“Did you dream?” Britney asked as Mike slowly motored out of the harbor.
“Yeah,” Mike admitted.
“Dream or nightmare?”
“That would be the latter.”
“Yeah,” Britney said. “There’s things you can do about that, you know? It doesn’t always work, but I’ve been doing it for a year and a half. It’s called dream management. You teach yourself to control your dreams. Sounds impossible, but it’s not.”
“And when the guy’s coming towards you with the key?” Mike asked. “What do you do?”
“Usually I can turn the dream off before that point,” Britney admitted. “I change it to a meeting or something. When I can’t, well, I have somebody come in and break things up. Guess who?”
“You’re welcome,” Mike said, gunning the boat as they passed the breakwater. The time was between the land breeze and the sea breeze, the stillest part of the night. There was barely a ripple on the water and the Cigarette seemed to float above the water.
“I’ve been through a lot of counseling,” Britney shouted. “Some strange stuff, too. Stuff that actually works. There’s this thing they do where you flick your eyeballs while you think about what’s bothering you. I shit you not. And it actually helps. One of those weird brain chemistry things. The point is, Mike, you don’t have to just fucking suffer.”
On the way over Mike had never really opened the Cigarette up. Now, he glanced at his gauges, made sure everything was solid and opened the engine up full bore.
The difference between seventy miles an hour and a hundred does not seem that great. But in a boat arrowing a bare meter over the water, it is.
“Holy shit,” Britney shouted, snatching at the grab points on the seat. The boat seemed to be a rocket headed into darkness. She knew there wasn’t anything in the way, to the south of the island was open water, but if they hit so much as a piece of floating debris she was afraid the boat would go airborne.
They’d gotten far enough away from the island that they were hitting a light chop, ripples from Atlantic waves to the south. The boat started to leap like a gazelle over the waves, the extended props staying down below the water but the rest of the boat catching air and coasting through midair for bounds of twenty or thirty feet.
“If you’re trying to frighten me, you’re succeeding,” Britney shouted.
Mike didn’t answer, just leaned forward and touched a control on the dashboard. The boat turned slightly to the left, staying mostly down this time, barely kissing the waves as it screamed through the night. The moon had set and the only light source was the stars, glimmering off the surface, and yellow and green flashes of phosphorescent jellyfish, revealing their presence to predators while calling for a mate.
Another touch of the controls and it was straight again, jumping the light waves, the air filling the world with sound.
Suddenly, he pulled back on the throttles and hit the quick release on his straps.
“Lieutenant Britney Harder, I would very much like to screw you.”
“I was wondering when you would ask,” Britney said, pulling her sundress up over her head.
They made love under the stars, the boat rocking on the light waves, no words, no analysis, just a desperate coupling of two ravaged souls reaching for one moment of peace.
Chapter Fourteen
“Track 738,” Greznya said, pointing to the screen.
The Kildar was looking… odd this morning. It would only be noticeable to someone who knew him well but it was clear to Greznya. He looked tired and the Kildar very rarely looked tired, no matter how long an op had gone on. Given that this one had been fairly easy so far, it was… strange.
“It came into range of the balloons from the north, somewhere north of Grand Island,” she continued, tracing the track. “Very high speed run down to the waters off Key Largo. Then it turned and headed over to the Bahamas cut. It was lost from radar while in the cut.”
“And it never slowed off Largo?” Mike asked, taking a sip of his coffee.
“No, Kildar,” Greznya said. “But it matches the profile perfectly.”
“So the boat is somewhere inside in the Bahamas,” Mike said, frowning. “Along with a billion others.”
“Yes, Kildar,” Greznya said.
“Okay,” Mike replied. “Let me think about this for a while.”
Mike left the intel shack, yawning. Fucking dreams. Even screwing the ass off of Bambi hadn’t helped. He wasn’t sure it had helped her, either, but at least she understood where he was at.
He walked out the back door and looked at the water. The boats were gone. Randy was taking the Keldara out for offshore practice. They’d only get in about an hour on the rough before they’d have to come back due to fuel constraints. Which led his mind to…
The landing craft headed for the beach. It had come around the point from out of his view. Don was on the way with the Navy guys.
Mike walked down to the beach and waited as the boat approached, sipping his coffee. The techs would have had a miserable night. The LCT had some bunks, but the crossing would have been awful; the damned things rocked like nobody’s business.
The problem being, he needed them to get started right away. Well, as soon as the boats got back. But it was going to take them at least that long to get set up.
When the ramp dropped, the first person off was a big blond guy with a civvie bag over one shoulder. He was looking around with interest but the techs behind him were clearly just glad to get back on land.
“You the NCOIC?” Mike said, walking up with his hand out.
“Yeah,” the guy said, eyeing Mike warily but shaking his hand.
“Welcome to the Abacos Estate,” Mike said. “The boats are out training right now. They’ll be back in an hour or so. I need the extended range tanks installed and the engines tuned by sundown. That a problem… Master Chief?”
“Senior,” the guy said, his jaw flexing.
“Get my boats functional and it won’t be for long,” Mike said. “Any issues?”
“Parts,” the senior chief said. “As in unavailability of.”
“I’ll hook you up with my logistics lady,” Mike replied. “She’ll see to anything you need. I’m headed over to the mainland in about an hour. You give her the list, I’ll get anything you need and be back this afternoon. If you need more, well, the Gulfstream’s just sitting there. If you need to go get it or send somebody to get it, that can be arranged, too. But I need those boats up. I’d prefer them by this evening since I’ve got an op going down that I need them for.”
“Yes, sir,” the chief said, looking pissed.
“What’s this all about, the chief is thinking,” Mike said, sipping his coffee. “Who the fuck is this guy giving me orders? Is he Delta or what? He’s in civvies, his hair’s a little long… Maybe he’s ANV or whatever they’re calling it this week. The answer, Chief, is that I’m a fucking merc. I’m a fucking merc who has been hired to do all the things that even ANV can’t do in their wildest wet dreams. And I’m going to do those things and in doing so I’m going to stop American civilians from getting killed. You, Senior Chief, are going to help me in doing that by making sure my fucking boats are up by sunset. I don’t care what you need, I don’t give a rat’s ass how much it costs. Because I’ve got a target I need to intercept to find out where Al Qaeda has dropped some nasty shit off the Florida coast. If I don’t get them tonight, that means that nasty shit gets used on American civilians. Are we clear, Senior Chief?”
“Clear, sir,” the senior chief said, nodding.