There were no thick-walled buildings so the Hellfires had an easy time of it. Based on heat signatures, there were maybe two dozen people in the complex. None survived.”

He listened a little more and spoke to us. “They are 99 percent sure Al-Azhem was there, so that should be a problem solved.”

Scorpion’s face suddenly changed. “Really? That’s disturbing.” A pause. “Then who was it?” He listened and didn’t appear to like the answer to his question. “All right, I’ll take care of it.” He switched off the radio.

“Something wrong?” John asked.

“Yeah.” Scorpion moved so fast I didn’t have time to react. He drew his pistol and jumped at me, slamming the gun into the side of my head. I fell to the deck, stunned.

Scorpion ended up on top of me and shoved the gun in my face. “They say our designated navigator, Jim Ross, showed up at the home office the other day wondering when he was going to get the call that we were leaving Norfolk. If that was the real Jim Ross, then who the hell did we have aboard?”

I was still a little shaken from being knocked in the head. It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t asking a rhetorical question.

“A friend of mine,” I said.

Scorpion paused. “Is that the guy you were trying to get us to bring along?”

“That’s right.”

“His security qualifications didn’t change any from the time you were talking about him to the time you brought him aboard?”

“No.” The .45 caliber barrel of his pistol looked very large from the perspective I was viewing it from.

“So you knowingly violated national security.”

“It’s beginning to look that way.”

“What’s his name? Where does he live?”

“Hang on, it was my idea. I think I should be the only one to blame here. Or are you being such a hard ass about this because you could have done a simple check of ID and prevented all of this? Don’t want to look bad?”

Scorpion couldn’t cock his pistol movie style to show he meant business because it was already cocked. He clenched his teeth and touched the barrel to my nose.

“Mr. Canvas, we’re going to go through everything you have in order to find this man. We’re going to hack your email and listen to your phone records. Whatever we find out, even unrelated to determining the identity of this man, is going to be used against you. Not only will you go to prison for a very long time, but you will have absolutely nothing when you get out. Tell us who he is, and maybe we’ll see if we can’t save both of you some trouble.”

Well, I had no doubt that the CIA could find Andy if they really wanted to. Since it didn’t look like I was going to be able to contact him to give him a warning, I figured that I might indeed want to save everyone some trouble.

After I finished confessing, they took me down to the galley and used rope to tie me on my back to the table. It began to be uncomfortable after only a few minutes. I suggested that maybe after they let me up to use the restoom, they could put me down on my front, and set up a rotation of front-back-front and so on.

I didn’t see any use in trying to sweet talk any of the crew, least of all Scorpion. Consequently, I didn’t talk much at all on the way back to Norfolk.

I got breaks for food and such, and for being captive on my own boat, it really wasn’t all that bad. I thought about trying to fight during such times when I was untied, but I dismissed the idea. I didn’t know much about the backgrounds of any of them, but I suspected that I would lose in any hoof-to-hand situation. Not to mention being outnumbered.

Escape was also out of the question in the middle of the ocean. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire.

My only hope for escape might have been as we entered Chesapeake Bay. There was plenty of commercial shipping traffic in the area, and if I jumped ship and managed to not be captured again, someone would eventually pick me up. It didn’t seem worth it, though, because a radio message would probably go out informing every ship in the area about an escaped fugitive. That idea also wouldn’t work because the galley didn’t have portholes and I wouldn’t be able to look out and see when we were pulling in.

After what seemed like a lifetime, but was probably only about a week, I felt the boat bump the pier and a short while later I was untied and escorted above deck.

We were back at the pier where I usually kept the boat. I couldn’t remember how long it had been since the boat had been moored there. More than a month, probably.

To avoid the prying eyes of the public, there was an unmarked, government looking car parked on the pier right next to the boat. I was cuffed with pony-sized restraints and put in the back.

I took a look at the boat where I’d lived for however long the trip had been. I could faintly pick out some damage that had been repaired, but if I hadn’t fixed it myself, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it. She was still a good looking boat and I’m sure the CIA would treat her well after they made me disappear and threw away the key.

I felt the pier rumble a little and looked up. Another unmarked, government looking car had turned onto the pier and was driving out to us. It had a license plate with an Admiral’s flag on it.

3:2

I’ve been surprised before in my life, but honestly, the last person I thought would come to my rescue would be Nevis. Carl Hanley got out of the car with him. They walked up and spoke to Scorpion. He seemed a little surprised and unbelieving of what they had to say.

After a few minutes of what appeared to be arguing, Scorpion spoke to Gene, who came over and pulled me out of the car.

“What’s happening?” I asked him.

“You’ve got more powerful friends than we thought.” He unlocked the cuffs and walked me over to where Scorpion, Hanley and Nevis were standing. Nevis looked a little smug. Hanley appeared to be annoyed. Scorpion was livid.

Nevis was the first to speak. “I heard about this misunderstanding you had and thought I might help you clear it up. After all, you are my best defense contractor.” Nevis didn’t wink at me, but he might as well have. After that deal of fifteen percent off, he would bend over backwards to help me out of trouble and able to keep helping him. I didn’t know how he had heard what I’d done, but I was grateful. It was a useful system of quid pro quo we had set up.

“So I’m clear? I’m not going to be put away forever on the charge of treason?”

“That’s right.”

Something nagged at me. After doing business with the government for so long, I knew that nothing was ever that clean and clear.

“Is there a catch to all this?”

Hanley nodded. “For all intents and purposes, Mr. Canvas, the United States Central Intelligence Agency now owns your soul.”

“Does that mean I’m going to keep having going out to do the dirty work?”

“That’s exactly what it means.”

“I’m going to need a bigger boat, then”

Hanley chuckled, but stopped when he saw that I was serious. I turned to Scorpion. “Tell him. That yacht was not designed to do the things we did.”

Scorpion may have hated me at that moment, but he nodded his agreement.

I went on. “We need a new, purpose built vessel that has all the weapons systems integrated. It needs to have a twin engine setup for reliability and more power, stronger steel construction for better damage control, and an amphibious well deck couldn’t hurt. And while we’re at it—”

Hanley cut me off. “We’ll talk about it later. Right now, all of you—” he pointed to me, Scorpion, Gene and John, “—need to have a serious debriefing.”

Nevis left in his staff car. I would have to catch up to him later and discuss how we stood. While we had been talking, one of those ubiquitous black Chevrolet Suburbans that the government seems to have so many of had rolled up. Hanley and the boat crew, including myself, climbed in. I thought for a moment we might be going all the way out to Langley, but instead we wound up stopping at a safe house in Newport News.

The place didn’t look like too much on the outside, and that was the point. I thought that someone’s suspicions might be aroused by the black Suburban parked outside, but I had no sooner had the thought than the driver moved it to another location.

The inside of the safe house was government cheap, but fully functional. In other parts of the building, I assumed that there were probably the high tech communications and probably a gun locker with all the newest and best weapons. It was possible, though, that I was reading too much James Bond into it.

They took us to a conference room that reminded me of the Navy security interrogation room back at the Norfolk base. The chairs at the safe house were better, though.

The five of us sat down and Hanley pulled out a sheaf of notes and a tape recorder.

“Talk through it,” he said. “What did you do, what would you do differently if you had to do it again, what worked, what didn’t.”

Slowly, piece by piece, we recreated the entire scene from when we first set out across the Atlantic Ocean, to the time when we returned with me hog-tied on the galley table. Despite me being right there and their animosity for me, the crew liked how the boat had been outfitted, and other than going along with my suggestion for a better one, had been fairly happy.

The issued equipment had been slightly more of a problem. Everyone agreed that some anti ship missiles would have been nice. We hadn’t needed them, but if we had needed to take out that Libyan patrol boat, it sure would have been helpful to be able to do it right. Another thing discussed were the small arms we had taken aboard.

“The next time I go out to do something like this,” said Gene, “you will give me a rifle with an ACOG on it.” I seconded this. Nearly any optical sights would help.

We also discussed having proper diving gear. The arctic suits had worked, but something else would have been better. Having water scooters, motorized torpedoes you hung onto underwater, would have saved us a long swim.

The Russians found their way into the conversation. It was true that the more people knew about a secret operation, the less secret it was, but in this case having their cooperation had been very helpful. I knew that Gene, John, and Scorpion knew that I had developed a friendship with Agent Ivanova, but thankfully none of them mentioned it.

With the success of this operation, cooperation with the FSB in the future would be a likelihood. I wasn’t alive during the Cold War, but it seemed slightly amazing that things could turn around between two countries so quickly.

Unfortunately, the total success we had hoped for had not been achieved. Nikitin being killed had not been part of the plan. He probably could have told us more about what had been going on in the Russian black market, but his documents were chock full of other lovely people to go after. It would keep somebody busy for quite a while. Probably me, I realized unhappily.

Of course, the mission into Libya hadn’t been a complete success, either. The Marine Corps wasn’t happy about their lost helicopter, but all it would take to replace it was money. Mr. Triple A hadn’t been seen in a while, so we had probably got him. The Libyans raised some concerns with the international media about the United States bombing them. Most of the world believed them, but few cared because that was nothing new and it had happened several times before. The matter was quickly forgotten.

The debrief didn’t get over that day. We slept that night on the economy mattresses in the safe house. At least the showers worked well. Breakfast in the morning was decent, but not very inspiring. I preferred my eggs sunny side up, but all that they would make was scrambled.

We had been all debriefed out a couple of hours after breakfast. I didn’t want to hang around to see what they might try to feed me for lunch, so I left. Hanley must have been thinking the same thing, because he came with me.

We rode in the back of a black Suburban. I couldn’t tell if it was the same one, or another. I knew that I had gotten in the SUV to go somewhere, but I didn’t know where I wanted to go. The marina, I supposed. I hoped my car was still there.

I talked to Hanley as we drove. “I wanted to ask about my friend that I snuck aboard.”

“Andrew Newhart? We detained him.”

“For how long?”

“We had him for maybe a day when Admiral Nevis called up and said you were a true patriot and would never do anything to breach national security.”

“Just like that you let him go?”

“Pretty much. Why? Should we have kept him longer?”

“No, not really. So did you just tell him to behave and forget what he saw?”

“Something like that. I think you should talk to him and make sure he understands that this was an anomaly of the system. He fell through a crack, and he’s damn lucky he’s not still in custody. And Mr. Canvas, we’ve shown quite a bit of leniency to you on this, but this is something you aren’t going to do again, understand?”

I said that I did. The rest of the way back to the marina was spent in silence.

My car was not only still where I had left it, but appeared to be completely unmolested. I went to get my luggage from the boat and returned. I slid in and shut the door, just sitting for a moment.

Now that I was back in my own car and had my own steering wheel to touch, it really, truly felt like I was home again. It had been a long, strange trip.

I checked the glove box to see if my animal crackers were still there. They were. I found them to be a little stale, but I ate some anyway. It’s the little things you miss when you go away from home for a while.

The next few days were not great to me. I had to set things right that had happened while I was gone. The company itself seemed to be doing okay, but I had to speak to several potential investors that Canvas Shipbuilding was a capable company with many years of experience, despite the fact that the name had been registered just a few weeks before. It was a difficult process, but I could see stock prices start to turn around. Lucky for me, I had gotten myself majority shareholder status again though creative but, David told me, perfectly legal bookkeeping methods while the company was still reorganizing.

Matt Hawthorne appeared to be doing fairly well at running things day to day, although I made sure to stop by at least once a week even though I had rewritten company policies and wasn’t required to check in now.

We did land the contract to provide boats to Saint Petersburg harbor security. I figured I could use it as an excuse to spend some more time in Russia.

Andy seemed a little surprised to see me when I showed up at his place. “Sail, I thought they were going to put you away for good.” He let me in, and looked around before closing the door.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. With a little luck and creative bargaining, I managed to get us both out from under the axe.”

“Thanks a lot,” he said. “I suppose I should have refused to come. I knew something like this could happen.”

“Well, the good news is that neither of us is going to do hard time. The bad news is that both of us are probably going to be under surveillance for the rest of our lives.” I shrugged.

“I suppose I can live with that.”

“I wish that was all that was on me. From now on, I probably won’t be able to make any real money off Navy contracts and the CIA will be knocking on my door every other week to go do crazy things again.”

“So you’re kind of like a slave now?” Andy looked concerned. “I’m sorry, man. I would have tried to say it was my idea if I had known.”

“Don’t worry about. If I play my cards right, I can get them to pay for a new boat.” I said goodbye to him and left. Next on my list of places to go was Dr. Games’ office.

She asked me what I had been up to since we’d talked last. Once again, I got the urge to tell her everything, but I was in enough trouble as it was.

Instead, I said, “A lot of things went wrong, but a few things went right.”

“What sort of things?”

“Well, I’m in deeper than I was before. I did some things I shouldn’t have, and now I owe certain people even bigger than I did previously.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it started off as a kind of prank. It might have turned into a little contest with myself to see how much I could get away with.”

“You knew you were breaking the rules?”

“Right.”

“Did you learn your lesson?”

“I really, really hope so. I suppose until I get slapped down hard enough to make the idea stick, I’ll probably just keep doing it. As it is, I got stuck with a job I don’t want but I’m still living pretty well and things are never boring.”

The doctor folded her forelegs in front of her. “I think it’s interesting how you realize that you’re doing something you shouldn’t, but you go ahead with it anyway because you know you can survive the consequences.”

“Do you think it’s because I got bored with all this disposable income and started causing trouble for lack of anything better to do?”

“It’s possible. You can lose so much before you notice that anything is gone.”

“So should I start donating to charity or something?”

“That might be a good idea. You can also start your own.”

“I’ll have to give that some thought.”

Later, I wound up at Nevis’s office. Chief Stanton let me in without a fight. I had come to see if the Navy needed anything and also to see if he would let me have any nice toys to put on my new boat.

Nevis offered me coffee. He had never done that before. I had never wanted coffee in his office before. It was a warm summer day. But hey, free coffee.

“What can I do for you, Canvas?”

“Actually, I think the question should be what can I do for you? Canvas Shipbuilding is looking to pick up as much business as possible.”

“At reasonable prices, I assume.”

“Can’t make it on quality, make it on volume, I guess.”

“Fair enough. I’ll see what kind of odd jobs I can dig up.”

“Also, I think you heard I’m building a new boat. I’d like your help in getting these items,” I said, placing a page from my notebook on his desk. He read down the list I’d written out.

“I think this is pushing it a little far. What if someone found out?”

“I need you to bury the paperwork deep enough that they won’t.”

He stared at me for a few seconds and folded his hands. “Canvas, if I give you authorization to build this new armed yacht, it had better be the best damn Q-ship the world has ever seen.”

“I’ll do that, sir, believe me.”

I had begun drawing plans for the new boat almost as soon as Hanley had said it might be possible to get it built. Since I didn’t know how much money was going to be authorized for the project, I made sure to keep my options open.

Whatever happened, the boat had to have two engines. Troublemaker had been running at top speed and that hadn’t been fast enough. More protection would also be nice. That meant a thicker hull and superstructure made of steel. Aluminum isn’t a great ship choice because it’s brittle and won’t flex when the ship rolls in the waves. Fiberglass isn’t bulletproof.

Since we already had it, we might as well reuse the CIWS. It would be good to have a better way to hide it rather than a box on the deck. Maybe some kind of hydraulic lift to raise it up through a hole in the deck.

To avoid building a ship that required a deep draft to float, I knew that it would need to be longer. I did some figuring and decided that a nice 160 foot boat would provide enough flotation and more than enough room for all the gear.

I decided to move the helicopter deck to the bow. It would require flaring the deck above the waterline to make a reasonably square landing pad, but I was fine with that.

Putting the well deck in the stern created a few problems. I thought it should be big enough to accommodate at least a Zodiac-type boat. Room to store a jet ski or two wouldn’t hurt. Just in case, I also made sure it could also fit a SEAL Delivery Vehicle inside.

The well deck would require the engines to be moved forward and longer propeller shafts used. The forward mounted engines balanced out the weight for what else I had in mind for the stern.

The Navy vertical launch system installed on their ships was capable of supporting surface to air missiles, land attack missiles or rocket assisted torpedoes. It stored all of them pointing upward in tubes. Since each tube had to accommodate missiles that were more than twenty five feet long, the tubes were going to have to run from down near the keel and be concealed by the superstructure on the top.

With the helicopter pad forward, all the superstructure would cover the stern completely. Maybe put a catwalk around the back, but there wasn’t much room for anything else. Staterooms would occupy the very furthest aft space, I decided. Being simple compartments full of air, they wouldn’t weigh much and would serve to balance the ship a little better. It also provided the entire aft superstructure to install portholes in. I decided to place them as high as possible to make room for heavier things down below in order to keep the boat’s center of gravity low.

The missile tubes were a bit of a problem. I figured eight of them ought to do it. They could be tipped slightly, but too much and they would cease to be true vertical launch tubes. Coming up with clear space from top to bottom while avoiding the engines, passageways, compartments and other things was a little difficult, but I managed.

Mounting the CIWS forward was a little easier. I placed a large square elevator shaft that ran from the lowest deck to the helicopter deck. I designed a simple new mount for the CIWS that incorporated a platform above the radar dome. The platform would be the floor of the elevator and could be used to transport things from the helicopter deck down to the deck below. It looked harmless enough and a civilian probably wouldn’t question it. If the elevator was pushed upwards out of the shaft, the CIWS would emerge from the deck. It was spaced out a little from the superstructure, and still couldn’t make a full 360 degree sweep, but it was better than previously.

The stern was unprotected, but I made a note to include heavy duty handrails that could support hard points for mounting weapons. Plus, the missiles from the launch tubes could provide protection to the rear.

I put the bridge at the highest point, but added a CIC, combat information center, below decks to install all the weapons related hardware.

I’d been just a little vague with the design, so it could be changed if anyone objected to the cost. I hoped they wouldn’t. It would be like planning to get the most awesome Christmas toy you could ever get, and only receiving part of it.

I was prepared when Hanley called me in to review my suggested design. I was unfamiliar with all of the other five men who had come to the meeting. I thought I recognized the director of the CIA, but that was it. Hanley didn’t offer any explanation on who the rest were.

“Gentlemen,” I said, putting a PowerPoint slide up with an image of the old boat, “this is the yacht I inherited from my parents. My father named her Troublemaker. She was recently modified and used in a new kind of operation. From all aspects, she appears to be a normal pleasure craft.” I clicked through a few more pictures. “However, in reality she is an effective platform for launching special operations.”

“How was the boat modified?” one of the men asked.

“Mostly it was just basic things. A little bit of bullet resistant material, accommodations for the crew, a secure communications suite. The really big thing we were able to do, though, was the addition of a Phalanx Close In Weapon System. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a computer controlled 20 mm gatling gun.” I used a laser pointer to show the disguise box. “It’s hidden here.”

I continued. “The boat performed the job admirably, however it was in no way designed for the mission. A new vessel with all the weapons systems integrated would be preferable. Such a boat could also employ better armor, advanced weaponry and increased mission flexibility. I’ve drawn up a new design for your approval.”

I changed over to the new slides. I hadn’t put anything in the PowerPoint that might be incriminating if it got leaked. Since beginning servitude with the CIA, I had been a lot more careful in terms of what could be used against me. The slides only showed the exterior of the new boat.

I explained the basic design and layout. The helicopter pad was now large enough to land everything up to a Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey tilt rotor on it. I’d added another stateroom for a total of six. Troublemaker’s staterooms were very large, so I figured I could reduce their size a little bit to gain room to use elsewhere. I’d also added provisions for quickly converting to bunk beds in case an entire commando unit came on board. Hammocks could also be strung up in the galley.

“This is all well and good,” said one of the men, “but I thought you mentioned weapons.”

“That’s right.” I began talking about that. There were a few gasps of disbelief.

“You want to do what?” said one of them. “Missiles on a yacht?”

“Why not? I thought you wanted a boat that could do anything.”

That shut them up, and I kept talking. “The Navy routinely fires SM-2, SM-3, ASROC and Tomahawk missiles from these tubes. The SM-2 is a long range air to air missile. The -3 is a long range missile than can be used for shooting down ballistic missiles. Maybe you remember a few years back when they used one of those to kill that malfunctioning satellite? The ASROC is an antisubmarine torpedo that flies out to where the submarine is and drops into the water. The Tomahawk is a cruise missile for attacking land or sea targets and can have a range of up to 1,500 miles.”

I spoke for a few more minutes and brought the presentation to a close. Hanley walked me out as everyone else began speaking quietly amongst themselves.

“You think they’re going to go for it?” I asked.

“I guess we’ll find out. I don’t remember how much you said it was going to cost.”

“I didn’t say, but I figure a few hundred million ought to do nicely.”

“Jesus.”

“Hey, they were the ones who forgot to ask.”

Later in the day, I got a surprise call from Nika. She was coming to Washington, D.C. soon for a law enforcement conference. We made plans to meet. I told her just a little about the new yacht.

On the next Sunday, I went to the club. I hadn’t drank with David for quite a while. He had his tequila and I had my usual.

“What have you been up to?” he asked.

“Well, aside from working the company back up into top form, I’ve been busy doing other things. I got approval to start building a new yacht.”

“Who do you have to get approval from? Or do I need to know?”

“No, you don’t,” I told him.

“All right. Are you still under the government’s thumb?”

“Yes, for the foreseeable future, but I have a plan to get out of that.”

“Do I want to know?” he asked.

“Maybe, maybe not. Since you’ll probably be involved somehow, I might as well tell you. Once that boat is built, I’m going to steal it.”

“Don’t you already own it?”

“On paper, maybe. I’ll take it and leave everything else behind.”

“Won’t everybody be a little angry about that?”

“Probably, but what are they going to do? I’m the one with the armed yacht. In addition, I’ve also been working up a package of damaging information to release if they come after me. I’ll leave that with you.”

“Oh great. So if you’re running, who’s coming with you?”

“I’ve got a few people in mind.”

“Okay. What are you going to do for money? They’re bound to freeze your assets.”

“I’ll offer my services freelance to them. The amount of money they’ll probably seize from me will pay for a lot of work.”

“What if they won’t hire you?”

“I’ll work for the Russians.”

David sat back in his chair, out of questions for the moment. “Sounds like you have a plan. It’s going to be trouble, though.”

I thought about what Dr. Games had said about me surviving the consequences of my own actions. Why did I do it? Because I could.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Dad was right. I’m a natural-born troublemaker.”

The End