Joe Haldeman - Work Done for Hire

“I won’t… look… don’t…”

“I won’t pull the trigger unless you make me do it. I’ll give you a thousand dollars to take me to Bass Harbor, and across to Swan’s Island. A thousand dollars in cash, but I can’t pay you until tomorrow.”

“What… government business?”

“Homeland Security,” I improvised.

“Do you have… let me see an ID?”

“Not undercover.”

He looked at me, and then out the windshield, and then back and forth again. “This is crazy.”

“Just drive,” I said. “I’ll tell you the whole story. But you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

“Okay,” he said slowly, and pulled away from the airport loading zone.

By the time we were back in the potato fields I had told him all about what I’d done to the Polish embassy and about the international espionage ring that had sent a hit man after me when they couldn’t get to me “through channels” in Washington and Krakow. I said I’d give him the whole story once it all came down, in maybe a week. The poop was going to hit the pulverizer, I told him, using authentic spy euphemisms.

It was forty-six miles from the airport to the ferry boat. I wrote him an IOU for a thousand dollars and signed it, and used a felt-tip marker to put a thumbprint next to the signature. I gave him my Iowa phone number and e-mail address.

I actually did plan to pay him. And even tell him the real story, eventually. But when he pleaded, “Do y’have to keep pointin’ that gun at me?” I said that in fact I did. Just accept it as a condition of employment.

We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere when we saw a sign that said five miles to the ferry. Just beyond the sign was a dirt road to the right; I told him to turn down it.

It was a forest fire road, arrow-straight most of the way. No sign of habitation; a state or federal forest reserve, perhaps. We went a couple of miles and then the road just stopped. Ran out of funds or hit a county line or something. “Back up and turn around,” I said.

He wasn’t an experienced driver. It took him six or seven sloppy tries. “Okay, stop. Give me the keys. And your cell phone.”

He looked at me on the verge of tears, mouth trembling. I gave him my water bottle. “Don’t drink this all at once. It will take you a while to get back to the road. I’ll leave the car at the ferry station with the keys and the cell under the floor mat.”

“What?”

“Even if you don’t get a ride, you should reach the ferry before dark. That thousand bucks is yours, plus another thousand, if you don’t say anything to anybody. Did you ever make two thousand dollars in a day before?”

“I don’t, but I don’t get it.”

“Spy stuff, man. Don’t try to make any sense of it.” I motioned with the gun and he got out. I slid over, and he handed me the cell phone. Gave him a little wave as I drove off and, in the rearview mirror, he waved back weakly.

How many state and federal laws had I just broken? Steal a car at gunpoint, kidnap the poor schlub who owned it, and abandon him in the woods after threatening murder? Maybe I could write it up as a TV show and use the royalties to hire the best lawyer on the planet.

The clock was ticking, but I had no faintest idea of how long I had. How likely was it that the kid would take me at my word and become my accomplice? More likely that some forest ranger or farmer would find him out there on that dirt road and he’d spill everything.

Which might not be bad if the timing was just right. Have a boatload or chopper full of cops coming to back me up at the cabin. But not so soon that they would arrest me instead.

I got to the main road and pulled over to the shoulder to think. I looked at the boy’s cell phone. Damn, the battery light was blinking yellow. Kids nowadays.

Why not just call the cops?

Well, they might arrest the wrong person. Me. Yes, I took the kid’s cell phone at gunpoint and stole his cab, but you have to understand—

Even if they did go along with it, a large force converging on that cabin might endanger Kit.

Or no. If the Enemy hurt her, they would have nothing to bargain with.

Which presupposed the Enemy would think rationally under stress.

What about me? Could I think straight? Was I?

My plan: go to Swan’s Island and sneak up on these desperados with five rounds in a .38 Special peashooter. Brandish the gun and snatch Kit and take her back to safety?

If that’s the question, the answer is “You and what army?”

I didn’t have an army, but I did have certain resources, chief among them the ironic one of being a fugitive. And thus perhaps a lure. But again, who would I be luring?

What I really needed was a pissed-off Sara Underwood, mad enough to rain some serious shit on me, focusing on a tiny island off the coast of Maine. Unfortunately, the phone with her number in its memory was in shards in a dumpster in Louisiana. That had been a smart move.

I didn’t even know what state her office was in.

But I did have one name and one place. I started driving and, throwing caution to the winds, picked up the phone and punched 4-1-1. I asked some guy with an Indian accent to put me through to an operator in Springfield, Missouri.

“That will not be necessary, sir. I have all those numbers right here.”

“I don’t need a number. I need a human being on the line.”

“I am a human being, sir.” He did not sound like a friendly one.

“I need one in Springfield, Missouri.”

“That will not be possible, sir. If you give me a name in Springfield, Missouri, I will connect you to his phone.”

“Okay. James Blackstone. Homeland Security. Springfield, Missouri.”

“Thank you, sir. One moment.” After about a hundred moments he came back. “Sir, the operator says that party is deceased.”

A sign said one mile to the ferry.

“Call them back and ask them if they want to know how he died.”

“Sir, I am not allowed to elicit or transmit information to or from a third party. And it is not yet eight o’clock in the morning in the state of Missouri.”

“I’m calling from the state of Maine. Listen to me. It’s a murder. James Blackstone was killed.”

“Yes, sir.” The phone went dead. Perhaps life is cheap in New Delhi.

No, it was probably the battery. The light on the top of the phone had stopped blinking yellow; it turned red and dimmed.

I went over a hill and there was the sea, or at least the bay. I parked the boy’s car by the ferry office and put the key under the mat. Kept the cell phone. Maybe if I didn’t use it, the battery would come back for one bleat.

The ferry was approaching. I bought a twenty-dollar ticket and watched the heavy craft ease into its berth, escorted by a cloud of seagulls. Did they think it was a fishing boat? Maybe there was nothing else for a bird to do.

The weather was about to change, and not for the better. A band of golden light to the east was fading as charcoal clouds boiled in from the west. I went back into the ticket office and bought a two-dollar plastic slicker from a box by the cash register.

The first drops began to fall as I walked down the ramp to the Captain Henry Lee , which smelled of new paint and old fish.

There was an enclosed waiting room that added the smell of diesel exhaust and a whiff from the head. I stood outside after a couple of minutes and enjoyed the rain after I struggled into the slicker.

That would make a fast draw even more problematical. Would you mind putting that gun away while I untangle mine?

This would be one time in my life, however much of it was left, when I could justify smoking a cigarette. Looking for a machine gave me something to do for a few minutes. But the boat was disgustingly healthy in that regard. I was sure that I could bum one off some old Mainer standing in the rain puffing away, but he must have had an oncology appointment.