“Okay, that one’s got me,” Britney admitted. “What is…”
“Underway replenishment,” Mike said. “They’re tanking from somebody at sea. Probably a bigger ship to the north of the Grands. That’s if we’re not totally off base.”
“But you don’t think we are,” Britney said.
“No, I don’t,” Mike replied. “And I don’t think they’re tanking in the Abacos. Or picking up their tracks, either.”
“Where then?” Britney said.
“Nassau,” Mike replied. “It’s not that far out of their way. There’s range for them to stop there then make a speed run up to the tanker up north. From there they go to pick up the materials. Then they do another speed run down south, drop the materials, come back through the Cut and head back down to Nassau.”
“Why Nassau?”
“Katya’s there,” Mike said. “And if she’s there, Jay’s not far away.”
“Who’s Jay?”
“Who knows?” Mike said, grinning. “He’s a freelance humint guy I hired. A spy in other words. Former CIA, got riffed during the Clinton administration. Very good. He’s been training Katya. If he’s sniffing around Gonzales, he has a reason. And Nassau’s big. Offshore speed boats come and go all the time. There are lots of ways to do a drop there that would just disappear in the noise. You can’t say the same about the Abacos; those towns are all tiny. They could be picking them up at a rendezvous at sea but even then. No, Nassau makes too much sense. Maybe too much sense but that’s what my gut is telling me.”
“Is that why you chose it?” Britney asked.
“No,” Mike admitted. “I chose it because it was central in the Bahamas and there was a really fucking big yacht for rent. I needed a really fucking big yacht.”
“Why?” Britney asked, chuckling.
“Because I’ve got nearly two hundred people packed in it belowdecks,” Mike said. “Getting them all there, quietly, was hell. They flew in through Miami, then out to every damned airport in the Bahamas. Most of them came in through Nassau but others came in through everywhere from Andros to Freeport. Then we went out where we were reasonably out of sight and the Lynx went out to pick them up. That, by the way, was while I was getting established. Getting their gear in place is even harder. Most of it isn’t here, yet.”
“That was a big movement,” Britney said, her eyes wide.
“Yep,” Mike said. “And we did it in less than twenty hours from the go word. I’ve got good people.”
“Like Gretchen?” Britney asked.
Mike hit the throttle and dropped the boat to a sudden stop, water splashing up over the bow as it slammed into a wave.
“Who the fuck told you about Gretchen?” Mike snarled.
“Friends of yours,” Britney said. “People who care about you.”
“If they care about me, they need to get their God-damned nose out of my private business,” Mike snapped. “Jesus, I’m sick of this. I live under a fucking microscope.”
“For living under a microscope, you don’t talk about things much,” Britney said. “Not important things.”
“I talk about important things all the time,” Mike replied, starting the boat back up. But he kept the speed down to idle. “Stopping a shipment of VX is very God-damned important.”
“Yeah, but not about things that hurt you,” Britney said. “Big boys don’t cry, do they?”
“You’d be surprised,” Mike said, his jaw flexing. “And who the hell am I going to talk to about it? Anastasia? Adams? Nielson? One of the damned harem girls?”
“The commander can’t show his weakness,” Britney said, nodding. “But from what I heard, he showed his ass instead.”
“Yes, he did,” Mike admitted. “But he’s over it, thank you.”
“Bullshit,” Britney snapped. “I’m not ‘over’ Syria. I live with it every damned night. It’s not as bad as it was, but it’s still pretty damned bad. Not the bodies, not scavenging the ammo, not turning the fuckers over to pull the grenades off their belts. No, I just sit in that damned chair and one of them comes over, key in hand. I’m next.”
“I can believe it,” Mike said, looking over at her.
“I’ve had hours and hours of counseling,” Britney said, undoing the straps and turning on the seat. “I took your advice. Now take mine. Talk. Now. Here. Talk to me, Bambi. Start at the beginning. Go to the end. Don’t leave anything out.”
Mike undid his own straps and went below. The ice machine was working and the small bar was, per his orders, stocked. He pulled out an untouched bottle of Elijah Craig, filled two glasses with ice and went back up on deck.
“Here,” he said, pouring two drinks and handing Britney one.
“I’m not a straight whiskey drinker,” Britney said.
“I quit drinking alone three days ago,” Mike said, raising his glass. “Salut.”
“Blood in your eye,” Britney said, sipping the whiskey. “This is good. Smooth.”
“Yes, it is,” Mike said, taking a large gulp. “I’ve got twenty-three empty bottles to prove how smooth.” He looked at the glass, then sighed. “Gretchen.”
It took a while, about half the bottle.
“I wasn’t there,” Mike finished. He’d refilled his glass with ice twice and now the second reload was about gone. “I didn’t see it. I couldn’t do anything about it. But I had to look under the God-damned sheet. I had to see her one more time. She’d been cut in fucking half. Her spine was sticking out. Ribs. I remember thinking ‘that’s a spleen, right?’ ” He closed his eyes, his jaw working, and shook his head.
“She was just a Kardane girl,” Mike said, grimacing, his eyes tight. “Just another duty of the fucking Kildar. Be a good stud. Do the mares and go on.” He lowered his head and his body shook. “And then she was just fucking gone. I’m never going to see her again!”
Britney took the man in her arms and laid his head on her breast, stroking the back of his head as he cried.
“I mean she was going to marry Kiril,” Mike said, sobbing. “I knew I couldn’t have her. She wasn’t mine. She never would be. But she’d be around, you know? I’d see her. And then Kiril gets wasted. It was all my fault! All of it…”
“Shhhh,” Britney said. “You couldn’t have done anything…”
“Bullshit,” Mike said, sitting up and turning away. “I was the fucking commander. I’m the God-damned Kildar! It is, de facto, my responsibility. And, what’s worse, I knew the mission was fucked from the word go. I knew we were screwed. We had so many stupid fucking conditions put on us there was no way we were just going to ghost out. I should have thrown a shit fit when the Georgians refused us helo support. Let Markov take the fucking casualties! They’re fucking mercenaries, that’s what they’re there for! And then the fucking Russians! Oh, did you hear about that BASTARD, Chechnik?”
“No,” Britney said to the clearly enraged former SEAL.
“They knew,” Mike said, snarling. “I can’t prove it but they had to fucking know. If it had just been Bukara, well, that would have been one thing. We could have smoked him then smoked the defenses in the pass, somehow. Do what the girls did and bring up the mortars. Something. But Sadim? He was their fucking varsity! Nielson told the Russians we were picking up signals that looked like a moving unit. The Russians are masters of humint. There was no fucking way that they couldn’t know Sadim was moving! That he was moving into the sector where the op was going down. Nielson and the girls had the intel way in advance, but they didn’t know who was moving. They didn’t know it was a fucking brigade. They didn’t know it was Sadim! That was what fucked us. If I ever see Chechnik again, the motherfucker, I’m going to sit him on a short stake and eat my lunch in front of him! And fucking Vladimir had better watch out, too.”