Chapter 2

We spent the day on the beach, leaving only for lunch, sitting outdoors at the little restaurant, and only split with the girls when the sun went down. We all agreed to meet up in a couple of hours for dinner and dancing.

“I have a box of condoms but we probably need to get more.” Dean said, in response to my question. He was nodding and grinning though, and I knew he was pleased that I asked. It was scary how much we were getting to think alike. I wondered, briefly, if Jake and Dave were like that too.

Dinner was fun, both girls were a pleasure to just hang out with. Dancing afterwards was an experience I will never forget. Jake once told me, in Dallas, I think, that dancing was a vertical expression of a horizontal desire. At the time, Cam was in my life and she was no more a dancer than I was. Our dancing was fun and playful and even, at times, sexy, but these two ... man, oh man.

These two should have been dancing for the tips. The way they moved was smooth and practiced and so erotic that I thought for sure I was going to embarrass myself a time or three!

I started to wonder if, just maybe, they had lied about what they did for a living. It didn’t take long though, until I had stopped caring and just had fun. Hell, I don’t think I had seen Dean smile this much since I met the man! He had moves, too, the rat bastard. He can toss me around every morning, but he can’t teach me dance?

Wait ... yeah, scratch that. It might not have gone over as well as it sounded in my head. “Jack, let me put my arms around you and ... Jack, quit crying! There is no crying in dance class!”

By midnight, I was done. I was soaked to the skin in sweat and couldn’t drink beer fast enough to replenish my fluids, not without getting sick. Beer was the one drink I actually had enough experience with to set my own limits. I switched to water and demanded a break from the dance floor.

Bridget, more than a little tipsy herself, had other ideas.

“Jack, you have been rubbing that against me all night and now I want to see it.” she whispered in my ear, her hand rubbing my erection under the table.

I have been a fool many times in my life. I am sure I will be a fool many more, but I was sober enough to at least let Dean know I was leaving. He saw me gesture to the door and waved, acknowledging me, and that was enough.

With Bridget on my arm, we made tracks to the suite I had rented. I had no more than closed the door behind me when Bridget dropped to her knees in front of me.

She grinned up at my surprised expression and reached for my fly, deftly fishing my hard cock out through the opening in the front of my shorts.

Her eyes still on mine, her tongue flicked out and fluttered over the head, tasting, tantalizing. Her lips in a bow, she slid them over the head of my cock and agonizingly slowly, swallowed the entire shaft until I could feel the head lodged deep in her throat.

Then she hummed.

“Please, um ... Bridget, it has been a long time and I am about there, you have to ... I mean, I...”

Bridget was looking up at me, amusement in her eyes and, when she saw I was paying attention, she winked and pulled on my balls. That was all it took and it sent me over the top, pumping everything I had down her throat.

When I was done, the last feeble pulse over with and my head reeling; when my weakened knees began to buckle a bit? That’s when the bedroom door flew open and two men charged out!

My mind was locked for the second it took the men to close the distance between us. Neither looked particularly angry, though both had scowls on their faces. When I realized Bridget was squeezing my balls as if in a vice, I think that was enough to wake me up.

A knife hand to her temple was enough to put her out, maybe permanently, and the hand that struck her rebounded and darted back to dig out the kubotan lodged behind my belt, behind my right hip.

My right knee came up to push her away even as my left hand slapped away the first punch thrown by the man on my left. That must have surprised him because it also put him off balance and caused him to lurch into the fist his partner was swinging.

It wasn’t enough to put him down, but his partner’s haymaker had landed solidly on the man’s ear and snapped his head sideways, further putting him off balance.

My push with the knee against Bridget’s limp form had pushed me back enough that when the falling man got tangled with Bridget, they weren’t also tying me up!

The second fighter, the one who had punched his buddy, looked stunned and his eyes were on the falling form, and the resulting tangle of his confederates. My right foot was back on the floor and I was in a perfect position to launch a roundhouse kick into the jaw of fighter number two.

The impact spun the unexpecting man around, sending him sprawling the other direction and let the momentum carry me back to my original position. A quick strike with the kubotan to the temple of the first fighter put him down for good.

Now it was just me and number two. Stepping over the two bodies in front of me, I was fucking pissed. I stalked number two as he, one hand holding his jaw, tried to scramble away from me on the three remaining limbs. When he fetched up against the sliding glass doors leading to the beach, he simply held up his hands in supplication.

“It was just a scam, man, that’s it. Just a scam! No one was going to get hurt!” the man babbled.

I was seriously considering how best to end this miserable fucker’s existence when there was a pounding on the door, bringing me back to my senses.

“Get on your fucking face if you want to live, asshole.”

Loser number two couldn’t flip over fast enough, his hands automatically going behind his back as if for handcuffs. I think he was familiar with the position.

The front door pounding had ceased and movement in the corner of my eye had me crouching, hands up and ready to fight again. Instead, what I saw was Dean, a bit of blood dripping from his nose, standing outside the sliding glass door giving me a thumbs-up.

When I unlocked the door, he walked in, deliberately stepping on the back of the downed loser number two.

“I think you fared better than I did.” Dean admitted, looking at the three bodies on the floor, ignoring the groans of the one he had trampled.

“How did they tag you?” I asked, shocked that anyone had been able to do that. Hell, it was a cold day in hell when I was able to. I mean that literally, by the way. We were snowed in up in Utah last winter and I got lucky with a roundhouse.

“She distracted me. I guess I was taking too long, I was having fun dancing!” he shook his head and continued his tale. “She got graphic and that made me move out, finally, but as we came around the corner, she goosed me and, when I turned to look at her, I got sucker punched by a guy at the corner. I think I broke his neck but didn’t stay around to figure it out. I put her down, the second guy too, I definitely broke his leg. Then I hoofed it over here.”

He looked around approvingly. “What about you?”

I must have blushed and, when his eyes dipped down and saw my fly open, he started laughing and pointing at me.

“You got further than me? I will never live this down! You didn’t, like, whip it out on the poor girl, did you?” he asked, roaring with laughter.

“No!” I practically shouted, then got a hold of myself. “As soon as we were in the door, she was on her knees. I don’t think she was ready for me being celibate for a year though and it was all over pretty quickly.” I admitted, not thinking about how Dean would react.

Yeah, he laughed. Damn him. I swear, I get more respect from strangers!

When he calmed down again, wiping the tears from his eyes, he clapped me on the shoulder.

“Well, obviously you were aware enough to handle this so ... good job! Now, do we report this or ... shit, I think we have to, but be ready to scream for help if needed. Tie these three up, assuming those other two are alive, and I am going to get my three.” Dean disappeared into his room of the suite and came back out tearing a pillowcase up for restraints and tossing me a second one. He left the room the same way he came in, through the sliding doors.

I had loser number two tied up quickly, then moved to the others. Loser number one was dead, no pulse. Bridget was alive, though unconscious. She was breathing okay and had a good pulse, so I tied her up and carried her to the couch.

It was only after I was done and was getting a drink from the fridge that I even realized how much my balls hurt. She had really taken a grip and squeezed, the bitch. I guess she was trying to distract me.

I made a mental note to get a blood test ASAP. Sure, she only gave me a blowjob, but she was a fucking criminal and who knows if she was turning tricks or something when she wasn’t trying to rip off tourists.

I could feel the depression hovering somewhere over my shoulder. Thoughts like, ‘Why me?’ and ‘Will I ever find a girl I can love?’ were clamoring for notice.

I was still the king of denial though, and those thoughts were not enough to make me abdicate. I could stuff them in a box a lot easier than I had Cam!

When mine were secure, I pulled them all over to the area in front of the sliding glass doors so I could get the front door open again. With the door open, I could see Dean approaching, veering towards me with a body in a fireman’s carry.

“They are just past the little gift shop between here and the bar, Jack” he grunted in passing, bringing the body into the room.

I jogged off in the direction he had indicated and found them quickly. One was definitely dead, the human neck would not normally allow a head to face rearwards, but the woman was alive and struggling with her bonds!

“Hello, Monique! Aren’t you anxious to rejoin your friend, Bridget?” I asked sarcastically, checking to make sure her bonds were still tight before hoisting her up and, with some struggle, across my shoulder.

She was kicking a squirming so I took a chance and popped her on the ass as hard as I could while keeping her from falling. My hand striking her leather mini-skirt covered ass cheek was surprisingly loud in the night air, even with the loud music from the open-air bar making it difficult to even talk. It seemed to have worked since she quieted long enough for me to pass Dean again.

Bridget was awake and had managed to sit up, she was using her toes to try and untie loser number two, the one I had tied up. My appearance in the doorway with her girlfriend over my shoulder made her slump back with a growl from behind her gag.

I let Monique drop down on the sofa next to Bridget and crouched down, checking the bindings on all of the prisoners, just to be safe.

If looks could kill, I might have been a cinder at that point. The two ladies were trying to kill me with their minds, or maybe set me on fire with the heat of their hatred.

Shut up, that was a cool phrase. Maybe, aflame would be better. ‘They tried to set me aflame with the scorching heat of their hatred.’

Yeah, fine, okay. I’ll leave the writing to Dean

When we had the body in the room as well, Dean closed and locked the door and turned to me. He looked pensive, as though he was unsure of something.

“Jack, hand me your belt.” He asked, holding out his hand.

While I was taking it off, he dashed into his own room and came back with his laptop. Taking the belt, he did something to the buckle and came out with ... a memory card. In my belt?

He inserted the memory card into an adapter which then plugged into a USB port. A few keystrokes and clicks later, I could see he was zooming through video. There was a fucking camera in my belt. He was going to ... yep, there it is.

I watched with a sort of sick fascination as the blowjob happened, but from a different angle. Thankfully, you couldn’t see a whole lot except for a closeup of her face from the bridge of her nose up and just as thankfully, he was fast-forwarding through the act.

I could tell when I came though, she had given a little jerk as it hit her and then there were some obvious swallowing sounds. I saw Dean look up at me with an embarrassed smile, then quickly avert his eyes again.

Now the video was back in normal speed and Bridget’s head jerked to the side, then fell away. The camera was a wide-angle lens and you could just see me brushing aside that first punch. There was a very clear closeup of me pounding him in the temple with my fist but, surprisingly, it was difficult to tell, at full speed, that I held anything in my hand.

The spinning kick was dizzying from that distorted perspective but it was easy to see the result. The rest of it was anticlimactic and I turned away. I could feel the rage that had been inside me at that moment, when I was considering killing the man in cold blood. I didn’t need to feel it again, it was safely locked away where it couldn’t hurt anyone. For now.

There was an odd sound and I turned back in time to see Dean whipping off his own belt and repeating the process from earlier.

“Sorry, Jack. I have been meaning to talk to you about this. Dave has Jake wearing a camera whenever they are away from home and he sent me a few to try out. You don’t do hats, don’t carry a pen or wear jackets often, almost always wear t-shirts or maybe polo shirts so buttons are kind of out. The belts were the best bet.”

“You should have told me, Dean. I don’t like being surprised.”

“Yeah, I know. At first, I just wasn’t sure when to bring it up but, after a while, it was easier not to. We can talk more later, on the boat.”

Dean called the hotel desk and played the part of a really pissed off man who was on the edge. The hotel sent their ‘detective’ and a security man right away, with the local police following shortly after.

He indicated for me to keep out of it if I could and took the heat himself. He showed his credentials and then explained what had happened. By the time the police arrived, they found what they probably expected. The adrenaline had fled and I was bone weary, a little shaky and more than a little nauseous.

While Dean talked to the cops and showed them the belts and memory cards, I sat there trying to figure out why this was different than any other time I had been in fights. It was as I was reviewing the video again, Dean was showing it to the officers, that I realized why. It was a combination of killing an unarmed man and the rage that had almost taken me.

If they had come at me one at a time, or I had not been rushed by three at once, I think I could have come out of that just as well but without killing. It was because I was pressured that I reacted as I had been trained. No thinking, no reasoning, just a reaction. I knew Dean would be pleased, but it made me feel ... dirty, somehow.

Every other time, except for the prisoner I executed, it had been a battle between deadly enemies. Pirates, slavers, drug dealers ... all scum that gave up the right to pollute our air when they preyed on their fellow men. These three ... they had been thieves, thugs. They were untrained, relying on trickery, numbers and fear.

Like everything else, I packed this away for now, but it occurred to me that I might have done myself no favors by walking away from Dr. Jacoby even before I graduated. Maybe I should look for a new counselor when I settled down someplace.

It was almost twenty-four hours later, and it seemed like more than half of that was on the phone to the US, to Terry, to Judge Kinney, even a call to Alistair McKinley, who wasn’t holding a grudge, thank the heavens; that we were released by the chief of police. One person I didn’t call was Jake. Honestly, I think it was mostly because I wanted to do this on my own, but he had finally settled back at his home again and the last thing he needed was to feel he must bail me out again.

The Mayor and some other local bigwig had been on hand to do dual duty. While they abhorred the violence visited on tourists to his country and hated the necessity of taking a life, even in self-defense, they were also glad that the local police could close the books on a series of robberies and assaults plaguing the country’s tourism hotspots. The suspects were also implicated in two murders, both of elderly robbery victims who died during the crimes.

Alas, that relief did not extend to allowing us to stay in their country a moment longer than necessary to officially clear customs. In fact, they encouraged us to go, to leave the island and to take our time, perhaps several years, before we returned again.

We hadn’t been mistreated, or even jailed, kept securely in our comfortable rented suite by a quartet of very alert police officers. We also got a police escort back to the docks and all the way down the pier to our boat. There, we were handed our passports and the police officer waved. He was smiling at us, but he was waving goodbye.

As we sailed out of the protected waters and into the open sea again, Dean just snorted and scowled at me.

“What?” I asked, rolling my eyes at his antics.

“Two, Jack. Three, if you count France. Three countries you have gotten us declare as persona non grata.”

Yeah, I flipped him off. What else was I supposed to do, order the crew to keelhaul him? He was the crew! Besides, it was his turn to cook.

I had turned the boat west, quickly getting back into the mañana mindset of a slow voyage and made the cut south again when I passed West Bay. The wind was brisk and pointing mostly in the right direction so up went the sails and, after consulting the sailing software, we were soon tooling along at just under twenty knots, on a seventeen-knot wind, and that was with no motor!

Hot damn, this sailing stuff was pretty cool!

My happiness at the performance was cut short by the ringing of my sat phone. Since very few people even had the number, the chances of it being good news was slim.

“This is Jack.” I answered, feeling the tension.

“Jack, Jake, how are you, son?”

“Right before you called I was checking the trim on my sails and having a cup of coffee. You enjoying the quiet life with Liz?”

“Hmm ... mostly. Listen, that is kind of why I called. Liz has two children, a daughter who is in her forties and married with a couple of kids. She also has a son, several years younger, who is constantly in some kind of trouble or other. He is the ‘Mommy has money so I can fail out of college, drink and gamble my way through life’ type. Not as bad as ... well, you know. Still, he’s an ass.”

“Okay, so what does Liz need done about the party boy?” I asked, confused.

“That’s the tricky part, Jack. Liz doesn’t know I am calling you and would probably be mad at me if she did. Her son, Lionel, goes by Leo, has been bumming around the Caribbean for the last year, hopping from island to island. Dave tells me that you plan to stop in at the Caymans, at least, on your way to Panama. Is that still the plan?”

Oh ... man. I had a really bad feeling about this.

“Yeah. In fact, we just left the Caymans this morning.”

“How much trouble would it be to make a side` trip to Jamaica? Her idiot has been spending the last year or so island hopping and, on this most recent trip, he took a couple of girls with him. Evidently, one of the girls got picked up by local police for shoplifting and he abandoned her there. She’s only seventeen, Jack, and I think that made the little jerk panic.”

Shit, shit, shit, shit.

“Do I need a lawyer for her? Just pay a fine? I can put her on a plane afterwards, that’s no biggie.”

“Well, no, son. She is a minor, in the country without a passport and charged with a crime. They will not release her except to a family member of a representative of the US government. Normally, that would be okay, and I would just call in a favor, get the ambassador down there to put her on a plane. Except ... this is Senator Lawson’s daughter, Jack. Getting the government officially involved would be a public relations nightmare for the Senator and he is, frankly, one of the few honest politicians I know.”

“Jake, you are family to me, you know that, and I will do anything for you, but we are dancing around this thing. Tell me what to do. Tell me where to go and how to help. You know you can ask almost anything of me and I will gladly do it.”

“You are right. I will email the particulars, but this is what I need you to do...”

The next half hour, at seven-fifty a minute, was a tale that sounded like something out of a cheap spy novel. Awesome! Jake would email all the particulars including bank accounts with enough money to do what was needed plus extra for any unforeseen emergencies.

“Thank you, Jack. You are a better young man that I have any right to expect.” Jake said gratefully before hanging up on his end.

Dean had heard the sat phone ring, the tone was pretty distinctive and very loud so it could be heard over the sounds of a busy boat. He had come up from below and taken a seat, listening in on one side of the conversation.

When I filled him in on the rest, his eyes flew open wide and he groaned, lowering his head into his hands.

“Only you, Jack. Do you believe in fate, Jack? Destiny? Some grand design, maybe?” Dean asked shaking his head.

“Not particularly, Dean, why?”

“Because fate is a bitch, Jack, and she has a hard-on for you. We had a saying in the Corps, that it’s the fickle finger of fate that fucks you, then moves on. Well, fate is fisting you, Jack, and she’s here to stay.”

Ew!

The sails were not going to do us a hell of a lot of good headed into the wind. I knew you could tack back and forth and the computer controller for the sails even had setting to calculate the right angles, but it would be slow going at best. The winds down here, at least according to an internet search, were primarily south, southwest and shifting next month to north by northwest.

Since we were heading southeast, it would be way more trouble that it was worth assuming I could get it all to work the first time like the computer thinks I should. So ... I have big motors and I am not afraid to use them! Ooh! You know the song?

“I ... like ... big blocks and I cannot lie ... you other boaters can’t deny!”

Heh ... I slay me.

It is two-hundred and twenty-five miles to Montego Bay, where we needed to be, and I set up a straight plot at a conservative thirty knots. It would take us seven hours to get there.

Dean had lunch ready so we both sat down to eat and plan. Dean had retrieved the email that Jake had sent over and printed it all out.

“We need to meet an Inspector Tan at Pier One in Montego Bay. Jake gave us a phone number to call when we are half an hour out. This inspector has arranged for a berth at the pier. We will stay on the boat tonight and have him pick us up at eight in the morning.” Dean said in between bites. He had made a very nice fettucine alfredo and some garlic bread to go with it. Yes, it was pre-packaged for the most part, but it was still good!

“It says here that Tan will take us to a bank so I can make a withdrawal. Ten grand to the inspector who will ‘help us with fines, fees and payments’. That sounds promising,” I snarked, rolling my eyes. “and then we go to see the judge. Jake doesn’t know how much the judge will want, but doubts it will cost more than twenty thousand, tops, and that much only because he can be sure people with money are concerned. Greedy bastard.”

Dean nodded and sipped at his beer.

“Once we have her, then it is a ride to the airport, put her on a plane and we are done?” he asked, seemingly surprised that there was nothing else. “Seems too easy for you to be involved.”

I ignored him, of course, except to scratch my head. With my middle finger.

“I don’t ... hmm ... nope, nothing about plane tickets. I guess we can buy them there? This doesn’t sound all that involved, except for losing a day or two of travel time. I guess it is all about handing over cash, no wire transfers to trace if anyone asks questions.” I said with a shrug, ignoring Dean’s scowl. He worried too much.

I know what you are thinking, and you are probably right, but no way was I going to give him the satisfaction.

When we were half hour out I made the call, and we found a welcoming committee at Pier One when we crept up to the pier. There was a man in a natty white linen suit, another in a suit of rumpled brown and two younger men, both in white shirts, shorts, long socks and deck shoes.

The two men in shorts caught the lines Dean and I tossed over and tied us off quickly and professionally. We were snugged up against the pier, our fenders tight against the rough concrete, and Dean laid a gangway down that sloped from our main deck to the pier surface.

“Come aboard, gentlemen, if you please.” I called down, waving them up the gangway.

The man in the crisp linen suit led the way, the other suited man following, but the two hands stayed below.

The man in white was the grandiosely titled Commodore of the Montego Bay Yachting Society and, coincidentally, the manager of Montego Bay Marine Park Trust. I spent ten minutes with him arranging for fuel and to flush my gray water, paying for two days in advance for renting the space and for shore power. He was happy to take some cash and give me a hand-written receipt and was soon on his way.

The man in the rumpled brown suit was Inspector Tan, the chief investigative officer for the Montego Bay Police Force. He was in his fifties, a little on the dumpy side and with almost no hair under his sweat-stained straw hat. He had a jovial expression on his face and smiled a lot, but I never once saw the smiles reach his eyes. I had the feeling that this guy was one to watch.

“Inspector, what about customs, passport control, that kind of thing?” I asked, watching him closely.

The man just shrugged. “Since the girl has no passport and is in the country illegally, we can either arrange to have her repatriated through channels, with the help of your state department, or we can assist as concerned human beings and let her slip silently away, aboard a boat, for instance. If you are not here officially, and she leaves with you, then there is no record of that event either and no uncomfortable questions to be answered later.”

He paused and his eyes narrowed. “I understand that you are just doing this as a favor, but if you should encounter the man who brought this young woman to Jamaica, you might tell him that it would be better if he doesn’t ever return.”

“Inspector, I have never met the man and I doubt I ever will, but should the unthinkable happen and I encounter him, I will certainly pass that on. Maybe after I have extracted repayment?” I added, winking at him and getting a grunt in return. It didn’t seem like that sentiment surprised him.

Yep, he was one to watch.

“I will return in the morning. If you would meet me at the administration building, we can be at the bank when they open at half-past eight.” Inspector Tan said, then turned without a word and walked down the gangway to the pier.

“That guy is so crooked he can’t even walk straight.” Dean growled at the man’s back, though not until he was out of earshot. There was no reason to seek extra trouble and we needed the Inspector for a while yet.

“I got the same impression.” I told him, shaking my head. “I just hope that no one out there wants the girl more than we do. I think he would take money from both and then make up his mind later.”

We were up and ready, the boat locked and alarms set, thirty minutes before the Inspector said he would be there. I felt itchy about even allowing him on the boat yesterday, sure it had been a mistake, and wasn’t about to compound that if I could avoid doing so without offending him.

Inspector Tan was right on time, pulling up in a beat-up, non-descript Renault sedan. He didn’t bother getting out of the car, just sat patiently while Dean and I got ourselves sorted out. Dean nudged me to the front seat and took a seat in the rear. I figure he wanted to keep an eye on things.

It was a longer drive than I had figured, but mostly because of the circuitous route we took to the bank. I had looked up the branch address and the most likely routes in the computer last night, and we certainly didn’t take any of them that I had studied.

Once there, we only had to wait about five minutes for the bank to open. As I started to climb out of the car, the Inspector laid his hand on my forearm to stop me.

“Mister McCoy. Ten for me, twenty-five for the judge, five for the customs officer.” He said clearly and succinctly, making sure there were no mix-ups.

I didn’t answer, simply nodding and getting out of the car once he removed his hand. Dean looked unhappy, but just shrugged when I looked his way.

As we walked in to the bank, Dean had his head on a swivel and slowed me down long enough to say, “If we get robbed, just give them the money. It is nothing compared to what you have in the bank and we are way out of our depth with no backup.”