John Avery - Black Cobra

“We were all invited to the same party,” Aaron said.

“Was Jason Souther aboard, as well?”

“He was.”

“Did he get out?”

“No,” Aaron said. “He didn’t get out.” He looked at the girls. “Other than the three of us, there were no survivors. Cobra and her crew are dead on the bottom.”

The girls were exhausted and numb with cold, and Harness kept them as warm and dry as possible as they motored back up the bay toward the MMSD.

Back on land, Officer Holt broke into the MMSD gift shop and scrounged some dry clothes for the survivors. Detective Harness used the museum’s small kitchen to prepare them a late dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches and hot tomato soup.

The men left the three alone for while, checking in on them from time to time, figuring they needed time to gather themselves and come to grips with what had happened to them. As soon as Harness was sure the survivors were well on their way to recovery, he and Holt returned to the room and sat down with them.

“I’m Detective James Harness, by the way,” he said. “This is my partner in crime, Officer Larry Holt.” He gestured to Holt.

Holt nodded respectfully.

Harness looked at Ashley. “Aaron and I met previously,” he said. “You must be his sister.”

Ashley blushed. She assumed Harness was kidding, but he did have a certain charm about him, and she appreciated the flattery — at her stage in life she took whatever she could get.

She looked at Aaron and smiled. “How did you guess, Detective?” she said, offering Harness her hand.

“Please, call me James,” Harness said, kissing the back of her hand.

His unshaven face was a little scratchy, but not unpleasant. “I’m Ashley,” she said.

Aaron remembered his manners. “This is Katya,” he said, putting his arm around her.

“Hello, Katya,” Harness said, thinking, If Aaron’s with you, he’s a lucky guy.

The group engaged in small talk for a few minutes and presently the conversation turned to the assassination plot.

“I bet you didn’t know the assassins had planned on using a nuke,” Aaron said.

“A nuke? ” Harness said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“The conspirators thought they were firing a nuclear warhead at the President,” Aaron explained. “But I got really lucky and was able to make the switch to the dummy torpedo.”

Harness could only stare at Aaron for a moment, thinking, How on earth could you do that? “Well done, Aaron,” he said at last. “Extremely well done. I’ll see that you are commended.”

Aaron hesitated. He knew he’d been incredibly lucky to have gotten away with killing Johnny Souther two years ago, and he thought it best to continue keeping a low profile.

“If it’s okay with you, Detective, I’d rather remain anonymous on this one. And I’m sure the ladies feel the same way.”

The girls looked at each other and nodded.

“Whatever you wish,” Harness said. “But if it’s all right with you, I need to ask a few more questions.”

Aaron was exhausted, but he figured he owed Harness. “I’m listening…”

“Did you know that after plowing through your Aston Martin, that son-of-a-bitch Jason Souther drove straight to Sally’s Diner and gunned down his brother Johnny?”

Aaron swallowed hard and looked at his mother. “Really?”

“Yeah, and why the crazy bastard couldn’t just walk through the front door, I’ll never know. He blasted Souther from outside the diner through the damn window — with two assault rifles, no less, like some kind of Rambo or something.”

Aaron and Ashley listened, but didn’t say a word, figuring what Harness didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

“Sadly, when I confronted him, he killed my damn partner,” Harness said. “I’ve been looking for Jason Souther for over two years now… two very long years.”

“How will you ever know for sure you got him?” Aaron asked. He looked at the girls. “I mean, we know he’s dead, but how will you?”

“I’ll take your word for it, for starters,” Harness said. “And we’ll probably attempt to I.D. him when we float the sub — you know, to please the lawyers.”

Aaron Quinn leaned over in his woven banana-leaf lounge chair and tossed a tortilla chip in the direction of a brown-spotted Rock Iguana, an indigenous Cayman Brac lizard that had just scurried across a nearby slab of rock.

“You’re going to make him fat,” Katya said.

“A little salt won’t hurt him,” Aaron said, “and it looks to me like he could use the carbs.”

Katya laughed, and Aaron refilled their glasses from an iced pitcher of Mojitos.

Aaron’s mother came up the seashell-strewn path from the beach and approached their thatched-roof bamboo hut, taking a seat next to him.

“I’ve been meaning to give you something,” she said. “I’ve been keeping it safe for a long time, yet never knowing why, or for whom. But now I know I was saving it for you.”

She handed him a small, dog-eared photo. It was the snapshot of Ashley hugging Aaron’s father, Danny, in the alpine meadow.

Aaron held the precious photo gently between his fingers. “I remember handing this to you in the car, right before —”

He stopped himself as suddenly he was back in the Aston Martin. Michael was driving, and Willy was in the back seat with his mother. Three of the most important people in his life had been snatched from him in a ball of fire. And then, through an almost unimaginable set of coincidences, one of them was returned to him.

He gave his mother a warm hug, and then clutched the photo to his chest. “Thank you,” he said. “I thought I’d lost it forever.”

Ashley stood and looked up and down the beach. “Speaking of lost,” she said. “Have you seen James? He’s late for dinner again.”

“I think he’s down at the Holt’s,” Katya said. “They’ve been pit barbecuing a pig since yesterday and I guess he wanted to make sure they were doing it right, and that they weren’t planning on eating the whole thing themselves.”

Aaron laughed at the image of Larry Holt and his wife sitting down to eat an entire barbecued pig.

“That’s my James,” Ashley said. “Always the teacher. I may have to walk over and check that out for myself. You two love-birds enjoy your evening.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Aaron said, then watched her walk down the path leading through a grove of palms to the Holt’s beach hut.

He sat back and took a sip of his drink, watching the sun as it fell slowly toward the sea.

He had been delighted to hear that his mother had fallen in love with James Harness, and that they had been married, and that they had talked Larry Holt and his wife into coming with them to the Caymans to be near Aaron and Katya. Together on the island, they had become the close-knit family Aaron had yearned so deeply for.

Harness had been true to his word: His official police report made no mention of him, Ashley, or Katya; and as Aaron had requested, James had sold the Cayman Jewel anonymously, at auction, with the proceeds going to a home for wayward boys.

“If you’d like I could help out down at the dive shop tomorrow,” Katya said, bringing him back to earth.

“That’d be great,” Aaron said. “There’s a cruise ship coming in, and we’re expecting a lot of business. I’ll be spending a lot more time there myself, now that we own the place.”