They’d reunited at Ivan’s house, where Clay had been spending much of his time since he left Dylan with Bill Payne. Clay found himself surprisingly relaxed. He’d told himself, ‘I will not make this any harder than it has to be.’
After being away from Clay for weeks, Ivan was gentle and composed, grateful they gave him time with the love of his life. It wasn’t nearly enough time, but he’d waste none of it grieving or dwelling on what could have been. He was home for now, and he’d make the most of it.
It was another hour before they showered together again and dressed for dinner. Clay watched Ivan put on the rig with the pistol over his black turtleneck. The black windbreaker that billowed out in the shoulders went on to hide the bulge of the Glock.
“We’re walking to get dinner at Mama’s, Ivan. Do you have to wear that thing? I think you’re safe there.”
“I do. I’ve just finished going through training, and the underlying message was be ready to use your weapon at all times. I have no fear in Mama’s dining room, but just when I relax and think I don’t need to take my gun with me, I’m going to be caught flatfooted in a trap someone has set for me.”
“You don’t believe the world is that dangerous, Ivan?”
“No, but the Company wants me to believe that. I don’t know what I’ll find when I get back there. It isn’t like any place else I’ve been. I’m ready for it and it serves no purpose to fluff off now. One thing the training does is it makes you vigilant.
Clay kissed Ivan’s cheek. If he said it was necessary, then it was.
He would not worry. He had no way to stop what was going to happen, so he’d let go at the appropriate time.
Clay went down the stairs and stepped outside as the sun sank low in the western sky. Ivan came down a few minutes later and they walked hand in hand down the beach. There was a pleasant breeze and Ivan had learned not to feel constrained by his outfit.
It was surprising how little he noticed his change in appearance. He was usually in shorts or jeans and a tee-shirt.
As they stepped into Mama’s kitchen, she said, “Don’t we look dapper tonight,” and she kissed Ivan’s cheek.
“The man in black,” Lucy said when she saw Ivan.
The meal was typical of what you got at Mama’s table. She’d fixed a couple of Ivan’s favorites to celebrate his being home. The talk was muted by the absence of Dylan. Ivan had been the one who was absent for too long, but except for Dylan being gone, it was mostly eating and enjoying.
Ivan swung their hands back and forth as they walked up the beach toward the house next to the river.
Clay thought how much they resembled the school kids who discovered they were in love all those years ago. It was impossible to keep their hands off each other back then too.
He giggled at how he remembered it was then. The world was perfect. He lived in paradise, and he was in love with Ivan.
“What’s so funny?” Ivan asked.
“Us,” Clay said. “We did this back when we were teenagers.”
Ivan stopped and hugged Clay to him. They kissed passionately as stars glittered above them.
“Have I ever told you how much I love you?” Ivan asked.
Clay knew the reply.
“You may have mentioned it once.”
It was perfect but it wouldn’t last. They would make the most of the time they had left together. If only Ivan didn’t have to leave.
They began walking again. Ivan swung their hands back and forth. Clay thought about the years when Ivan hadn’t been in his life. ‘This was not that,’ he told himself. This was love, and he’d love Ivan until the end of time. He didn’t like that Ivan was framed for killing Mason. He didn’t like that Ivan was being forced to risk his life for people who were capable of such double-dealing to get their way.
“Where’d you go, Babe?” Ivan asked at the back door.
“Just thinking of how much I love you. When I was sixteen and I figured out what I was feeling was love, I couldn’t imagine loving anyone any more than I loved you then. Now, I love you ten times as much as I did then. I love you more each day. Don’t let anything happen to you, Ivan. I can’t live without you. I wouldn’t be able to go on without you.”
“I’ll try, Babe. I can make no promises. I don’t know what I’m going to get into over there. I haven’t known since they played this card. I had to sign that contract. If I hadn’t, they’d have put me in jail for the rest of my life. This way, it gives us a chance, but you’re wrong when you say you can’t live without me. You need to live for Dylan’s sake. I know if something happens to me you’ll always be there for our son. I can take care of myself and Roland is a good man to have at my side. He’s my ace in the hole.”
“He’s a big man to have at your side,” Clay said.
“I don’t really feel like I’m home without the kid around. He’s always been here,” Ivan said wistfully.
“I know,” Clay said.
They went inside Ivan’s house and climbed the stairs to go sit on the deck to admire the bright sky and the sounds the night made.
*****
On June 15th, Ivan was up early.
He made coffee and they sat on the deck as a new day dawned.
Clay watched Ivan dress in his freshly laundered clothes.
The preciseness with which he put on the rig for that pistol intrigued Clay. He reached behind him with his left hand. He reached behind him with his right. He moved the rig a fraction of an inch.
Once Ivan was satisfied he turned to face Clay.
“How do I look?”
“Secret agent man,” Clay sang. “He’s a man who lives a life of danger.”
“To everyone but you he remains a stranger,” Ivan sang, leaning to kiss the man who knew him best.
“Am I your secret agent man, Babe?”
“You are. In that outfit, you look just like Bond, James Bond!”
Ivan laughed.
He understood what was coming. If Ken Ho did show up at the coffee house, there would be a firefight, and Ivan would die in a hail of bullets, along with Ken Ho.
Dead men tell no tales.
Ivan was caught in a nightmare. Waking up would require him to take control of the mission he was being sent on. Men like Lance and Carter embraced the mission. Ivan needed to force the mission to go in the direction that would do him the most good and perhaps save his and Ken Ho’s lives. In that world of mystery and intrigue he wasn’t sure he’d succeed, even if his life hung in the balance.
Clay put his arms around Ivan. He held him close for a long time.
“Have I ever told you how much I love you?” Ivan asked.
“You may have mentioned it once,” Clay answered.
“I love you twice as much as I ever have before. You are my life, Clayton Olson, and if it’s earthly possible I’ll come back to you. But if I don’t, my love will remain forever in your heart, Babe. Don’t ever forget that.”
Clay cried softly and he held on tight.
“It’s time, Babe.”
Ivan stepped back. Clay went down the stairs first. They went out around the house to walk hand in hand out to the highway.
At the end of the driveway, across the highway, was a black sedan waiting with its engine running. Ivan and Clay crossed to stand beside the open rear door.
Clay hugged Ivan and they kissed one last kiss.
“You stay safe, Ivan. If you don’t come back to me, I’ll hunt you
down.”
Ivan smiled and turned to sit in the back seat.
Clay watched the sedan drive out of sight.
Ivan never looked back.
The sedan drove through an open gate on the far side of Tampa’s airport terminal. The car stopped alongside a huge black plane.
There were no identifying markings anywhere on it.
The plane’s engines were humming. They were waiting for Ivan’s arrival. He climbed the stairs into a fashionable compartment that was designed for comfort. This was flying in style.
The bulkhead door slammed behind him.
The stairs were immediately moved away from the plane and right away it began rolling toward the main runway.
“Take a seat. Buckle in,” a man in a burgundy uniform said.
Ivan sat in one of the comfortable seats not far from Roland.
The plane lifted off and the engines roared as the plane climbed into the late afternoon sky, setting a westerly heading.
They’d land in Phnom Penh tomorrow in the afternoon.
The interior of the plane was like something out of a James Bond movie. There was wood paneling, and easy chair seats were randomly placed around the passenger compartment. There was a bar, and a dozen people were already strapped in when Ivan got there.
“I was hoping we didn’t leave without you,” Roland said.
“They taking care of you, Roland?” Ivan asked.
“Oh, I’m fine. Don’t need much taking care of,” he said.
Ten minutes into the flight, a tall man in a thousand dollar suit moved to sit close to Ivan.
“Ivan, I’m Tom Carter. I’m in charge of our mission. We’ll have time to talk during the flight, so I won’t go into detail now. We have four men on our detail, besides you and your man Roland. The other men are government people catching a lift to Cambodia with us. A friend of the director lent us his plane for the flight. We’ll talk later.” Carter got up to go sit next to two men also in suits.
Roland was all smiles when Ivan sat next to him.
“This is my first plane trip,” Roland said.
“You started with going halfway around the world, Roland.”
“Is that where we’re going?” he asked.
“We’re flying from Tampa to Cambodia. That’s almost ten thousand miles. It is twenty-four thousand miles around the earth.”
“It is? How do you know that, Ivan?”
“I have a mind for numbers. Things like that I remember. I’ve been to Cambodia before,” Ivan said.
“You have? What’s it like?” Roland asked.
“It’s not so different. Most places are a lot alike.”
Ivan remembered his first trip to Southeast Asia in a twin engine air freight plane. They had to stop at every island for fuel. This was flying in luxury compared to that puddle jumper.
Once they could move around Ivan sat with Roland at one of the side tables. The constant drone of the engines was a mild hum that got lost as so much background noise his ears filtered out after a while.
Ivan showed Roland how to play a game on a computer that was built into the table top. Roland was immediately captivated and Ivan left him playing the computer game he’d never seen before. Roland talked to himself as he went through the different stages of the game.
Ivan dozed for a while. He hadn’t had much sleep in the last few days and he just dropped off in the comfortable easy chair. There was the buzz of conversations going on around him and the clinking of glasses from near the bar. He wasn’t thirsty, he was just tired.
Carter came to sit next to Ivan. As Ivan became aware of someone too close to him, he almost went for his gun. His eyes flickered open as his left hand started its rear reach, which he turned into a yawn.
“Mr. Carter,” Ivan said, trying to calm his racing heart.
“Ivan, you know the mission. I’m told you’re capable and you’re fast on your feet. At this point, the less said the better. Not everyone is briefed in on what we’re doing. I have four men and you, and your man. You tell Roland what you think he needs to know. Once we are in Phnom Penh, we’ll put the team together and they’ll work in shifts keeping an eye on you and waiting for the contact we’re after. The faster Kenji Khan reaches out to you, the sooner we can move on him and be on our way home.”
“I’m ready for whatever shakes out,” Ivan said, and Carter patted his arm and went back to where his team was sitting.
Ivan closed his eyes and listened to Carter talk to his men. Ivan had been trained to hear things most people didn’t know to listen for. He was a good listener. He listened to Roland mumbling to the computer game he couldn’t leave alone.
Then, Ivan stopped listening. He fell asleep. He hadn’t slept much the last three days, because he knew he could sleep all he wanted for the next day. He didn’t need much sleep. He needed some.
His awakening was sudden, and the gun was wedged against the seat where he reclined. Had he attempted to go for his gun, he couldn’t, because something was holding his left wrist to the arm of the chair.
He’d noticed the men who were sitting in a cluster when he stepped onto the plane’s compartment. He’d noticed one of the guys was nearly as large as Roland, but few men were that large.
Now, the guy nearly as large as Roland was leaning over Ivan, holding his left wrist. He’d been warned to be careful of Ivan’s quick left hand.
Ivan realized there was no reason to go for his gun in a place like this, except the guys he was with had no need to play nice. He wasn’t one of them. He was bait and they could have a little fun if they like.
The big man’s left hand slapped Ivan across the face. Ivan’s right arm bent at the elbow, his right hand stopped moving close to his right shoulder. There might be no need for gun play, but that didn’t mean Ivan was beyond making a point the bully could understand.
This creep outweighed Ivan by eighty pounds. Ivan hitting him would be a waste of time, and so he began twisting in slow motions, until he felt the gun move further up on his back, and finally the rig moved into the proper position for Ivan to reach it.
“Who are you? Why are you in my face?” Ivan yelped, seemingly reacting as the big man was confident he would.
“Lance is my name. I’ve got to see you don’t get hurt, you see. Figured I needed a close up view of you. You aren’t much of a man. You’re skinny. They tell me you’re a queer boy. Is that so, queer boy?”
Lance slapped Ivan’s face a second time. It’s what Ivan was waiting for. Once he slapped Ivan, his body weight shifted off his left foot, onto his right foot, along with his center of mass.
Lance’s right hand stayed on Ivan’s left wrist, which threw him a little off balance. He wasn’t going to let go of Ivan’s wrist.
As Lance stood awkwardly toward the right, Ivan’s bent right elbow, lifted off the arm of the seat, his hand going into the neck of his windbreaker and the gun came out in his hand. Lance didn’t realize Ivan had gone for his gun, until the muzzle was pressed against his Adam’s apple.
Lance froze in place. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, but he didn’t have time to remember how it was supposed to go.
“You touch me again, asshole, you’ll be swallowing out of the back of your neck,” Ivan growled maliciously.
He sat up, forcing the gun hard against Lance.
Lance knew the Glock didn’t require much in the way of pressure on the trigger for it to fire. He wanted to swallow. He didn’t dare.
“I was just…” he said and the muzzle of Ivan’s gun kept him from swallowing, and he eased his body back away from Ivan. He was at an extreme disadvantage. His size made him a bigger target at close range.
With his eyes wide open, and Ivan five feet away, Lance watched Ivan flip the gun from his right hand to his left before he pointed it at Lance’s head. He then tossed the gun back into his right hand, holstering it in a smooth motion. Lance was dazzled by the easy way in which Ivan handled the deadly weapon.
Lance’s look turned into a glare once he was a safe distance away and sat back down among the men who had seen the drama unfold. Not one of them dared to go against Lance, and they’d just watched a much less substantial man take him down.
Lance was embarrassed. Lance was mad. Lance was now afraid of Ivan, and that was the opposite of how it was supposed to be.
Ivan’s heart was beating at a rapid pace. The adrenaline was pumping through him. In spite of being at the height of awareness and at the peak of readiness, he forced his eyes closed, and rearranged himself in his seat, which was purposely turned toward Lance and the rest of Carter’s men.
To them, Ivan was totally cool right after the confrontation. That was alarming. What they’d been told, and what they read about Ivan, didn’t say anything about him being so cool under fire.
Ivan stood as he was watched, he removed his windbreaker, yawned, and sat down, making sure his rig was unhindered by reaching with one hand and then the other over his shoulder.
Ivan had begun taking control of his circumstances. He didn’t expect this turn of events, and it came out better than if he planned it. He wouldn’t be bullied again. He might live through this mission after all, and with that thought, he fell asleep.
Ivan understood when he signed the contract that he was going to be on his own. Lance was a reminder. Men who were left unrestrained were capable of anything. Lance used his size to bully his way through life. Ivan hadn’t been bullied since elementary school, and he wasn’t about to let himself be bullied now.
Lance was a size or two smaller than Roland, but he was plenty big enough. He outweighed Ivan by a considerable amount. He did not weigh nearly as much as Roland weighed. He was tall, but not as tall as Roland.
Roland's size was one of the reasons Ivan wanted Roland to come along. No one was going to take on a man his size without giving it some considerable thought.
Roland had kept Ivan from being totally alone in the facility where they had him locked up. Roland had made sure Ivan was properly fed, and he furnished company that defeated the idea of total isolation.
Ivan had now shown up one of the men who were supposed to handle him. They miscalculated that a man who could love another man stopped being a real man. The fact Ivan loved Clay didn’t change the man he was. It probably made him even better at the things he did.
Ivan could wait for things to unfold in a way that he could take advantage of. He was one man against the five, including Carter, who was probably the brains in the group.
Feeling like it was time to check to see where the rest of the men in the cabin were, Ivan opened his eyes. His chair was facing the last place Lance was sitting.
Lance was still there. He wasn’t alone. A very large man was leaning over him. Ivan watched the interaction.
As his brain cleared he realized Roland was saying something to Lance, because his mouth was close to Lance’s ear. Roland’s right hand was clamped on Lance’s left shoulder. He was hurting Lance, because his shoulder dipped and his face was contorted with pain.
When Roland stood, his fight hand patted Lance’s face softly.
For the second time that afternoon, Lance was afraid, and no one in the compartment missed it. He watched Roland as he moved over to the chair closest to Ivan. Roland sat down and turned the chair to face Lance. He sat down.
Ivan looked at Roland and smiled. Roland smiled pleasantly.
“What was that all about, Roland?” Ivan asked.
“I just told him, ‘if you touch Ivan again, I’ll kill you.’”
“Took you a while to say that, Roland.”
“I needed to make sure he was listening. I also told him that you’re a nice man. You probably wouldn’t kill him if you didn’t need to, but I’d hurt him bad if he got near you again. He heard me.”
“Makes me kind of glad I brought you along, Roland. You are just what I had in mind for this trip. You know it might get dangerous.”
“I figured you weren’t inviting me to a tea party. I’ve never flown before,” Roland said happily. “It’s cool, Ivan. I can go get something to drink if I want, and they’ll bring me food if I’m hungry. You too, I suppose, although the man told me that.”
“See why I brought you along, Roland? I might have starved if you hadn’t told me that,” Ivan kidded his big friend.
“No, you’d never starve, Ivan. You can take care of yourself. I’m just along to make sure you get home safely. No one is going to hurt you while I’m around,” Roland assured Ivan.
He’d already made a believer out of Ivan. Roland was a man Ivan could trust. He was the man he wanted watching his back, and that made him confident he just might make it back to the cove.
Ivan smiled at Roland and he rearranged himself in his seat. Closing his eyes, Ivan fell right to sleep. With Roland nearby, he didn’t need to worry about being bothered.
It was a peaceful sleep as the plane flew into the western sky.
THE END
Proofreading and suggestions: Tim
A Rick Beck Story
quillswritersrealm@yahoo.com
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Stay tuned for Gulf 6, untitled at present.
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More Angus McCoy Mysteries: