“You sold a house at 164 Pioneer Road?”
“Um...” Lou said. Was this guy a cop? He had that cop feel about him. Or something else. All at once, the gloves took on a sinister significance.
The guy gestured Lou around the desk and stood to allow Lou to take his own chair. When he straightened up the guy towered over Lou who always considered himself average height.
“This place,” the guy said.
On the screen was a listing for what realtors called a “farm home.” Nothing special. Nothing memorable. He sold a property like this at least twice a month.
“Remember it now?”
“Yeah. Single guy. Paid cash. I figured he was divorced.”
“The listing says Dolan Carter.” The guy leaned over Lou, and one of his long fingers touched the screen where it said, Buyer: CARTER, DOLAN JAMES.
“Right. He said he drove trucks. Over-the-road hauler. Did he do something wrong?” Lou wondered if he should ask to see a badge.
“Did he ever mention anyone named Hammond?”
“I don’t recall anything like that. He was just another buyer, nothing special.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know him. He bought the place a month ago. The last I saw of him was at the title company when we settled.”
“Where was that?”
“Eagle Abstract on West State.”
The guy stepped around the front of the desk. Lou was relieved not to have the guy looming over him.
“Write down this number. If he contacts you for any reason, you’ll call me.”
Lou nodded that he would. He wrote the number the guy recited on the appointments calendar on his desk.
“That’s too many numbers,” Lou said.
“No. It’s not.”
“Um...what name do I put down?”
“You don’t need a name.”
“I have to put something down to remind me what the number goes with.”
“That’s up to you,” the guy said and left the office.
Lou was damned glad when he left the office. He wrote “Scary Guy” above the weird number on his calendar.
You are in a world of shit, Dolan James Carter, whoever you are.
22
Shakedown
“I’m going along,” Caroline said.
“You are not going along,” Dwayne said.
They were alone in their cabin, enjoying the restored AC and privacy. The bed was blanketed in charts. Caroline lay prone in cutoffs and a tank top and studied them. Dwayne sat at a table mounted to the bulkhead, stripping and cleaning the M4 he planned to take along. He wore oil-stained khaki shorts and nothing else.
“I speak the language,” she said.
“Ancient Greek? You told me you knew a little of the language. Like enough to find a bathroom.”
“I’ve been taking a course.”
“When?” he said. “Where?”
“Since we’ve been on the Raj. It’s online. I’ve learned enough.”
“But you and Morris keep telling me there won’t be anyone on the island when we get there. It was uninhabited back then. We’re just going back to observe, remember?”
“Exactly. So how much trouble could I get in?” she said.
“Are you shitting me? You really want to go back into all that? You want to drop into the middle of a clusterfuck like last time? We don’t know what we’ll run into.”
“All the research—”
“All the research is bullshit. You went back last time expecting a hike in the woods. All your fucking research didn’t mention a fucking nation of cannibal midgets,” he said. “We could step out and find the island covered in man-eating unicorns or some shit.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“This whole thing is fucking ridiculous!”
“Then why are you here?” She sat on the edge of the bed and met his eyes.
“For the same reason I won’t let you go back with me,” he said and looked away.
“Because you care about me,” she said in a low voice.
“Yeah. I do.”
“Well, then stop caring about me, because I’m going!” Her voice rose to a shout.
“You’re crazy.”
“Then I’m crazy. But I’m going with you.”
“The hell you are,” Dwayne growled and left the room. He meant to slam the hatch behind him, but it only swung slowly closed on squealing hinges.
Jimbo met Dwayne coming up the ladder from the passenger deck. “I was coming to get you. We’re trying out the Zodiacs,” Jimbo said. He was wearing baggy trunks and surf shoes.
Dwayne welcomed the distraction. He followed Jimbo aft to an open hull door below decks. Boats and a few of the crewmen were standing by a stack of hard plastic cases piled on the deck.
The cases contained self-inflating Zodiac Ever-safes; the tough eight-seat rafts they were going to use for insertion back to The Then. The Rangers needed a shakedown on the gear to get used to using it. Familiarity was the key to any equipment. Work with it hard and work with it often until you can use it automatically, and without thought. The sea was like rippled glass right now, but there was no way to anticipate what it would be like when they arrived in the ancient Aegean.
Boats gave them an intro to how the Zodiac worked. It was a simple pull cord. Yank it hard and the boat inflated.
“You soldiers ready to get wet?” Boats grinned. Dwayne stepped to the coaming and looked out at the sea gently slapping the hull twenty feet below. “Any sharks in this water?” Dwayne said.
“Why is it the first thing every pogue thinks of is sharks? There’s at least a thousand things that’ll kill you at sea before a shark does,” Boats said. He pitched one of the cases overboard. It landed with a smack and bobbed in the deep green water.
Jimbo took a running leap off the deck and came up sputtering. He paddled after the drifting case and pulled the line. Dwayne followed him in. The water was warm and still. By the time Dwayne reached Jimbo, the Zodiac was fully inflated. Jimbo took a handhold and pulled himself aboard. He offered Dwayne a hand. Dwayne shook his head.
“Gotta learn to get on by myself.” Dwayne was treading water by the tubular hull. He reached for a handhold and levered himself over.
The Zodiac was roomy enough. The aluminum deck
