The Arcturus Man (11 page)

He had night sweats. The sheets were damp
every morning.
He saw blood in his urine.
He thought that was from drinking and a
damaged liver. He had to cut down. He had lost a lot of weight in the past few months
and his muscles ached. They ached now. That was probably his liver too. He noticed that
bright red spots had appeared on his palms and soles.
He attributed it to getting older.
Old men always had spots. He was disgusted with himself.

He edged up on his elbow and removed the newspaper flap over the photographs
that were taped to the inside cover of the gun case. The position was uncomfortable. His
back ached so much.
These were pornographic pictures that he had never seen before.
They were more than pornographic.
Pornography began to bore him so his handlers
found something new that would rivet his thoughts. They were cruel and sadistic images
of bondage and sexual humiliation. He found them interesting. He let the images fill his
mind. He fantasized about each photograph.

Rather than becoming excited, he was slowly relaxing. He intended to confuse the
rabbit with images of pornography. He was covering his mental tracks. He knew what
Jared was capable of. Fearing that Jared could sense him, he risked the fantasies causing
his pulse rate to go up, but it was necessary. He could not think about what he was about
to do. He was an excellent sniper and his actions were so automatic now that very little
thought was required.
He lifted himself and brought his eye to the scope.
Jared was in
the cross hairs.
There was a young woman with him.
She looked familiar.
It was the
same M.I.T. student he saw in Rockland. He would have to kill them both now.

There was too much movement.
The boat was rocking under the weight of the
man and woman moving about. He wanted to get his shot but it was too risky. It looked
like they were leaving.
Ivan was upset.
He would have to do this all over again tomorrow. He saw the boat power up and head into the bay. This was terrible. He watched the
boat though his scope. Suddenly, Ziemelis turned into a new heading.
He was actually
getting closer now. What luck!
The boat stopped moving as it got close to the island
across from the boathouse. It made a large arc across the bay and was now actually closer than the boathouse had been. He saw Ziemelis throw out an anchor.
His rabbit was
only 500 meters away. That is exactly the range he had practiced. But was he too close?
Ivan decided that it was not too close. It was fine.

They both climbed back into the big Whaler.
He retrieved the line and pushed
off. The Mercury revved as he turned up the throttle.
He went out into Kennequit bay
and approached Stephen King Island.
The temperature had warmed into the low seventies. It was warmer than usual for late May. The sky was clear and cloudless. There was
virtually no wind and the ocean was calm. He caught a current and opened up the throttle.
The currents were easy to see on a day like this. They were flying. The bow spray
was refreshing. Jenny chatted about how great this was. As they approached a small island, he cut the engine.
He hooked a line from a lobster pot buoy with his gaff and tied
off. The island had a small growth of pine trees, but it was mostly rocky. Jenny spotted a
sea eagle’s nest near the top of one of the pine trees.
It thrilled her and she got Jared to
look at it too. He had seen it before.

Jared opened a tackle box and started to assemble a salt water trolling rig.
He
pulled out wire leader and spinner lures. He snapped on some small lead weights.
“If you’re not in a hurry, do you mind if I get this mud off?” asked Jenny.
“No hurry.”
She kicked off her sneakers and took off her socks and sitting on the edge of the
boat, she dangled her feet in the water to rinse off the blue clay.
Jared had miscalculated badly.
He hadn’t believed that anything would happen
this soon. He didn’t think that Jenny was in danger. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Smolenskiy was out there and he was getting excited.
It would only toke a few hundred milliseconds for the bullet to reach them. At 70
degrees Fahrenheit and low humidity, it required split-second timing.
The bullet would
be traveling faster than sound so he couldn’t rely on hearing it. He had to be a polygraph.
He had to sense the instant the shooter realized that the rifle had discharged. He had very
little time to judge the right moment. He couldn’t act too soon, and certainly not too late.
“
Now
,” he thought.
He grabbed Jenny by the shoulder and roughly pushed her over the side as he
dove forward toward the bow.
The bullet plowed into the water past the boat, quickly
followed by the crack.
She resurfaced.
She was coughing up sea water.
She had to blow her nose and
wipe her face with her hand. She was more than mad. She was fuming!
"What's wrong with you?
Do you think this is funny?" She coughed and sputtered. "Grow up, Jared."
She was treading water near the boat.

Smolenskiy refused to believe the testimony of is own eyes. His case officer had
clearly underestimated Jared. He had already warned his handler about Jared. Maybe he
was too close. He knew he should have relied on his own assessment.
He could have
killed Ziemelis at the restaurant. Why didn't he?
The downside of being a good officer
was the necessity of obeying one's superiors.

"Superiors?"
Sami was a fat, self-indulgent swine.
The pornography was supposed to block Jared, or at least confuse him.
Great minds made that determination.
Great lazy fat minds. A Bulgarian Jew!

Next time he will do everything his own way. He packed up and slowly started to
walk back to his car in the clearing.
He turned back.
He had forgotten his fishing pole.
He grabbed it, snapped the hook on the spool, and walked toward the clearing.
He took
his time like it was a Sunday stroll in the park. He even whistled part of the way. There
is always a good side to everything. His hunt wasn’t over. He liked to hunt.

Jared fixed a forced wide grin on his face and held it as long as he could.
It
worked. A few seconds later Jenny started to laugh.
He had to get her to quickly focus on something else.
"It was a sophomoric impulse I just couldn't resist. Sorry! Now you better get into the boat. The bay is teeming with sharks."
"Really?
So this is how you treat women.
You throw them into shark infested
waters to make room for the next one." She said it with an angry smile. She climbed into
the boat with his help.
Jeez, they’re only blues…you know, Bluedogs around here. They don’t like humans that much,” said Jenny.
“Really? A great white attacked a dozen or so survivors of a Canadian air force
plane that came down in this bay, just about two thousand yards past the island.
They
were in a life raft at the time.”
He couldn't salvage the moment.
He was talking really
stupid.
“Yea. I read about it in the
National Geographic
,” she said.
“Can you untie us from the buoy?” asked Jared.
“Just don’t pull the buoy too far
out of the water. These lobstermen get really pissed when you do that. I’ve known them
to watch boats from a hilltop with a spy glass while holding a deer rifle in their laps.”
“You don’t say,” as she started pulling the buoy line up.
“Feels like the traps
full." She feigned pulling up the line.
“Can we please untie? We need to troll now,” said Jared.
She didn't ask again. He watched as she untied.
Her wet thin blue blouse looked
like it was painted on her body.
He pulled a large bath towel out of a storage compartment. “Here. The water is really cold.”
“Absolutely freezing,” she said. She started to towel herself off.
Jenny wrapped the towel around her, gathered it in one hand and slipped out of all
her clothes with the other. She hung her clothes over the stern so they could dry in the
sun.
“I don’t think it will take that long for your clothes to dry.
The sun is pretty intense today,” he said.
It was an awkward moment.
He sensed her discomfort. He could do something
about that. He could create equilibrium.
He stood up and kicked off his sneakers and took off his Khaki shorts. He jumped
in the water head first. The white jockeys were in sharp contrast to his tanned body. He
had a great build.
Not beefy.
Just perfect muscle tone. She noticed that yesterday but
there was more of him to see this time.
He was breathtaking to watch, she thought. He dove and porpoised almost out of
the water. It was plain to see to Jenny that he was having fun. He was so serious most of
the time. Now he was playing.
He swam with long gliding strokes. She had never seen anyone swim so fast, but
of course she had never really seen any great swimmers except on television.
She
couldn’t really judge, but it was clear that he was a great swimmer. He was a good twenty meters out, dove, and popped up again almost at the boat. Effortlessly, he came up
over the side. She handed him a new towel. He wasn’t shivering at all. She had warmed
up quite a bit, but still felt a tad chilled.
“That was invigorating,” he said.
She drew the towel tighter around her and smiled. Jared saw it as an invitation.
Whether it was or was not became irrelevant. He pulled her close and kissed her. He was
still wet so it was a strange feeling for Jenny. It was pure impulse now.
“
Wet was very, very intimate
, “she thought.
She put her tongue in his mouth.
Jared had never French kissed before.
It was
exciting.
It was something new. It was so intimate.
He liked it. He explored her mouth
with his tongue. He hadn’t realized that a woman had a taste. He liked that too. It was a
long kiss. They explored one another’s bodies.
He ran his hand down her back. They
dropped to the deck.
He reached around and pulled another blanket out and spread it.
Jenny was breathing very fast and was much more aggressive in their love making
than Jared. For the first time in Jared’s life, he wasn’t controlling the moment. That was
thrilling but it kept him off balance. She coaxed his mouth to her breasts. Her hard nipples were salty in his mouth. He could taste the sea. He gently stroked the tender skin on
her inner thighs with his nails, slowly working his way closer. She responded immediately. She wanted him. Now!
“Do you have a condom?” she barely whispered.
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t think…” The spell was broken.
She bolted up, releasing him.
“We can’t. You know, it’s just too risky these days.
I’m sure you’re OK, but
we’ll both be thinking about it later.”
“You don’t have to worry about me. Honest!” he said. He tried to pull her down
again.
“No Jared, we can’t,” she said.
He thought about taking the decision away from her, but he relented. He didn’t
want to drive her away.
“I’m really sorry, Jenny.”
“It’s nothing to be sorry about,” she answered. “I suppose that I actually like the
fact that you don’t keep them around the house in candy dishes.”
She pulled the towel up from the deck and wrapped herself in it.
"Truth! I feel really mortified right now," she said. She looked away.
She now felt very exposed. They dressed quickly.
Her things were still very
damp, but it ceased to matter.
He didn’t know how to restart a conversation.
He wanted to say something tender, perhaps loving, but he felt that he had let her down. Again, he felt out of control. He
wasn’t accustomed to that and knew he was handling things badly.
She didn’t bother putting her blouse on. It was sopping wet.
“I haven’t seen a soul out here all day.
You've seen everything there is to see. It
is a little late to act shy.”
She grinned. “The lobsterman with the spy glass can get a coronary for all I care.”
“
She was wonderful
,” he thought.
“What about dinner?” Jenny asked.
“Right. Dinner. Can you actually untie the buoy this time?” asked Jared.
“Yes, Captain,” said Jenny.
He started the engine and they began to troll.
They still had a couple hours of
sunlight before it would get begin to get cool.
“Old man Sevigny was one of those lobsterman I was telling you about,” he said
“Yes, I remember you telling me about him."
She suddenly remembered.
"Was
that a shot I heard?"
"Probably. People are shooting around here all of the time. It doesn't have to be
hunting season."
He wanted her to focus on his story, not the shot.
“Sevigny was the only real friend I had around here. You know how long it takes
for Down Easterners to accept you, but he wasn’t like that at all.”
“Did he actually ever shoot anyone?” She asked.
“Well…the story is that he did. The courts around here are pretty understanding
when it come to lobster rustling, but that could just be local lore to scare off would-be
rustlers.
Knowing Sevigny, I doubt that it is true, but I know he wanted people to think
that it was.”
“How did you meet him? I know you bought the island from him.”
“I liked the culture Maine was famous for, namely that people here don’t ask a lot
of personal questions, unlike the Boston area. So I moved up here after I left Cambridge.
I fished in this bay and used to tie off on Sevigny’s lobster pot buoys.
One time when I
rowed ashore—he used to rent me a boat for two dollars a day—I asked him how to keep
the blue sharks away from my live bait. He said I shouldn’t. He claimed that there were
two shark filet mignons on each side of the dorsal that were ‘
scrumptious eatin’
. (He did
his Maine accent again.)
I normally cut the line when a shark hits it, but this time I
played him.
I finally had to beach the boat and haul him to the beach as a hand line.
It
was only a four foot blue shark, maybe five, but I couldn’t kill it. It was sunset before he
finally met his maker and stopped snapping.”
“So, how was it?”
“Sure enough, I found the rolls of meat on each side of the dorsal. I started a fire
and fried them in a cast iron skillet. It was the worst tasting thing I had ever eaten. It was
nothing but gristle.
I couldn’t see him, but I was sure he was sitting up on the hill and
watching me through his spy glass, laughing his freaking head off. I was camping on his
land.
The next morning he walked down to my camp site and he gave me that damn
‘
Mornin, young fella
,’ snickered, and walked off before I could say anything.”
“Where is he now?”
“He died.
I don’t go to funerals generally; it’s a barbaric custom, but I did go to
his. He was a good friend for the few years we knew one another. I guessed that he was
in his nineties, but with the wrinkled leather-faced look these lobstermen get, you can’t
ever be certain of their age.”
“I’m sorry I never got a chance to meet him. Sounds like he was a nice man.”
That was rhetorical again, so he didn’t feel obligated to respond.
“
Good
,” he thought. “
Things are getting back to normal
.”
They were both quiet for a time. She liked being topless in the sun, but had never
been topless with a man for this long and never outdoors. This was something Krissy
would do, but not her. She surprised herself how comfortable she felt with Jared. She
hadn’t missed that his eyes went to her boobs from time to time, but how horrible it
would be if he wasn’t interested in looking at her. This time she liked that he liked looking at her. It was a good and not at all an uncomfortable feeling. She felt a hint of arousal
again thinking about him, but decided, wisely, to wait until they got back to the house, if
at all.
He cast behind the boat and slowed the engine to a troll. It wasn’t a few minutes
before he got a strike. He knew it was a mackerel from the way it hit the lure. He reeled
it in. It was a beauty. It was silvery and iridescent. It was enough for two.
“Mackerel,” said Jenny.
“Actually, Spanish mackerel. One of my favorites.
This is the second one I’ve
caught recently. It’s really odd that they’re this far north.
Thank you global warming. I
like cod better, but we would have had to go pretty far out to find cod. I also don’t think
you would have enjoyed picking out the horsehair worms.”
She knew what horsehair worms were. “You’re right. I wouldn’t.”
He cleaned the mackerel and cut off the head. He took some bacon and put it inside the slit in the mackerel’s belly. He threw the guts into the bay. They could both see
something flashing below the boat.
“Bluedogs,” said Jenny.
Jared glanzed around.
He was certain that Smolenskiy was gone.
It was safe, at
least for the time being. He throttled up and drove over to a mud flat near the island. He
beached the boat and walked over to a clay hill. He scooped out the blue Maine mud and
covered the mackerel with the clay until it was entirely encased.
She smiled. "You made a giant fish mud pie with your own hands. I am so proud
of you."
He smiled back at her, looking over his shoulder.
“Just wait,” he said.
He pushed the boat off the flats and brought it to other side of the island.
He
threw a grappling hook over a large rock and pulled the boat close.
The waves were
small so he didn’t think that the boat would take a beating, but he nevertheless dropped
an old tire down between the boat and the boulders.
They climbed out.
He sensed the moment.
There wasn't anyone near who had any interest in either
of them. He was sure it was safe. He still couldn’t sense Smolenskiy. He was definitely
gone. He asked Jenny to gather some dry drift wood.
Storms had washed drift wood up
onto the boulders and the sun had baked it dry.
There was plenty.
He started a fire and
Jenny fed it with the wood she found.
She loved it.
After the fire had been going for a
while, he dropped the mud-encased mackerel into the embers.
“Oh boy.
And later we get to eat that, right?”
She was tickled about her mud
jokes.
“Just Wait,” said Jared. “
She was funny
.”
“Can you help me set up?”
He threw her a blanket.
She spread it out on a very
large, flat boulder.
her a St. Pauli Girl.
He brought over the beer cooler. He opened the bottle cap and gave
She didn’t ask for a glass. Next, he brought over the hot food. She
helped him set it out. He climbed back in the boat and found dinnerware and napkins in
another storage compartment.
“Wow, the food is still hot.”
The air was cooling slowly as the sun was setting.
Now that it was dry, she put her blouse back on. Jared was disappointed. She opened a
beer for him. They talked for a while.
Later, he pulled the mackerel out of the fire.
He cracked it open.
It neatly split
into two halves. The blue clay had baked as hard as a dinner plate. The skin of the mackerel stuck to the sides and when he pulled the mackerel off, two perfect filets came up.
Jenny was amazed. No bones. No skins. Just perfect mackerel filets.
The bacon grease
was gleaming on each serving.
“Now that is a neat trick,” she said.
“Let’s eat.”
“
This is a very cool guy
,” she
thought to herself.
They ate slowly.
They talked.
Later, as the air cooled, he pulled a blanket over
their shoulders and they sat quietly for a time watching the flames.
She took it all in.
The sound of the waves hitting the rocks was soothing. It was a glorious sunset. The sun
was almost gone. The moon was already up and some of the stars were appearing. Night
skies in Maine are phenomenal.
It was nothing like Boston.
There was no night glow
from cities. You could see the entire Milky Way. The fire was still crackling and gave
their part of this little island a golden glow.
The bay was shimmering as the waves reflected the light from the fire and the setting sun. Distant lights on the far shore were
flickering. It was a perfect moment for Jenny.
They held each other and kissed again—
slowly and for a long time. She knew she was in love.
For the first time in his life, Jared was truly happy. They went back to the house
and made love until well after midnight.