Blow the Man Down

Monday, June 6, 2366. Somewhere in the New Caribbean. About ten bells.

We are running full tilt, weapons in hand, and over my heavy breath, I hear an ammo round zing past me. The mansion hall is long and wide and lined on both sides with what must be full floor-to-ceiling windows as well as some impressive statuary. Unfortunately, we cannot see out of the windows to figure out an escape path as they are covered with heavy drapes made from a deep blue velvet. Fortunately for us, this means the hall is poorly lit, impairing our pursuers’ aim. Another round buzzes past me, and it hits the statue just off my left shoulder, causing a bit of the marble to splinter and split.

“Shit. That’s too close,” I pant. “Where the fuck are the stairs?”

Matty’s deep voice answers from behind me, “Who the fuck knows.” His big hand is on my shoulder, turning me to the left. “In here.” We dodge into the first open doorway we have come to in the hallway. Reflexively, each of us takes a position on either side, and we begin to alternately return fire, causing our pursuers to halt and take defensive positions.

In between shots, I squint and look at Matty. Sweat, from the June humidity and our dash through this huge manor, has beaded attractively on his skin and drips from the hairline of his tightly curled black hair. He leans his big, muscular body back after firing his shot and glances at me. He grins, flashing his white smile. “Are you feeling like you are fun again, Kat Wallace?” His eyes are wild with adrenaline. As are mine.

I lick the sweat off of my upper lip and take a half-second to consider the question, running my hands through my short, light-brown curls. “Hell, yes. But if I didn’t have your ass slowing me down, I’d have been out of here by now.” I grin saucily back, turn, and fire four rounds out the door from one of my Glocks.

He chuckles quietly as he puts a new magazine in his Scorpion 1260. “Oh, is that so? Well, my ass isn’t the one who turned right when she should’ve turned left.” He runs several rounds of his own toward our adversaries, who wisely are keeping their distance.

“And you…” I fire twice. “…are far too hung up on details like directions.”

He snorts. “Is that so? Then, pocket that little toy you have and figure a way out of here. I’ll use my real gun.” He tosses the long cylinder that holds our plunder from its place under his arm across the doorway to me.

I catch it with my free hand, which is starting to brown from the early summer sun but is still remarkably pale compared to Matty’s. “Fine. But my Glocks are perfect for this kind of thing. You boys just think bigger is better.” I slip my pistol into its holster.

He gives a dirty laugh in response and switches his Scorp to automatic, pulling the door almost closed to act as a shield, as I try to evaluate the room. Aha, a window! I head to it, passing a row of two glassed-in display tables that likely are filled with intriguing treasure, though I can’t see inside of them in the dim light.

As I work on exfil, I consider how we have found ourselves here on the third floor of a mansion on some tiny island in the New Caribbean, pinned down by hostile fire.

My Monday morning had started in the usual fashion. I had extracted myself from the children in my bed. This morning, it happened to be only Mac and Kik. Grey was not coming in during the night as much as she had just after Takai and I split. I guessed that was good, but I sort of missed waking up to her long, brown hair in my face.

I had gotten myself coffee and started breakfast for the kids, rousting them awake and cajoling them to get ready for school. Riki, the kids’ nanny, who was the size of a bear and likely could best one in a wrestling match, had appeared and chatted with me for a bit, happily accepting the breakfast sandwich I made him before he had walked all three children to school. I was in the midst of buttoning up my general’s vest when a knock sounded on my blue door.

A smile lit up my face as I opened the door and saw Major Matthieu Warner.

“C’mon, we have work to do.” Matty stood wearing black, sleeveless coveralls and a grin that definitely held something more behind it.

I got lost for a moment looking at his tattoo-covered, muscular arms but then shrugged. “I always have work to do. The papers on my desk breed over the weekend, and now I have to get a meeting with Miles and Cal and get a call into Phil to see what progress he has made since Friday with the Abernathy situation.”

My handsome friend-who-might-become-more, if only my kids and my job would give us a break, leaned on the door jamb. “Doesn’t exactly sound like fun.”

Having bemoaned my shift in responsibilities from extractor extraordinaire and Glitter runner to general with a desk and Q-forms several times to Matty, I sighed. “I miss having fun. Hell, I miss being fun.”

Matty’s grin increased. “I don’t believe you ever were.”

“The hell you say.” I gave him a playful push, and he laughed. “I was once fun and very…shiny.”

A thick eyebrow went up on that handsome face. “I believe the current expression now is cool. And shiny was only from that Old Days show you are so enthralled with and made me watch.”

“You liked it. And I believe the show and the word are going to make a comeback.” I laughed. “So, I was too once shiny and cool!”

He stepped back and made a sweeping motion toward his vehicle. “You need to prove it. Come on a quick mission with me this morning.” His eyes twinkled and he waggled his eyebrows. “There’s some art that needs to be liberated.” His voice went up at the end of his comment, cajoling me.

Truth be told, I love art heists. There’s usually some great story behind the rationale someone is paying to have the piece lifted, and the places that we have to break into are not only appropriately challenging, but also typically quite swanky.

I only paused for a second. “Fantastic!” I stripped off my officer vest and dropped it on the table near the comfy chair in the living room, leaving me in black leggings and a black fitted tunic. “I’m in. Let’s go. But I have to be back in time to make those meetings.” I pulled the door shut, and we started to head to Matty’s forest-green sporty vehicle.

“Don’t worry, General. I’ll have you back in time to be boring again.” He slung an arm over my shoulders, and my insides rolled as his touch sent a quiver through me.

“Fuck you, Major.” We both laughed as we slid into the vehicle. He turned away from the base after departing from my little white house. “Where are we flying out of?” I asked.

“Headed to the cave. Thought you and I could take your Coupe.” He looked over at me and then reached out to stroke my cheek with the back of his hand. There was unmistakable desire in his deep, dark eyes.

The start to our dating life has been stymied throughout the weekend. Our Friday night first date was cut short by Cal Greene when he presented me with Sunniva, one of the freed souls, who brought with her the stunning information that my past enslaver, Rob Abernathy, was now the kingpin of the human trafficking trade on New Earth. That situation required my attention so entirely that I had sent Matty home after he fell asleep in my office chair, head on my desk, around three bells. I, on the other hand, continued with my calls to Kenichi Tsukasa, my friend and a yakuza boss in Edo, and with Phil Reston, now the attorney general of the Federal Alliance of Nations and newly married to the recently inaugurated FA president.

By the time we saw each other again on Saturday evening, Mama, my brothers Peter and Paul, and my sister Mimi were over at my place for dinner with their partners and all the kids. Matty squares beautifully with my family, but all those bodies in the house left no time for the two of us to have any privacy, and I wasn’t about to have my first kiss with Matty in front of my adopted siblings, much less the passel of nieces and nephews.

Sunday was no better for the two of us as I had promised the kids a day trip into District One to see a show and have lunch. Matty was a great sport and joined us. We happily got to hold hands throughout the performance, but again, no first kiss amidst the boys climbing on me, asking for any number of treats. In a sweet moment, Grey even slipped her hand into Matty’s as we walked to lunch, which made me smile, both at her comfort with him and at how much he took such an immense move in stride.

That night, I had a W-Mech board meeting with Tom Pikari and the rest of his board. W-Mech is the business using Will McCloud’s stability mechanism that Tom had developed and I had financed. Though Will had been killed by Rob Abernathy four years earlier, breaking my heart and almost my mind and devastating the unit we all were a part of, his brilliance lived on, being put to use via Tom’s professional acumen. Delightfully, the business was booming.

Matty was the first person since Will I had taken to the cave and the old airfield where my late father, Teddy, and I had spent so many hours. Now he, Peter, Paul, and I were all working on restoring the collection of Papa’s vessels that had been languishing on the makeshift flightline. I smiled, “The Coupe, huh?”

The Deuce Coupe was what I had named my favorite small, sleek, and very fast vessel that I had poured my heart, soul, and skills into both before and after Papa left it to me. “Sounds cozy.” I decided to try what I hoped was a sexy smile, though it could have come across as slightly creepy since, Sweet New Earth, I was searching deep into my body-memory for how to act alluring. It had been literally years since anyone had looked at me with the ardor I wanted to see from Matty.

The hungry look he returned reassured me that my ability to be attractive was still intact. A thrill that went beyond the excitement of our upcoming marauding mission shivered through me.

Matty briefed me on our mission as we drove. A very wealthy couple was divorcing; the husband had possession of a landscape painting by a twentieth-century artist named Thiebaud that had been in her family for generations, and she wanted it back. She wanted it back to the tune of a half-million markers. So, we just needed to get in, get it, and get out. Without getting caught or killed, but that was always the trick, wasn’t it?

“Oil, right? On canvas or paper?” I asked.

He grinned and nodded. “You do know your stuff, Gen. Canvas—so, you are going to roll it…?”

“Paint-side out, of course,” I said, returning the grin with aplomb. Canvas and other fabric bases are what traditionally have been used for oils, especially old ones like the one we were going after, and the surface will invariably crack a bit when rolled. By carefully rolling them paint-side-out, the cracks will “heal” once the piece is re-stretched and reframed.

I turned and began to rifle through the materials in the tiny back seat of the sporty vehicle, murmuring my checklist of the inventory. “Acid-free paper, die-cut padding, gloves, transport tube, inner tube, tape… Looks like you have everything.”

“Not my first art heist.” He turned the vehicle onto the dirt road that would take us to the cave where I kept the Coupe.

We arrived and together wheeled it out from its place in the cave. I started to gather the materials from the back of Matty’s vehicle to pack in my black crossbody bag and his backpack. I leaned down far into the back seat to grab the tape that had rolled to the floor, and when I retrieved it and stood, Matty was standing and staring, an unmistakably wanton smile curving his face.

“I think there’s something else on the back seat floor. You should look again.” He tipped his head and peered.

I laughed. “Lecherous approval noted. But, sorry, I got everything.”

Matty covered the space between us in just a few steps. Before I could say anything, he was in front of me, holding my face softly on either side with his warm, gentle hands. “We are long overdue for a kiss, Kat Wallace.” His voice was husky and came out in a low growl.

My breath caught as I looked up at him, taking in his eyes with their impossibly long lashes, the lines of his cheeks and nose, and the scrubby beard he wore. My gaze finally landed on his deliciously full lips. What have I done so right that I managed to be here in this man’s arms? He wouldn’t come for the kiss unless I consented. “So long overdue…,” I said, closing my eyes and leaning my mouth toward his.

“Kat, are you just going to peer out that window, or are you going to get us out of here?” Matty’s voice startles me back to the present, where I am peeking down at the grounds through a tiny space in the closed drapes. A flush has blossomed on my face at the memory of our first kiss, and the warmth on my skin is magnified as I watch this man who holds my heart and my desires fire out the mostly shut door once again.

“Oh, you’re doing fine. Don’t be so impatient, summer child.” I make my banter light to cover the passion growing in me. Refocusing, I open the curtain for a bit more light and pull my newest purple rope out of my bag to tie a slippery hitch around the leg of one of the sturdy display tables that are bolted to the floor.

Matty gives a snort. “Summer child now, am I? I’m down to my last magazine.”

“Well, then we should go… Oh, look at that medallion!” The display cases hold old coins and medals and other emblems. After tying off the rope and standing, my eyes pause on a walnut-sized silver—or maybe pewter—medallion emblazoned with a Jolly Roger. I’m not big on much jewelry, but this piece makes me happy. But, sadly, I have no time to find and jimmy the lock, as the resident security force is practically at the door.

“Okay, Matty. Get ready. I’m going to break the window, and then we can slide out and hightail it home.”

“Hightail it? That’s my North Country girl,” Matty says between shots.

His North Country reference contains a tease, but he is one of the few people, along with my therapist, Ruth, whom I share my North Country memories with: the awful ones, the tender ones, and the funny ones. Besides, I find I like being referred to as his girl. My face glows with pleasure as I give a quick kick to the window, shattering it. I jerk down the drape and lay it over the sill to protect us from the ragged edge, then throw the end of my rope down. “It only goes partway,” I say, sliding over the edge. “We’ll have to jump at the end.”

Matty murmurs an acknowledgment, then slams the door and braces it with a chair. I am over the side and out of view by the time the second sound of glass shattering reaches my ears. I pause in my rappelling, concerned for a moment, but it is alleviated as he swings over the windowsill and starts his descent.

After I jump to the ground, I wait for him to join me, pulling my pistol to be ready for any further pursuers. He lands heavily next to me and, with a firm tug, releases the rope, wrapping it in several loops and slinging it on his shoulder. “Let’s go, General,” he says.

We run toward the cover of the Caribbean forest that will shield us until we reach the beach and the Coupe. On our way across the vast garden lawn, we dodge behind a large boulder and pause for a moment, to get our bearings and catch our breath. As our backs press up against the cool stone on the hot June morning, the sounds of renewed pursuit reach us. We confer on directions and then spend a brief moment just gazing at each other and grinning foolishly.

We start our hard run toward the jungle edge. I want to laugh but need every bit of oxygen to make the sprint. I am exhilarated. I haven’t had this kind of fun since my missions with Papa. We make the tree line and continue on, leaping over fallen logs, stones, and boggy areas. A tremendous sound of machinery erupts behind us, and Matty says, “What in the fuck?”

Over my shoulder, a small, enclosed tank is advancing along the rough path between the trees. While the tank itself is not large, it has a pretty big gun attached to it that is currently being leveled in our direction.