Bay of Lost Souls

The sunset was spectacular as it usually is in these latitudes, and I was taking it in when I heard the sound of another vehicle approaching the village. I stepped down into the hatchway and grabbed the binoculars as an old, beat up, full-sized pickup truck rolled to a stop beside the SUV and three armed men got out. The driver, who was wearing a sidearm, went immediately to the SUV, pulled out a knife, and flattened both tires on the driver’s side of the vehicle. Obviously the leader, he gestured to the other two men, both of whom were carrying what looked like M-16 automatic rifles. One took up a guard position near the SUV, while the other followed his boss inside. “Damn! This was not good at all!” As I dove into the cabin to retrieve my .45, slammed in the clip, and stuck it under my belt in the small of my back, I quickly reviewed what I knew. Realistically, I didn’t know shit; kind of like some of my missions in Vietnam. I was pretty sure the bad guys weren’t military or police, since there were no uniforms or insignia and their old truck certainly wasn’t official. The bottom line was, there was a damsel in distress and I was the only Prince Valiant in the neighborhood. I only wished that there was time to make that triple-A call to Jack, but he was too far away to be a factor, right now. However this turned out, he was going to be severely pissed off at me for not inviting him to the party, should I be lucky enough to be able to tell him about it. I took a quick look around, sprinkled some beer on my shirt, stuffed my floppy hat on my head and headed down the dock toward the Cantina. The guard probably smelled the beer that I had perfumed myself with before he saw me, because he had an annoying smirk on his face when he blocked my path to the door. “Cantina closed, Señor,” he grunted, reinforcing the order by smacking the butt of his weapon into my chest. As he did so, I noticed that the weapon’s safety was off. Fatal mistake #1 – If you are dumb-ass enough to thump someone in the chest with the butt of your weapon, then you are too stupid to realize that if he wants you dead, all he has to do is reach up and pull the trigger for you. Despite the fact that I firmly believe that stupidity should be painful, I decided to try an encore of the semi-inebriated tourist on him. I moved in a little closer, so he would have some trouble leveling his weapon at me and slurred “Aww c’mon compadre, I’m hungry and thirsty, lemme buy you a brewski.” Whatever his next move was, I didn’t get a chance to see it. There was a scream from inside the Cantina, followed immediately by the unmistakable sound of a three round burst from an M-16. For a fraction of a second, the guard’s eyes flicked toward the door. Fatal mistake #2 – Never take your eyes off of the immediate threat (me, in this case). I grabbed the muzzle with one hand and levered the butt of the weapon into the side of his head as hard as I could with the other hand. He slumped to the ground and I jumped over him as I dropped the magazine from the gun, confirmed that it was loaded, slammed it home, charged it, and reset the fire rate selector. I hoped that I hadn’t killed the guy, but I’d had few options when the bad guys had upped the ante. As I pushed open the Cantina door, things seemed to go into slow motion, as frequently happens in combat. The first thing I noticed was that the temperature must have been around sixty degrees inside the building, a good thirty degrees cooler than outside. Although I couldn’t see any evidence, it was obvious that some major AC units were being used to keep all the electronic gear associated with the rooftop radar, satellite, and communications equipment at a safe operating temperature. There was a low stub wall to my left which conveniently concealed the M-16 that I was carrying low on my right leg, my finger indexed on the trigger guard. On the other side of the wall, about thirty feet away, were the four people that I had seen entering the Cantina. Well, actually three and a half. The man who had entered carrying the briefcase was lying face down in a large pool of blood, brain matter, and skull fragments, the obvious recipient of the three round burst that I had heard previously. About six feet to his left stood a man holding an M-16 at his side. Between them and against the wall, stood the sole woman in the room, her beautiful face contorted with a mixture of fear, hate, and confusion. As our eyes locked for a millisecond, a very faint smile played across her lips, displaying teeth that I can only describe as dazzling. The smile was no doubt in response to my timely appearance and her imminent rescue from these hooligans. The apparent head hooligan held a very nasty looking knife against the left side of her neck near her carotid artery, with his left hand down at his side. “Hey”, I said. “Where can a guy get a cerveza, you know, a beer?” I know it’s not that obvious that I’m not bilingual, but there was no mistaking the order that the head hooligan issued to his flunky. He took the knife from the woman’s neck (which was good), pointed it at me and screamed “Kill him!” Flunky wasn’t nearly as ready for action as I was, so I was able to fire first.