Previous Chapters
Close
Chapter 15,544 words
Chapter 25,377 words
Chapter 34,708 words
Chapter 44,866 words
Chapter 55,081 words
Chapter 64,610 words
Chapter 74,099 words
Chapter 86,399 words

Chapter 8

I had taken a tour of the Pentagon once, but they didn’t take the public as deep as I had to go to get to the meeting. I was lost by the time the two uniformed escorts brought me to a nondescript conference room somewhere deep inside.

Hanley was there, looking pale and weak, but alert. He had an electric wheelchair, as one leg and one arm were still bandaged up and immobilized.

Nevis was also present, and appeared to be comparatively drab next to the man who sat with him. He had dressed to impress with four silver stars on his immaculate uniform and a whole lot of ribbons on his chest. His nametag identified him as Baxter.

“This is Sail Canvas, the captain of the boat,” said Hanley by way of introduction. I took it to mean that he had already told the General about Corsair. I was curious to see why the Army cared.

I wore a suit, but neglected to put on a tie. It was just enough to get Pentagon security to take me seriously. General Baxter looked me up and down and didn’t appear to like what he saw. He didn’t offer his hand. “Admiral Nevis says you’re the best special operations contractor he’s ever seen.”

“Admittedly, it’s a small field,” I said. “There aren’t a whole lot of people out there who have the capital to build a fighting yacht.” I glanced at Hanley to see if he would say something about who actually paid for the boat, but he let it go.

“You do most of your work for the CIA. Is there a reason for that?”

Mostly because I kept finding ways to screw them out of money and equipment. Also, they could ruin me if I didn’t. I said, “We’ve established a good relationship. They seem to pay better than the military, too.”

“You’ve been given access to quite a bit of sensitive information. What stops you from burning us with it?”

“I’d be out of a job if I did.” Changing subjects, I said, “What’s with all the questions?”

“I don’t have to tell you that.”

“You think I have time to come in here and play games with you? One of the plus sides to working for myself is that I don’t have to deal with bureaucratic bullshit.” I got up to leave.

“Sit down,” said Baxter, sounding angry.

“Make me. I’m a civilian.”

“Canvas,” said Nevis calmly, “the General wants a boat to test special forces amphibious landing equipment and tactics.”

I sat back down. “All right. Tell me more.”

Baxter shot a look at Nevis. He didn’t appreciate a lower-ranking officer from another branch of the military undercutting him, but it had gotten me to stay.

“We need you to host about two dozen operators and observers for about five days. We’ll be conducting operations at Aberdeen Proving Ground.”

We didn’t have berths for that many people, but I figured we could set up tents on the flight deck or something.

“Details aren’t quite finalized yet, but we’ll contact you when the operation is ready to commence,” said Baxter. It seemed that he was finished talking to me.

I didn’t get a chance to speak with Nevis on my way out. I walked beside Hanley as he rolled in his wheelchair.

“One of these days I’m going to be back on my feet,” he said. I didn’t know if he was being overly optimistic or if he just looked worse than he actually was. Regardless of his health, he seemed to have returned to his job.

“Are you going to do some more field work?” I asked.

“No. The Agency probably wouldn’t let me even if I wanted to. Just as well. How is Agent Jones?”

I recounted a few things that we’d experienced while she had been with us. Hanley had probably read the reports we’d sent, but a report is never quite the same thing as a face-to-face conversation.

Hanley seemed to be deep in thought. “Well, I didn’t think you were going to get into any more trouble. I suppose I should have expected it, given the line of work you’re in. Jones was trained for basic field operations, but never did anything except desk jobs until now.”

“I think she came around,” I said. “After a while, getting shot at becomes routine.”

“Was that supposed to be funny?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“Well, whatever you did, her whole attitude has changed. We had to pull her out of her comfy office when I got shot, but when I talked to her a few days ago, it seemed like she was happy where she was.”

“Stockholm Syndrome, you think?”

He laughed, but stopped quickly when it caused his chest wound to hurt. “We might eventually have to call her back, but for a while it’s nice to have someone aboard who takes orders instead of considering them suggestions.”

I talked with him for a few more minutes before heading back to the boat. I was thinking hard about Jones. By having the CIA communicate directly with her, and then having her pass data to us, the CIA was able to suppress information and keep us in the dark on some things. I couldn’t forget that she was also a potential whistle-blower that kept watch over our shoulders. It wasn’t even fun to antagonize her anymore. I started forming a plan to get rid of Jones.

The cruise to Aberdeen Proving Ground was not long, at least not by our standards. It was located in Maryland north of Baltimore. We didn’t even have to leave Chesapeake Bay.

At Aberdeen, we brought aboard twenty four soldiers and four observers. They were all dressed down, with no identification. I only talked with one of them, who called himself Lieutenant Colonel Painter.

Painter looked a lot like his men–tough. He was with the observers, and seemed to be in charge of the operation. Figuring he could keep secrets, I gave him a tour of the boat.

“Interesting business you’ve got here,” Painter commented. “I understand you work primarily for the CIA.”

A lot of military people don’t like intelligence spooks. “It pays the bills,” I said, shrugging. “We occasionally take other jobs.”

“For who?”

“The U.S. Navy’s always been good to us. Not too long ago, we worked with the SAS.” Stuart didn’t exactly represent the whole Special Air Service, but my comment seemed to impress Painter.

We anchored the boat in a branch of the Chesapeake that cut through Aberdeen. It was away from the public, and would have been a nice quiet place to relax if it weren’t for the gunfire and signal flares continually popping along the shore.

Since we needed the flight deck, Shep and Jeff took Andy out in the helicopter so he could work on his piloting skills. I told them to find a nice regional airport to stay at until we could bring them back aboard.

I kept careful track of everything that was going on. There was a lot you could learn by watching. Of course, I wasn’t in the same league as the professionals who were aboard, but maybe I could learn something from them. Also, if I got the chance to start working with Baxter on a regular basis, maybe I could get some of the high-tech equipment they were using.

Exercises ran round the clock. There were mixed day and nighttime operations and the men appeared to be training for any eventuality that could ever happen. Even in my stateroom at the other end of the boat, it was difficult to sleep with the constant sounds of weapons being loaded and orders being shouted combined with distant gunshots and other noise.

Nika stayed with me, freeing up a room to use for lodging the soldiers. As the days went on, I noticed her creeping closer to the centerline of the bed. Figuring she was just naturally gravitating towards my body heat, I got her another blanket.

Even if many of the soldiers were able to take naps between exercises, they had to be getting tired. Late on the fourth day, one of them lost his focus and paid for it.

Hawker appeared on the flight deck wearing nothing but a bikini. One of the men stopped what he was doing and stared openly. Painter came up behind him and pushed the man overboard.

He leaned over the side and shouted, “No distractions! If this was war, you’d be dead!” He turned to Hawker. “Thanks.”

She smiled. “It was no trouble.”

The rest of the men pretended not to notice the exchange and did their best to hide grins. Hawker left the deck and came up to the bridge, still not wearing much. I didn’t know where Nika was or if she was armed, so I kept my eyes away from Hawker.

“Was that prearranged?” I asked.

She nodded. “Mr. Painter talked to me about it yesterday. Honestly, I almost turned him down. Since meeting Andy and the rest of you, I’ve been thinking about a career change.”

“Really?”

“Well, I can’t exactly work when I’m aboard. I’m also beginning to realize that I want something else. Films were fun for a while, but I’d rather do something a bit more challenging.”

“What does Andy think?”

“He wants me to be a pirate like the rest of you.” She laughed.

I tried to imagine Hawker aboard permanently. She’d already spent enough time with us that it wasn’t too much of a stretch. I decided that if she could persuade Nika to let her join, she would have earned it.

Painter told me that a few small boats had been turned away by security personnel while we had been at Aberdeen. I asked if that was unusual.

“Civilians are always stumbling in where you don’t want them. It was probably nothing,” he said.

I wasn’t so sure. It had been a while since the terrorists had come after me. They’d already shown that they could and would attack on U.S. territory. Our little shootouts had happened too often to be random. They obviously had some way of figuring out where I was. I decided to play it safe and assume that I was being tracked.

We stayed in Norfolk for a few days. Andy finally got the nerve to quit his professorship and come join us permanently. Jones wasn’t pleased, but nobody besides her minded.

The boat underwent some routine maintenance. While that was going on, I received a message from Hanley. Stuart had apparently contacted some of his friends, and the SAS had a job for us.

It was nothing dangerous, surprisingly. They wanted to test life jackets and survival gear. I wondered why they couldn’t do that closer to the United Kingdom, but decided not to ask. They were trying to keep the testing secret, obviously. Maybe they were trying to hide some prohibitively expensive equipment from the accountants by testing it far away? Stanger things had happened.

That may also have been why they sent it by ship. A Royal Air Force plane could have had the gear across the ocean in a couple of hours, but instead they packed it into a container.

The shipyard crew rushed to get the maintenance finished in time to meet the ship carrying the container. It would be simple to pull up at the wharf and have the container crane place it on the foredeck. I felt a little bad about making the shipyard mechanics work so hard, though, because the container ship encountered engine trouble and was estimated to arrive two days late.

The shipping company was unapologetic. Pissing off a customer who only wanted one container wouldn’t cost them much money. However, they did let us tie up on the other side of the container yard near the rail terminal.

Even being anchored at Aberdeen with gunfire keeping me awake was better than waiting with nothing to do. The SAS guys hadn’t even arrived yet. Hanley was able to find out for me that they were waiting too, seeing no reason to show up until the container did.

I had gotten rid of most of the things I owned in Norfolk. I didn’t have a house or a car anymore. When I began going a little stir-crazy on the second night, Nika got a rental car and drove me to a nice restaurant. I had heard that the ship was going to be delayed even more, so Nika told the rental agency that we would bring the car back whenever we felt like it.

On the third day, Shep flew Hawker and Andy to New York to some adult film awards ceremony where she was planning to announce her retirement. We needed the helicopter off the deck anyway to make room for the container, which was supposed to be coming soon.

Nika was still wearing her rifle, despite the new ones available and despite the fact that we were in a civilized part of the world. I couldn’t blame her. My pistol was always within reach.

“So, Hawker and Andy will be here on a permanent basis,” she said, as the two of us stood on the bridge.

“Both of them have skills that none of the rest of us have,” I said noncommittally. Nika gave me a look.

“Okay, we’ll pay based on performance. Fair?”

Nika rolled her eyes and headed for the stairs. “I’m going to get something to drink. Do you want anything?” Her head turned back to hear my reply. She didn’t know her foot went over the edge of the top step until she was already falling.

I rushed after Nika, finding her at the bottom of the stairs. She lay on the deck with one leg twisted in an ugly way. The first thing I thought was to ask if she was okay, but I let that idea go. It was obvious that she wasn’t, and with her teeth gritted against the pain she couldn’t answer anyway.

I helped her sit up and shouted for Jones and Jeff. Nika muttered, “Slomanny.” Broken.

I certainly couldn’t disagree. Her leg looked bad. Not as bad as if bones were poking out, but bad enough.

“What happened?” said Jones, arriving just then.

“She tripped.”

“Is there a hospital nearby?”

I knew where there was one. Jeff showed up, and I briefly explained to him what had happened before asking him to watch the boat for a while.

Jones and I helped Nika get up and carried her outside. “Aren’t you medically trained?” I asked the CIA agent.

“I never got my M.D. Besides, if I can’t charge what real doctors do, why should I bother?” She laughed. Nika didn’t.

Jones and I got Nika into the back seat of the rental car. I pulled Nika’s rifle off of her and stowed it under the front passenger seat. No need to scare some hospital people.

There were some railroad tracks we had to cross on our way out of the container yard. Nika swore in Russian at every bump.

We wound up at De Paul Med Center. Business was apparently slow that day, and Nika was admitted to the emergency room as soon as we got her there.

Only a few short minutes later, a doctor came to talk to us. It was a relatively clean break, he said. Nika should be discharged within the day.

“Maybe we should get some surgery equipment,” I said to Jones, while we sat in the waiting room. “In case anything like this ever happens when we aren’t conveniently at home.”

“I suppose you expect me to be the surgeon?”

“You’re better qualified than I am.”

We waited in silence for a few minutes. There were magazines to read, but none that I was interested in. I realized that in our hurry to get Nika to the hospital, I had forgotten my wallet with my driver’s license. Oh well, I would just have to make sure I didn’t get pulled over.

I was thinking about going for a walk, when Jones’s phone rang. She answered it and suddenly sat bolt upright and her eyes widened. “Yes, Canvas’s with me,” she said. “We’re at the hospital. No, it’s close to the boat.”

It seemed like an emergency. I wondered if it was a new job, although I doubted Jones would look so worried if it was.

“Isn’t there anyone else?” she asked. “We aren’t prepared.” She listened. “I understand. We’ll do what we can.” She ended the call and stood up, heading for the door. “Come on!” she called.

I followed her out, running after her towards the car. “A railcar of nuclear waste was just hijacked,” she said. “Hanley says it’s probably Al-Azhem’s guys. They’re going to try and blow it up.” She added, “You know the area better, you drive.”

“How is it that we know this, but we weren’t able to stop it?” I said angrily as I threw the car door open and jumped inside. I jammed the keys in, trying to adjust my body to the human seat.

“The important thing is that we know now,” replied Jones, putting her seat belt on. She told me where we were going. I recognized it as a freight yard used by Norfolk Southern railway.

“How are they going to penetrate the containment flask?” I asked, gunning the car out of the hospital parking lot. “Do you have any idea how tough those things are?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I once saw a video where they put a test flask through an eighty mile per hour crash and it was basically unharmed.”

We were silent for a moment. I ran a stoplight, and several drivers honked at us. “What are we up against?” I asked quietly. “How many bad guys?”

“Hanley didn’t know.”

“Did he at least warn the military? How about the police?”

“I didn’t ask. Look, if we show up and decide that we can’t deal with it on our own, we’ll call someone. You know people in the Navy, right?”

“We don’t have time,” I spat. “How long has it been since they grabbed the flask? How long is it going to take to rig it with explosives?”

“Well, at least low-level waste won’t go off in a nuclear detonation.”

“That’s a minor upside! Between Norfolk, the Navy base, Virginia Beach and everything else around here, there are a million and a half people living within fifty miles. Even if it’s only a dirty bomb, there will still be radioactive cloud blanketing the area.”

I didn’t have time to talk further, because at that moment we came to the rail yard. Without slowing down, I shot the car through the front gate, nearly running over a guard. I had no idea where we would find the flask car, but I thought that it made sense that the terrorists would want to detonate it as close to the military base as possible, so I steered west.

Jones grabbed Nika’s rifle from under the seat and unfolded the stock. I had kept my pistol concealed in the hospital, and I could feel it down, pressing into the car seat. It was a small comfort in a desperate situation.

We raced past rows of train cars, looking for the right one. Beside the rails, I saw two bodies wearing rail worker gear. Apparently that meant that we were on the right track. Wow, what a terrible time for puns.

I spotted a small black locomotive up ahead. It looked like it was usually used for simple jobs in the yard, rather than the bigger engines that pulled trains across the country. Ahead of it, it was pushing a boxcar and a containment flask.

I had the gas pedal jammed on the floor as hard as I could push it. The locomotive was moving out of the yard, heading west. The car was faster, but how long until the explosives went off? We had to stop it as fast as possible.

In the mirror, I saw flashing lights. Police cars, it looked like. They were probably too far away to make a difference. I concentrated on catching up to the train.

Outside the rail yard, the track continued straight. Maybe we weren’t going to the Navy base after all. I suddenly realized that the track was pointed almost directly at where we had left the boat.

I had a hard time believing that they were trying to put me dead-center of this attack, but these guys had surprised me more than once before. I had been a thorn in their side for quite a while.

Outside the yard, there was no room for a car to drive beside the rails. We crashed through a chain link fence and back out onto city streets, surprising several other motorists. I kept my hoof planted on the gas pedal.

We went through the entrance to the container yard. I thought that if we were able to get ahead of the train, we might have a better chance at stopping it.

I spotted the train, and found the tracks it was headed for. We were nearly back to the boat by now, and I could see it off in the distance. If they were planning to blow the flask when they got there, that meant we only had minutes, if that.

There was a switch where one set of rails went off in a different direction. The rails had tight corners in the container yard, and I had seen numerous signs advising locomotive engineers that ten miles per hour was the speed limit. The rails were simply set on the concrete, with little to hold them down.

I screeched the car to a halt and jumped out. There was a lever that allowed the switch to be moved. I grabbed it and changed the switch so the locomotive would be forced to turn instead of going straight. I hoped it was going to be enough.

I ran back to the car just as the train was getting there. Someone on board saw me and fired a few shots. I ducked behind the car. I heard a screech as the locomotive tried to stop, but it wasn’t enough. The two cars upset going around the curve and the locomotive plowed into them, flipping onto its side.

I glanced at Jones, and we stepped out from behind the car, weapons up. I heard a few shouts from behind the overturned locomotive. A man stepped out from around it, raising an assault rifle. He had blood on him, although I couldn’t tell if it was his or from someone injured in the crash.

I was closest and shot him in the upper chest. He went down, and I stepped over to where he had been, facing a second man. He saw me and began firing wildly while ducking behind the cab of the locomotive. A bullet smacked off the pavement and hit me in the hip, turning me sideways. I slumped against the locomotive, managing to keep my gun up. I thought about taking to the air, but decided it would only make me an easier target.

The man took a quick look out from where he was hiding, and Jones fired a short burst at him. I worked my way slowly down the length of the locomotive. Jones was beside me, both of us waiting for the man to show himself again. I don’t know which of us hit him when his face appeared again, but a large chunk of his head was torn off gruesomely.

There was a third man pinned inside the cab of the locomotive. He had apparently been caught in the crash, and lay in a pool of blood. It didn’t look like he could get himself out, and there were no weapons available to him, so we went on.

We found the fourth and last man trying to get the boxcar open. He turned suddenly as we approached and I pistol whipped him, although the mostly plastic Five-seveN didn’t do much. Jones managed to hit him a little harder with the rifle. He dropped to the ground and she aimed the rifle at him.

I managed to make my way to the containment flask. I couldn’t see any obvious signs of tampering. Maybe the explosives were in the boxcar. I called Hanley. I briefly explained to him what had happened and hung up. I called Jeff. “Get the boat moving and get out of here.”

“I heard shooting. Was that you?” he said.

“Yes. Just go, we’ll sort this out later.” Once again, we didn’t want the boat to be found at the scene.

I went to assist Jones in watching the prisoner. Admittedly, I wasn’t much help because I was beginning to lose too much blood. I sat down against the axle of the overturned box car and used my feathers to try and stop the blood.

I heard sirens and the police arrived. Rather than trying to distinguish the bad guys from the good, they disarmed us all and held us at gunpoint. I couldn’t really blame them, as a nuclear disaster had almost happened right under their noses.

It seemed like a long time until the ambulance got there. One of the officers had given me a little bit of help with my wound, and I actually managed to stay lucid all the way to the hospital. Back to the hospital, that is.

After a couple of days, some surgery, and some really knockout painkillers, the police guarding my room left. I assumed that I had been verified as a non-terrorist. After that, people I knew began visiting.

Nika was first. She thumped in on her leg cast. Nobody besides Jones and I knew that she had gone to the hospital, so when they released her she had nowhere to go. Luckily, she had kept a bank box in Norfolk from her FSB days, and had money and credit cards to get by on.

When Shep, Jeff, Andy and Hawker came in, they found Nika in bed with me. No, it wasn’t authorized by the hospital, but she explained that it was easier than finding a hotel room. I thought I detected some embarrassment. We had been a lot closer than when sharing a king-size.

Shep, Hawker, and Andy had flown back from New York without knowing what was going on. It was only a tip from Hanley that had gotten them to the hospital. I told them all to take off for a while. I would call them when I was ready to sail again. They left me some animal crackers.

Jones and Hanley didn’t come for a while. When they arrived, Jones wore a business suit the likes of which I hadn’t seen since we’d first met in Korea.

“I think you had it better than I did,” she said. “I spent three days in solitary confinement before the Agency was finally able to convince Norfolk PD that I wasn’t in on the plot.”

Hanley was still in his wheelchair, and I thought that I actually looked better than he did. The bullet I’d caught had lost most of its energy after bouncing off the concrete, and I had what amounted to just a flesh wound, albeit a deep one. Hanley said that he could move his feet a little, and the doctors called that an encouraging sign.

“So what about the bomb?” I asked.

“The boxcar was loaded with a directed explosive with a kinetic penetrator,” Jones began. “It was pretty powerful and may have actually succeeded in piercing the flask had it detonated.”

“I’ve got to say, Canvas,” added Hanley, “that was an impressive piece of work.”

“Don’t compliment me,” I said. “Buy me a new boat.”

“What’s wrong with the old one?”

“Nothing, but I think it’s pretty clear that you owe me. By the way,” I said to Jones, “what are they giving you? Not only did you manage to not get shot, but you captured a prisoner.”

“We’ll make something of it,” said Hanley, answering for her. “Good PR is always a plus. Think about this: a girl from small-town Oklahoma joins the CIA and single-handedly saves over a million people from radioactive holocaust. The public is going to go nuts over it.”

“Uh, single-handedly?” I asked.

“You’re a private contractor working from a black budget. Technically, you don’t exist.”

“Thanks.”

Hanley checked his watch. “Got to go. Get well soon, Canvas.” He rolled out.

I said to Jones, “So, you’re from Oklahoma?”

She gave me a look and followed Hanley.

I was left alone in the hospital room. Pretty much everyone I knew had come by to say hello. Except Nevis. I doubted I was going to get a visit from him, so I picked up the bedside phone.

I was expecting Chief Stanton, but to my surprise Nevis himself answered. During his change in positions, he had given me a new phone number. It must have been his personal one. I appreciated it.

“You probably heard what happened,” I said.

“Tell it to me from your point of view. This should be interesting.”

I gave him the story, knowing full well that I was probably violating national security. The CIA wanted to make a hero out of Jones, so they would have to tell the public a little of what happened, but I was sure they would conceal just how close we came to a terrorist attack worse than 9/11.

“I might be able to wrangle a new boat out of the CIA,” I said. “Although I’m sure it would help if the Navy was helping to pay some of it.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Nevis.

With some time before they would release me from the hospital, I decided to stop taking my pain pills, or at least as much as I could stand. I figured a little pain would speed up the recovery time by keeping me from accidentally doing something to make the wound worse.

I could walk, although flying was easier. Most of the time I didn’t feel like it, though. I accepted the free wheelchair ride out of the hospital when it came time to leave.

Back on the boat, things seemed almost normal. I had a couple of days to sit and recuperate because the SAS were kind enough to reschedule. I noticed that Andy had painted a silhouette of a train on the side of the bridge.

Nika told me that while I was gone, the CIA had descended on the boat and picked through everything aboard. Inside the lining of my wallet, they had found a tiny beacon. I had forgotten my wallet when we went to the hospital, so whoever was tracking it had thought that I was still on the boat. I realized that when my house had been broken into, the reason that nothing had been taken was because the trespassers had actually been there to leave something.

Andy came to me the day after I got out of the hospital. “Look at this,” he said, handing me an article that he’d printed off a news website.

CIA Agent Awarded for Bravery During Hijacking

The terrifying news last week that a quantity of nuclear waste had been stolen sent shockwaves through National Security agencies across the country. Fortunately, the confusion and panic felt by many did not affect one young woman.

Agent Cassandra Jones of the Central Intelligence Agency led a small team that successfully recaptured the missing nuclear material before any explosives could be rigged to detonate it. During the operation, three terrorists were killed and a fourth was captured.

In a ceremony today, Agent Jones was awarded the Distinguished Intelligence Cross, the CIA’s highest award for heroism. She is one of only a few dozen individuals in history to have received this award.

The Distinguished Intelligence Cross was equivalent to the military’s Medal of Honor. Most of the recipients had been awarded posthumously. Jones was now a bona-fide celebrity and every single person at Langley—not to mention the public—would know who she was.

There was a picture in the article of her with the director of the CIA. She looked a little uncomfortable at all the attention she was getting. I couldn’t blame her. A little fame goes a long way.

We eventually did get around to helping out the SAS. Stuart even dropped by to watch. When they left, Hawker went back to the United Kingdom with them for a while to testify at Herrington’s trial. She came back soon.

In relation to that, the CIA analysts had uncovered links between Greg Silverstone and First Strike. It was hard to say whether Silverstone knew about our connection to the CIA and used it to get us in position to be a target for First Strike, or if the mercenaries had simply gotten lucky. Either way, it was enough to bring Silverstone to the attention of both British and United States law enforcement. If they were unable to locate him, I figured they would probably send us to do it. We owed it to him.

China was still a concern. If they hadn’t known about me before they contacted Rossi, they certainly knew now. They also knew about our boat, as evidenced by the stealth ship that had followed us. Hanley didn’t seem bothered, though, and merely explained that we wouldn’t do any jobs in Chinese waters for a while.

I also worried about any remaining followers of Al-Azhem or members of First Strike. A few well-placed nuts could cause us all kinds of problems, but it was a big world and the odds of running in to any of them again were slim.

We had stayed in Norfolk for a few weeks until General Baxter called us back for another job. Painter and some of his crew came to stay with us, although not as many as before so the helicopter was allowed to remain on deck. In contrast to our comfortable staterooms, the soldiers slept wherever we could find room for them. A few openly displayed envy at our accommodations and relatively relaxed work environment, not to mention higher pay. There are several reasons why it was a pirate’s life for me.

I lay in bed one night with Nika. Once again, she’d cleared out of her room to make space for our guests. She touched the scar on the left side of my hip. The sailboat cutie mark had been demasted and resembled a motorboat now.

“That still hurts a little,” I said.

She took her hand away. “Sorry. I don’t really like seeing you in pain.”

I gestured to the cast on her leg. “The feeling is mutual.”

“Do you know why I like you?” she asked.

“I’m rich and I love to blow things up?”

She smiled. “You’re also decent. I enjoy your company.”

I blinked. This was delving a little further into touchy-feely stuff than I had anticipated. “I suppose I feel the same way about you.”

Nika leaned forward and kissed me on the lips.

“What the ponyfeathers are you doing?”

She drew back quickly. “Sorry.”

I stared at her. “It’s…sudden.”

“You didn’t catch all the hints?” she asked.

“Well, I wasn’t looking for them.”

Nika sighed. “Now it’s going to be awkward all night.” She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

After a few minutes to consider it, I said, “Well, if you were my girlfriend, I wouldn’t have to choose between you and Andy for the title of best friend.”

She looked at me. “You honestly keep track of who is your overall best friend?”

“We all have our flaws. You make passes at ponies.”

We looked at each other for a moment and kissed again, slower this time. It was less awkward after that.

Jones showed on the day we were supposed to sail. She appeared to be wearing the same dark suit from the picture Andy had showed me. She had dark sunglasses, and her hair was pulled back into a businesslike bun. She looked like a CIA agent from a movie.

“I brought my suitcase. I’m ready to go again,” she said.

“I thought your bosses would want to parade you around and get everything they can from the media.”

“I told them that if they wanted to keep me, they would let me pick my own assignment.” She shrugged. “So I came back to the boat.”

“Is this going to be permanent?” I thought again about how we didn’t need her looking over our shoulders.

“I don’t see why not. Things are going to be different this time, though.”

“Oh?”

“I’d like to be more than a guest. I may still get an Agency paycheck, but I want to feel like I belong on this boat.”

I grinned. “So did the intrigue and romanticism of the high seas get to you? You want to be a corsair like the rest of us?”

She rolled her eyes. “Get out of my way.” She strode up the gangplank with her suitcase and disappeared into the superstructure.

I laughed and went to cast off the lines.

The End

Author note: I’m so sorry for that romance. If it’s not your cup of tea, the sequel won’t be for you.