“Fine. I’ll take care of it.” The last bit of his integrity disappeared like the remaining pile of snow on the first warm Spring day, and the familiar self-loathing seeped into his bones once again.
“I never had any doubt of that,” Chops said with a knowing grin.
“And then I don’t ever want to see any of you ever again.”
“Aw, Navy. That hurts my feelings.”
“Tough shit,” Carson replied. Now that he had acquiesced, they wouldn’t care about his attitude.
The car pulled off to the side a few blocks from the garage, and Carson didn’t waste any time getting out. Just as he was about to step away, he felt a tap on his back. He turned to see Peetey Hooks crouching out of the door, glaring at him with a tangible enmity. “No fuck-ups. Don’t be stupid – especially on this one. I’d hate to have to reach down your throat and pull your balls out through your mouth.”
If Carson hadn’t felt so hopeless and disgusted with himself, he might have said something back. As it was, he could do little more than appear unafraid. He looked right into Peetey’s eyes, but he must not have portrayed much confidence, because the barely-civilized bodyguard smiled as if he’d laid down a gauntlet and found his opponent lacking. He retreated back into the darkness of the car, and Carson had to settle for slamming the door as hard as he could.
***
Carson looked at the damned little burner phone, pissed he had it, half hoping it was broken so he wouldn’t receive their call. As much as he’d hated doing those other jobs, this one was, by far, the worst. His new romantic relationship – one he never imagined possible – wasn’t even a week old, and Carson was already lying his ass off to her. Not exactly the start he was hoping for.
He’d agonized over telling Katie he wouldn’t be available this weekend, hoping she wouldn’t be too angry at him, praying she’d give him another chance, only to find out just how much she trusted him. As far as she was concerned, his sister’s mother-in-law was ill and he had to rush to Youngstown, Ohio to watch his nephews, and that was OK with her.
He felt like a total heel. He would have felt better if she’d cursed him out and hung up. At least then he’d be able to grovel for forgiveness after all this was over. But no, she had to let him off the hook. God damned too-good-to-be-true woman.
When the shitty flip phone he’d bought for $17 buzzed he picked it up, still hoping against hope the whole thing had been called off. “We’re on,” he heard an unfamiliar voice say. “Take Route 10 west out of Dover. Get Mud Mill Road and go about two miles to Lucks Drive on the right. Look for a red light in the woods on the left and pull in there. Got it?”
Carson repeated the instructions to himself in his head. He knew better than to look at a map online or use the navigation tool in his real phone. Those left digital traces, and those were absolutely verboten. “Yeah, I got it.”
“When you get here, the ID phrase is you ask where the Navy base is.”
“OK.”
“Fast as you can.” The line went dead.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
He threw his backpack onto the passenger seat of his car and took off, staying very near the speed limit to remain unnoticed by police or even other drivers, even though there weren’t many of either. The summer season was still about three weeks away, and there just weren’t that many people in Delaware otherwise. He passed the time thinking of Katie, how good the sex had been, how she managed to stir his passion and stimulate his mind. This better not fuck everything up!
He turned onto Route 10, and then a moment later found the sign for the elegantly-named Mud Mill Road. Fortunately, the road was paved, but that made him wonder exactly what a “mud mill” might be? Was it a mill that made mud? Or maybe it was a mill that ran on mud, like a waterwheel? Your mind is getting away from you, idiot. Focus on getting this done and over.
He stopped berating himself when he reached the next turn, onto Lucks Drive, which was small and bumpy enough to make Mud Mill look like the autobahn. There was no moon at all, which fit the situation (visibility is the enemy of the criminal), but it did make seeing anything outside of the glare of his headlights very difficult. He slowed to little more than a crawl for a minute before finally spotting a small, red light waving at the side of the road.
He flipped his main lights off, using only the yellow parking lights to maneuver into a small clearing, where he could now see the outline of a car and a figure standing outside of it. He rolled the window down as he stopped next to the person. “Can you tell me where the Navy base is?” Of course, there was no Navy base anywhere nearby, only an Air Force base.
“Leave it running and get in the other car,” the man said without introduction. Carson pulled his gloves on and sat in the passenger seat of the other vehicle. In the nearly absolute-dark it was hard to tell, but it looked like an early-70’s era Chevy Malibu. He did not recognize the driver, who remained silent and didn’t even glance at Carson. He heard his car door slam and saw a shadowy figure in the driver seat.
They immediately pulled out onto the road, followed by his car, and headed back south on Lucks Drive at a high rate of speed, jostling Carson and making him hope the well-worn suspension in his own car would survive the punishment. He noted the solid
