Sea Creature (19 page)

He began to swim to it, stroke by painful stroke. He must’ve fallen off. He was drunk and he had fallen off the ship. His wife would’ve been so angry. She didn’t want to make him any drinks.

He stopped abruptly when he saw he wasn’t making much progress. His legs felt odd and he reached down into the water . . . and felt the slick flesh of stumps where his legs had been.

A scream echoed through the night as the shock began to wear off. There was pressure suddenly from the ocean; a pushing sensation of something rising underneath him. He screamed again, toward the ship, toward the sky, but nothing came. Nothing but what was underneath him.

He felt the pressure again around his chest and his head, and as his head was crushed, bits of bone and brains filled the water and began to float to the surface. To be picked off soon by small fish, that would later be eaten by bigger fish, which in turn would be eaten by man.

Nothing was wasted in the sea.

For two days Patrick had been working out in the gym on the lower deck. It was a cargo hold of some sort; meant to hold enormous crates bound for exotic locations. But the crates had been replaced with the finest gym equipment money could buy.

There were four treadmills, a few elliptical machines, and the rest of the space was taken up by free-weights. The floor was covered in a thick black rubber and Patrick enjoyed finishing a set with dumbbells or barbells and throwing the weight to bounce off the floor with a loud thump.

There was never anyone in here with him and he would take his time to finish. Yesterday had been a two hour workout and today was approaching the same length. He would workout until all his muscles felt like jelly and he had no stress left in him. No energy to feel the stress even if he acknowledged it was there.

Then he would shower, dress, have breakfast or lunch, and spend the rest of his time with Jane.

He was growing closer to her by the hour and oddly enough, farther away from Christopher. He had asked Christopher to join him to workout and he had replied that he had more important things to do.

Patrick finished and headed to the showers on the mid-deck. He heard voices in the room near the gym again, and again he checked the door and it was locked. He assumed it was some sort of planning room. Somewhere that Hamilton could go undisturbed and work on whatever it was he thought was important.

Patrick showered, taking his time, and then dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. He headed upstairs afterward and saw that the deck was slowed down, the men at their stations and not another living soul that he could see.

There was one part of the ship he hadn’t been to yet: the control room. It wasn’t that he wasn’t allowed up there, but Hamilton was usually there and he wanted to avoid him as much as possible.

He climbed the stairs to the upper deck and found the control room door. He opened it and saw Christopher standing next to Hamilton, Stewart sitting in a chair asleep. Hamilton would discuss something and then Christopher would voice his approval. Patrick shut the door.

As he was walking back to the deck he saw one of the men arguing with Mitch. The man was frantic and shouting and making hand gestures as Mitch was attempting to calm him down.

“Hey, Patrick, I think your Spanish is better than mine. What’s he trying to tell me?”

Patrick listened and said, “He’s says one of his friends is missing. Juan Rojas.”

“Tell him I know who Juan is and he’s probably passed out drunk somewhere on the ship.”

Patrick translated and listened to the man’s reply. “He says they’ve searched the entire ship. He’s not here.”

“Well we’ll search it again before panicking.”

Patrick translated and the man threw up his hands and stormed off.

“I’ll tell ya what, mate. These Chileans aren’t afraid to tell their bosses what they think of them.”

Patrick saw Rodrigo at one of the fishing stations. “Just be nice and don’t expect too much,” he said as he walked away.

Rodrigo had his feet up and had a mass in his cheek from chewing tobacco. He leaned over the railing and spit a gooey blob of brown.

“Buenos días. You look tired, Patrick.”

“I’ve been working out on the lower deck.”

“You don’t work out on a boat. It is bad luck.”

Patrick looked out over the ocean. “Nothing’s happened yet. You seen Jane?”

“No. But I saw her yesterday with the gringo over there,” he said, motioning with his head behind him to Mitch. “You have to be careful with that one.”

“I don’t trust him either.”

“I meant the chica.”

“Patrick,” Mitch shouted from across the deck. “I need your help.” He went over and Mitch said, “We’re organizing a little search party for that missing bloke. Mind helping?”

“Not at all.”

“All right, you take the lower decks and I’ll send a few men your way. I’ll split the rest up between the middle and upper decks.”

Patrick headed down, wondering where the hell Jane was, when he saw Christopher on the middle deck going over some supplies. He had his head down over his ipad and looked like he was lost in thought.

“Anything good?”

Christopher turned to him and then back to his ipad. “What’d ya mean?”

“I mean in the crates. Anything good?”

“Just supplies. I don’t think we brought enough for how long Taylor wants to stay out here.”

“Shore’s not too far.”

“No.”

Patrick, for the first time he could remember, felt uncomfortable around Christopher.

“I’ll see ya.”

“Yup.”

He made his way to the lowest deck and began searching all the rooms. Christopher had been his friend for so long that Patrick had forgotten he was also an employee. He had never thought about what would happen once that tie was severed.

Patrick was near the gym and as he walked to the storage room across from it, he heard voices again in the only room down here that was locked. But the door wasn’t locked this time.

It was slightly ajar and he peeked in. He saw the little girl from a few days ago sitting on a chair wearing nothing but the bottom of a swimsuit with no top, her cat clinched tightly in her hands. She looked frightened and was trembling. Patrick opened the door farther and looked in.

Hamilton sat nude in his wheelchair, Stewart sitting behind him reading. Hamilton was sweating and red, his frail body covered in varicose veins and white body hair.

A wave of anger and disgust washed over Patrick and without thinking he sprinted for Hamilton.

Stewart was on his feet and hooked Patrick in the jaw. The blow sent him reeling backward, but Stewart didn’t stop. He kicked him in the groin and as Patrick bent down a knee bashed into his face and sent him against the wall.

Stewart grabbed a chair and threw it at his head. Patrick ducked and it collided with the wall behind him. He then reached down to a strap around his ankle and Patrick saw the gleam of a knife.

The blade rushed at him and it was thrust near his face and Patrick spun out of the way as it caught his shoulder. Hamilton was screaming something and the girl was crying.

Stewart grunted like an animal as he swung downward with his knife. Patrick moved and kicked into the man’s face. He was tall and strong, but he was slow.

The knife was swung in an arch, trying to catch his belly, and it sliced through his clothing and caught flesh. Patrick rushed him and managed to grab the hand that held the knife. He gripped two of Stewart’s finger and bent them back almost to the forearm as they snapped and he screamed.

Patrick picked up the knife and in one powerful swing, thrust it into his face from underneath the chin, the knife buried up to the hilt. A small bump protruded from the top of Stewart’s skull.

The corpse collapsed to its knees and fell over. Patrick could instantly tell he was badly wounded. The knife had cut through the thin layer of fat and muscle over his belly and blood was beginning to drizzle over his pants and down his legs.

He kicked Hamilton’s chair, sending it flying back into the wall, and pain shot through his belly. It was a blinding pain that made him fall to the floor. He looked up to see Hamilton frantically pushing a button on his chair.

Patrick got up again just as three men rushed through the door. They tackled him and pinned his arms. One had a rifle and he stood up and bashed the butt against his skull, and the world went black.

Pain woke Patrick up. His head throbbed so badly he thought his skull might be getting crushed in a vice or ran over but when he opened his eyes he saw that he was laying on the floor in an empty room. He twisted onto his back and looked to the ceiling and then around the room. There was a porthole to one side and the sun was shining in.

He sat up, his vision blurry, and made his way to a wall and leaned against it. His abdomen burned from one side of his ribs to the other, but the bleeding had stopped. He lifted his shirt and saw the thin slice across his belly like a smile.

He looked out the window again. His head throbbed and he wasn’t sure how long he’d been out. The likelihood was that he had a concussion.

A friend of his had been injured in Iraq when a mortar hit their humvee and he was unconscious almost nine hours. He woke up and said he was fine and passed all the tests the physicians had for him. Two hours later, he was dead. His brain had been swelling against the inside of his skull and it eventually crushed the soft tissue of his hippocampus and cerebellum.

It made him uncomfortable to think of Iraq and he pushed it out of his mind.

He rose and made his way to the door. It was locked from the outside. The portholes were too small for him to get through and he scanned the rest of the space for an escape, but there was none. So he lay in the center of the room, his hands behind his head, and waited.

He waited what he guessed was hours; running through his life. He knew his father wouldn’t miss him; Andrew was the one that broke his heart. But Christopher and Jane probably would. Rodrigo certainly would; his nickname for him was bien blanquito. Referring to him as the only good gringo he had ever known.

There was something in that that Patrick needed. Something about being thought of after you’re gone that brought him some comfort.

The door creaked and opened and Hamilton rolled through with two men. They were armed with rifles and behind them was Christopher.

“How’s your head?” Hamilton asked.

“It’s been better.”

“You killed my assistant and bodyguard, Patrick. He was a good assistant; never questioned anything. Just did exactly as I instructed him. It’s going to be difficult to find another one.” He looked to Christopher and grinned. “Difficult, but not impossible.”

Christopher looked away, refusing to look at either of the men.

“You saw something you weren’t supposed to see.”

“You mean you raping that little girl?” Patrick said. “You’re a sick fuck.”

“We all have our temptations, Patrick. The things in our lives that we hide from the rest of the world but that haunts us when we’re alone. It’s challenging to fight. It’s a habit I picked up in Vietnam actually. Did I ever tell you I served as well? It was at the insistence of my father who was grooming me for politics. He thought a distinguished military career would be a boon and counteract the stigma of being a billionaire’s son.

“He wanted me in the champagne brigades. Air National Guard, something like that. I chose instead to go to the jungles of Pleiku. There was a group of men there, Patrick, a squadron of elite soldiers that would have sent a shiver down your spine just by looking at them. They abandoned all civility, morality, anything that linked them to civilization. In that war, it was encouraged. Everyone was seen as an enemy.

“I joined with them and before I knew it I had abandoned hope of ever getting out. Other squads would wear regulation uniforms and we would come out of the jungles when we had to and we looked like monsters. We had beards and long hair and our clothes were ripped to shreds. We carried ears and teeth from enemies we had killed, hair from women we had raped. Tell me, young man, could you come back from that and think you would have normal tastes?”

“I’ve seen war too. I’ve seen the killing and raping. What you were doing to that little girl has nothing to do with war.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. The mind is infinitely complex. Who knows what influences our behavior?” He sighed and stared off into the distance, as if wiping a memory from his mind’s eye. “Regardless, the more pressing question is what to do with you now. I could drop you back on land, but I have a feeling you may not let this little mishap go as easily as I would like. I could shoot you and dump the body into the sea, but I wonder if that would come back to me at some point. I have a few good years left and I would hate to spend them in court. I have no doubt I would win; juries are easily bribed or intimidated. But my most precious commodity is time right now and I can’t waste a second of it. What do you think, Christopher? What should we do with your old friend?”

Christopher was looking in the opposite direction, not saying anything. He glanced up once and their eyes locked and Patrick knew instantly that he had made his choice.

“Let him go, but put him in a raft. He might make it back to shore, he might not. Either way your hands are clean. If he does start causing trouble, you can bribe almost anyone here to ignore him. It wouldn’t be a problem.”

Hamilton nodded in approval. “You see, Patrick? How long have you known Christopher? How close were the two of you? And in a short amount of time his loyalty has transferred to me. That is man, Patrick. That is his soul: do what’s best for you and everyone else be damned.” He looked to the two guards. “Take him up to the deck when it’s dark and throw him in a raft. Have some more men with you when you do it, he’s quite the little fighter.”

Hamilton left and Christopher stayed, staring at Patrick.

“I’m sorry, Patty. I don’t know what else to do.”

The door slammed shut, and Patrick was alone again.

Night came quickly and Patrick was feeling the pain from wounds that adrenaline had covered. His shoulder had a puncture in it as well and it was aching and sending shooting pains down his arm to his fingers. His belly still burned and it wasn’t scabbing as any movement he made opened it back up.