A Knife Edge

SEVENTEEN

Four black guys on steel guitars, a snare set, and an accordion were cooking up some zydeco music that brought gators and marsh gas to mind. The bar was weathered, smelled of beer sweat, and was bathed in neon from Miller Lite and Budweiser signs on the walls. The place was full, though perhaps not compared with when the summer-vacation crowds got thirsty. I ordered a Glen Keith on the rocks and found a spot among the wallflowers, watching the talent with one eye and the band with the other.

I'd barely settled in when I heard someone with a broad English accent yell behind me. “That was a fuckin' wanker's shot, mate.”

I glanced over my shoulder. Three men were playing pool.

“And you're a fuckin' tosser,” roared one of them over the music.

I heard the guy beside me grumble to his drinking buddy, “Those goddamn SAS assholes get away with murder.”

So the loudmouths were British Special Air Service — SAS. That accounted for the accents. I didn't need to be a cop to sense a situation brewing. They were drinking shots of something bright green. Maybe it wasn't the alcohol they were reacting to but the artificial coloring. Lined up on a windowsill behind them was a collection of over twenty shot glasses. That was a lot of artificial coloring. The apparent ringleader, and the oldest of the three, had light-colored hair dyed blond at the tips and brushed forward like he'd stepped out of Julius Caesar's Rome. He had narrow brown eyes and pale skin strewn with freckles, and was slightly taller and thicker set than his comrades. The Brits were showing off to a couple of attractive local twenty-somethings occupying the other pool table, both of whom were doing their best to ignore the attention.

“Eh, ‘ave you ladies ever sampled the delights of an English lad?” I heard the guy with the Roman haircut inquire.

Again, no response from the women. They were being polite, but standoffish. It seemed to me they just wanted to play their game in peace.

“Basically, luv, what ‘e was sayin' was ‘ave you ever gobbled an English knob?” said another.

His buddies thought this comment uproariously funny. One of the men had to steady himself with his cue stick, using it as a crutch to stop himself from sinking to his knees.

I glanced beside me. Knuckles were bunching.

“Limey assholes,” I heard another guy say beneath his breath. He took a step forward, into my line of sight. He looked like a Special Ops guy, one of ours, pumped muscle with a bony skull shining beneath hair cut as short as pig bristle.

The guy with the blonded tips sauntered on vaguely wobbly legs over to the objects of their attention. He put out his hand toward the woman's butt as she leaned over the cushion to play a shot. I took a couple of steps toward them. It was a nice butt, so I knew where he was coming from. I also knew where he was going if it landed — into a Dumpster out back, especially if she objected. I took another step and, before my left hand knew what was going on, my right had reached out and caught his by the wrist.

The Englishman turned. “‘Ere … wot's your fuckin' problem, mate …?”

“OSI,” I said. I held my shield in his face. I could tell his eyes were having trouble focusing. My mind went blank at this point. Where to from here? My reflexes were aware, even if my brain wasn't, that someone had to do something before two teams of trained killers quite possibly put that training into practice on each other.

“Yeah… and…?” One of his buddies pushed forward into my space as I let his friend's wrist go.

“We've been looking for some tourists — civilians — who took a Humvee for a joyride,” I improvised. “Couldn't help but catch your accents.”

“Yeah? And just where were these tourists from?”

“New Zealand,” I said.

“ New-fuckin'-Zealand? Can't you tell a fuckin' Englishman when you hear one, Mr. Plod?”

“Watch your language, buddy,” I said. “Ladies present.” In fact, the two ladies had vacated the area. I also noticed that the band had stopped and that several SOC Neanderthals were now standing behind me, shoulders interlocked, in case I called for backup.

“This is bullshit, boss,” said one of the three Brits, a short guy with no lips and a busted-up nose, the only one of the trio aware that the attention of the whole bar was fixed on our little show. “The music's fucked and the buggers don't even have football up on the telly. More fuckin' hockey. C'mon. It's time to fuck off out of here anyway…”

I glanced over my shoulder at one of the aforementioned “tellys.” Ice hockey was playing. Ice hockey. Canadian ice hockey. What was wrong with the NFL? Hell, I'd even settle for croquet over Canadian ice hockey. Maybe the guy had a point. Maybe I should leave, too.

The three Englishmen pushed past with a drunken swagger. I could ignore attitude much easier than a swinging pool cue. I kept an eye on the door to make sure no one else followed them out. No one did.

“Hey, nicely done,” said one of the SOC guys who'd backed me up.

There was something familiar about the guy's face. I knew him from somewhere. As I was trying to sort through the Identi-Kit pictures in my head, he said, “Hey — it's Vin. Vin Cooper, right?”

I still couldn't make the connection.

“Drew McNaught,” he said. “Remember?”

The dime dropped. “Yeah, Drew… Didn't recognize you there for a second… How ya doin', buddy!”

“It is you!” McNaught and I shook hands. “Goddamn it. Long time, Vin. What you doin' round these parts, brother?”

I told him about OSI. He told me he was instructing static line parachute jumps.

We got past the small talk and current affairs — the events in San Francisco — and moved on to old times. McNaught and I had been in combat together back when I did completely stupid things. As part of Operation Allied Force, we'd jumped onto a hill in Kosovo to plant an aircraft navigation beacon so that our airmen would be able to pin the tail on the donkey. Trouble began the moment we landed. The weather unex pectedly closed in and our extraction was canceled. Also, a platoon-sized band of Serb militiamen saw us put down and tried to outflank us. From the way they moved, we guessed they were farm boys and were most probably out to settle old scores with their neighbors, but that didn't make their bullets any less lethal. They outnumbered us seven to one, and took potshots at us as we retreated toward UN ground, severely wounding one of our guys. McNaught was the ranking non-com on that mission, a hard and fearless man. On the second night of our retreat, he crept into their bivouac and killed five of them, taking their heads, without being discovered. The Serbs broke off the engagement that morning. Perhaps they no longer liked the odds.

On a more personal level, McNaught was also the father of twins and cried in movies, if my memory served me correctly. But that was a long time ago and maybe he'd toughened up. He introduced his buddy Marco. I shook the guy's hand, which was calloused, and felt like a brick in my palm.

The band hung around till about eleven p.m. and so did McNaught, Marco, and I. A couple of interesting facts emerged by about my sixth or seventh single malt. The first of which — and perhaps the most surprising — was that McNaught had divorced and come out of the closet, and that he and Marco were on a date. The other interesting thing I learned was that one of the Limeys I'd shown the front door to earlier was Staff Sergeant Chris Butler, the same man who'd possibly helped Master Sergeant Ruben Wright on his one-way ride to the refrigerator.