Savage Bay (4 page)

Hawkeye was abruptly interrupted by the pilot’s voice over the COM system.

“Ladies and gentleman, we are now entering our final approach. I hope you’ve enjoyed the flight. On behalf of Titan Global, I’d like to welcome you to the
Alamiranta
and thank you for flying with us. Now get the hell out of my chopper so I can go do some real work.”

OFF THE COAST OF ANDALUSIA, SPAIN

Cruz peered intently out the window. As the stealth helicopter neared the
Alamiranta
, the helipad on the top deck of the ship seemed to grow smaller and smaller. Rough seas rocked the ship, and the helipad swayed back and forth beneath them. Deckhands swarmed over the top deck, preparing the helipad for their arrival.

Cruz leaned forward to speak to the pilot.

“You’ve done this before, right?” she asked.

“Nope. First time for everything,” said the pilot with a straight face.

“What?”

“No worries,” he said. “Even Hawkeye could probably make this approach.”

Hawkeye grinned. “Maybe next time. How about you take this one.”

The pilot maneuvered the stealth helicopter directly over the
Alamiranta
. He spoke into his headset to the deck crew below. The helipad seemed to be in constant motion as the helicopter lurched from side to side in the strong winds.  

“Ready?” asked the pilot.

“I’m not so sure about this,” Cruz said. There was a cold knot in her stomach.

“Hold on to your lunch,” warned Hawkeye.

With a stomach-churning lurch, the stealth helicopter dropped like a stone toward the helipad. The pilot struggled with the controls as driving winds beat against the side of the helicopter.

“You can’t land in this!” Cruz yelled to the pilot.

A strong gust caught the helicopter, causing it to lean violently to one side. The helipad moved in the opposite direction as the
Alamiranta
reached the trough of a passing swell. The pilot clenched his teeth.

“Pull up!” Cruz yelled. “Pull up!”

Hawkeye smacked Cruz’s headset with the flat of his hand. The pilot gripped the stick with both hands and leaned to one side. Slowly, he forced the helicopter back toward the swaying helipad.

“He doesn’t intend to land,” said Hawkeye.

The pilot pulled back on the yoke and the helicopter dropped to within ten meters of the helipad. A burst of static thundered in their headsets.

“Now,” said the pilot.

Hawkeye unclipped his safety belt and pushed open the side door. The wind roared through the opening.

“Jump,” Hawkeye said calmly to Cruz.  

“What?”

“Jump!” yelled Hawkeye. “We can’t land in these conditions!”

Cruz vehemently shook her head. “No way!  We’re ten meters off the deck!”

“Just watch me,” he said calmly. Hawkeye stood at the edge of the opening. “Remember to flex your knees to take the impact,” he said.

Before Cruz could protest, Hawkeye jumped.

Cruz shot up from her seat and peered out the opening, holding onto the doorway with both hands.

Hawkeye dropped to the deck below, landing in a crouch. Deckhands darted forward and clipped a safety belt to his waist. Hawkeye turned and looked up toward the helicopter.

“Go!” he yelled to Cruz. “Your turn!”

Another gust of wind ripped through the opening. The helicopter jerked to one side. Cruz staggered and threw out a hand to brace herself.

Another burst of static crackled in Cruz’s headset.

“The man said jump,” ordered the pilot.

“This is crazy!” yelled Cruz.

The helicopter’s rotors thumped overhead. Cruz watched the helipad pitch back and forth beneath her feet. Her hair whipped against her cheeks in the wind. She could taste the salt spray in her mouth.

This is crazy.

Hawkeye grinned up at Cruz from the deck below. The helicopter again lurched to one side before righting itself in the fierce winds.

This is crazy.

Cruz jumped.

ELEVEN METERS ABOVE THE ALAMIRANTA

The rotors of the helicopter thumped above her head, and the wind whipped at her clothes as Cruz fell. She landed on the helipad with both feet and bent her knees to absorb the shock.

It didn’t help.

Cruz lost her balance and fell backward, landing hard on her backside on the deck. The
Alamiranta’s
deckhands rushed over and cinched a safety belt around her waist. It was attached to a safety cable that ran along the edge of the helipad.

Hawkeye signaled to the pilot, giving him a thumbs-up.

Cruz gave him the finger.

The pilot returned the gesture and the stealth helicopter lifted away from the deck, rising up into the sky.

Cruz raised a hand to Hawkeye, gesturing for his assistance to help her rise to her feet. Hawkeye sighed, reached down, gripped Cruz’s left hand, and pulled her up.

When Cruz had regained her footing, she squinted at Hawkeye. She balled up her right fist. Then she punched him square in the jaw as hard as she could.

Hawkeye’s head snapped back as the haymaker connected with the side of his face. It was like a frame-by-frame replay of the
Zapruder
film capturing the shot that killed JFK.

Back and to the right.

Back and to the right.

Hawkeye shuffle-stepped backward, but didn’t lose his footing. He glared at Cruz. Anger boiled in his eyes.

He took a deep breath.

“I’m going to give you that one,” he said, holding up a finger. “One.”

Hawkeye rubbed his jaw.

“But you do that again, I’ll lay you out. Understand?”

Cruz grinned at him. She just couldn’t help it.

“You should have seen the look on your face,” she said.

Hawkeye tried to maintain a hold on his angry expression, but it quickly crumbled. He smiled in spite of himself. He worked his jaw from side to side.

“Not a bad shot, actually.” 

Cruz’s right hand was on fire. She hoped to God she hadn’t broken any bones.

“How’s the hand?” asked Hawkeye, as if sensing her thoughts.

“It hurts,” she said. “A lot.”

Cruz flexed her fingers and grimaced at the resulting pain.

  “Come on, Rocky,” Hawkeye said. “The clock’s ticking. Let’s move.”

.  .  .

David Denton, known to most everyone by his nickname, Quiz, was fourteen years old when he first realized that his best friend was a dead man. In fact, Quiz’s closest friend had slumbered in a cold grave, six feet beneath the ground, for over six hundred years before Quiz first made his acquaintance.

As a child, Quiz was often left unattended within the sprawling family estate known as Whittington Manor. His grandmother, Mary Whittington, was the matriarch of the family, and she held firmly with the Victorian view that children should be seen and not heard. And to Grandmother Whittington, even being seen was not a particularly endearing trait for a child.

Ignored most of the time by the senior members of the Whittington clan and the cadre of servants who attended the family, Quiz was often left alone to derive his own entertainments. His first attempts at self-amusement were spectacularly unsuccessful. Following a series of pranks on the upstairs maid and an unfortunate incident with the family cat, Quiz’s grandmother presented him with a row of angry, reddish-purple welts on his backside courtesy of a thick leather belt. This punishment rendered the act of sitting most unpleasant for the better part of a week.

Quiz then wisely turned his attention to more solitary pursuits. By the time he was ten, Quiz was well on his way to reading every book on the north wall of his grandfather’s expansive library. It was a dusty, seldom-used study, and Quiz had free reign to enjoy its hidden treasures. From the few intelligible bits of speech Quiz was able pluck from the muffled adult conversations that leaked through his bedroom walls after dark, Quiz discerned that his grandfather apparently suffered from a malady of the mind. Grandmother Whittington kept her husband confined most of the time to a suite of rooms in the east wing of the manor.

For his own benefit, of course.

With Quiz’s grandfather absent, Quiz assumed ownership of his library by adverse possession. Having read more works of literature by age ten than most adults read in a lifetime, he had unwittingly given himself a first-rate classical education.

On Quiz’s fourteenth birthday, he discovered a worn copy of Dante Alighieri’s
Divine Comedy
on the top tier of the walnut bookshelves. Flipping through the pages, his mind was quickly captured by Dante's prose and the graphic illustrations sprinkled throughout the volume.

Quiz took the book to his hiding spot in a small closet beneath a stairway. There, in that dark place, Dante told him fantastic tales of his voyage to the underworld. By the questionable light of a fat candle, Quiz devoured the text of the epic poem, riding with Dante across the river Acheron in a boat piloted by Charon the Ferryman. Dante whispered in his ear as they descended into the Nine Circles of Hell.  

Dante had been Quiz’s constant companion since he first opened the pages of the
Divine Comedy
; he was a strong, invisible presence in Quiz’s life. He often hovered, unseen, behind his left shoulder. Sometimes he floated overhead, loitering in a quiet corner near the ceiling.

Usually, the dead poet just observed.

But sometimes Dante voiced an opinion, speaking softly in his native Tuscan dialect, directly in the center of Quiz’s mind.

Quiz was much older now, and perhaps wiser, than he was the day Dante Aligheiri became part of his waking reality. Grandmother Whittington passed on many years ago. Ironically, Quiz’s grandfather still haunts Whittington Manor, and is no longer confined to his rooms in the east wing. Quiz hasn't seen him in years.

Quiz sometimes misses his grandmother.

He’s not sure why.

Quiz lost others too. Others much more dear. Long before Catherine Caine assumed a maternal role in Quiz’s life, his biological parents were killed in a home invasion robbery. They departed this life when Quiz was only six.

Although years have passed, Dante still hovers near Quiz, still offering an occasional observation.  

And so Quiz sat alone, on the anniversary of his parent’s death, in a crowd gathered at St. Patrick’s Chapel aboard the
Alamiranta
. He fidgeted in his seat, drawing a stern look from an older woman seated beside him.

Quiz’s suit jacket was hot.

The pew was hard and uncomfortable.

The odor of incense was unpleasant in his nose.

And Bishop O’Leary, presiding over the memorial mass, was speaking Latin.

Quiz hated Latin.

* Why are we here? *

Quiz ignored Dante's query spoken directly inside Quiz’s mind and instead cast restless glances around the chapel. Light passing through the stained-glass windows threw bands of color on the floor. In the pew in front of Quiz, a young boy twisted in his seat and peered over the back of the pew. His facial features bore the unmistakable signs of Down’s Syndrome.

Quiz retrieved a hymnal and opened it. Then he smiled at the boy in the next row. The boy grinned back.

* I asked why we are here. *

"Not now," Quiz said to Dante.

The older woman seated next to Quiz shushed him with a crooked finger pressed against her lips. Quiz briefly considered smacking her in the ear with his hymnal. Deciding against it, Quiz reminded himself for the millionth time not to speak out loud when responding to Dante.

An attractive young woman in black watched Quiz interact with the boy. Her gaze was both admiring and lustful.

* For the love of God, will you please tell me why we are here. *

Because my parents are dead. And this is what people do to honor their deceased loved ones.

I am sorry. *

The attractive woman stood and moved to take a seat next to Quiz on the pew. Her hair was short and blond, and her muscular body was lean and firm. Her tight black top revealed an ample chest and prodigious cleavage.

“Hi Quiz.”

“Hey, DJ,” said Quiz to the communications operative. “How are you?” 

A former German special-ops commando, DJ was as deadly as she was beautiful. “Okay. And you?”

“Same ole, same ole.” 

For the life of me, I will never understand why you flirt

with women. *

It’s fun — and it’s that simple.   

Very well. She does have certain interesting skills? *

That she does. Your vocabulary is improving. Or at least it isn’t still stuck in the fourteenth century.

Quiz smiled. Working with DJ in the Ops Center was a distraction, but of the pleasant variety, to be sure.