Corcovado, Or Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars

She was looking at him as he spoke, looking at banked embers of uncertainty eating away at his soul, and she nodded her head just so.

"Yes, I don't suppose you have much choice now."

His eyes lost focus for a moment - and Altair faded from sight.

"What do you mean?"

"Only that you'll need to get fitted for a peg-leg, and soon."

"Oh."

"Listen, I hope you don't mind, but I've talked with a few friends at Delta about moving down there, moving to the DATC. Whenever you're ready - that's the word.

"Who'd you talk to?"

"Ben Chambers." He had looked at her then, his eyes full of molten fury - and she'd looked away lest she go up in flames with him. "I'm sorry," she said a moment later. "I shouldn't have."

"Why?"

"Why...what?"

"Why would anyone want me now. I can't get out of bed, I can't even take a shit without calling a fucking nurse..."

"This is the hard part, Jim, the worst of it. We can all pull together, Ted and I - and you. We can help you get there."

"Look...I don't even know you," he said through gritted teeth, his voice a venomous hiss, "but you're talking to me like you're my wife. You're going to have to forgive me, but what the Hell is going on here?"

She sat up, looked him in the eye. "It's funny, yes, but Jim, I feel like God brought us together. I'm here now, for you, and I think this is all a part of His plan."

"Do you?"

She nodded - and he found the certainty in her eyes revolting. Revolting, and yet almost fascinating, at the same time.

"I don't believe in coincidence, Jim."

"And all that crap about being at the inn, being compelled to join us for breakfast? That you'd been..."

"I know, I know," this strange woman said, "but the truth of it is even stranger."

"Oh? There's some truth in this story? Oh my goodness, I can hardly wait."

She smiled, her eyes wide now, wide and clear. "We lost Tracy in Vancouver. We'd no trace of her for almost a week..."

"Time-out. Who's 'we'?"

"I'm with a joint Federal/Interpol task force on human trafficking."

"So...you're a cop?"

She shook her head. "No, not really. I'm with the FBI, but I'd been working with local jurisdictions in and around New Orleans..."

"On human trafficking," he said, his voice now full of urgent anger. "With the FBI."

She saw the look in his eye, the change that came over him. "Yes..."

"My mom was a social worker, in Vermont, after the war. She was pulled into working on human trafficking cases when she was young."

"And she couldn't shake it, could she?"

He turned away.

"It's a calling, Jim. There are so many girls, and so few of us give a damn."

"I know."

"Yes, I imagine you do. Did she stay in social work?" Melissa asked, innocently.

"No, not really. She started working for the state AGs office sometime in the late fifties, then was offered a job in Washington. All I know is she turned it down, and she quit a little after that. She never talked about it much after that."

Melissa nodded. "I know, part of the pattern."

"Pattern?"

"She was in Vermont, you said?"

"Yup, where we - I grew up."

"Chinese, through Montreal and Quebec. An almost constant stream of girls come in through Vermont. Taken to New York City first, to the restaurants around the city, worked as indentured servants - unless they're pretty. Then they're sold off as domestics - until they're no longer pretty, that is."

"Domestics?"

"Free pussy, Jim. At parties and other - events. Then they're disposed of."

"What does that mean? Killed?"

"Most of the time, yes. Unless a new buyer can be found, but often it depends on how much the girl knows, and that often depends on what her 'master' was into. It's usually drugs, and usually heroin."

"Where does Tracy fit into all this?"

"We got onto her while we were trailing some cartel people, down in New Orleans. She made a break for it, made it to Colorado but she, well, her addiction was too powerful. She fell in with a lawyer in Aspen, and to make a long story short she ran into someone who knew somebody who knew people in that cartel, and then the lawyer ratted her. Turned out he was doing work for one of the cartels, but by that point we knew if we could get our hands on her we could get her to talk, but she was off, gone before we could get to her. We lost her until she crossed into Canada, only by that time Interpol got involved. She kept slipping in and out of our radar but we had her - or at least we thought we had her. And that's when you showed up."

"And you got her to leave?"

"We got her, period."

"She's in -"

"Protective custody...yes. Witness Protection."

"What does Ted know about all this?"

"Next to nothing."

"So, I assume you think the cartels will take no interest in me? Or my son?"

"Doubtful. But then again, I won't be far away."

He looked at her then, feeling a little like a tethered goat. "I see," he added.

"I doubt that, Jim."

"So, what's all this hooey about God bringing us together, no coincidences - and all that. Is that part of your ruse, too?"

"No, not at all. That's how I found Tracy. Through this feeling I had." She looked at him hard for a moment, then she cleared her throat. "Could I tell you something, something sort of private."

"Oh, I can't wait."

She nodded her head. "Alright, Jim. Three days ago - when you threw that clot and went into arrest - I saw something."

"Something? Like what kind of something?"

"I saw your parents - talking to you."

Icy claws grabbed his throat and he struggled to take another breath...

"I heard what your father said to you."

"Oh?" he said, his eyes watering now.

"It's not you, Jim. It's your boy."

He was crying openly now, his lips quivering, his eyes twitching as he tried to come to terms with her words...

"I know why I'm here now, Jim. I'm here to open the gate between you and your son." She was lost just then, like she had faded into another plane of existence, then she shook herself back to the present. "I'm think I'm here to make sure that happens. After that, my purpose here is over."

"Over?" he said, trying to breathe. "What do you - mean - by that...?"

And the woman shrugged. "I have no idea, Jim. But I think that's what your mother was trying to tell me."

He struggled under the weight of her words, fought to come to terms with the implications of the timing. "Could you see her? My mother, I mean?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, Jim. All I have left is the impression of someone's eyes, but I never saw her, not in the usual sense of seeing."

"You're not, like, a schizophrenic, are you?"

"I don't think so," she said, laughing just a little, "but, does menopause count?"

And he laughed too, then his eyes turned cold and hard. "Open the gate? Did she say that?"

"I think so." Melissa said. "Why?"

"I was thinking just then, right when you said that, about the gate in our back yard. We had a little dog when I was growing up, and that gate was the only thing that kept him in the yard. I left it open once and he got out, ran into the street and a car hit him. Keeping the gate closed became kind of a metaphor in our family, something about the necessity of protecting the things we love."

"Yes, but what about being overprotective?"

"Is there such a thing as being too protective where our kids are concerned?"

"Sure there is," she sighed. "Nobody can grow when they're being smothered..."

"I don't smother Ted," he countered, perhaps a little too defensively. "If anything, I think I'm too distant..."

"But don't you see, that's a kind of control too, Jim. When a child needs guidance, wants advice, and you stand back - well, in a way you're reinforcing a child's needfulness. Parents need to give advice freely, I think, and kids need to know they can come to you with anything, at anytime, for help..."

"What else did you two talk about on the trip back."

"That being true to yourself is the best way to be true to God..."

+++++

She read through the letter one more time, then called the head of her department in Burlington, Vermont.

"Mike, I got another one."

"What's this one say, Liz?" said Mike Bennett, a retired federal judge who had recently been assigned to coordinate state and federal law enforcement activities along the Canadian border.

"Sounds kind of like 'back-off or else' to me."

"Did this one come to your house?"

"Yessir."

"Well, goddamn. What does Jerry think?"

"He's not sure what our response ought to be, wanted me to run this by you first."

"Well, if it's Hip-Sing or one of the other Triads we have to take it seriously..."

"Jerry says there's no way we can be sure. There's that new group in the Village, the Ghost Dragons..."

"Bad people...bad news if it's them."

"Yessir. Well, we're stepping on a lot of toes, disrupting a lot of ongoing operations up here. Even so, it's out of character for them to target us like this..."

"Yeah...going after families...that's something new alright. Is that what Jerry thinks."

"Well, I'm the only one to receive something like this at home. Everyone else has gotten them at the office in Burlington."

"What does your husband have to say about this?"

"He's more worried about Jimmie than anything else."

"What about the Florida thing. Will that work?"

"I doubt it, sir. It would be just a matter of days, maybe a week, before they track us down."

"Well, what do you want to do?"

"Change tactics again. Lure them in, take a few of them out, then watch them, see how they regroup."

"Then what?"

"I don't think I can keep this up much longer, Mike. Not with them potentially targeting my family."

"Sorry about the dog. What did you tell your boy?"

"That someone left the gate open."

"Damn. Well, the reality is simple enough, Elizabeth. We don't have even one of these new groups penetrated, so we have no idea what their strength is. If they're targeting you, or your family, we have no option other than to move you, get you out of there."

"There's another option, sir. I publicly resign."

"And give in to their threats? But even so...we could never be sure, could we? They could decide to make an example of you. That's what..."

"Yessir, I know. That's what they do to cop families over there."

"Do you have any reason to think they wouldn't do that to you, or to your family?"

"It would be a first, sir."

"There's always a first, Liz. You want to try that one on for size?"

"What about surveillance?"

"Keep you under surveillance, as in 24/7?" her boss asked.

"It might do the job, sir. What bothers me now is giving in so easily."

"Listen...you know the drill, how it is now. No one in the White House cares about these Chinese gangs, not Eisenhower, not Nixon...not even that Kennedy character..."

"I know...because they're just 'running girls.' Yessir, I know the score, but there's tons of heroin moving in with these girls. That's how they've done it, sir, for centuries. First they start with girls, then add opium and heroin. Drug use grows exponentially and when the real gangs move-in, the operations to begin compromising politicians begins."

"Preaching to the converted, Liz."

"I know, sir. Sorry. It's just frustrating - like watching a slow-motion train wreck, and you know the outcome."

"Well, what do you want to do?"

"I hate to do this, sir, but I think I'm leaving this one on you."

She heard him sigh, then a moment later: "I'd like your resignation on my desk tomorrow. I'll have the office prepare a statement, get it out to the newspapers."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"You'll start with the next class at the academy. That'll be next August. Take some time off, get some rest, and be ready to get back to work next year."

"Yessir."

+++++

"Next?" an old man asked, opening a file folder.

"Melissa Goodway," one of the other men in the office said. "Divorced, two years ago. Finished her J.D. before the divorce." His name was Jesse James - a name that had given him nothing but trouble ever since his own days at the Academy, and he was briefing the FBI director this morning.

"Where? I don't see it here..."

"Georgetown."

"Okay. DAs office, I take it?"

"Yessir."

"Fulton, or DeKalb."

"Fulton, sir. One year, then she was snatched up by a joint task force, locals working with the DEA and FBI. SAC Atlanta recommended she try the Academy, sir."

"How'd she do?"

"First academically, middle of the road on PT, but she's a helluva marksman."

"What's her profile?"

"Raped, sophomore year, Georgia Tech."

"Shit, that's a lot of baggage, Ken. Are you sure about this?"

"Her interview went well, sir, and other than that, her psych profile is rock solid."

"What does Liz Patterson think of her?"

"Recommended, no reservations. Page six, sir."

The old man flipped through the pages in the folder, then looked up at the other men in the room. "Anyone have any objections?" He looked around the room, made eye contact with all nine of them. "Come on, speak up now - or forever hold your peace."

"Does she have enough experience for this," one of the others asked. "She'll be on her own for weeks at a time."

"She knows what she's signed up for," James said. "And she's been undercover before."

"No one knows what they've signed up 'til they're up to their neck in alligators," the old man said.

"Especially in New Orleans," one of the others said, to murmurs of assent around the room.

"Who interviewed her?" the old man asked, flipping through the file again.

"Pat did the prelims, I did the follow-up. His write-up is on the next to last page, sir."

The old man read the notes for a while, flipped to a few cross-referenced pages then tossed the file on the desk. "When can she be ready to go?"

"It'll take a few days to get their documentation in order, another week to get the team placed in Macao."

"So, we need a week?"

"Yessir."

"That's cutting it pretty damn close, Jesse."

"Yes, sir, it is. And the longer we sit here debating the risks, the worse it gets, sir."

"Alright. Fuller and this Norton from Treasury go to Hong Kong, Patterson takes Goodway to Macao. Any objections?"

No one spoke as the Old Man assayed the room one more time. He shook his head, then signed the documents approving the largest hit on foreign soil the Bureau had ever attempted. No one had to remind him the last time the Bureau tried something like this, two agents came home in body bags.

VII

"What did you say?"

"That being true to yourself is the best way to be true to God..." Melissa Goodway said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Do what you think is best, and let God take care of the rest."

He looked at her while he let out a long, drawn-out breath, then shook his head. "Doesn't mean a whole lot to an old agnostic like me."

She smiled. "And I don't think God minds, one way or another."

"You sound like my mother. She would've liked you."

She looked at him - didn't say a word.

"And now Ted tells me you talked him into the priesthood."

"Did he? Interesting."

"Interesting?"

"I told him pretty much the same thing. To thine own self be true, if you get into all that New Testament stuff."

"I never got into any of it. I'm content with that choice, by the way."

"Okay. Then I am too."

"Simple as that, huh?"

"Simple as that."

"So, besides that, what else did you two talk about?"

"He's terrified you'll die, for one. He feels like you never talk with him, that you're always holding back, and that he's never really known you."

He nodded. "I feel that way, too. Like we never connected."

"Why? I mean, he's your son. Is there something about him you don't trust?"

"He always seemed to hate his mother, the drinking, I think, but there's always been something else behind all his anger. I've always thought that, deep down, he hates me more than he hates his mother."

She looked away, wondered how much she could tell him without breaking Ted's confidence. "I think, Jim, more than anything else he's been afraid of you. Afraid, because the things you do felt to him like something he'd never be able to do. Afraid, like some people are afraid of God."

"But...I'm just a pilot..."

"You know...every day a surgeon may hold two, maybe three or four lives in his hands. You? Several hundred people a day, maybe more. Hundreds of years ago sailing masters and ship's pilots were held in highest regard...almost like gods."

"It's not like that these days."

"Oh, maybe not to you..."

"I've always just liked flying. That head-shrinker crap always left me cold."

"Head-shrinker crap?"

"Yeah. I liked the idea of flying free up there," he said, pointing at the window, "always have. And once you start liking it up there, well, it's like nothing else matters. Flying becomes a state of mind. Not the aesthetic enjoyment of "being up there," but the precision of it, of making the next landing the smoothest you've ever done."

"And you've no interest in the hundreds of people on your airplane?"

"Oh, quite the opposite, really. Everything I do up there is to make it the best possible experience for everyone onboard; safe and comfortable are the two words that come to mind."

"And you never think about holding the lives of all those people in your hands?"

"Not in the way you're implying. It's not a control-freak thing, about being perceived as some sort of God-like creature. That's Hollywood bullshit, but the truth of it is they're always on my mind."

"What about the way people stare at you when you walk through a terminal building?"

"What about it?"

"You think, just maybe, that it's the same way people look at a surgeon when he walks out of the operating room, or even when a priest walks up to the altar?"

"No, Ma'am, I don't. And what's all this got to do with Ted?"

"I told you. He's been - let's just call it 'respectful' - of you his entire life. You've been someone he looked up to, maybe even someone he wanted to be like."

"The priesthood?" he said, thinking aloud.

"Bingo."

"He told me a while ago he wants to try flight school..."

"Bingo, times two."

He looked at her, tried not to smile.

"You know," she continued, "when he was behind the wheel on Altair, he looked almost just like you. The same look in his eyes, the way he holds the wheel..."

"You think that's what he wants to do? Did he mention it to you?"

"That's all he wanted to talk about."

"What? Flying?"

"Yup."

"I'll be damned."

She grinned at his choice of words. "I doubt that, but, I take it you never took him flying?"

"Once or twice, maybe ten years ago."

"And? Did he like it?"

"I don't - think so."

"Did you ask?"

He looked away, tried to remember what Ted said, the way he said it. The words left an impression - 'Dad, I don't like flying.' He looked at her then: "Something to do with fear, of being afraid, maybe...?"

"Exactly. Afraid of you. That he wouldn't be as good as you are."

He shook away the implications, rubbed his eyes. "So, why now?"

"Because now he's really afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Of the worst possible thing in his universe. Loosing you. So he wants to step up now, be the man you've always been to him."

"That's not a reason to want to fly..."

"Oh?"

"No, it's not. Flying is a passion. He's never once let on he was even interested in flying."

"You should ask him what he does with all your old flying magazines."

"No kidding?"

"No kidding, Jim. And it was going down right under your nose. As a matter of fact, the last thing that kid wants to be is a priest."

"Why...why do you say that?"

"Because then he'd have to absolve his mother of her sins. And I don't think he'll ever be able to do that."

He nodded.

"So, I never got the story, the whole story. What got you into sailing? You said something about your father's boat?"