The First Casualty

13

Jason made a circuit of the cottage’s great room and bath before entering the kitchen and testing the lock on the back door. Not substantial enough to resist a determined assault but sturdy enough to cause a racket before yielding. Satisfied he had done everything he could, he was returning to the stairs when he stepped on something soft, something that emitted a hair-raising yowl loud enough to send Jason staggering backward in astonishment.

“Goddammit, Robespierre!” he muttered, “Why can’t you stay put at night like the rest of us? I could have shot you by mistake.”

From wherever he had taken refuge in the dark, Robespierre maintained an unrepentant silence.

Still grumbling about the perverse nature of cats in general, and this one in particular, Jason sat, shivering in the cold invading the space that had been heated by the stone fireplace. Relighting the fire was a temptation, but one easily dismissed by the necessity of a visit to the woodpile behind the house. Instead, he moved quickly upstairs, snatched the eiderdown comforter from the bed, and wrapped himself in it so that only his eyes and the hand holding the Striker were uncovered. He returned to his vigil, this time the same bent wood chair Momma had occupied. Its hard back and seat would diminish the chances of falling asleep.

Not that there was any great chance of that. Nothing like being shot at to get the old adrenaline flowing.

From upstairs, he could hear Pangloss’s resumed snoring. Having done his duty in detecting the intruder, the dog had obviously washed his paws of the matter, leaving Jason to deal with the problem. Whose best friend? For that matter, a fine pair, Robespierre and Pangloss. At this moment, had there been a public animal shelter or a pound on Sark, both might have been in jeopardy of having to find new homes.

He moved his thoughts to a potentially more useful purpose. Who had taken the shot, or, more realistically, who had sent the man who had taken the shot? Elementary logic suggested whoever sent the man in the Mercedes to Liechtenstein. But elementary logic didn’t name him. Or them.

Jason’s first guess would be the followers of Mullah Mahomet Moustaph, one of the 9/11 plotters, and the only man Jason blamed for Laurin’s death. He was, of course, no more responsible than his co-conspirators, but he was the only one free and still alive. Maybe. Jason had been largely involved in the terrorist’s capture and transport to an interrogation site someplace where due process was usually administered with hard objects and car batteries. The thought of the mullah’s discomfort was as pleasing as the idea of his followers finding Jason’s hideaway was disturbing.

Of course, the mullah’s cadre of crazies weren’t the only people who would not mourn Jason’s passing and would be happy to expedite it. Most in that category were dead, but the number of those surviving made it difficult to be certain of the source of the would-be assassin.

Whoever, Jason had been found here on Sark, and the island was no longer sanctuary. The first step in terminating someone was to locate them, and that step had obviously been completed. No matter his martial skills, it was only a matter of time till the next attempt, or the one after that, succeeded. He had to leave Sark.

Jason gave a sigh of frustration. He had been forced to vacate a beachfront home in the Turks and Caicos Islands, then a house on a cliff on Ischia, overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. And now Sark. All since he had initially quit Narcom.

Some retirement benefits, spending your golden years as a fugitive.

If you lived that long.

So much spilled milk. Time to think of where next. It was a decision that would take time he might not have. He needed to disappear right now. How…?

Momma, of course. Take up whatever task she had for him, that would provide an escape. All he had to do was finish the job in the month or so before Maria was to rejoin him and find a new residence.

Somehow the hours passed, the darkness lightening like coffee as cream is added. Trained to lie in waiting for days at a time if necessary, Jason remained motionless in the chair. One part of his mind was thousands of miles and a dozen years away. He and Laurin, laughing in the spray over the bow of the small Super Snark as she came about, sail luffing, in the choppy winter waters of the Potomac. Firm breasts pressed into his back, arms around his waist, as the artist’s palette of the Blue Ridge Mountains’ autumn foliage sped by a in blur of color to the tune of the BMW 1000’s exhaust. Laurin, her swimsuit barely adequate to cover the strategic places…

His reverie shattered like fine crystal dropped on a stone floor as another part of his mind took command, cruelly depriving him of what came next. He was surprised to note his cheeks were wet with tears, but he had no time to consider. Something had drawn him back to the present.

He stood, the eiderdown comforter slithering to the floor with a whisper. He was both resentful of the interruption and careful the chair made no sound as it was relived of its burden. Dawn’s gray veil covered the windows and he could see it had stopped snowing. Upstairs, Pangloss stirred. Robespierre eyed Jason curiously from the top of a pine china cabinet as though wondering if his altitude alone would insure no further encounters such as last night’s.

All normal here. But what…?

Then he heard it, the crunch of footsteps on the crust of ice that had formed on the front walkway. Jason had noticed it last night when he arrived. He stood back from the door, the collapsible stock of the Striker pressed into the hollow of his shoulder.

Hold it, he told himself. What kind of an enemy announces himself with noisily crushed ice and an arrival at your front door? He risked a side on glance from one of the front windows. Just above the edge of the road cut, a dapple gray horse’s head shook, nostrils expelling jets of steam quickly swallowed by the crisp morning air.

Old Bess, the horse that had been bringing Jason’s twice-a-week delivery of milk and butter for over a year now. Not that Jason needed the dairy product. Indeed, Maria eschewed butter as though it were a magic potion sure to add inches to her slim waist and hips. But Jason knew the value of blending into a community, particularly one as small as Sark. He not only subscribed to milk and butter, but fresh eggs and, in the summer, vegetables as well. A good customer was a good neighbor. And a good neighbor was someone you watched out for.

There was a barely audible thump as the milk came to rest just outside the door. Jason watched the retreating back of Mr. Dunn, on his way to more deliveries. Jason cracked the door and extended an arm to blindly grope for the bottle. Suddenly, beside him was a warm furry body, purring loudly. Jason had not heard Robespierre pounce from the cabinet to the floor. But then, he rarely did. Jason had no problem imagining some ancient feline relative, lost in history, depending on stealth to seek out a living between saber tooth tigers and cave bears.

A product of evolution or not, Robespierre was now the picture of a docile, human loving house cat. The animal knew milk had been delivered and milk meant cream.

Make that stealth and deception.