BAHAMA PAYBACK

Midshipman Tommy Pindar sat rigidly in his wooden chair, his back straight, his eyes riveted to the empty metal desktop in front of him. Twice earlier he had sprung to attention, banging his knees on the underside of the desk when an officer had entered the reception area of the Royal Bahamas Defense Force headquarters. His nervous salutes had been returned with desultory flips of the right hand.

I sure wish somebody would give me something to do, the young Bahamian thought. My first day of active duty after three months of intensive training, and here I am guarding this desk. His eyes wandered to the large window on the south side of the building. In the boat basin behind the headquarters complex bobbed the five gray boats of the Royal Bahamas Defense Force fleet not presently out on patrol, tugging gently on their dock lines in the light July breeze.

The ringing of the telephone on Midshipman Pindar’s desk startled him out of his brief reverie. He reached for the black instrument and nervously cleared his throat before answering, “Bahamas Defense Force Headquarters. Midshipman Pindar speaking.”

“You got a pencil and paper, Midshipman?”

“Who may I say is  . . .” stammered Tommy Pindar, desperately trying to follow protocol.

But he was interrupted by the slightly muffled voice on the other end of the line. “Write this down. You ready?”

“Sir, yes sir,” replied Midshipman Pindar, fumbling to extract a pad and pencil from his desk drawer. “Just a second. Okay, I’m ready.”

“Twenty-four degrees, forty minutes north, seventy-eight degrees, twenty-eight minutes west. Got that?” asked the voice in Midshipman Pindar’s left ear.

“Yes sir, I’ve got that,” said Pindar. “But what do  . . .”

“Repeat it back,” said the voice, cutting Pindar off in mid-sentence. Midshipman Pindar carefully repeated the latitude and longitude coordinates to the caller.

“Okay,” continued the voice on the phone. “That’s Sandy Cay, off the west coast of Andros. Send a patrol boat. There’s ten million dollars worth of cocaine and eight dead guys. Go clean it up!”

“Sir!  Sir, please,” beseeched Midshipman Pindar. “Who’s calling?  I need to know. My commanding officer, will  . . .”

“Goodbye, Midshipman Pindar.”

The connection ended, and Midshipman Pindar sat motionless, the phone frozen in his hand, a dial tone buzzing in his ear, terrified of what he knew had to be his next action.

*          *          *

Midshipman Pindar gently, almost reluctantly, hung up the phone. In spite of the well working air-conditioning in the building, he felt a light film of perspiration burst on his forehead.

Midshipman Pindar’s eyes roamed across the expanse of the large general office area. In the farthest corner, protected by a rotund black woman plopped behind a heavy wooden desk, loomed the forbidding door to the office of Commodore Jerome MacArthur, the highest ranking officer in the Royal Bahamas Defense Force, the Bahamas’ only military organization.

Tommy Pindar snatched his notepad from his desk, stood, quickly re-bloused his uniform shirt inside his regulation trousers, and slowly began to walk across the black and white checked linoleum tile floor in the direction of the Commodore’s office. Approaching the stern woman wearing the insignia of a Senior Lieutenant seated before the large door, he halted and saluted.

“Sir,” he began but then quickly amended himself by saying, “ah ma’am, sorry ma’am. I needs to speak to ...”

“What you got, Midshipman?”  said the large women, obviously too busy to be trifled with the petty concerns of this fresh faced youth. “You can’t be jus’ expectin’ to talk to da Commodore ‘bout ever’ damn ting on your mind.”