Counterfire

32

The SEALs arrived at North Island Naval Air Station slightly after noon two days later. They’d had a holdup in London to pick up a special courier, and then another wait in New York. They dropped off their gear in the equipment room and pulled on their civvies.

“You all have three-day liberty,” Murdock said. “If any of you wind up in jail, you’re going to stay there until your liberty is up, so remember that. I’m going to sleep for the next three days.”

Jaybird dug into his civvies, waved at the bunch, and ran for his battered ’94 Chevy. It started. Good. He backed out of the lot and hustled across Coronado to the Little League field. There was no one practicing. He didn’t even know what day it was. He parked and walked up to the field, then sauntered into the public rest room the city had built nearby. In the men’s room he looked at the overhead where he had planted the video camera. It had to be there.

He saw it, and moved a chair over so he could stand on it and pull the camera down. He pushed it under his loose shirt and walked out of the rest room to his car. It wasn’t the new kind of video camera that let you play back what you had just shot. He had to go home, get the adapter, and put the cassette into his video player.

His mind was whirling. He couldn’t really use it as evidence in court. He had violated the privacy of anyone showing on the tape. But he also hoped that the camera caught Rusty Ingles with his pants down molesting at least one small boy. He needed proof, and this would be it. If he was lucky. If the sound-activation switches had worked. If there was enough light. If nothing went wrong. If they were in a spot where the camera could see them.

Jaybird drove sedately. He didn’t want to get a ticket and waste that much more time. He parked, ran up the steps to his apartment, and burst inside. It was just as he had left it.

He turned on the TV, set it on Channel Four, and pushed the tape in the video player. He hit the rewind, and was pleased how long it took to rewind. He had something on the tape.

Then it stopped and he punched up the play button. The TV picture shut off, there was some lead tape, then the inside of the playground bathroom came into view. The mike wouldn’t pick up much from that distance, but there were some rumbles of voices. At first there were only four young boys urinating with their backs to the camera. Then they left, and the next image was of a man and his young son using the urinals. There were ten more men and boys shown in the rest room. Where was Ingles? In the next section Jaybird saw Rusty Ingles come into the shot. Phil, one of the older boys on the Little League team, followed him. Rusty said something and they both laughed; then they urinated with their backs to the camera. Before Phil could turn around, Rusty was beside him, talking, his hand moving Phil’s hands away and caressing his small penis. Phil pulled back, but Rusty said something else, turned, and his own penis was out, hard and angled upward out of his fly. The young boy giggled and looked around, too scared to move.

Rusty played with the small cock for a few moments, but it didn’t grow any or get hard. Rusty said something else and they both laughed. Then Rusty began to masturbate. That was enough for Jaybird. He turned off the machine and took out the tape. He considered it a moment, then put it in a small box behind some books on a shelf in the living room.

He brought in the newspaper from the porch. It was Wednesday. Not a game day for Little League, not a practice day for his team. Rusty Ingles should be at work. Either he was an insurance salesman, or he had his own agency. Jaybird fumbled in his wallet and found the card. Yes, his own agency. Jaybird stared at the card, then at the video camera. The camera didn’t lie. Ingles was a damn pedophile; he fondled and jacked off little boys. Not a chance Jaybird was going to let him continue as a coach. He had to be eliminated. How?

Jaybird knew a blast from his trusty MP-5 would do the job. He lifted his brows. That was the first time he’d thought of killing the bastard. That was what Ingles deserved. How many of the team had he fondled since the practicing had begun? None of them must have told their parents or he’d be long gone.

Jaybird kept shaking his head. “That fucking bastard!” he exploded. He went to the second bedroom and took a .38- caliber two-inch-barreled revolver from the bottom drawer. He fitted it into a holster and strapped it on his left ankle. His pants covered it fully, and made it easy for him to draw it in a rush. He still didn’t like the idea of shooting the fucking queer pedophile. Something slower, much slower.

Black’s Beach. Jaybird grinned. Appropriate. Yeah. That was the nominally nude beach, where the city winked at nude swimming and sunning. It was hard to get to. You had to climb down the La Jolla cliffs on a treacherous trail, or walk down from Torrey Pines State Beach to the north. It was at least a two-mile walk and most people didn’t bother. Yes, the beach would be perfect.

He thought of calling Rusty and taking him out to dinner so he could talk about the team and get caught up on what they had been doing. No. He hated the thought of being with the damn queer pedo that long.

A drink and get caught up. Yeah. There was a bar in Del Mar called Harley’s. They would meet there at eight, have a drink, and then outside, he’d pull the gun and make Rusty get in Jaybird’s Chevy and they would drive. Jaybird had a folding military-type entrenching tool in his car that he used for getting out of sand traps. Perfect.

He made the call, got Rusty on the second try, and made the date for the drink. Rusty seemed relieved that Jaybird was home. Said he was going crazy trying to coach. He didn’t know the game that well. Jaybird told him he’d take care of that for him at the next practice tomorrow.

They met at eight o’clock. Jaybird was early, and stopped Rusty outside the bar. No sense being seen with him in the bar. Jaybird said it was too noisy in there to talk, so they went to Jaybird’s car to talk about the team. Once in the car, Jaybird pulled out the .38 and aimed it at Rusty.

“What the hell?”

“We’re going for a little ride, Rusty. I’ll explain on the way. You try to get out of the car, I’ll shoot you dead. That’s my job, killing people, and I’m good at it, so don’t give me an excuse.”

“Christ, man, what are you saying? We’re friends. We’re coaches.”

“Rusty, while I was gone, my video camera has been planted in the men’s rest room at the Little League field. Every time somebody talks in there, it snaps on and records until the sounds stop. Make you stop and think?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure, and there really is green cheese on the moon. You’re the star of the show, you fucking queer bastard pedophile. I saw you fondling one of the boys before I left. Now I’ve got you on tape, and I’ll be glad to turn it over to the Vice Squad and let them spread your face and your pedophile name all over the newspapers and TV news casts.”

Rusty gasped, then didn’t say a word as Jaybird drove down from Del Mar on the coast highway and took the road to Torrey Pines State Beach.

“Where the hell we going?”

“What difference does it make to you, child molester? You’re going to have fun in the water.”

“Hey, I don’t even swim good. I couldn’t keep up with you. You’re a damn SEAL.”

“True. You don’t have to swim.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“At least,” Jaybird said. He parked at the far end of the strip along the surf next to the slope down to the beach. His was the only car there. No late-night swimmers and no blazes going in the fire rings.

“Out of the car slowly. I can outrun you, so don’t try. I’d just as soon shoot your ass right here, but you might want to live a little longer.”

“Look, man. I’ll do anything you say. I’ll close up my business and move to another town. I’ll give up coaching. Anything you want me to do.”

“I want you to walk down to the hard sand and turn left and keep walking.” Jaybird carried the fold-up shovel in his left hand.

“Come on, Jaybird. I’ve been straight with you. It just happens now and then. I’m not a nut about it. Just a feeling I get and I got to do something about it. Like when you really need a woman.”

“Keep walking.”

They moved down the beach for thirty minutes, then were in the middle of Black’s Beach. Absolute privacy. Hundred-foot cliffs rose in back of the beach. The tide was out and coming in. There was no good access to the beach for three miles to the south and two miles north. As private as it could get and not a person in sight.

“Right here should be fine,” Jaybird said. Rusty turned toward him, and Jaybird hit him with a roundhouse right fist that knocked Rusty into the sand. Jaybird dropped on top of him, rolled him over, and bound his wrists and ankles with plastic riot cuffs he had used for years.

“What the hell? Jaybird, I don’t understand.”

“Right, you don’t understand. That’s why you fucked the little kids. But you won’t do that anymore.”

“I promise I won’t. Get these things off me.”

“No.” Jaybird watched the surf coming in. He was about halfway down where he could see high tide had been that morning. It would peak about midnight. Just right.

He moved in front of the pedophile and began to dig.

“What are you doing?” Rusty screamed.

“Didn’t you ever go to the beach and the kids covered you up with sand right up to your nose?”

“You can’t, you wouldn’t. For the love of God, Jaybird. I’m a human being here. Just one little quirk. That’s all, just one.”

Jaybird went on digging. The soft sand moved quickly. There was no water yet when he was two feet down. He dug a trench six feet long, then added another foot. It was three feet deep when the seawater started coming in. He rolled Rusty into the grave, then turned him over and pulled his shoulders to the near end so his head was just above the level of the sand.

Rusty was sobbing. “You can’t do this, Jaybird. You can’t.”

“Who the fuck is going to stop me? You’re just another vermin on this old planet that the SEALs have to wipe out. It won’t hurt much at first.”

Jaybird used his knife, sliced the plastic strip off Rusty’s ankles, and put it in his pocket.

“You keep your legs right there or I’ll club you on the head with the shovel. Got that?”

Rusty sobbed and nodded. “You can’t do this.”

Jaybird shoveled the sand back in the hole, covering up Rusty’s legs. Rusty pulled one leg out of the sand and Jaybird stepped on it, forcing it back down in the loose sand. By the time Jaybird had two feet of sand in the trench, Rusty couldn’t move his legs.

Jaybird took his knife and laid it along Rusty’s throat. “I should slash your carotid and let you bleed out. But not this time. I’m cutting off the band on your wrists. You let them move from your lap where I put them and I bash you with the shovel. Just like with your legs. You get it?”

Rusty didn’t answer. He stared at Jaybird with wild eyes; they darted from one side to the other as if looking for a way to escape.

Jaybird continued to shovel in the wet sand. A wave lapped up near the grave, then receded. Jaybird worked faster then, and soon had the trench filled. Only Rusty’s head now showed above the sand.

The next wave lapped at the edge of the now-filled trench. Jaybird dug more sand, heaping it up on the length of the grave; then he took one last look at Rusty Ingles. Ingles had stopped sobbing. His eyes were half shut, and saliva drooled out of his mouth and dripped on the sand.

The runner from a breaker hit the sand twenty feet away and rushed up toward Ingles’s head. It barely lapped at his neck, then soaked into the sand, and the rest rolled back toward the Pacific.

“See that, Ingles, you bastard? Those waves are getting closer and closer. Pretty soon they will be washing into your face, and then over your head. Might be a good time to practice holding your breath. Tide will be in full in another hour. By then this spot will be under three feet of water. Just wanted you to know and to think about it, and to think about all those little boys you traumatized with your damn messing around. Just wanted you to know.”

Rusty screamed. His voice came in a roaring blast of fury and anger and fright. The sound careened off the cliff and shattered in both directions up and down the coast. He screamed a dozen times until his voice turned scratchy.

“Jaybird! Jaybird! That’s enough. I’m cured. I’ll never touch anything young again. A promise. Dig me out of here fast, Jaybird. Please. Come on. I never hurt you.”

Jaybird squatted in front of Rusty Ingles and spat in his face, then turned away and walked straight up the beach to the base of the cliff. He sat down and watched the waves roll in.

Rusty still screamed. The volume had dropped off and the raspiness had increased until now the sound came out more as a whimper than a scream.

Jaybird watched a night gull sweeping the surf line looking for chum. It passed the head sticking out of the sand, circled around, came back, and lit on Rusty’s head. A sudden movement sideways by Rusty and the bird fluttered away.

The next breaker rolled in a foot deep when it hit Rusty; it broke over his head and quickly rushed back to sea.

A half hour later, Jaybird could see no sign of Rusty Ingles. He watched the tide surge in higher and higher. Just after midnight it peaked and headed back the other way. Jaybird didn’t need to watch anymore. He took the shovel, folded it, and walked north along Black’s Beach toward the Torrey Pines Beach parking lot.

Someone might have seen his Chevy parked there while he was gone. It wouldn’t matter. Why would anyone remember it or remember his license-plate number? He knew what would happen in the surf. The outgoing tide would pull at the sand. The loose sand in the trench over Rusty would gradually wash away. By the time the last of the waves had left him, the trench would have been emptied, Rusty’s totally dead body rolled out and into the surf. The trench would be filled again with sand from the waves. Rusty would be washed back and forth by the waves, and perhaps pulled out to sea. In three days he would float and begin his journey down the coast, south with the current. He probably would be found one morning where he had floated up on the beach in National City.

Jaybird drove home slowly. Several drivers honked horns at him on the Five freeway getting down to the Coronado Bay Bridge. He was thinking about Rusty Ingles. He had killed many men and some women in his life as a SEAL. This was the first time without his uniform on. The cause was as just. The world and the Coronado Little League would be much better off without Rusty Ingles around.

He parked in front of his apartment and sat there. Something had changed. The act of killing would never be quite the same again, even in a tough firefight with the SEALs. No, he wouldn’t see the screaming face of Rusty Ingles as the last breaker rushed over his head and drowned out his screams. But he would remember the man, and the reason he had eliminated him from the face of the earth and interaction with mankind.

How would Jaybird change? He would be a notch less raucous, a touch less of a loudmouth, maybe a bit more patient with his fellow SEALs and with civilians who fucked up. Yes, but just a touch. He was still Jaybird. He would report to Little League practice tomorrow and be the best damn coach in the world. He would never touch one of the boys, and he would be ultimately patient with them. He was their coach, their friend, their advisor and mentor. That was a lot to live up to.

Hell, tonight had made him into a better coach, and a better SEAL, and a better man. He went up the steps into his apartment. He’d get eight hours sleep, then do a twenty-mile conditioning run, and be at the Little League field early for practice.

Damn, he could hardly wait to get there and back to coaching baseball.