Thomas Prescott Superpack (58 page)

After each beating, Harold rose to his feet.
 

Elizabeth was clawing at her father, yelling for him to stop.
Mr. King dropped the baton and spit on Harold. Then he turned to his Elizabeth and spit on her.

He said, “You’re no daughter of mine.”

I was standing over Harold now.

I said, “He let her go?”

He nodded. “I woke up with her in my arms the next morning.”

I was smiling so hard my lips were beginning to cramp.

I asked, “Why didn’t you hit him back?”

“He wasn’t worth it.”

I nodded.
“So, did you two get married?”

 
“Yep. A month later.”

He was quiet for a moment, then said, “She got pregnant soon after.”

Two minutes went by.

I saw a single tear run behind his glasses.

He said, “She died giving birth.”

The air was sucked out of me. I sat down next to him.

“Died giving birth to our little girl.”

I exhaled deeply.

He looked at me and said, “Her name was Lilly.”

I smiled. Lilly was my mother’s name.

“Lilly Humphries.
She was beautiful. I kept her for three months, but every time I looked at her, held her, I was reminded of Elizabeth. I relived the nightmare over and over. I couldn’t do it. The Korean War was just getting under way. I re-enlisted and gave Lilly up for adoption.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“When I got back three years later, I was still devastated. I met a girl, Lynn, whom I fell in love with. Not the same love I felt for Elizabeth, but a love nonetheless. I went to work for Boeing again. We started a family. Had three beautiful kids.”

“What about Lilly?
Did you every find out what happened to her?”

“After my kids had grown up and left, I paid one of
the those companies to track her down. She’d taken her adoptive parents’ last name. Hiller.”

“Lilly
Hiller
?” My voice cracked.

He nodded.

I gulped.

“She married a man and had children.
One boy and one girl.”

My brain was going a million miles an hour.

I asked, “Did you ever contact any of them?”

“Not until very recently. But I did send them birthday cards each year.”

I took a deep breath.

Harold hiked up his pant leg. He once again stuck his hand in his sock and pulled out a yellow piece of paper. It was a newspaper clipping. He handed it to me.

I unfolded it and read the headline.
“Jet Crashes in the North Sierras.”

I had the very same clipping in a box in my closet in Maine.
The box also held thirty-three birthday cards from an anonymous sender.

Author’s Note

So, a couple of years ago I was Googling this and that when I (not sure how) stumbled on a bunch of anti-wolf legislation. Three books, a DVD, and a wolf bobblehead later, and
Gray Matter
was born. The anti-wolf bill in the book is real. The real bill, House Bill SB 5740, was introduced on 2/10/03 and would prohibit the introduction of the gray wolf anywhere within the state of Washington. It died in committee on 3/26/03.

Here are some other examples of anti-wolf legislation:

Waushara County, Wisconsin (2005) - Bill “deplores and condemns” state and federal agencies to relocate wolves into the county.

Moffat County, Colorado (2004) - Bill opposes the reintroduction of wolves.

Carbon County, Wyoming (2003) - Resolution uses state authority to establish predatory animal control to protect livestock.

Wheatland County, Montana (2003) - Resolution prohibits “the presence, introduction or reintroduction of wolves” in the county.

Sublette County, Wyoming (2002) - Bill passed determining gray wolves “economically and socially unacceptable species in Sublette County.”

Fremont County, Wyoming (2002) - Resolution 2002-05 prohibits the presence, introduction or reintroduction of wolves within Fremont County.

Siskiyou County, California (2002) - Bill 01-231 opposes the introduction or reintroduction of unacceptable species that are predatory and harmful to man and to livestock, into Siskiyou County.

Grant County, New Mexico (2000) - The Grant County Commission adopts a resolution to “prohibit” the release of wolves with a history of cattle depredation into the southwestern New Mexico county.

Next up is
The Afrikaans
. It’s my favorite. Enjoy!

Nick

THE AFRIKAANS

nickthriller.com

“Where there is a sea, there are pirates.”

—Greek Proverb

“They should have picked a different ship.”

—Thomas Prescott

DECK 6

5:58
a.m.

There weren’t many people about, but then again, it wasn’t yet six in the morning. However, there was a couple just off to my right. The woman was resting her elbows on the ship’s sleek oak railing, squinting at the brightening horizon. Her hair was braided with a bunch of multi-colored beads and she had donned an unflattering tie-dye dress, a purple sarong around her waist, and lime-green flip-flop sandals. It looked like a rainbow had thrown up on her. The man next to her, as if to compensate for his wife’s loud
outfit, was dressed in a whisper. White T-shirt feeding into XXL equally white Bermuda shorts. He appeared slightly less enthusiastic about being wrestled from a Mai Tai and lobster tail induced coma to watch the sun rise above the glistening sea.

The Campers, like many of their brethren on the
Afrikaans
,
reeked of overfed, over-indulged Americans and initially, I’d guessed they hailed from somewhere in the Midwest. Wisconsin or Iowa. Somewhere with a prevalence for quality cheddar. In fact, they were from New Mexico.

Susie Camper took a large bite of
danish—something red in the middle—wrestled it down, and asked, “Where’s your better-half?”

“I couldn’t shake her out of bed.”

Frank gave me a look I decoded as, “Exactly where I should be right now.”

On the subject of my seafaring cohort, when I was initially given the 11-day African cruise, my better half had been my then-girlfriend Erica Frost. But sadly, a month earlier the two of us had gotten into an argument over which Tom Hanks movie we liked best. She’d said hers was a toss-up between
Philadelphia
and
Forrest Gump
. I’d said
Joe Versus the Volcano
. A big fight ensued and two days later relationship 7b was all but over.

There had been just enough advanced notice to make the necessary changes and I’d found a replacement at the eleventh hour. Her name was Lacy. Dirty blond hair, ice-blue eyes. A body shaped by hours in the pool. By most people’s standards a total babe. Who just happened to be my
sister.

Anyhow, this was day six of the aforementioned 11-day cruise aboard the
Afrikaans
. Our first port of call had been Mombasa, Kenya and we spent two days exploring the local wildlife preserves. On day two, Lacy and I had been in the same safari jeep as Frank and Susie Camper. Frank and I drank beers and talked about guy stuff, you know, cars, guns, Carmen Electra, while Lacy and Susie gushed over the small critters and swapped medical histories; Susie battling Type-2 diabetes and my sister Multiple Sclerosis.

The only downside to the experience was that we’d been stuck in the same Jeep with a couple from Georgia, Gilroy and Trinity. I think their names said it all.

If my memory serves me correctly, Trinity had said in her high-pitched southern drawl, “That little baby hyena is just precious.”

To which Gilroy had responded, “Would you like me to buy you a baby hyena
baby
?”

Barf-o-rama.

Day three brought us to Zanzibar, Tanzania where the four of us rented a Jeep for the day and drove to a series of small huts along the coast, drinking local beers, sampling the various local cuisines, and trying to avoid the local primates’ feces grenades.

After a day at sea, then a quick stop in Mozambique, we spent yesterday at sea as the
Afrikaans
began its three-day voyage south to the first port of call in South Africa; Richard’s Bay. We would then make stops at Durban, Port Elizabeth, and finally spend the last two days in Cape Town. Susie and Lacy had scoured several different brochures from each of these stops and I was certain Frank and I had our days booked solid.

But back to the present.

As the horizon began to lighten further, I noticed a solitary man thirty yards to my left. In the soft glow resonating from the cabin lights, the man’s skin shone a midnight black. That the man was alone was not an oddity. I mean, here I was by myself. I was within relative close proximity to my fat friends, but I had come out here alone. But the fact that I hadn’t seen the man before
was
odd.

I should mention that the
Oceanic Afrikaans
was a small luxury cruise liner, which according to Susie was home to 208 guests, mostly American, with the occasional European or Australian thrown in the mix.

The point I’m driving at here is that the
Afrikaans
was an intimate setting and over the course of the past week I had had a conversation with, said hi to, or at the very least, taken notice of every guest on the ship.

That was, until now.

There was a slim chance the man was part of the 164 person crew—which was multinational and according to the county of origin listed underneath each crew member’s badge, had more countries represented than the last Olympics—but I’d encountered most of those people as well, and I would have recognized this guy. For one, he wasn’t South American black or Caribbean black, as were most of the black crew-members. He was African black, which was the single continent the HR department of the
Oceanic Afrikaans
had neglected when hiring for their “African” cruise. This
should not
have mattered. But again, it did. And second, the man’s left ear appeared to have been badly burned, melted down to a small asymmetrical mass.

The man was dressed in khaki slacks with an accompanying white button down. A bit overdressed seeing as how it was already a baking 78 degrees. But, then again, he could easily be used to 120-degree heat in the shade. Or wherever they go to hide from the lions. All sweeping generalizations aside, he had one of those cheap black watches on his wrist, a Casio or a Timex, and he’d checked it six times in the three minutes since he’d arrived.

Because I’m one of the friendliest people on the planet, I yelled at him, “Don’t worry, it’s coming.”

Actually, I’m not that friendly, but this lone man leaning against the railing looking repeatedly at his watch was making the hair on my arms stand on end, and I wanted to see how he would react. I was probably just being paranoid. Which, I should point out, I am
very
good at.

The African man glanced in my direction but said nothing.

I prodded, “The sun. Don’t worry, it’s coming. It’s one of the few things that never disappoints.”

He made no reaction and I figured I might as well be speaking Latin. What matters is that I wasn’t speaking Swahili, or Zulu, or one of those other African languages that sound like someone is trying to purge their Adam’s apple.

I turned my gaze back to the horizon. A soft halo of red had begun to form over the silent water. It quickly turned into a ring of pink, as if Saturn were rising from the ocean. In the soft light, I noticed three small boats. They were miles away, looking like three buoys drifting in tight formation. Fishing was a billion dollar industry in South Africa, but I couldn’t help wondering why these tiny boats were so far out to sea.

Over the course of the next three minutes the sun rose to its full form and the day officially began. More importantly, the lone black man stopped looking at his watch and appeared to relax. And most importantly, the fishing boats appeared even farther away than they had minutes earlier.

“Would you like to hit the buffet with us?” Susie Camper asked, turning in my direction.

“Now that’s more like it,” Frank Camper added, turning his frown upside down.

I laughed and told them it was a little too early for breakfast. What I didn’t tell them was that it was a little too early for me to watch them gorge themselves on plates stacked high with eggs benedict, bacon, sausage, ham, and various other HDL clogging delights. Then head back for seconds, thirds, and fourths. I mean Frank was a great guy, but his blood was probably doing the steeplechase in his veins as we speak.

I was more of a
Honey Nut Cheerios
, grapefruit half, apple juice guy myself. With the occasional
Chocolate Chip
Eggo
thrown in the mix. At 34, I was feeling the aches and pains most people feel in their 50’s. But, then again, I’d been running six miles every day for the better part of my life, been shot twice, fallen off a cliff into the Atlantic ocean, collapsed a lung, and most recently been attacked by a pack of wolves. I didn’t need to add bacon to that list.

As the Campers departed, I watched as Susie grabbed a big chunk of Frank’s left buttock and he draped his large, rotund arm over her shoulder. That, my friends, was close to five hundred pounds of true love. This got me thinking about my love life. My last three relationships hadn’t exactly ended in disaster. Okay, two of three had, but the last one was pretty good. And, had she not blamed me for getting waffle crumbs in the butter, or blamed me for repeatedly getting water on the bathroom floor, we still might be together. Of course I was to blame for these things. But some things, for instance the movie sucking, or my not being able to call her when I didn’t have cell service, or the plight of the polar bear, I was not to blame.

A light beeping broke my reverie.

I glanced to my left. It had been the man’s watch alarm. His small black Casio. It beeped once more. The man looked at his watch, then peered over the railing at the rippling water below. Almost as if he were expecting a package from a dolphin at this exact moment.

Without being too obvious, I leaned over the railing and looked down. No dolphins. Just a seventy-foot drop into a frothing blue chasm. When I looked up, the man was clamoring up and over the railing. I opened my mouth to yell at him, but he’d already jumped.

UPPER CREW DECK

6:04
a.m.

When the British East India Company tried to expand their trade routes into Nepal and beyond, they encountered the Gurkhas. The British were so impressed by the Gurkha's fighting skills, it was suggested these hill men should be recruited into the British Army. In 1816, the first battalion of Gurkhas took form. Today, these legendary, British Army-trained soldiers can be found using their skills in all manner of security detail on land and at sea.

Master-at-Arms, Ganju Thapa pulled the sleek, black radio from his hip, and asked, “What deck?” He’d heard the three blasts from the ship’s whistle.
Man overboard.

“Deck
Six,” came the voice of Michael Stoves, Security and Safety Officer for the
Afrikaans.
Stoves was technically Thapa’s superior—although you never would have guessed it—and he did a fine job with the day-to-day security and safety of the passengers.

“He didn’t fall?”

“We have several witnesses that claim he jumped.”

“So circle around and get him.”

“It isn’t that easy.”

Of course it wasn’t easy. It would take twenty-five minutes for the cruise ship to circle back to the man. But the water was warm and if the sharks didn’t get to him then there was a good chance they could recover him. “I don’t follow.”

“Walk to the starboard side.”

Thapa walked out of the bathroom and peered out the small window. Stoves said, “Do you see those small specks on the horizon?”

Thapa could indeed see three small specks bobbing on the horizon. “Affirmative.”

“They are headed right at us.”

Thapa was silent.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes, yes. Give me a moment, I’m thinking.”

Stoves did not give him a moment. “Should we mount the LRAD?”

The LRAD, short for Long Range Acoustic Device, was a sonic weapon that blasted high intensity sound waves at would-be attackers, scrambling their eardrums, and driving them away. The device had been used successfully by many freighters and a couple of cruise ships to ward off pirate attacks.

“How far away are the ships?” asked Thapa.

“Four miles.”

“They’re probably just fishing boats that happen to be headed in our direction. I advise circling back for the man.”

There was a long pause. “You sure about that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Should we radio it in?”

“Not yet. I’ll be up to the bridge shortly. If the boats are still on their way, we will go to max speed and I will man the LRAD myself.”

“Roger that,” Stoves replied, ending the transmission.

By law, guns were not allowed on the boat. But this was one of those few moments when Thapa was glad he had a small arsenal tucked away. He felt for the small key around his neck. In the three years he’d been Master-at-Arms for the
Afrikaans
, he’d never once had occasion to use the key. But today, he knew he would not only have to use the key; his loyalty, his integrity, everything that had made him a part of the legendary Nepalese Gurkas for nearly three decades, would be put to the test.

LOWER CREW DECK

6:05 a.m.