Bruises
Later, Trace went below and picked out a book that was in the box given to him by Franks. It was a book written by Haywood Demeter. Its title being, The Real Yachad. Trace returned to the aft deck and read it for the rest of the day.
As he finished, Cally returned. He gestured toward the book. “Know your enemy.”
“Yeah,” Trace said, “he’s a nut. Gibberish.”
“Have you gained any insight as to how we might approach this?” Cally asked.
“I have to give it more thought,” Trace said. “I don’t want to get too far into his head that we overlook what is obvious.”
“There is one thing that concerns me,” Cally said. “These messiah-types can’t put up with decent or rivalries. They will often find a way to silence them—the ultimate silence. Franks’ son may no longer be alive.”
“That’s in the back of my mind,” Trace said. “It has to stay there. The motivation to recover a corpse is vastly different than rescuing a misguided youth.”
“What do you think of the pairing of Adam and you, and Sage and Coyote?” Cally said. “I made that on my own. Do you want to change it?”
“No,” Trace said, “you have something in mind. I trust that.”
“If I paired you and Sage together, you two would have been worrying about your dads,” Cally said. “We don’t need unnecessary worry.”
“What do you have in mind?” Trace said. “So that we are clear, after we go over this. I want you to present it to the crew. A good captain doesn’t try to manage the engine room or explain fuel-to-oxygen ratio.”
Cally leaned forward and placed his forearms on his thighs. “I’ve been doing a little more reading about Demeter and this type. Messiah-types don’t want to die alone. They want to take as many with them as possible. He has to be convinced he is the only one. I don’t think they are ready for a real assault. More importantly, I don’t think he’s ready. The guards, the security boats, the P51; all window dressing. I would venture to say their pilot can’t outmaneuver a slingshot. His security team is to keep people there, not to keep people away. The guy I told you who was in charge of security, I read in a file he went AWOL a few months ago. This doesn’t mean the ones who are left behind aren’t well-trained. Who knows, maybe now more unpredictable.”
“But this is not a cakewalk, right?” Trace said.
“No, it’s not,” Cally grinned. “Even a broken watch can find a nut.”
Trace chuckled. “What about the seaplane? Where does it come in?”
“Maybe a lot of places, maybe none,” Cally said. “It can be used to disable the P51 before it has a chance to start its engine. Reports indicate there are two patrol boats. If they are not patrolling and docked, I can use the machine guns I will have mounted to fill them full of holes. Most importantly, it will be used the extricate everybody.”
Trace paused.
“How does it sound to you?” Cally said.
“I hate the thought of weapons and bullets flying around,” Trace said. “Machine guns and rockets, it all sounds good, but they cause death. With death, there are no do-overs.”
“I do things very similar to this for a living,” Cally said. “I’m very good at it. I’ve retrieved kidnapped kids, stolen property, stopped revolts in their early stages, and a mixed bag of other things; and no one has ever been killed—no one. Personally, I’ve only fired a weapon three or four times—in the air. We have to be prepared for the worst possible scenario. We have to prepare like we’re about to storm Hitler’s villa.”
“Makes sense,” Trace said. “I’m not doubting. I’m thinking out loud.”
“I had to retrieve a private jet from a drug lord a couple of years back,” Cally said. “It was in the middle of a South American jungle, and surrounded but twenty-five ex-army commandos. Not one shot was fired. We did have to blow up a fuel storage tank, but really, it was unnecessary. Sometimes it’s hard to resist a big boom.”
“What about this time?” Trace asked.
“Oh,” Cally quipped, “I already know where the fuel tank is, and it’s going to blow. Sometimes money is not enough.”
“Speaking of money,” Trace said. “Have you done a tally yet?”
“As of now,” Cally said, “I have twenty-five thousand out of pocket, and another fifty projected. What about you?”
“Franks advance one hundred thousand,” Trace said.
“That’s nowhere near enough,” Cally said.
“Money is not the problem,” Trace chuckled, “collecting is. Don’t get us wrong. We certainly want something. And at least, Franks is willing to put some skin in the game, but this is bigger than the money involved. Anyone of us could have said, I’m out and we would have all been out.”
“I’ve done some things for the money only,” Cally said. “Things that are not necessarily nice or good, but profitable. Every now and then, something like this comes along. It’s a chance to cleanse your soul, so to speak.”
'We have no hard feelings, do we?” Trace said.
“When your dad and I parted twenty-five years ago, it was a fist fight between the two of us,” Cally said, “Quite a disagreement. The police had to break us up. That was the last time I saw your dad until a few days ago. If I was in Texas and needed advice, Adam is the first guy I’d go to—maybe the only guy. You can’t let bruised ribs and a bruised ego come in the way of good friends, good times, and good plans.”
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