The Manuscript

Introduction

The warm glow of the two story house’s lights glinted off the water, where a rubber inflatable boat approached, propelled by a nearly-silent electric motor. The small craft was almost invisible against the inky surface at that hour of night, as were the two figures in the bow of the black-hulled skiff.

The pilot pulled up to the rickety floating platform at the water’s edge, where a 38 foot Mediterranean sports fishing yacht rested, rocking gently from the breeze and the barely perceptible surge of the inter-coastal waterway. His two passengers soundlessly pulled themselves onto the dock, scrutinizing their surroundings to verify they were alone. They’d researched the area and studied reconnaissance photos taken during the day; the closest neighboring house was thirty yards away, and dark, the residents evidently on vacation during the low season. A 65 foot Hatteras bobbed gently in the gloom at the empty residence’s dock, beyond which were still more private estates with various sized watercraft dotting the shoreline.

Crickets chirped their nocturnal mating call from the surrounding trees. The area was verdant, lushly landscaped and thick with exotic plants arranged to simulate a tropical botanical garden.

Even at eleven at night, the temperature was oven-like, the humidity rivaling that of a rain forest. It was hurricane season, muggy and still; the climate on the Florida gulf coast mirrored the sub-tropics from June through October.

In spite of the heat, the two men wore black pants and long-sleeved windbreakers. The smaller man made a hand signal to his partner, who crept stealthily up the gangplank and onto the path that led to the back yard. Solar lighting along the boundary of the lot provided scant illumination as the moon lay hidden behind the cloudy night sky.

Barking sounded from a garden a few docks down — the strident yapping of a highly-strung lap dog. Sound carried eerily on the water, distorting volume and direction; an elderly female voice reverberated off the glassy surface and seemed to come from everywhere as the dog was called back inside. Both men instinctively froze and crouched low while the battle of wills played out between owner and animal. ‘Pooka’ yelped out a parting canine soliloquy, followed by the distinctive slamming of a door. The lights in Pooka’s house went out now the dog was safely inside, leaving the coast largely darkened except for the home that was their object of interest.

The men exchanged glances; the one still on the dock made another hand signal — an abrupt gesture the smaller man correctly interpreted as one of impatience.

From inside the house, Billie Holiday’s voice crooned a bluesy ballad in the living room, where a pregnant woman sat on the sofa reading a magazine by the soft amber light of a table lamp. In the office at the far end of the house, a man’s head shook almost imperceptibly through the partially-closed blinds as he pored over a stack of paperwork atop a cherry-wood desk. The walls were decorated with nautical equipment — an ancient sextant, a barometer, several shark jaws, a rusted harpoon tip. The seated figure was absorbed in his task, so he didn’t register the movement a few yards outside the window.

Sarasota, Florida was a peaceful retirement community, largely inhabited by those life had rewarded with reasonable prosperity and a love of the water. Crime was predominately limited to vacant home burglaries and the occasional stolen car. The well-heeled paid a premium to live along the bay; the exclusive waterfront neighborhoods were considered safe and inviting.

The muffled report of a silenced rifle caused a flock of seabirds to alight from the marsh grass at the water’s edge, as two of the small window panes in the office shattered and the man’s head exploded in a spray of bloody emulsion. The pregnant woman looked up from her reading and called the man’s name over the dusky, soulful singing. Outside, the black-clad assassin hastily jogged in a crouch back to the dock and the waiting inflatable.

By the time screaming shattered the night’s tranquility, the darkened shape of the Zodiac was thirty yards from shore, making its way to a sleek cigarette boat a quarter mile away. When the trio was alongside the high speed cruiser, the passengers climbed aboard. The pilot of the dinghy methodically slashed its vinyl hull with a razor-sharp combat knife. The captain nodded to the two new arrivals, gesturing with his head at a pile of heavy anchor chain. The men quickly passed it over the side, and within moments, five hundred pounds of rusting metal sat in the center portion of the sinking tender while it plunged to the muddy bottom of the channel.

The captain eased the throttles forward, and a deep burble emanated from the custom-designed exhausts of the blacked-out Scarab as the low profile hull slowly glided north towards Tampa. Sirens echoed over the water as the cruiser distanced itself from the rendezvous point; within a few minutes, it tied up at a private residence on the far shore and the engines fell silent. The three men quickly disembarked and the leader gave a curt wave to the captain, who, after checking the dock ties to ensure they were secure, popped a cold beer and cast a fishing line into the coal-black water.

Six men sat in the smoky room, the piles of chips moving back and forth between them as cards were dealt and hands were won and lost. Cigars lay smouldering in glass ashtrays next to half-drunk beers and cloudy shot glasses. The chatter was convivial, punctuated by an occasional exclamation of triumph or dismay, or a hand slapping the table to underscore the fickle nature of Lady Luck’s charms. The men interacted easily, familiarity bred from years of attending the weekly ritual, playing the odds and testing their skill against one another. A ceiling fan spun lazily overhead, the wicker blades more for token ventilation. The wall mounted air conditioning unit hummed as it battled to keep the heat at bay.

The game had been underway for four hours and a few of the participants were tiring; the combination of alcohol and the hour was catching up with them. A whippet-thin man with a goatee and carefully primped dyed brown hair stubbed out his cigarette, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air as he pushed back his chair. The remaining men protested as he waved them off — for this week, at least, he was done. He weaved unsteadily to the exit and opened the door to a blast of loud Salsa music intruding from the rowdy depths of the attached nightclub. Bodies moved together in a seductive rhythm on the dance floor as he brushed past the long bar. The working girls appraised his scowling face in a blink, mutually deciding to look to other sinners for their wages.

On the sidewalk outside the club, the man cupped a cigarette, lighting it with a battered steel zippo — a legacy of long years in the military. Inhaling the strong smoke deep into his lungs, he leaned against the building’s wall and looked up into the Fort Worth night sky. This time of year, pollution was minimal, so the view of the constellations was breathtaking, with an occasional shooting star putting in an appearance for the patient and vigilant.

He chuckled to himself, amused at some folly of thought, and made his way around the corner to the parking area, where his four wheel drive Ford truck waited to ferry him home. The expanse was nearly full of worn, tired vehicles — evidence that today was payday and the crowd was in the mood for a fiesta. Most were trucks, with the odd low-rider sixties car lurking between them like predatory jungle cats. These were working class conveyances of men who made their livings with their hands; the lot was devoid of the sleek German and Japanese vehicles to be found in the more ritzy areas of town.

The man was fumbling with his car keys in the gloom when he heard a scraping sound immediately behind him. Even though inebriated, he sensed imminent danger, but the alcohol and accumulation of years had slowed his reactions to the point that he never stood a chance. The long serrated blade of the hunting knife plunged into his back, puncturing his lung with the first stab and his liver with the second. Blinding pain shot through his body, and he barely registered a vice-like hand grabbing his hair, forcing his head back while the razor sharp knife-edge slit his throat.

The lifeless corpse crumpled to the ground as the attacker continued into the lot, shedding the blood-spattered disposable plastic raincoat as he walked. A truck engine started, and the lights on a Dodge crew cab illuminated the pavement as the assailant climbed into the rear seat.

The steel-capped toe of an ostrich skin boot protruded at an improbable angle from behind the tire of a parked vehicle, the only evidence of the brief scuffle aside from the slowly spreading pool of blood.

The truck traversed the length of the parking area at a measured pace before turning onto the street and pulling off into the steamy Texas night.

The crowd watched in furtive discomfort as the couple fought; the young woman was obviously drunk or high, punctuating her tirade with an occasional blow to the man’s chest. He gripped her arms in an effort to contain her rage, which only served to stoke her anger further. This was obviously a familiar dynamic for them. The party-goers tried to tune out the commotion, feeling embarrassed on behalf of the shameless players.

The man waited until her outburst had ended, and then leaned forward and whispered something into her ear. Her face changed from anger, to confusion, to fear, and then back to blind rage, as she struggled to break free of his vice-like grip. Disgusted with her display, he pushed her away in a gesture that clearly conveyed he was done with her and stalked purposefully from the courtyard, past the groups of drinkers averting their eyes, making for the large circular driveway and the long line of cars parked along its edge. She ran after him, furiously brandishing an empty beer bottle, which she swung wildly at his head. It struck him solidly on the shoulder blade. He whirled and slapped her, causing her to drop the bottle, the sting of his hand nothing compared to the humiliation of being abandoned for all to see, discarded like refuse by a man she couldn’t please or keep.

She stumbled and tripped, tears streaming down her face, and fell sobbing onto the gravel of the drive as he continued towards the cars; her cries alternating between cursing him and begging to give her another chance, that she was sorry, she knew she’d crossed the line and she’d be good from now on. The man ignored her, tired of the never-ending drama that was part and parcel with the fiery passion that had first attracted him. It was always the same. Too much to drink, too many drugs, the wrong look at the wrong woman and suddenly, chaos.

The woman screamed his name as he reached his car, screamed at him to stop, to come back, to give her one more chance. He ignored her, slipping behind the wheel and closing the door to her histrionics and crazed yelling. He took a deep breath to calm himself and vowed never again. This was the last time; he was finished with her and her craziness; the weird child-woman antics would be forever banished from his life — and good riddance.

The car blew apart in a fireball, seeming to draw in a breath as first it crumpled and then erupted up and out, the blossom of flame blinding the woman as the heat from the blast seared her skin. She watched in horrified amazement as the driver’s side door flipped endlessly through the air, then came down to earth with a crash as it landed in the large circular fountain that was the showpiece of the faux-Tuscan entryway.

The cleaning crew worked methodically from one end of the restaurant dining room, the hunched woman mopping as two young men washed and wiped down the table tops. They chatted in animated Spanish, laughing their way through the mundane drudgery of scrubbing and spraying.

At the far end of the vacant area, the cashier went over the night’s receipts with the owner, a Caucasian man in his early fifties. It had been a good night following a remarkably good year. Even though the country was impoverished and the average peasant barely made a subsidence-level income, the burgeoning new middle class was prospering and spending freely. After years of war had punished the region and the death squads had disappeared into the night, a new period of peace had taken root and the focus had shifted from executions to capitalism.

The restaurant was a typical example of the success that could be had, of using one’s wits versus bullets. A popular American southwest franchise, it was cheerfully incongruent with the dense jungle and dirt roads only a stone’s throw away, outside the city’s limits. But inside, it could have been Anywhere, U.S.A. and the menu was faithful to the original franchise concept. Even in San Salvador, families liked fajitas or half-pound cheeseburgers served by perky, uniformed female staff. On most weekends, the place was awash with milkshakes and root beer and blended margaritas.

Once the armed conflict had ended and the civil warriors had laid down their guns, a fair number of the Americans who had come on behalf of shadowy clandestine groups decided to stay — comfortable after years, or even decades, in the region. Many had local girlfriends or wives and had become accustomed to the local beat, so they chose to remain to build a promising future in the brave new world.

For those like the owner, the thought of returning to his native Michigan after thirteen years in-country held no appeal. Instead, he’d imported a little slice of American apple pie for local consumption. The result was an instant hit. Hotel traffic was building, and many Gringo franchises flourished as the population, hungry to play catch-up to the rest of the continent, embraced the U.S. consumer culture that it both feared and envied. Even the poor, as they trudged to their laborer jobs on muddy dirt tracks from shanty-towns, were as likely to be wearing a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt as native garb.

The night’s take accounted for, the owner went into his office and deposited the cash into his floor safe, in readiness for a trip to the bank the next morning. An armed security guard would remain on duty throughout the night and be replaced by another armed guard during business hours. Even in the capital city of El Salvador, San Salvador, the rule of the gun outweighed the rule of law, although that was slowly changing.

The owner poured himself a Heineken and sat at the bar, alone, watching the music videos his cousin sent him every month to play on a continuous loop throughout the day. What the hell anyone liked about the new generation of rap performers beat the hell out of him, but that was what was hot in the U.S., so that’s what he played on the TV. There was an endless demand for everything American, and he was making a fortune catering to it. The world was infinitely strange.

After downing the remainder of his beer, the man scratched his week-old stubble and decided to call it a night. It had been a long and rewarding day, but he was beat and wanted to get some shut-eye before tomorrow arrived with its own set of challenges. He waved at the guard and unlocked the front door, locking it again with a roll of keys once he was outside. The air smelled like jungle and exhaust, with just the faintest hint of sewage masked by smoke from a distant wood fire. He watched with satisfaction as the restaurant’s marquis sign lights shut off and the exterior illumination shifted into ‘closed’ mode.

The owner approached his Ford Explorer and slid behind the wheel, shifting his holstered Colt .45 automatic so that it didn’t cut into his hip as he drove. Side arms were still a mandatory precaution — he’d been wearing one for so long it was almost second nature. Violent assaults and robberies were endemic to Central America, especially since hundreds of thousands of weapons had been shipped from the U.S. and the Soviet Union to fuel the seemingly perpetual wars. Those weapons remained after the ‘advisors’ had packed up and gone home.

He pulled out of the parking lot and cranked the stereo. Aerosmith’s Walk This Way blared from the speakers, and for just a few moments, he was back in high school sneaking a joint with the little hottie he’d been trying to coerce into his van for most of the summer.

A stream of white-hot slugs sliced through the cab of the SUV and shredded his torso, tearing the interior to pieces and causing the truck to careen into a utility pole at the roadside. He heard running footsteps approaching as he fumbled with useless hands at the safety strap on his holster, and then a deeply tanned man with a military buzz cut fired a bullet into his skull through the shattered driver’s side window at point blank range. Joe Perry’s guitar pyrotechnics wailed from the vehicle as a grenade clattered through the missing windshield — the whump of the detonation signalled the end of the music, forever.