Chapter 113

We ran for an hour. The girlie girl had expected to run three miles and bury me, but she was shocked that I kept running. I think she felt it necessary to uphold the honor of the Swamp, most likely her arrogant attitude kept her going, when she should have stopped. Either way she was pretty worn out when we got back to the Cabin.

I was so out of breath I couldn't speak. I was happy to see that the Girlie Girl was just as bad. I had worked with the female agents before, but they had always been like me. Okay looking mostly they were from some elite paramilitary group. Unlike me, from the department of fish and game, their file were filled with heroics. The new women were in the deception business, not the paramilitary.

They had been recruited for the soft operations, no doubt. The one who had run with me was a very fit red hair girl with beautiful ivory skin. She ran to keep her body in a different kind of shape. The breast enhancement surgery was obvious but it was well done. It was so much a part of her personality, that I wondered if I might be wrong. Then a second look convinced me there was a plastic bags of saline behind those nipples.

I went into breakfast with the crew from the Gulfport raid. Colonel Martin came into the dinning room. Everyone but me and the Girlie Girls stood. Martin sat down at the table with us. "Sylvia, I thought you might want to know that Andrew is going to make it. His operational days are over, but I have been trying to get him to enter the teaching staff, so now is a good time for that."

"I'm glad he made it, I am just sorry Liam didn't," I said.

"Yeah me too," Martin said. "So you know the tourist season is almost over, so what is next for you."

"Oh my livelihood doesn't depend on tourists," I said.

"Good, by the way when you turn on your TV at home there will most likely be a story about a bombing of a drug lord's estate in Bolivia. It looks as though we are even. Unless they want to escalate. If they do, can I count on you?" Martin asked.

"Of course," I said.

"Good," he remarked, then ate his breakfast.

I drove the truck out of the compound and headed back to the coast. I got almost an hour of the drive done, when Wilson called. I saw his name and asked, "What's up Wilson?"

"Well are you near home?" he asked.

"I'm about half an hour out, why?" he said.

"Well, I can tell you now and have you consumed with scheming, or I can wait till you get home. I think I will tell you now, so you can have a plan ready," Wilson said.

"Just get to it Wilson what happened?" I asked.

"The hotel went to someone else. You had the better offer but the owner didn't want to sell to you. I have no idea why that is," he said.

"You mean everyone doesn't love me and share my vision? Damn I'm heart broken. We just have to learn to roll with the punches," I suggested. "I'll be home soon and we will move to plan B. Of course I have no idea what that will be."

As I drove over the ever worsening roads I thought about my situation. On the interstate highway for the first twenty miles I felt like shit. I was thinking about Liam being gone. Then for the next fifty miles of smaller and more dangerous state roads, I thought about my future. Where would I find some peace from the constant need to be on the move. The money hadn't reduced my urge to 'DO SOMETHING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE'. It wasn't grand gestures I had been after, just small things. By the time I got down to the county road leading to the marina, I knew I was just as lost as ever. I did have tears streaming down my face. I felt so fucking lost.

When I pulled the candy cane colored pickup into the parking lot Wilson came out to greet me. "Are you alright? You sounded depressed," he said.

"Wilson, I'm always depressed," I replied with what I felt was candor.

"No you are not, you depress other people," he said.

"I need to get back into my routine. I don't function as well outside a routine as I thought," I replied.

"It's just afternoon, I can pull the boat out and we can go fishing," He said.

"Hell let's do it," I agreed. The boat was kept on a kind of cart made from bicycle wheels. Since it only weighted a hundred pound it could be rolled by hand to the edge the water. There after removing the tie downs, Wilson tipped the trailer and the hardened foam boat just slid into the water. He padded it around the floating pier to the barge.

Once there we loaded the Sealed Lead Acid battery pack onto the boat. That along with the fishing rods for Wilson and the one pole for me, took a very short amount of time. While Wilson launched, paddled, and loaded the boat, I made coffee. I stopped to take a pee then joined him on the boat. I allowed Wilson to run the trolling as it pushed he small boat at about five miles and hour.

When we found the small cove we set the home made anchor. Wilson had made it from a two liter coke bottle. He filled the bottle with concrete. Wilson had the bright idea to use a funnel to fill the coke bottle with dry concrete mix then he just added water. I had to admit that it had worked well. While the concrete was still wet, he shoved in a big bolt with a circle on top and a nut on the end. When it set up, he just tied a rope to the circle on top. We used that for an anchor. I had to admit it was ingenious and he was as proud as punch with his invention. I had no doubts that a thousand other people hadn't already done the same but I didn't question him too closely.