We had such a marvellous Christmas around here, I need a vacation to recuperate. =) Hope you all had the same kind of joyous holiday.
Special thanks to Purdy's Pal for reading through, over and around this chapter. You're awesome!
Thanks to everyone else for your time in reading and commenting in all the various ways that you do! It's always appreciated.
Chapter 6
After diving off the yacht, both ex-SEALs filled their lungs and swam under the ship to meet up at the stern end. With the gunmen busy looking over the bow, they felt safe enough to take a few moments to get as much air back into their lungs before diving below the water. They both knew they had to get as far from the yacht as possible so they swam as hard and as far as their air would allow. Stoney's head broke the surface first, Sam popped up a few seconds later. They found themselves only a few feet away from the secluded grassy area along the sea wall that they had started out from.
"Not bad, not bad," Stoney complimented with a wheeze. Sam was unsure if the remark was meant for him, or not. He was too out of breath to ask and too tired to care.
Stoney swam to the sea wall with only a few overhand strokes, and pulled himself out of the water. Sam took a moment to get a second wind before swimming the slight distance for him to reach the wall. Stoney was lying in the shade of a palm tree, taking some much needed deep breaths, leaving Sam to heave himself out of the water.
Sam crawled over to join Stoney in the little bit of available shade. "We can't stay here," he said as he turned to lean against the trunk of the palm.
"I know," Stoney slowly got to his feet, "Come on, Old Man," he slapped Sam in the shoulder and slowly started back to the Cadillac. With a grunt, Sam pulled himself up and grabbed both the scuba tanks from behind a bush, where they had hidden them.
"No, don't stop," Sam muttered bitterly to Stoney who was too far ahead to hear, "I've got 'em."
When they met up at the Cadillac, Sam thrust both canisters into Stoney's arms so he could pop open the trunk. Stoney dropped them with a loud clank into the spacious back-end.
"Hey thanks for getting these. I forgot we had them out there," Stoney beamed his gratitude. Sam only glared in return.
Stoney unzipped the top of his suit and began pulling it off to change back into street clothes. He joined Sam in the front seat of the car in time to catch the older man's mutterings on the injustices of life.
Sam hadn't gotten any further along in changing than undoing the zipper of his suit. Sam swatted Stoney's hand away from his bicep where the man was poking him, "Ow. Stop it. That hurts."
"I'm sure it does," Stoney poked one more time. "I think that's gonna need stitches. What did you do?"
"What?" Sam's eyes sprung open. He grabbed his right elbow with his left hand and pulled his arm in so he could see down his muscle. There was a two inch gash in the sleeve of his diving suit. Blood was flowing freely down the outside of the rubber suit.
Sam summed everything up with one word. "Crap."
He pulled his arms free from the suit, being extra gentle with his injured arm. Stoney rolled Sam's undershirt into a makeshift bandage and tied it around the cut. Both men quickly finished changing and drove away as they heard the sound of police sirens coming toward the car lot.
The salesmen at Platinum Performance had become alarmed by the commotion out on the water and called 9-1-1. Michael made an excuse to leave before the cops showed up, promising he'd be back to do the test drive and order his new car.
Michael still had his wire on, and once he was inside the Charger, he instructed Sam to meet him at the loft. Sam could tell he was struggling to contain his anger.
Apparently, so could Stoney. "What's that all about?" he asked.
Sam didn't bother to control his anger, "You don't get it, do you?" From the confused look on Stoney's face, Sam could tell that he didn't.
"We were his back up. We left our post to play Aquaman and look what it got us! Nothin'! That's what. Any one of us could have been killed." Sam shook his head. Looking back he still couldn't see any other way he could have handled the situation; but it didn't make him feel better about leaving Michael.
Stoney defended himself. "We were looking for my fiancée. She could have been out on that boat!"
"Then we should have waited until we had a plan!" Sam replied back with vehemence.
"Okay, okay," Stoney held up his hands in surrender. "No one got hurt, so no harm no foul."
With a pointed look, Sam's eyes travelled from Stoney to the shirt wrapped around his arm and back again. "This isn't grade school, Stoney. Getting hurt on these kinds of jobs isn't like getting benched for a two minute penalty."
"It's not that bad, Sam," Stoney groaned, "Honestly, a coupla stitches and you'll be good as new."
"Did you happen to see any of those bullets that were flying our way out there? We were lucky," Sam tried to get Stoney to appreciate the danger. Besides, his arm really hurt. Once he saw the blood, the pain receptors did double time to catch up.
As soon as they met up at the loft, Michael was ready to tear a strip off the ex-SEALs for being so reckless, but then he noticed the lines of blood running from under the wrapping on Sam's arm. With a sigh he led both men up the stairs and into his loft. He told Stoney to sit in the green chair, and to stay quiet. A look from Sam convinced Stoney this was not the time to questions orders. Michael then directed Sam to wait for him on the bed with the added warning he had better not get any blood onto his clean sheets. He came back from the bathroom with the first aid box. It took eleven stitches to sew the skin on Sam's arm back together.
As he was cleaning up, Michael noticed something at the back of Sam's head. He reached over and un-tangled a small section of brown slimy weed from the underside of Sam's hair. The older man became so disgusted at the thought of any more of the gross seaweed being on his body, he insisted on having a shower immediately.
"That a good idea?" Stoney asked, indicating the new stitches with a tilt of his head.
Sam made a detour into Michael's kitchen and snapped open a cupboard. He pulled out the plastic wrap and with three quick turns around his bicep, he had his injury covered. He narrowed his eyes at Stoney as he passed by, daring him to say anything more. The man wisely kept any comments to himself.
Fifteen minutes later Sam emerged from the bathroom wearing only his light cotton pants and carrying a towel around his neck.
Sam headed straight to the fridge and pulled out a beer, "Ahh, that's what I needed." He sighed with relief after taking a drink.
He noticed he and Michael were alone; there was no sign of Stoney. "Stoney go home?" Sam asked, privately relieved the man was no longer around.
Michael shook his head, "No, he took the diving gear back to the shop. He said something about a two hour rental. What are you looking for?"
Sam was now pulling open drawers, rifling through them and closing them again.
"You got any aspirin lying around here?" he asked.
Michael stepped past Sam and opened the first drawer he had searched. He pulled out a bottle of Tylenol extra strength. Sam accepted the bottle gratefully and dumped three pills onto his palm. He swallowed them down with a swig of beer.
Michael warned, "I don't think you should be mixing those."
"Mike, I'm tired and I'm sore. I'm not aiming to end up in a coma, but I wouldn't complain about being knocked out for a couple of hours." Sam sat down heavily in the green chair and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. He kept tight hold of the beer bottle, balancing it on the arm of the chair.
Michael's anger had dissipated since arriving at the loft and taking care of Sam, but he still had questions. He reached into the fridge and took out a yogurt. "So," Michael leaned his hip against the work table and casually dipped a spoon into his blueberry yogurt, "you were so sure I was fine and didn't need any back up, you went for a swim?"
"That's not the way it went down, Mikey," Sam leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. "Look brother, I'm sorry. It wasn't my idea. Between the choice of watching you or backing Stoney, you were the less needy." Sam began towel drying his hair, almost as if he were hiding so he wouldn't have to see if Michael accepted his apology or not.
Seeing Sam's distress over the event, Michael walked over and patted his shoulder. "You were right, Sam. Stoney needed the back up more than I did. Did you at least find something useful on your little jaunt?"
Sam shook his head. "Where ever Rita Avnet is, she has never been on that yacht. That yacht was pretty clean, probably used as a tax write off." Michael questioned Sam's theory by raising an eyebrow.
"Bring customers on board, give them just enough expensive alcohol to make a picture of the good life than take them back to the lot to close the deal." Sam took a swig from the beer in his hand, "When they take you out there, grab one of those Sam Adams for me, would ya?"
Michael asked, "You're sure the yacht's not worth a second look?"
Sam took a moment, thinking about the possibility of grabbing one of the hundred dollar beers for himself, "Nah, the only paper-work we'd find out there would be for lobster and imported wine."
"OK, then we're back to needing to get into the dealership. My cover's still good, so we'll try again tomorrow," Michael finished his yogurt.
Sam gave his hair one last rub before wrapping the towel behind his neck, "I'll be there."
"Maybe with Fiona, instead?" Michael smirked.
"Yeah, sure. Whoever you want," Sam agreed quickly, but with some hesitation he had to clarify, "We're not going to tell her about today though, right?"
Michael laughed.
The next morning dawned bright and clear and Michael was back at the Platinum Performance lot, talking to Steve the salesman about the Pagani.
Fiona leaned back into the passenger seat of the Cadillac, which was parked a little further away than the day before. She wrinkled her nose as she sniffed the air, "Why does it smell like wet garbage in here?"
Sam had the binoculars up and was focused on Michael. "Stoney borrowed the car yesterday. He must`ve parked at a marina."
"Make him get you an air freshener," Fiona grabbed the binoculars from Sam's hands and began watching Michael. "That's a lovely piece of machinery," Fiona commented on the yellow Pagani Michael was running his hands along the soft curves of. "You know Pagani has a limited edition roadster that can reach 100 kilometres an hour in about three seconds? The Zonda Michael is looking at isn't far behind. If Michael takes that car off the lot, I think I should be the one to take it for the test drive."
Sam turned to look curiously at Fiona. "And here I thought you were all about the guns and ammo, Fi."
"A girl needs to be well rounded," She gave Sam's middle a quick pat, "And not in the way you men take that to mean."
"Keep your mitts off the merchandise," Sam pushed Fiona's offending hand back to her side of the car. Fiona smirked and went back to watching Michael through the binoculars.
"How's the arm?" Fiona asked without taking her focus away from Michael.
Sam looked down at his arm. The stitches were hidden away under gauze padding and he was wearing shirt sleeves long enough to cover it all. He squinted at Fiona, gauging what she knew. She was still smiling so she couldn't possibly know that he had actually left Michael without back-up.
"Its fine," he answered. What Fiona needed was a good distraction. "Oh, I've been meaning to thank you for sending Barry my way." He said with just a hint of sarcasm.
Fiona lowered the binoculars and smiled, "Any time, Sam. The man seems to like you. And I know how you'd hate to disappoint a buddy."
Sam watched Fiona from the corner of his eye. "I think Barry can handle a little disappointment. Nobody gets to have everything they want," Sam started fiddling with the volume from Michael's wire.
Fiona slapped Sam's arm to stop him playing with the listening device.
"Ow!' Sam used his other hand to cover the spot where his stitches were. The same spot where Fiona had slapped him.
"If you weren't such a baby, you could hide your injuries better. Besides you deserved that for whatever you and Michael aren't telling me," Fiona glared at him.
Sam took the binoculars back from Fiona, "Check the other wire, make sure it's working. Sounds like it's picking up conversations from the sales office."
Instead of leaning forward in her seat to reach the second listening device, Fiona turned in her seat and reached over to Sam's arm and pinched just below the sleeve. She didn't let go.
"Ow, Fi! OW!" Sam's yell seemed extra loud in the confines of the car. He was swatting at her hand, but she wasn't letting go.
"Tell me what happened with yesterday's surveillance. Your SEAL buddy not living up to those standards you're always going on about?" Fiona gave an extra bit of twist before letting go of Sam's arm.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Fi," Sam growled as he pulled up the sleeve of his shirt. There was a small amount of crimson appearing on the gauze. Fiona had popped one or two of the stitches. "Jesus, Fi! Why can't you just ask your questions like everybody else?"
Not looking the least bit contrite, Fiona glared, "Because I expect answers when I ask them, Sam."
Sam narrowed his eyes at Fiona, debating which response he could give that would have Fiona cause him the least amount of pain. Fiona crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her seat, waiting. When Sam still hadn't offered an answer, Fiona decided to make it clear she had figured out enough that lying wasn't an option and the topic wasn't done.
"Yesterday, you and Stoney were out here watching Michael and yet here we are again doing the exact same thing. I accuse you of deserving that injury," she nodded towards his arm, "and you don't argue. Stoney did something and you feel…guilty?" having reached this conclusion, Fiona reached up and began twisting her hair up and off her neck. With a bobby pin she pulled out from some hiding spot Sam hadn't seen, she deftly stuck her hair in place. Fiona was making it clear to Sam she was going to be getting answers one way or another.
Holding his hands up between them, Sam was trying to think of a quick way to diffuse the situation, "Whoa there, sister. Slow down. No need to bring on the heavy artillery. Just let me ask you something first."
Fiona eyed Sam up and down. Probably looking for exploitable soft spots, but as no physical violence had commenced, he assumed he was granted a stay of execution depending on the question.
"What do you think of Stoney?"
If he didn't know Fiona so well, Sam would have missed the quiet exhale of breath and the slight lean back into the seat, all signs she probably wasn't going to proceed with exacting her vengeance.
"He comes across as a guy worried about his fiancée, but I've been thinking about things since breakfast the other day."
Sam nodded his head, showing he was truly listening.
"If he loves Rita so much, where are the pictures? He never pulled out any wallet sized ones or anything. And I didn't see a ring." Fiona paused. "I suppose his job might prevent him from having any visible signs of someone that could be used as leverage against him, but he's been told to stay away. Shouldn't he want to have a reminder of what he's here for?"
Fiona turned in her seat, "He's your buddy, you tell me. Is he the romantic type that would do anything for the woman he loves, or is this about him fixing things to salvage his reputation? Is he the old friend happy to have your help, or is he using you to get what he wants?"
"I don't know, Fi," Sam frowned as he thought about the questions. He could only shrug when he answered, "All I know is he saved my life and I owe him."