SIR JEFF WAS IN A GOOD MOOD. To mark the success of the Excalibur demonstration, which had won over the investors, he decided a celebration ashore was in order on the bright afternoon. His captain found a quiet, rocky cove on the northeastern coast of the Greek island of Corfu and dropped anchor into perfectly green water. The ladies and the venture capital guys went ashore in the runabout first, and Jeff promised that he, Kyle, and Tim would be right along when the inflatable motorboat made a return trip. The sneaky Brit had a surprise for the money men, who planned to leave soon and make their way up through Italy to Florence before returning home.
When the little boat sped away, Jeff ducked into his cabin and returned with three bell-shaped bottles of thick glass containing a dark amber liquid. “Gifts for our departing friends,” he said. “Two-hundred-year-old Hennessy Richard Cognac. I picked it up from a wine merchant in Paris just for this occasion.” He handed one of the heavy bottles each to both Tim and Kyle, with a stern warning to handle them gently. Each cost $2,000. He liked to keep his business associates happy.
The sheer green beauty of the island was stunning as they approached in the little runabout that bounced fast over the water. Olive trees were everywhere, millions of them, from the heights of Mount Pantocrator down to the white sandy beaches. Kyle was looking forward to a fresh salad with cheese from the local goats as Gladden swung to a smooth stop at a narrow pier. They tied up, grabbed the cognac, and headed ashore to where their group was seated on an odd collection of stools and wooden chairs around little tables at a psaro taverna, a fish restaurant. Like most eating establishments in Greece, this one was called the Café Olympia. Irregular weathered stones spread along the front, and tan walls were shaded by the spreading olive branches.
There was a problem with the idyllic scene. Four rough-looking men also were at the tavern, obviously drunk and taunting the guys and making lewd passes at the women. The money men were sitting there, embarrassed, while the girls were trying, without success, to ignore the drunks.
“Oh, my,” said Jeff, who wore cream-colored linen trousers, a soft blue shirt, and leather sandals. Tim Gladden had on a lightweight white short-sleeved shirt, creased white pants, and Converse sneakers. Swanson was barefoot, in wrinkled khaki cargo shorts and a brilliant blue Hawaiian shirt with orange palm trees. They looked as threatening as three lost missionaries.
“I say, chaps,” Jeff pleasantly addressed the men as he carefully placed his precious cognac bottle on a table. “Would you please be off now? We are just here for a quick and a pleasant lunch and then will be on our way.”
The four Greeks stopped pestering the visitors and stared at the newcomers, knowing that playtime was over. Kyle shifted his weight a bit as the drunks rose from their table, pushed aside the chairs, and formed a line, one-two-three-four. In any street fight, the tough guys lead, and the biggest of the bunch was slightly forward in the two position, shoulder-to-shoulder with number three, a husky man with a face scarred like an Ultimate Fighter. The remaining two flanked them. Kyle glanced at Shari and winked. Lady Pat sat back, took another sip of ouzo, and lit a thin cigar.
The largest guy, around six-two, spoke. “You will fuck off now, you rich bastards, and take these three other queers with you. The women can go back to your big boat when we are done.”
“Ah, I see,” said Jeff. “Well then, lads, I guess we are for it. I’ll take this big fellow, if you don’t mind.”
“No,” Tim disagreed. To free his hands, he also put his bottle on a table and moved to a fighting stance. “I want Mr. Big. You can have that ugly one. Scarface.”
Kyle smashed his heavy bottle over Big’s head, catching him on the left side of the forehead, and raked the jagged edge down across the eye, cheek, and mouth for a maximum cutting effect. Deep inside Swanson, the switch had clicked into combat mode and he was running on automatic. Speed and surprise. Don’t let them regroup. Eliminate the threats in descending order of importance.
The first guy collapsed to his knees with a scream, the strong alcohol biting into the deep and bleeding cuts. Kyle already had spun away to his left and slammed his left elbow into the nose of Scarface, knocking him backward across a table. Blood spurted from the fractured nose, and the man’s head cracked against the paving stones.
“He is going to be even uglier when he wakes up,” Shari said to Pat.
Kyle’s momentum was still at work and he finished the spin facing number four. He locked Four in a bear hug, slid his clasped hands up behind the man’s head, and pulled the body weight toward him. When the man leaned back, thinking Swanson was going after his face, Kyle drove his right knee deep and hard into the crotch, sending the ruptured balls somewhere up between the eyes. The man gasped for breath and crashed over a chair.
“An emergency surgical suite for that one,” Pat commented. “Kyle is very messy today.”
Number one, who had been at the far end, came on fast as Kyle came to rest in a squared position, perfectly balanced. The man’s right leg locked as he ran forward, and Swanson leaned back, lifted his own left foot, and came straight down with a kick on the knee. The leg snapped sharply, with a sound like breaking wood.
“Kyle! My God, man!” Sir Jeff screamed in anguish. “You broke a bloody two-thousand-dollar bottle of cognac!” He gathered the two remaining bottles, looking at Swanson with horror in his eyes.
“Sorry,” Kyle said. The whole thing had taken about ten seconds.
Tim walked to the stunned guests. Lady Pat and Shari were already standing and stepping over the bleeding debris on the stone slabs. “I think we had all best be leaving now,” said Gladden. “We will finish lunch aboard the Vagabond, all right?” He escorted them to the waiting small boat.
The owner of the taverna was standing in his doorway like a statue, with fresh bowls of salad in each hand. Kyle took one, gave him more than enough money to cover the damage, and walked away. The big guy, number one, stirred and looked up with his bloodied face as if he was determined to rise. Since the man was no longer a threat, Kyle felt there was no need for a lethal blow and settled for kicking him in the sternum to take away his air. The large man passed out, gasping for breath. Kyle thought the goat cheese was delicious. He wished he had not had to eat it with his fingers.
One of the Desperate Housewives looked back over her shoulder as she walked down the pier, her blue eyes wide in shock. She could not believe what she had just seen. “How did he do that? He was like a crazy man,” she asked Shari.
“It’s the way he is trained,” Shari replied. “He doesn’t think, just reacts on instinct. Believe me, those guys got off easy.”
“Do you mean he might have killed someone? There were four of them. Wasn’t he afraid?”
“This is what he does,” she said, stepping into the runabout. As she took a seat, she gave a tight smile to the woman, who lived in pretty places far from the dirt of the real world. “Kyle is not afraid of anyone… but me.”
Late that night, the Vagabond cruised through the narrow Strait of Messina. Since the dawn of written history, those waters had gobbled up ships, with the deadly whirlpool Charybdis at the edge of Sicily forcing captains to sail close to the very toe of the Italian boot, where the mythological monster Scylla prowled the rocks. Now the electronic eyes of radar and satellite navigation systems defeated the dangers of superstition.
Shari leaned against Kyle’s chest as they stood at the port rail, and he buried his nose in her silky hair. It carried the gentle scent of an English flower garden. He wrapped his arms around her and she covered his hands with hers as they watched the boiling bowl of the distant volcano, Stromboli, erupt in flashes of bright orange, with red flame illuminating the underside of passing clouds.
“I love this,” she said. “My favorite guy, a luxury yacht, a beautiful night, and an exploding volcano. What could be better?”
He squeezed gently and she turned her head enough to give him a kiss. They were alone on the deck at two o’clock in the morning and the churning fire on the distant island made it seem that they might be the only people left at the end of the world. “Being able to stay out here with you a while longer would be better.”
“Did Jeff offer you a job again?”
“Yup. Says we ought to get married and make a lot of money and beget him and Pat some godchildren they can spoil rotten.”
“Sounds like a plan. You turn him down again?”
“I told him it was all your fault, because you make that white uniform with all the gold stripes look so good and you like people to salute you.”
She sighed. “I make anything look good. Really, does he understand that we’re just not quite there yet?”
“He understands. Both he and Tim put the full-court press on me tonight and threw in the promise of a share of Excalibur sales.”
Shari turned in his arms, and the glow of the volcano reflecting off the water seemed like a halo around her. “Maybe we should reconsider, Kyle. I’ve had the strangest feeling that something bad is going to happen. And that I won’t see you again.”
Sixth sense, witchery, hunches, woman’s intuition, or whatever, she had it in spades. Her ability to not only connect the dots, but the spaces between the dots, was what made her such a great intelligence analyst. Shari’s brain dwelled in a place where one and one did not necessary always equal two, and Kyle always paid attention when she got one of her feelings. This time, he downplayed it. “Fat chance. I’m like a boomerang. I always come back to you.”
“Yes. But after that last mission, the cross-border incident, you caught a lot of flack and they tried to make you the scapegoat. A lot of people would just like for you to go away, Kyle. Who know what they may hand you next time? Maybe something where you’re not supposed to come back.”
“Never gonna happen, Shari. I know how to play their game too well.”
She kissed him, pulled away, and looked around. The deck was empty. “Then maybe I should give you even more reason to come home.” She slipped the straps of her black dress from her shoulders. “So look at me, I’m Sandra Dee!”
“Who the hell is Sandra Dee?”
“You know. Gidget?”
“What’s a Gidget?”
“Shut up before you ruin the moment,” she said, and slid the loose folds of her dress down to her waist. Her breasts gleamed gold in the volcano firelight. Kyle brought her close and lowered his lips to her nipples. Shari moaned softly, and he ran his hands over her soft skin. Then her hand moved along his leg.
“Unless you want to be screwed right here on this expensive teakwood deck, young lady, I suggest we retire in great haste to our suite,” he whispered. Kyle saw a familiar impish look come into those dark eyes.
“In a minute, Marine. In a minute.” Shari pushed him against the chill steel of the bulkhead and dropped to her knees, reaching for his zipper while Stromboli painted the night. In a few moments, Kyle thought that the volcano was not the only thing erupting that night. When he finished panting, they rushed off to wrestle between white silk sheets.
There was a loud pounding on the door, and Kyle heard Tim Gladden calling loudly from the passageway. “Kyle! Shari! Geoffrey wants you in the main cabin right away to see this incredible news report on television! A Marine general has been kidnapped!”