John Avery - Black Cobra

The agent with the carnation gave Fagan a look that said, You Naval Officers think you’re so fucking cool…

“Sounds like fun,” the President said.

“Oh, it will be, sir,” Fagan said, thinking of the real reason the President’s sub was going to shoot out of the water. “I can almost guarantee you’ll never forget it.” He paused to look at his watch. “Unfortunately, I have other pressing business, so I won’t be joining you this evening. I’ll see you tomorrow at breakfast.”

He and the President shook hands.

“Enjoy the ride,” Fagan said, and with a quick nod to the agent with the flower, he excused himself and returned to his home on Point Loma.

San Diego Bay

At just after 5:30 p.m., Aaron hopped in the Zodiac and headed across the anchorage to the MMSD. He could see Ekatarina waving at him from the dock.

The newly acquainted couple toured the bay for a while, taking in the sights, checking out the spectacular downtown San Diego skyline.

Aaron steered the Zodiac under the Coronado Bridge and into Glorietta Bay, on the east side of Coronado Island near the Hotel Del Coronado.

He asked Ekatarina to brace herself, and then he ran the small rubber craft up on the sand in a secluded area of the beach.

They unloaded their gear and carried it up onto the grass. Aaron spread out the soft blanket Ekatarina had brought, and she placed the picnic basket and some beach towels in one corner.

A steady, cool breeze blew in off the water as they sat and watched the sun going down behind the hotel.

“Where did you get that scar?” Ekatarina asked, referring to the jagged line running down Aaron’s left cheek.

Aaron touched his hand to his face, unsure what to say. Then he decided to tell her the whole story: about how he had met a writer named Michael St. John, and how Michael’s novel Saturday Night Crash had been turned into a successful movie, and how he’d been working on a sequel.

He told her how, after knowing each other for only three days, Michael had become like a father to him — the father he had yearned for ever since he was nine-years-old and his real father died in combat.

He told her about those three horrific days: the two eccentric thugs, Needles and Beeks; and the deadly bank robbery, and how when he had tried to stop it, Johnny Souther shot him.

“As if that weren’t enough,” he said at last, “and after all we’d been through together, at the end of the third day I lost my mother, my best friend, and Michael St. John to a hit-and-run driver.”

Ekatarina looked at him in disbelief. “You poor thing,” she said. “I don’t know what to say.”

Aaron finished by telling her about the kind detective who had found him after the crash and saved his life. “If it weren’t for Detective Harness,” he said, “I doubt I’d be alive today.”

She could see that Aaron had been severely traumatized. She took his hand and held it gently. “It was wrong for me to ask,” she said. “Perhaps we should talk about something else.”

She opened the picnic basket and pulled out a peach, taking a generous bite that sent peach juice running down her chin. “Oops,” she said, catching the drips with her hand.

Aaron reached over and gently wiped her mouth with a napkin, making her smile.

“What do you do for work?” she asked.

“Until recently I was down in the Cayman Islands working as a dive instructor. But like Michael St. John, my passion is writing. I hope to finish my first novel someday. I’ve been at it off and on for years, but something always seems to come up that keeps me from writing.”

“I’d love to read something you’ve written sometime,” Ekatarina said.

Aaron remembered an item he’d been carrying in his pocket since he left the Cayman’s. He hadn’t intended to ever show it to anyone, but the moment seemed right. He pulled it out and handed it to her.

“What’s this?” she said.

“It’s nothing really… just a little five-by-five I wrote back in the Caymans.”

“A what?”

“A complete short story in twenty-five words,” Aaron explained. “Five sentences long with exactly five words per sentence.”

Intrigued, Ekatarina unfolded the little piece of paper.

Hastily scratched in pencil were the following five lines:

“What troubles you, My Lady?”

“They all stare,” I replied.

He shifted, blocking their view.

I smiled at the man.

He let the axe fall.

Ekatarina took a moment to absorb the full meaning of the short story. “I love it. It’s a bit dark, but I love it. How can you say so much in just twenty five words?”

“Hemingway once wrote a complete story in just six words,” Aaron said.

“‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’”

Ekatarina had to consider that story for a moment as well. “Deep,” she said at last. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you and Hemingway were really screwed up.”

Aaron laughed. “And you would be correct,” he admitted.

Ekatarina took another big bite of her peach, controlling the juice with her napkin this time.

“What do you look for in a woman?” she asked.

Aaron paused, the random question catching him a little off guard. “Oh, I guess I don’t really care… as long as she’s sweet, and pretty, and funny, and a little naughty, and smart, and loving, and a loyal friend, and —”

“So what you’re trying to say is, you aren’t picky,” Ekatarina said, laughing.

“Precisely,” Aaron said.

“Let’s take a swim,” Ekatarina said cheerfully, jumping to her feet. “We can pretend we’re on a deserted island.”

“What? Uh — I didn’t bring a suit,” Aaron said awkwardly.

“Neither did I, silly. Come on. No one’s around…”

Just like that she stood and kicked off her sandals and pulled off her shorts and top, leaving nothing but her bra and panties. Aaron’s eyes widened at the sight of her slender, perfect body, her breasts straining to be free of their restraints, the setting sun adding a soft, sensuous glow to her smooth skin.

She waded out a bit and gestured for him to follow. “Come on in, the water’s fine,” she said, laughing at herself for using that tired Hollywood cliché.

Aaron looked around and then stripped to his boxers and followed her into the pristine waters of Glorietta Bay.

Ekatarina watched him, grinning widely, splashing the clear water with her fingers.

Up to mid-thigh now, she dunked under for a moment, and when she surfaced she turned toward Aaron, and, pretending not to notice that her underwear had become see-through, did a full body stretch, arms overhead, arching her back, wringing the seawater from her long, straight black hair as the salty liquid dripped from her invisible bra and shimmered down over her smooth stomach and legs.

Aaron swallowed hard, thinking, Oh my God, am I dreaming?

He quickly dunked under as well, hoping to extinguish the conspicuous fire Ekatarina had ignited in him. She was kidding about it being warm.

“It’s freezing ,” he said, laughing, clutching his arms to his chest.

As a trained diver, Aaron could easily hold his breath for long periods, and he decided to play a harmless trick on her. He waded out a little and then dunked under again, and this time instead of surfacing right away, he stayed down for a while — a long while.

Ekatarina watched the ripples rolling away from where he’d been, the concern in her eyes deepening. He was staying down way too long. A myriad of potential aquatic horrors flashed before her eyes as she looked around for him.