I noticed, in my rearview mirror, Thompson fingering his grenade wistfully. The doctor, seated on Chip’s other side, was not in a position to glimpse it, but I could.
“You heard the man, Thompson,” I said sharply.
He tucked it away, a bit downcast.
“OK,” I said, once I’d pulled off onto the dirt. “Back to the motel, then?”
“We need a plan,” said Chip.
“What plan?” I said. “It’s an army. And there’s no back door.”
“Leave it to me,” said Simonoff. “Just let me do the talking.”
As I drove us back, I thought of being in jail. I didn’t want to. I thought of those long guns pointed at me. I parked with fear in my heart. I wanted to stay in the Hummer; I wished to exhibit cowardice.
The first thing I noticed, dismounting reluctantly from that large, possibly armored vehicle—because Thompson’s wasn’t some glossy poseur H2 or H3; it was a battered, old-school original—was that a couple of soldiers were leaning against their jeeps relaxedly. One smoked a cigarette while another nodded to me, then smiled almost flirtatiously. Flirtatious smiles were what I could look forward to, when I was thrown in jail, I guessed. And worse.
But as we made our way along the catwalk to our rooms, more soldiers seemed to be loitering. Instead of pointing any guns at us, they stepped aside to let us through. We reached the door to our room: it stood open, but wasn’t bashed in. And from inside the room, I heard laughter issue.
Miyoko was sitting on one of the beds, an open laptop on her lap, showing two soldiers the footage from the beach. One of the soldiers held a beer; the other pointed delightedly at the screen.
“That’s me!” he said.
“Oh man,” said the beer soldier. “You looking fierce, Jerry. I hope Annette saw that, she won’t be holding out on you now. No way.”
More laughter.
A couple of soldiers were talking earnestly to Rick and Ronnie; another stood in the kitchenette with Steve and Janeane, munching on one of her soy-chicken taquitos. “Not bad at all,” I heard him say, and Janeane offered him another. In a corner, Gina appeared to be showing a handsome soldier her lower-back tattoo, pulling up her shirt while Ellis eyed her uncertainly/jealously.
Was it some kind of trick? I looked at Chip; his mouth was hanging open just a little.
The ones talking to Rick and Ronnie seemed to be the most serious, from which I deduced they might also be the ones in charge. So I took a deep breath and stepped near.
“. . . end of the day, we don’t take orders from them. Not if we don’t have to. And what I thought was, hell. We don’t have to. As long as we don’t hear to the contrary from the higher-ups, that is. And so far I haven’t heard squat from them,” said one of the soldiers.
He had some flair above his pocket, a couple of badges or something.
“It’s a goddamn relief,” said Rick. “I’m not going to lie to you.”
“Thanks, man,” said Ronnie. “Yeah. Big relief.”
“Hey,” said the CO, noticing me. “What’s your name, honey?”
“This is my wife, Deb,” said Chip.
“Gotcha,” said the CO, and winked.
“No harm done,” said I.
“Whatever she says,” said Chip, and put out his hand to shake. “I’m Chip.”
“Chip’s the one who found the mermaids,” said Rick. “With Nancy.”
“So anyway,” said the CO’s wingman, “until the order comes down—if it does—we thought we’d swing by, see if there’s anything we can do. To help out. We don’t want to see this place turned into Disneyland either.”
“We already got a Disneyland,” said the CO.
“And Disney World,” said his second.
“Lots o’ Disney,” agreed the CO.
“You sound American,” I said to him.
“Grew up on St. John. Sam here did too. I’m Raleigh. Virgin Islands National Guards. The Brits have bupkes here, armed forces-wise. We lend a hand. But hey. Tell you my life story over a beer?”
“He doesn’t give up easy, does he,” said Chip, and put an arm around me. “But seriously, this is awesome, guys. Having you on board. It really is. Kicks ass.”
“Let’s put our heads together,” said Rick. “Right, Chip? See what we can come up with.”
“My troops’ll have to keep a low profile,” said Raleigh. “Far as the suits know, we’re out on a drill. We can’t get in their faces. Other than that, though, we’re here for you.”
The six of us stood around the small table in the room, though we really didn’t fit. Raleigh said he had some information, first off, which was that the armada still hadn’t spotted any mermaids, even with their dozens of divers.
They were painstakingly crossing quadrants off their grid and moving the nets in, but there was low morale, out there, with a growing majority of skeptics. The parent company had shown the mermaid footage to the searchers, but many still didn’t believe it was genuine, said they’d seen better CGI mermaids in kids’ movies. With each fruitless search there were more divers who thought the video was simply a hoax.
Raleigh thought the best move would be to “take ownership,” as he put it, and come out and admit it was a hoax—our hoax, that we were the hoaxers. We’d buy ourselves some time that way, he claimed, although the parent company wouldn’t be swayed; they claimed to have had the footage “authenticated” by “experts” before they took action in the first place. If we pulled back, he said, in essence pulled a hoax now, claiming to have hoaxed before, they’d lose a lot of manpower. They’d lose logistical support, and it would set back their project, at least temporarily.
Miyoko wouldn’t like that at all, said Chip, she’d staked her reputation on this being real, she’d gone the whole nine yards for us.
Rick nodded. We didn’t even want to bring it up with her.
“We don’t need to go public with it,”
