“Hang on!” he yelled, sliding the wrench back where he’d be able to retrieve it and then slipping out from under the engine. He clambered, awkwardly, up onto the top of the engine and then stuck his head out of the hatch to see who it was; he was surprised as hell to see the blonde and brunette from the bar carrying small bags.
“Hey,” he called. “Come aboard. I’d shake your hand, but you don’t want to get within ten feet of me right now.”
“Nice boat,” Pam said, walking across the gangway. “I thought you meant some sort of sailboat or something. What is this?”
“Bertram 45,” Mike replied. “With a God damned Volvo engine designed by an idiot. But it’s fixed now.”
“Rich and a mechanic,” the blonde said wonderingly. “Will wonders never cease?”
“And I cook,” Mike said, grinning and standing up.
“Holy SHIT,” the blonde said, obviously staring even with sunglasses in the way. “You weren’t kidding about having some experience, were you?”
“No,” Mike said, wiping his hands and then slipping on a shirt over his oil-covered torso.
“Sorry,” the blonde said, shaking her head. “What was all that?”
“Bullets and shrapnel,” Mike replied, picking up his tools and cleaning them off. “Shrapnel is little pieces of metal. Those were from a grenade, I think. Must have been; there wasn’t any artillery or mortars incoming.”
“Where’d it happen?” Pam asked, softly. “Or is that…”
“Classified, yeah,” Mike said simply.
“What were you?” the blonde asked. “Or is that…”
“No, I was a SEAL,” Mike replied. “That’s not classified. And I can tell some great training stories that will have you laughing your ass off. But I can’t talk, won’t talk, about missions.”
“Okay,” Pam said. “But… were you in Syria?”
“That was after I was out,” Mike said, not exactly lying. “The team is open source, it was Charlie Three. It was actually the same team and platoon I was in when I was operational. I know a couple of the guys who are still in it, were on the mission. But I wasn’t in the team for that.” He set the cleaned tools in their box and climbed out of the hatch. “Let me show you the boat. I’m really proud of her.”
He led them up to the flying bridge and then down the companionway to the closed bridge and into the lounge.
“Lots of electronics,” the blonde said.
“Yeah, when you’re by yourself you need them,” Mike said. “By the way, your friend is Pam and you are… ?”
“Sorry, we didn’t get introduced, did we?” the blonde said. “Courtney Trays.”
“Mike,” he said. “Let me go get cleaned up and I’ll shake your hand. Drinks in the fridge, two bathrooms down the companionway on either side, liquor cabinet if you’re of a mind.”
“It’s a little early,” Pam said.
“You’re on vacation,” Mike said, grinning. “And the sun’s over the yardarm somewhere.”
He walked down the companionway to the main cabin and into the bathroom. He wasn’t about to scatter oil over the marble countertop, so he pulled off his shirt and bundled it and the shorts he’d been wearing together, then pulled out a can of Go-Jo and worked off most of the grime. After a very quick shower he was mostly clean, as a glance in the mirror proved. He slipped on a pair of swimming trunks and another T-shirt, then went back to the lounge.
“Hi, I’m Mike Jenkins,” he said, holding out his hand to the blonde, who was perched at the bar sipping a Coke.
“Nice to meet you, Mike,” the girl said, grinning.
“I hadn’t, frankly, expected you two to show up,” Mike said, getting out a Gatorade.
“Well, coming down to Islamorada sounded like a great idea after last semester,” Pam said, sipping her drink. “We’re from the University of Missouri in Springfield and it had not only been a bitch of a winter it had been a bitch of a semester. Courtney said: ‘Let’s go to the Keys,’ so we dropped our stuff at the parents and got in the car.”
“Little did we know how much staying here was going to cost,” Courtney said sourly. “We’re not moving in on you, but we’re, frankly, getting tapped except for the money we need to get home. So, since you’d offered to go fishing or something, we decided, what the heck?”
“Did you make a safe call?” Mike asked neutrally.
“Uhm… a what?” Pam asked.
“Oh, Christ,” Mike said, shaking his head. “You must be freshmen or something.”
“And your point?” Courtney asked sharply.
“Safe call,” Mike said. “You don’t know diddly about some guy you’ve met in a bar. So you have somebody you know is home that you call and say: ‘Hey, I met this guy named George Winson, his address is 52 Bonny Lane. If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow morning, call the police.’ ”
“That’s a little…” Courtney said.
“Cold-blooded?” Mike asked. “It’s better than the alternative. And get ID.”
“Okay,” Pam replied. “Uh…”
“Hang on,” Mike said, grinning. He found his wallet and handed over his, entirely fictitious, Florida driver’s license. “I wish I still had my Kinky Single Girl’s Guide to Sex and Dating, but my ex took off with it.”
“Your what?” Courtney asked, aghast.
“One of the funniest books you’ll ever read,” Mike said, taking the ID back from Pam. “Great tips about dating, even if you’re not kinky. Including a great section on safe calls. Got a cell phone?”
“Yes,” Pam said, shaking her head. “Who should I call?”
“Well, youre parents might be a bit much,” Mike said. “But you’re sure to have somebody on your speed dial list. Tell them we’re going out and you’ll call them back around a specified time, even to leave a message. Depending on how far out we go and how long we stay out, you might not have cell coverage. But you decide the time and we’ll work around it. If nothing else, I’ve got a satellite phone.”
“You do?” Courtney said. “Why?”
“Because I’m not always where there’s cell coverage when I need to make a call,” Mike said, shrugging.
“Like on the ‘sharp end’?” Courtney asked, curiously.
“No,” Mike said, shaking his head. “Like in the Bahamas Deeps and I just caught a really nice marlin and I want to call a friend and rub it in.”
“Oh,” Courtney said, grinning.
“I’ll call Stacy,” Pam said, smiling. “She’ll get green with envy.”
“I’ll go topside,” Mike said after a moment’s thought. “Get the bollards in and the gangway up. Come on up when you’re ready to go.”
Chapter Two
He had gotten all the lines in but the stern and was on the flying bridge lifting the gangway when Courtney came up, carrying her Coke and his Gatorade.
“You forgot this,” she said, sitting down on the bench and looking out. “This is so cool.”
“I sometimes forget that,” Mike said, nodding. “It’s better than… some stuff in my life. Lots. I’ll get tired of it after a while and have to go find something interesting to do. But right now… I need the downtime.”
“What are we going to do?” Courtney asked, looking at the instruments. “And how do you read all that stuff?”
“It takes practice,” Mike admitted. “There’s radar, GPS with charts, depth-finder, anchor, winch and gangway controls and various stuff about the boat,” Mike said, pointing to each of the screens and buttons. “The closed bridge below has duplicate instruments and controls as well as more and larger. There’s a tuna tower up there,” he said, pointing overhead. “It’s got most of the same stuff, but in miniature and harder to read. It’s also only got a Bimini top, so I mostly stay here. Except in storms, then I go in the closed bridge.”