Jag just watched him go, then stepped into the outhouse. After a look around, he reached into the toilet seat and felt around under it. He came up with some spider webs, one with an nasty-looking spider on it, and a small piece of paper. "Captured!" the note read, in shaky handwriting. "Toronto Islands maybe." It was signed, "OC."
With no sign of Cope or the SEALs, Jag decided to do one more circuit of the lots before going back to town. He was just coming around the corner of the Daniels' cottage when someone stuck a cold metal object against his ear and said, “Stop right there, bucko.” Jag assumed the object was a gun of some sort, so he stopped right there. Whoever held the weapon had come eerily quietly across the forest floor, hiding himself in clear morning light.
A duck called, out on the bay, and the late summer leaves waggled their faded greens above his head. “I’ve made my peace with God,” Jag said, starting to turn.
“He hasn’t made peace with you, I hear,” the voice said, quietly, with a bit of a huskiness to it.
Jag continued his turn. The man Cope had identified to Jag as Lester Miller was dressed in “summer-forest” camouflage with half his face covered. He now stood maybe ten feet away, holding a short paintball gun at waist level. He’d managed to back away from Jag as quietly as he’d come. A bluejay started yakking noisily in a tree overhead. “Let’s go into the cabin,” Lester said. “I don’t want to have to kill you,” he added when Jag didn’t move.
“They’d give you a reprimand,” Jag noted, “and maybe a demotion. You're in Canada, you know.” He had no doubt the paintball gun wasn't using standard paint ammunition.
“They’d give you a pine box,” Lester observed. “I’d come out ahead.” He waited. “I’d hate to have to carry you moaning into the cabin.” The muzzle of the gun wavered towards the cabin and back towards Jag's crotch.
“Why didn’t you say so? Now you’re being logical.” Jag turned and walked to Laura's cabin, not looking back. He still couldn’t hear a thing behind him.
The back door was still unlocked; so Jag just walked in. Sammy, a younger and taller man with longer blond hair sat at the table, sipping from a coffee mug. A cigarette burned in a saucer beside him. He wore jeans and a colorful Hawaiian shirt. And green shoes.
“Peckerhead,” Jag noted. “Welcome to someone else's humble home.”
Sammy didn't smile. “Flattery will get you nowhere. Have a seat. Can I get you some coffee?”
“That instant stuff you’re drinking?”
Sammy took a drag on the cigarette, blew out a cloud of smoke that filled the room. He put a plastic Melitta filter on a plain white cup, then added boiling water from the kettle as Jag sat down.
“You shouldn’t leave the other guy out….” Jag stopped when he noted that Lester was now inside the cabin.
“Spooky, isn’t he?” Sammy put a third cup on the table, and added more hot water to the filter. There was relative silence, except for the duck on the lake, as coffee was served to all three men. Jag sampled his, closed his eyes a moment, and said, "What the fuck do you want with a local cop?”
Lester turned his chair so he could put his long legs onto the bed next to the other guy. “We need your help on a small matter." There was a pause. "We want you to ignore us for a week. Just pretend we're not here."
“Why would I want to?”
“My superiors asked that question and I couldn’t give them an answer. I said there’s nothing they could offer you or threaten you with that would get your cooperation.”
“And?”
“They’re in a hurry and they’re a bit agitated right now. I was authorized to do whatever it took, within reason.”
“Within reason?”
“They don’t mind my torturing you to death or slaughtering your friends if it comes to that, but there’s an upper limit on the money they’ll offer.”
“Then they’re not agitated enough.”
“They are, but the accounting department scares the shit out of four-star generals.”
Jag sighed. “I’m a poet.”
“And a cop. And probably still an intelligence agent.” Lester chuckled, then reached into a shopping bag and brought out a box of chocolate donuts. Looking around, he found a chipped blue plate and slid the donuts onto it.
“Temptations of the devil,” Jag noted. “The Company’s behind you on this?” He took a donut; he was a cop now, after all.
“Can't comment on that," Lester said. Sammy got up, obviously having little patience for talk.
“All of the Company?” Jag asked. He knew intelligence services ground on with bureaucrats and spies and politicians forming wheels within wheels and plans and plots within plans and plots, everybody lying in one way or another and covering his or her ass by not quite agreeing with anything, not quite ruling anything out, and trying to sort of belong to as many in-groups at the same time as could be managed without going insane. It was a wonder anything got done, and it was no wonder any agent was never sure whether he was working for the good of his country, engaged in activities to embarrass some official or somehow recruited by a mole to work against his own side.
Lester sighed, and shook his head. “I fuckin’ hope so. I’ve heard this is sanctioned at the very top. But unless the Big Man kisses my cheek personally, I can’t be sure.” He looked at Jag directly. “It looks legit because of the money they're offering you. They don’t spend money like that without it going up the chain for authorization.”
“How much money will we end up agreeing on?” Jag had the depressing feeling it wasn’t going to matter if he objected.
"Fifty thousand. American.”
That was big money. The services would spend big if they had to, but usually not unless they had to.” Make it a hundred and fifty thousand, and in a secure account.”
“I’ll have to authorize that.”
"Now what did you say do I have to do for that?"
"Leave us alone for a week." Lester held out his hands. "We don't plan to rob a bank or anything; we're just looking around."
"What about Cope?"
"We'll return him, safe and sound."
Jag nodded, as if he was thinking about it. But he knew that even if he agreed to the bribe, he'd probably never see the money. If they didn't pay him, if they stalled for the week then took off, who could he complain to? And he didn't trust them to return Cope; the CSIS agent could end up being a problem for the Americans. All that for a week's thoughtful negligence on Jag's part.
There was the sound of a couple of cars coming along the dirt road, they were moving slowly from the sound and someone was shouting from one car to another. Lester took a look out the window, and Jag bolted for the door. He hit the barbecue with one hip as he crossed the deck, took the steps in one jump and raced for the driveway. The younger guy beat him to it, popping a shot that caught Jag in the forehead. It stung, and a few seconds later his vision disappeared. He kept running, figuring that as long as he was seen by someone there was a chance of that someone phoning the police. When he felt branches hitting his face, he realized he must have crossed the road into the forest on the other side. He hit a tree, bounced backwards, and went down and the lights went out.
***
When he came to, there was the taste of mud in Jag's mouth. It felt like a mixture of slime and grit, with the moldy taste of long decomposed plants and the sharper taste of fresh plant material. He was contemplating this when something moved on his lip. He tried to spit it out, but it crawled towards his right nostril.
He moved his lips and more of the mixture sloshed into his mouth and settled in his cheek. He coughed a bit of it back out into the world again. His throat hurt like he’d recently swallowed a pine cone, however unlikely that seemed.
It appeared that he was lying in mud. A brilliant conclusion, just brilliant.
He was trying to figure out why he was lying in mud when it occurred to him that his nose must be higher than the mud surface or he’d be dead. Mud goes with water. W
ater goes with drowning.
He could remember running. Obviously he’d been running through some woods. That explained something, at least.
But not the darkness. It was either a) the blackest night he’d known, or b) he was in a mine. Or c) he couldn’t see. He liked the first two options best.
He listened. There was the sound of wind in the reeds, and waves breaking somewhere. Scratch option B.
Nearby, startlingly loud, a bird called out “Sweet sweet Canada Canada Canada." That ruled out option A. Them suckers didn’t do anything at night but sleep. He’d have preferred the sound of an owl or something.
He moved his head. It hurt like someone had filled it with a couple of broken guitars and mayonnaise and then stepped on it a couple of times. His right ear came free of the mud with a popping sound and the right side of his face suddenly went from cool to cold. It was definitely wet mud.
There was a line of chill across his back just above his waist. His guess was that he’d just become part of some swamp, with the lower half of his body still under water. The cold line was where the water sloshed up.
He couldn’t feel his arms and legs. He didn’t like that. They should hurt, or something.
More of him felt cold.
Then he remembered running across a road, but whether the memory was recent or out of some summer past he couldn’t tell. His neck ached and he really, really wanted to lay his head back into the soft mud. Even with the taste of the mud and the millions of little creatures that called it home; they probably wouldn’t be any worse the second time.
Instead he gave his body an order to get up and out of there.
His body got up and crawled forward a foot or two. His hands felt dry rock and his legs found some sort of bottom in the mud.
He gave his body the same order and his eyes the order to see. He got wish number one but no dice on the second. He felt his legs scramble onto the rock, then the right side of his face and forehead burst into a half-dozen points of pain.
He thought for a moment he’d run into a bee’s nest and actually considered returning to the water like a salamander that had changed its mind about evolution. But when he jerked his head back, the pain disappeared. He reached forward with his hand and grabbed onto some dead twigs, none of them bigger than a pencil, but most of them just as sharp.
Waving his hand around he found a material softer and cooler. He pulled some off, felt the soft flat needles, and brought them to his face. The sharp odor confirmed what his fingers told me; this was a white cedar. It was a good sign; cedars like to be near water, but not actually in it. A better sign was that he could sense a bit of light in the darkness. His eyes stung, but when he rubbed them with the back of a thumb (after cleaning the thumb on a piece of his shirt) he could see even more.
He reached upward and grabbed some more cedar, then tried to pull himself up. It didn’t work; the cedar branches were too flexible and he’d just got onto his knees when a wave of pain and dizziness swept over him and he more or less collapsed on the spot.
His stomach knotted suddenly and heaved. The sharp, sharp smell and taste of vomit filled his mouth and nostrils and left him coughing it out.
When the spasms were done, he wiped his mouth with one hand then pushed himself away. If he was going to crawl, he had better places than in his own vomit.
He inched forward, his knees complaining against wood and rock, until he could touch the cedar again. Carefully, holding the dead lower branches up as he came to them, he slid under the tree. A few feet in he was off the worst of the damp spot, and lying on a carpet of soft and dry cedar mulch casually mixed with small fallen branches. The branches of a cedar are particularly nasty, but eventually he cleared enough to be able to lie on his back without wincing.
“White-throated something or other,” he thought, as “Sweet sweet Canada Canada Canada” started up again, just over his head. The world smelled of cedar and warmth, and of the mud his clothes had been treated to. He shivered a bit as his clothes picked up a faint wind but the cedar mulch beside him was warm on his fingertips, so he figured he’d dry sooner or later. He could hear birds further away, and the faint sound of waves. His mouth still tasted of vomit and his throat burned. He thought about crawling back to the water for a drink, but it seemed such a long way in the darkness.
Sometime about there the blackness expanded, and he passed out again for a moment.
Moments later, he woke up cold, shivering, but almost at once aware of his situation. His head still hurt. He felt through his hair and found a crust that was probably dried blood near the front. Sharp needles walked around his skull when he moved it, so he stopped. But he could make out some branches against a blue sky.
A crow yelled and there was a noise not far away that might have been a rabbit sharing his tree. But there didn’t seem to be anything else to do, so he curled up, removed a few more sharp branches, and closed his eyes again.
He woke up sore, but his head hurt a bit less. It was still black in his universe, but it was warm and that crow was back again, so he assumed it was daylight outside the tree. He felt a tickle on his forehead. It moved down over an eyebrow and he brushed it away. A spider, probably.
He was suddenly aware that was lying on some very uncomfortable things. Sticks poked into him and a pointed rock shoved against a rib. And, now that he’d had a spider experience, he could feel various bugs crawling up his pantlegs and under his shirt. All imaginary, most likely, but how is a half-blind man to know?
He tried to stand, but ran into tree branches just above his head, so he crawled backward. When he was in open air again, he stood up and shook his clothes. It still felt like there were insects all over him, but at least he didn’t get as dizzy and didn’t fall down. A few sowbugs crawling around his underwear seemed like a good trade-off until he got to thinking about it too much and some bird called, “Bugs bugs in your pants in your pants in your pants.” So he dropped his pants and shook out his underwear without actually taking them off. He almost toppled but that’s normal when you can’t see.
With his pants up and the insect population under his clothes down significantly, he listened. There was a light breeze but no feeling of sun on his face, no matter which way he turned, so he figured it must be overcast. There were bird sounds, but no sounds that people make, not even the far-off buzz of a motor. He could see light well now, but the light hurt him and he couldn't make out details.
It didn’t look good for Jagger Stone.
He tasted the wind on his tongue. He gave himself a quick, sharp slap on the side of the head to see if it might loosen some optic blockage. When he got off the ground again, dizzy and nauseous, he resolved not to do that again.
Abruptly there was the crack of a branch breaking. It was a sound he recognized immediately, and it was close behind him. He closed his mouth and felt the sudden bitter, sharp taste of blood.
“Jag!” a voice said. “By God you’re a difficult motherfucker, aren't you. Looks like I’m going have to do something about you.”
***
"Now what," Sammy asked Lester. "Figure this one out; you're supposed to be the brains of this outfit."
"Since when? Did you know those chocolate donuts you're hooked on look like assholes? I must get a shrink to look into that for you."
"Since you're older than I am, that's when. We going to release this one into the wild or put him into the lake?" Sammy reached for the donut bag.
"I guess taking him to Toronto's out of the question."
"That Patricia chick would kill us if we brought another one in."
"It's only for a week," Lester said.
"Then she'd only kill us for a week."
"A comforting thought." Lester paused. "I sure didn't figure they'd have another guy here so soon. Sure as hell can't go back to those cottages for a while, can we?"
"You can. I'll just stay away before the Canadian marines show up."
"Canadians don't have marines."
"One of their few good ideas." Sammy looked back, as though he could see into the trunk. An old car passed the cottage. "Hope you got him tied better than the last one."
"Should be. I did it myself this time." The car backed down the driveway towards the road, Lester stopped driving with his arm leaning out the window, looking up the road while Sammy was looking down the road. Neither saw the figure that sprinted from behind the cottage.
Lester took the end of a steel bar right in the side of his head, and Sammy was barely out of the car when the same bar hit him across the back of the neck, knocking him to the ground. Stunned but still mobile, Sammy decided to play dead for the moment. He didn't hear a noise from Lester, so he stayed down, with his eyes closed.
Shaman set the bar down when he was sure neither of the SEALs were moving, and reached into the car to release the trunk, watching Lester all the while. Then he felt Lester's ankle and removed a large knife from an ankle holster. Shaman used the knife to cut various items wrapped around Jag.
"Shaman?" Jag asked, still dizzy and a bit unfocused.
"Damn right." Shaman paused. "Now what do we do?"
Jag checked the SEALs. "Still alive," he said. "But they'll need a hospital, I imagine. Leave them. We can call it in when we're out of the area."
Ten minutes later they were in Jag's SUV, heading for Brighton. Shaman used a phone booth to place an anonymous call to the police, but when the police got to the cottage, the blue Cobalt was gone and there was no sign of the SEALs. By the time someone checked the marina, Serenity was gone, too, a dot way out on the lake. Jag tried to get someone from the coast guard or the air force to chase the boat, but he couldn't convince anyone to do it without a committee recommendation and paperwork in triplicate.
That's when Cope called.
"Where are you, for Christ's sake?" Jag had to pull the car over along the street. Shaman stepped out and waved goodbye.
"Loose from the jaws of the enemy and free for the moment." Cope sounded delighted. "I'm in Toronto, in a rental car, heading back your way."
"It'll be good to see you."
"If and when I get there. I'm caught in a traffic jam at the moment."