She has to be there. Where else would they take her? I try not to imagine the vastness of the ocean and the number of islands that make up the Bahamas.
Focus, Sebastian. You are a fucking SEAL and SEALS do not lose their wives.
Skimming across the waves for over an hour, I forget the authorities until a larger vessel approaches, and looms beside me.
A bullhorn loud enough to be heard back in Miami blares, “Stop and prepare to be boarded.”
My chances of outrunning them nil, I cut the engine. Once I’m on their vessel, I try to reason with the captain. “My wife was kidnapped. I have to find her.”
“Is this her?” He sits me down in the back, puts a phone on my lap and presses play.
In it, Sam maintains a stony, grim demeanor as she reads from a script. “…He is a wife beater and a terrible person. I am in hiding because I am pregnant and he wanted me to get an abortion so I ran away. Please do not let him find me. I am so scared.”
“Y’all can’t believe this bullshit.” I bolt to my feet. Even the biggest idiots in the world can hear she’s being coerced.
When he shrugs, a fucking light bulb goes off. He’s in on it. They all are. The only help I’m getting is from my pals.
Shit. I should’ve waited.
As the Bahamian Guard escorts me to shore, I want to weep. Goddammit all to hell. My wife is gone and these turds won’t lift a finger to help.
Despite the fact it will do no good, I plead with the guy in charge. “Please. Just listen. She doesn’t even use contractions.”
I beg all the way to my hotel and am still at it when they drop me off at the airport. An official there, with lots of badges and gold braids approaches.
Glaring, he crosses his arms and waits with me by the gate. “You cannot return. If you do, you will be jailed on sight.”
I memorize his chiseled features and think,paybacks are a bitch, fucker.
They’ve taken my cell phone and refuse to give it back so once I board the plane, I ask a man sitting in first class if I can borrow his. “Sorry, out of range.”
From the dirty looks he and others shoot me, I won’t be talking to anyone until I reach Miami. The short flight feels like forever and I’m the first to depart the plane. In the terminal, while I glance up at the directions, a thirtyish-year-old brown man taps me on the shoulder.
“Follow me. You’re booked on the next flight out.” He carries himself with authority, probably former military.
I don’t ask his name and he doesn’t offer as he leads me down a hallway. When we enter a door marked security, he sits me in a chair, and dyes my hair gray.
After he glues on a beard, he draws on wrinkles and holds up a mirror. “That’s it.”
Holy fuck. My own mother wouldn’t recognize me. With these mad skills, he’s probably CIA.
“You’re eighty years old and recently had knee surgery. Here’s your cane and lose the southern accent. You’re Mr. Stewart Parkinson from Wisconsin, taking a vacation with your son, Dan, that would be me.”
Inhaling the cloying scent of mothballs, I slide into a white suit, no doubt last worn before the Civil War.
“Good Gawd.” I cough out vapors and for the first time, the guy smiles.
Grandiose levity done with, our flight is announced and we walk out the door and onto the tarmac. A Douglas DC-3 circa WWII waits. Holding my breath, I show the steward my passport and pray. Then, I hobble up the steps, and plop in my assigned seat.
Once we’re allowed to turn on our electronic devices, my new friend picks up his phone. “Alpha checkpoint. Good Copy.”
He hands his iPhone to me. “Slate.”
Knowing my pal, he’ll hang up in seconds so I talk real fast. “Is she okay? Did you find her?”
I can barely make out his response above the noisy engines. “We have a drone circling the island. Infrared indicates about twenty women in a well-guarded hotel. We’re pretty certain she’s in there. Her extraction will not be easy.”
“Motherfuckers are dead, they just don’t know to lie down yet.”
