An Evening at the Carnival with Mister Christian

She could hardly believe what they were doing, let alone why, but none of that mattered to her now. Her life had grown tired and stale, her expectations had fallen so low -- and now, this! She had no idea what his sister was or who she worked for, but she had friends. A vast network of friends -- everywhere. Friends that could make things happen, but to Carol this little operation of hers seemed jubilantly, impossibly crazy, yet from the little she'd learned, it was apparent to her that it had been meticulously planned. And so complex it made her head spin.

Friends, indeed.

Timing meant everything right now, and she knew it. The series of deceptions Hopie and her team had engineered were stupefying in their complexity -- but so far everything had gone off perfectly.

Just how many 'friends' did this woman have? What was so important about her? Still more intriguing? There was Ted, who'd carried on like he didn't know anything, just like he had convinced her he didn't know a thing about sailboats. Then, like everything else about him, he proved to be a master seaman...yet she had to admit he'd never deliberately tried to deceive her. He wore veils of silence so obscure she had simply filled in the blanks he left for her.

Deliberately?

She didn't know, couldn't tell.

She looked at the chartplotter, at all the depth contours growing crazy-shallow just yards to starboard, then she looked up at the sails and pulled the main in a little, hardening up on the wind. The cruise ship cleared the bridge and...altered course to port a little more and she looked at the radar, saw the new CPA and further adjusted Hyperion's course a little, then, a few minutes later she hardened up to port and brought in the sails. The boat heeled a little more and their speed picked-up, just as Ted came up from below.

"How's she doing?"

He nodded his head. "Okay, I think. Her mind's still as sharp as a tack, but she's weak. Weaker than I expected."

"It'll take all those anti-psychotics a week or so to half-life out of her system. I don't know how she did it. Incredible mental discipline."

"Well, going crazy was the only way she could get out of the mess she found herself in. I'm assuming they thought she'd never talk once she was out of the way like that, and even if she did no one would believe anything she said, but something's changed. People started coming around a month ago, checking on her, asking questions, and she decided to put this plan into motion."

"This Collins guy? She thinks he'll help?"

"Oh...he will. If they get to her...well, he knows his life is as good as over if that happens. The Israelis are the only one's who'll help at this point, but only because they've got so much riding on the outcome."

"I still can't believe the stuff she was working on. It's surreal."

"You don't know the half of it, Carol. And you don't want to know."

"I hear you."

"Damn, that cruise ship is sure crowding us..."

"I can't get much further out of the channel...water's getting real thin over here -- to the right."

"Uh, go ahead and pinch in a little closer to port. Running aground is something we can't afford to do right now."

She adjusted her course more to the left, cutting closer to the cruise-ship's stern. "It's going to get rough when we cross that wake..."

"Everything's secure down there. Go for a gap..."

"How far to the terminal?"

"About three miles, give or take. Marina first, though. Mosquito Creek, I think."

She looked at the waves coming off the cruise ship and saw a smooth gap and slipped between the them, then she turned into the third, and last, wave -- and crossed on a perpendicular course. The sails slatted and filled as Hyperion crossed into the turbulent air behind the passing ship, then Carol turned back on her original course and made her way under the massive bridge in mid-channel.

He ducked below and checked on his sister, grabbed a couple of Cokes and bounded back into the cockpit. "No problem," he said. "Sound asleep now." He picked up a cheap phone and turned it on, then punched a pre-programmed number. "We'll be there at midnight," he said into the phone, and then leaving it on he tossed the phone into the water; he looked at his watch and nodded his head.

Hyperion pulled into the little marina a few minutes before noon and two men came down and helped him get Hopie to a waiting car; Carol went with her to this car, and a third man went back to Hyperion with Sherman. While their car pulled out onto the street and drove away, he backed Hyperion out of the marina and headed across the channel to a crowded shipping terminal across the harbor. The man went below, walked around the interior, double checking for bugs or tracking devices and came up a few minutes later.

"She's clean," he said, shooting a thumb's up.

Sherman nodded, noted his thick Israeli accent. He'd had the first transfer team check for bugs in Seattle -- before they moved Hyperion to Anacortes, and the one they did find had been put on a random sailboat in the marina up there. Now he picked up another disposable phone and turned it on. He punched the pre-programmed number, then spoke one sentence: "We'll be there tomorrow." He tossed that one overboard and pulled up alongside a Liberian flagged freighter, a pair of aramid and kevlar lifting straps lowered from an onboard crane. He and the other man positioned the straps under the boat's keel, then Hyperion lifted clear of the water and was raised onto deck, and from there onto a steel shipping cradle. The two dashed below and shut down all the ship's systems as black tarps were draped across the boat; he and the Israeli walked down a ladder to the deck, then over to a boarding platform. They shook hands and Sherman walked down to street level and into a waiting car; from there he was taken to a hotel near the airport -- and he walked directly to a room on the third floor. He was met by one of Hopie's team there, and after a half hour of small-talk, she took him to another car, and on to another hotel. They sat in the hotel bar for a half hour, looking at the foot traffic in and out of the lobby, then she took a call and they left again. They drove around the airport to an FBO and then directly onto the ramp, right up to a waiting Gulfstream G650. He walked up the airstairs, noting the aircraft's Swiss registration before he ducked and went into cabin; he smiled at Carol as he walked back and looked at Hopie; she was asleep on a portable medevac bed and he looked at the physician attending her and nodded his head, then he went forward and sat down, buckled in as the jet taxied out to the active runway.

The jet took off and turned northeast for a trans-polar departure, it's flight plan showing Geneva, Switzerland as it's destination. The two IDF pilots would change that destination as they approached the EU, and after fourteen hours in-flight the jet landed at an airbase near Tel Aviv. Hopie disappeared, while he and Carol were rushed to Ben-Gurion International, and once there they were hustled on to a direct flight back to Los Angeles, traveling under Israeli passports, he saw.

Carol showed up for their Saturday morning make-up dive at Malaga Cove a half hour before he did, and he launched into his pre-dive briefing without missing a beat. He yawned a few times, then led his students down to the beach and into the water. He swam out into the sea on his back, looking up at the sky, smiling at the ludicrousness of it all, then he felt Carol beside him in the water.

"You feeling okay?" she asked.

"Glad you slept on the flight?" he whispered coarsely.

"I'm still exhausted."

He smiled. "You were wonderful."

"What now?"

"The boat arrives in six weeks, right after Christmas."

"So? Carry on like nothing happened 'til then?"

"That's the way this game's gonna be played. Assuming no one wants to talk to us about -- things." He took his bearings and stopped. "Okay, y'all gather round," he began, but he looked at Carol and smiled. "Alright...this dive will be down to thirty five feet. Once we get down there, we're going to go through all our exercises. First thing, we'll take off our vests, completely off, then we'll put them back on -- just like in the pool. Next, we'll take our masks off, then put them back on and clear them..."

He led the class out of the water not quite an hour later, and he stood in knee deep water while he told them about the certification process, and upcoming classes, then the dive masters walked off with the group. to sign off on this dive and finish their paperwork. Carol walked ahead with the rest of the class, and he turned and looked out to sea, to the mountains beyond Santa Monica, above Beverly Hills. Beverly Glen, Benedict Canyon. He looked at the mountains, and felt something cold and vulnerable gripping his soul...'what is that?' he asked the passing sky. Something was gnawing at him now, something dark and unanswerable.

Then he felt something in the sand underfoot, something hard and unyielding, and he bent to see what is was. His hands brushed the sand away...

"Ah," he said. "Driftwood."

He was going to walk away, leave the wood where it lay, but he pulled at it and the piece slipped free of the sea and he picked it up.

"That's a big piece..." he heard Carol say as he swished it around in the gently ebbing surf.

He stood, turned it over in his hands. "What do you make of this?" he said as he turned the wood over. "Looks like a fish?"

She walked back into the water, stood by his side. "Looks like a dolphin to me."

"So worn down...wonder how long it's been out here? It looks almost ancient..."

"You going to keep it?"

"Seems a shame to let it rot. Much more time out there and it'll be gone, washed away forever." He rinsed the last of the sand off the piece and tucked it under his free arm, then began the long slog back up to the truck, his dive gear in one hand and the unwieldy piece of driftwood in the other.

An hour later he was driving back through the westside, back to his house, and he put the driftwood over the fireplace. He showered and finished his laundry, changed the sheets and went out front to mow the lawn. A gray sedan drove by once and two men inside looked at him, scowling; Sherman looked up at them and waved.

"Ludicrous," he said as he poured gas into the mower.

+++++

He walked up to Electric Karma just before eight, took his place at the usual dark corner table and ordered a mineral water and lime, then sat and looked out the window as Carol walked up to the door and came in. She waved at him, made a show of running into him and came to his table and sat across from him.

"Well, fancy seeing you here," she said, meeting his grin with one of her own.

"Something to drink?" the waiter asked.

"The same, I reckon," she said, pointing at Ted's glass, and she waited for the boy to leave before speaking. "Did you get a nap in?"

He shook his head. "Grass was about a foot tall, and man, is it brown. Hope it rains around here soon."

"It's awful. Even the air smells bad. Dry and burned."

"All the wildfires. Doesn't look like the LA I knew twenty years ago...looks more like something out of Soylent Green."

"Or Blade Runner."

He laughed, looked towards the door. "Any trouble at your place?"

She shook her head. "No, and I go back to work Monday morning...just like nothing happened."

"That's because nothing happened."

Two men in suits and dark glasses came in and looked at them, then took a seat near their table.

"So," she said, "how do you think the dive went?"

"Good. You going to sign up for the advanced class?"

"You know, I think I will. Do I need any new equipment?"

"Oh, a couple of dildos, maybe an inflatable sex doll."

She looked at him and grinned. "You're kidding, right?"

He shook his head. "Nope, not at all."

"I've never tried anal."

"Uh, well, I uh..."

"Wanna give it a try tonight?"

He blinked his eyes rapidly, then scrunched up his face as he tried to ignore the two men in dark glasses. "Gee, let me think about that for a while, and I'll get back to you in the morning."

She laughed, then they ordered appetizers and some lamb.

She kept up with the salacious innuendo while they ate, putting on a good performance for their watchers. He finally leaned across and whispered in her ear...

She laughed loudly, then leaned back in her chair...

"Come on," she said, "let's go before I change my mind..."

He smiled at the two of them as they walked out the restaurant, and the two men just grinned and shook their heads, but he recognized the car parked out front. It was the same sedan that had driven by his house earlier that afternoon; he remembered the plates weren't Federal issue, but from Nevada, and he wondered who was going to try to make contact first.

And how.

+++++

He drove into the Westside precinct house and got out of his truck, looked on at the morning shift streaming into the station -- and he followed them in. Kingman was waiting for him there with Lu Simpson, standing outside her office, so he followed the Watch Commander into her office and sat, while Simpson remained out in the corridor, waiting, though the door was still open.

"Heard your sister passed away, Ted. Sorry."

He nodded his head, looked away.

"Anyway, while you were gone I had a chance to talk with Officer Simpson about your plan. She seems amenable, and I'd like to detach her from patrol for a month, let her ride shotgun with you."

"Okay."

"You think she's big enough for motors?"

"Captain?"

"Think she could make motorcycles?"

He shrugged. "I'll know in two weeks. Any experience?"

"Nope."

"Why? Why do it?"

"Pushing the envelope, Ted. Brave new world, and I need fresh faces to be a part of it."

"Okay. Where'd she go to school?"

Cal State...Fullerton, I think. Criminal Justice with a minor in history." Kingman smiled when she saw the look in his eyes. "Thought you'd appreciate that."

"She seems like a good kid. How do you want me to handle the paperwork?"

"Reports come to me, I'll pass 'em along to division if she...well, if she does okay."

"Got it."

"When's your next MSF class?"

"This weekend. I'll see if I can squeeze her in."

"Thanks. I've got you slated for days this week, evenings the next two, and you'll finish up on nights just before Christmas, Monday through Friday, no on call. Won't interfere with your vacation at all."

"Got a Suburban for us?"

"Yeah, 2109. Has a full reconstruction kit in back, and an advanced life support bag."

"She got any training?"

"Started EMT-1 but dropped; her husband got pissed."

"Understood." He knew that score.

"She's all yours; try to bring her back in one piece."

He smiled, stood to leave.

"Again, Ted. Sorry about your sister. If you need any time off, let me know."

"Will do." He walked out and found Simpson had been cornered by a sergeant and he paused, looked at her as she tried to handle the guy.

"Hey, Ted! You back from vacation? So, are you the poor prick taking LUANDA out this week?"

"That's a fact, Jerry," he said, trying to stifle the urge to kill the bastard. "We'd better go, Officer Simpson."

"Y'all have fun out there," the sergeant said. "Don't eat anything I wouldn't, Shermie."

He felt her catch up to him and did his best to avoid looking at her, in effect putting her more on the spot than she must've already felt. Jerry Cantwell was one of the meanest pricks working the westside and his condescending racism was legendary. The fact that he'd made sergeant was a blemish on the department's history, but right now his first concern was to get Simpson away from him, and he kept up a fast pace until they were out of the building.

"Okay, checking out an AI unit is a little different from a patrol car," he began. "Aside from the the usual stuff, we've got a Reconstruction kit and an Advanced Life Support bag..."

"I thought you needed to be a paramedic to carry one of those with you..."

"Yup."

"You mean...?"

"Paramedic III, fourteen years ago."

"You were one of the first reconstructionists too, weren't you?"

"Yup, I've also been to HRT and TAC schools. Best thing you can do at this stage of your career is to start hitting schools, meaningful schools, not bullshit stuff."

"Uh-huh."

"I take it your husband doesn't approve?"

"Not exactly."

He opened the back of the Suburban and pulled out the Reconstruction kit. "Okay. Basic surveying tools, spray paint, chalk and a shitload of cones and flares here," he said as he pointed out all the stuff on one side of the huge case, "and spare forms here," he added. "Camera and lenses here, and a portable drafting kit with tools in that black case," he said, opening it up and checking it's contents. He put everything back, then opened the ALS bag and checked contents. "Every shift, you check the black bag, and I've got the orange medical gear. Now, you check pressures and lights, then the fluids. I want all four tire pressures on the activity report too. Don't fudge on me, cause I'll check your work."

"Yessir."

He opened the door and started the engine, then turned on all the lights. A/C off and windows down, he got out and looked at her figures and double checked them, then initialed them and handed the form back to her. "You been to radar school yet?" he asked -- and she shook her head. "Alright. You're riding right seat today. Let's hit the road, Jack."

"Yessir."

"We're 841. Check us into service."

"841, 10-8," she said into the radio.

"841 at 0810 hours. 841, 10B at St Elmo and Vineyard, officers not yet on the scene."

He took the mic. "841, code 3," he said as he hit the overheads and siren. "You've got the times and service numbers on our sheet this week, but keep your eyes on me when we get there."

"Yessir."

"Oh...When we're in here, it's Ted."

"Yessir."

They heard units check out on the scene a minute before they arrived, and he saw paramedics running around in the street as he pulled to a stop in the middle of the intersection. A patrolman was walking their way, shaking his head -- and Sherman sighed, got out and walked over to the scene.

Elementary school, crosswalk, seven year old Vietnamese kid cut between two parked cars away from the crosswalk. Teenaged girl driving an old VW Rabbit doesn't see the kid and nails him as he darts out from between the two parked cars, loses control after impact and sideswipes three parked cars.

He walks over to the broken kid. Tiny, four feet, maybe sixty pounds. Jeans and blue plaid shirt, black sneakers, no socks, blood everywhere. Book bag, red, contents sprayed down the street. Kid knocked airborne from point of impact, into and through the windshield of a plumber's van parked across the street. Paramedics placed him on the ground to assess. Good skid marks, glass fragments, witnesses.

Witnesses. Get 'em with a patrolman and start getting names and contact info, basic statements.

He walks over to the Volkswagen; the girl behind the wheel is chewing gum and texting, both doors open. Short skirt, halter top, fishnets and black patent heels. Hispanic. She's speaking Spanish slowly to someone on the phone, then looks up at him as he approaches.

"Gotta go now. Bye," she says in Spanish.

"Morning," he says as he kneels down beside her open door, sniffing the air. "My name's Sherman, and I'm going to need your driver's license, registration and proof of financial responsibility."

She starts digging in the car's glove box. "Oh, damn..." she says. "I can't find 'em."