Blood Tide Read online

  “It should go to Carl. How that guy kept moving with a leg like mashed potato is beyond belief.”

  I drained my coffee, and Morgan took me to an officer’s hooch where I could catch up on sleep.

  I lay on the hard bunk and the prefab room spun dizzily from the adrenalin overdose, as if I was drunk. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Carl holding his Yarborough and winking. I didn’t know there were people like that around anymore, even in the Special Forces.

  That’s what worried me. I knew he would live, but his leg may be beyond saving. The break on the tibia was brutal, and he had hobbled and been dragged at awkward angles for at least five miles. He had been involved in an intense shootout and even a brief knife fight. I hoped some alpha surgeon would save the limb, but I had serious doubts.

  That’s the thing. To cripple a man like Carl was a death warrant. A slow one. I barely knew him, but suspected that people like him can only live at one speed — foot pumping on the gas. Not only would he be invalided out of the army, but he wouldn’t be able to surf or paraglide again, his two passions. That was what we had in common. We were both beach boys, although having grown up in Southern California to his New York, I reckoned I had more endless summer DNA than he did. He disputes that. But then, he would.

  They say when you face death your life flashes before your eyes. Mine had not in the desert barely five hours ago as I had been otherwise occupied. It did now.

  I was born Kelly Murdock, named after Kelly Slater, the eleven-times world surfing champion. It was not a good choice of names as that’s where the similarity ended. Kelly — the Slater version — is a clean living good guy who eats organic food and saves the planet. Kelly — the Murdoch version — is … well, not so much as Jim Beam and Budweiser don’t seem to do organic stuff, and when I’m not eating wild fish hauled fresh from the Pacific, I’m gagging on cold MREs. However, I like to think I do my bit about saving the planet by removing bad guys. Also, the Slater version is a far better surfer than the Murdoch one will ever be, but I suppose my dad lived in hope.

  My mother is a writer; my father an ex-soldier. He enlisted soon after the First Gulf War and was a .50 caliber machine-gunner with the 3rd ID, the infantry division made famous by Medal of Honour winner and actor Audie Murphy. Just as I’m no Kelly Slater, my dad was no Audie Murphy. However, he was on the first Abrams to reach Baghdad during the Second Gulf War. This I know to be true, as there is a photo of him and four other disheveled soldiers smoking fat cigars and sitting on French baroque furniture in Saddam Hussein’s insanely opulent palace.

  Another story, told in confidence to me by one of my dad’s inebriated military friends, is that his tank crew found an open bank vault stuffed with U.S. dollars. Apparently Saddam and his psychopath sons Uday and Qusay had looted the treasury before fleeing from the capitulating city, but were unable to carry off all the cash. Dad denies this, but what I do know is that he honorably left the army some months later and never worked again. Instead, he bought a beach cottage on the San Diego/Mexican border and a Kombi. From then on, life was one long beach safari, either down Mexico’s Baja peninsula, or up the Californian coast to Mavericks. But mainly Mexico.

  My mother, sister and I tagged along during school holidays, spending months on the road, living free and easy off the sea, riding waves with increasing skill. My skin was permanently walnut brown, my charcoal-colored hair perennially streaked with sun-scorched highlights. I was regularly mistaken for being Mexican, despite having my mother’s jade eyes. The fact that I spoke Spanish with an almost flawless norteno accent peculiar to Baja and north Mexico further confused the natives.

  It was idyllic. My dad either fished off an open kayak, or surfed all day, while my mother sat in the kombi tapping computer keys as she composed the next great American novel. It took her nearly fifteen years to finish it. I am told by those who know such things that it is a literary masterpiece, although the royalty checks were almost always in single figures. My dad didn’t care. As long as she was happy, so was he. The fact we never wanted for money sometimes makes me think I do indeed have Saddam Hussein as a fairy godfather.

  It ended soon after I turned seventeen. My sister, who was two years older, was raped by a surf bum our family befriended.

  It took my dad and I two days to track him down at a derelict shack on the outskirts of Rosarito Beach, just south of Tijuana. Dad told me to stay outside, but I ignored him.

  The bum tried to run, but Dad caught him and started smashing his face, brutally and methodically. To this day, I have never seen such cold intensity in any man’s eyes.

  But another surf bum in the shack snuck up from behind and hit Dad over the head with a five-gallon wine jug. He fell heavily. I was standing by the kitchen counter. Before me was a wooden block sheathing a set of steak knives. I grabbed one and gutted the assailant as he was about to slit my dazed father’s throat with the shards of the shattered jug.

  The rapist got up and charged me, knocking the blood-slicked knife from my hand. It clattered onto the floor and he grabbed it, then came for me, crouching with hands spread wide in a classic knife-fighter’s stance. I fended him off, but my forearm was badly slashed. He came for me again. I am loath to admit this, but I was loving it.

  The next thing I saw was my father’s arms locked around the rapist’s neck. With a swift sideways jerk, something he must have learned in the military, he snapped the man’s cervical vertebrae. It cracked like a wet stick.

  “Let’s go,” he said, grabbing me and pulling me out of the house.

  We crossed the border into America with my father looking anxiously in his rearview mirror more often than the road ahead. He drove me to the army recruitment centre at Mira Mesa. As I was not eighteen, he signed parental consent.

  He then drove me home to say goodbye to my mother. The next day I was in the army.

  …

  NINE MONTHS PASSED before I heard from Carl again.

  Four of those, he told me, had been spent either in hospital or in physiotherapy as doctors first battled to save his leg, then get it to full functionality. A lot of the rehab was mind over matter, persistence over surrender. With Carl, you just knew that was a fight he would win.

  His shoulder recovered faster than his leg and he said the gym work made him more ripped than ever before. The good news was he was a babe-magnet, although Rachel did not approve. Even better news was he had been accepted back into Delta frontline work, something which Rachel approved even less. To celebrate, he wanted me to join him on a fishing trip in Alaska, where he said the guide, Chris Stone was a good friend.

  “There’s not much this guy doesn’t know about fly fishing,” said Carl. “He’s also hardcore and been with us on a black ops mission tracing nukes in Africa.” **

  “How does a civilian go on a black ops mission?”

  “Long story. But my stepdad vouches for him.”

  Carl’s stepfather, Nick Landry, was someone I had heard of. He had been a Green Beret in Vietnam and was among the most legendary living gunslingers in Unit folklore. Now in his mid-sixties, he ran a security company recruiting mainly Montagnards from the highlands of Vietnam. Many were sons and daughters of fighters who patrolled the Ho Chi Minh trail with Nick during America’s most reviled war. A war where many insanely brave men who risked life and limb for their country were called baby-killers back home.

  Luckily I had six weeks of vacation accrued after a stint in the Middle East, culminating in taking out the ISIL boss Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria’s north-western Idlib province. I visited my folks in San Diego, then headed north to surf Mavericks, followed by a sunnier safari south to Baja. But it was pretty cooped up in the campervan with dad, so when Carl offered me an all-expenses trip to Alaska, I jumped at the chance.

  Five people met me at Anvik Airport. They included Carl and his girlfriend Rachel, as well as an older, but equally stunning auburn-haired beauty introduced as Debra. With her was Chris Stone, a lean, athletic guy with a youth
ful face despite the crow’s-feet lining his eyes from squinting into too much sun. The oldest guy needed no introduced. I knew this was Nick Landry, with sinewy-muscular arms straining his T-shirt sleeves and iron-gray hair cut short around a hard, but humorous face. There were handshakes and hugs all round, but the tightest squeeze of all came from Rachel. I was taken by surprise, then realized it was for saving Carl’s life, something I had relegated to the back of my memory.

  Carl laughed, noticing the look on my face.

  “Just wait till my mom gets hold of you.”

  “Your mom?” I asked, looking around.

  “Yeah, she’s at the camp. Not enough room for everyone in the SUV.”

  It was a two-hour journey along wilderness tracks to the remote Anvik Experience Fishing Lodge run by Chis and Debra. There was quite a reception committee outside. In fact, it seemed the entire lodge had come out to meet me. But two people stood out, both women. One I could see straight away was Carl’s mother Sandra. She had the same azure eyes, but her face was a picture of serenity, something somewhat lacking in Carl. Just as her husband, hard man Nick Landry could have made a fortune portraying a Hollywood villain, Sandra could have been cast as a saint. As Carl warned, she gave me a long hug.

  But it was the other woman who truly caught my eye. She was gorgeous, even more striking than Carl’s girlfriend Rachel, although Carl would scoff at that. Chris Stone introduced me.

  “Kelly, this is my daughter Caitlin.”

  I shook hands and mumbled something about being pleased to meet her. She nodded coolly.

  “OK,” said Chris. “Time to get Kelly some decent Alaskan beer.”

  He led the way to the bar. I quickly looked around to see if Caitlin was following. She was.

  Carl ordered a round of some brew called Hoodoo, which I thought was appropriate. As I took an appreciative sip, I noticed Chris, Debra, Nick, Rachel and Sandra staring intently at me. Then in perfect unison, they raised their glasses.

  “Just a quick toast, now that we have your attention brother,” said Carl. “You’re one of us.”

  They drank to that. Self-consciously, so did I, not sure where this was going. Then Rachel and Sandra came up and kissed me, once more for saving Carl’s life. I mumbled that Carl would have done the same for me.

  “We know that,” said Nick. “But we now know what you will do.”

  *As told in Blood Brothers

  Chapter Three

  “SO, WHEN ARE we going fishing?” I asked, embarrassed at being in the spotlight and trying to change the subject.

  “First light tomorrow,” said Carl. “Tonight is catch-up time.”

  “Do you fish?” Chris asked.

  I nodded. “Not with a fly though. I was brought up on the beaches of Southern California by a dad who lived to surf. If we didn’t catch fish, we ate out of cans. So nothing fancy — just lures and jigs that worked.”

  “Most flies we use here are basically lures. You’ll feel right at home.”

  “Actually, I had just caught my first rooster fish when Carl phoned. So this could be an interesting acclimatization from throwing poppers from the beach in the sub-tropics to feather just below the Arctic Circle.”

  “Rooster? In Mexico?”

  I nodded. “I grew up in Southern California, but every summer was spent across the border in Baja. I still go there when I can.”

  “What a coincidence. Debra and I were in Mexico last month.” He looked at Carl and Nick. “Perhaps we need to talk to Kelly?”

  Carl nodded. “You have been invited here to fish. But maybe we have another idea in mind. A mission.”

  I said nothing. Mainly because I didn’t know what to say. Everything was happening too fast.

  “Chris will fill you in,” said Carl. “In his own words.”

  …

  CHRIS STONE WAS about to net a seven-pound salmon that his inept client had done everything possible to lose, when the cellphone buzzed in his fly-vest.

  He scooped up the fish, thanking it for being so sporting as to allow the bungler with an overpriced rod to hook it, then pulled out the phone to take a photo for the Ernest Hemingway wannabe.

  There was a missed call notification. It had a +52 dialling code. Mexico.

  Chris snapped the photo, amid effuse congratulations, subtly refraining from saying that it was about damn time. The man had missed eight fish that morning alone, not to mention a double-figure loss the day before.

  He released the salmon unharmed, again thanking it, then started wondering who was phoning from Mexico. The bookings were handled by his partner Daniel Whittaker, so it was not a client.

  Back at the lodge, smilingly supporting his client’s heroic tales of the day on the river, he asked to be excused and dialed the Mexican number.

  The Spanish voice on the other end said he had reached the voicemail of Alejandro Dumas, and invited him to leave a message. Which he did.

  The call was returned in five minutes. Senor Dumas said he represented the estate of Don Geraldo Francisco de Almeida. Did Chris know him?

  Indeed, Chris did. He was one of his favorite clients, a master fly-fisherman and one of the finest gentlemen Chris had met.

  “I’m sorry to say that Senor Almeida has passed.”

  Chris was stunned. Don Geraldo may have been 77, but he was in peak condition when he last came to Alaska for his annual week of salmon fishing.

  “I’m truly sorry to hear that. He was a good man. May I ask how he died?”

  “In a gunfight with a drug cartel. He took six of the narcos with him.”

  Despite himself, Chris smiled. That was Don Geraldo, all right.

  “However, you are named as a beneficiary in his will. That is the reason for this call.”

  If Chris was surprised to hear the Don Geraldo had died, he was even more so now.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Let me read you the clause in his last will and testament,” said Mr Dumas. “I hereby bequeath to my friend Chris Stone, an excellent fly-fisherman and even better man, my set of bamboo H.L. Leonard rods, as well as my fly collection.”

  Chris whistled. He knew about Don Geraldo’s fly collection. No pattern in the world had not, at some stage or another, found its way into Don Geraldo’s mountain of fly boxes. He did not know about the bamboo rods, as the Mexican had always fished with state of the art graphite. The fact that he had a selection of bamboo as well probably meant that some rods are just too exquisite to use. Or more likely, as Hiram Lewis Leonard who died in 1907 and is considered the father of bamboo rods, the collection was too valuable to sully on hard-worked riverbanks.

  “I am honoured,” was all Chris could say.

  “I will mail them up to you,” said Mr. Dumas.

  “No. It’s nearly the end of the fishing season in Alaska, and I need a holiday. Mexico sounds ideal. I’ll fetch them myself.”

  “Very well. I’ll email you my address in Tijuana.”

  As he clicked off, Debra walked into the room. Her thick chestnut hair was pulled back in a ponytail showing off her emerald eyes.

  “Did I just hear someone say two magic words — Mexico and holiday?”

  “You did. All I need is to find some gorgeous squeeze to share it with. Any ideas?”

  She blew him a kiss. “If you have to ask, then that’s all you’re getting from me. But why Mexico?”

  He told her about Don Geraldo. She remembered him, which was not surprising. He had that effect on everyone. What was surprising, was the irreplaceable gift he had bequeathed Chris.

  “You must have really impressed him,” said Debra.

  “I hope so. We spoke long into the night on several occasions and he told me much about Mexico, the tragedy and vitality of a proud country ravaged by drug wars.”

  Chris paused, lost in thought. “I remember him saying that the drug problem should not be regarded as Mexican. It was American. Like third world oil, the coca plant is a curse. Mexico’s curse is being the essential
trade route between supplier and user, and they pay an intolerable social price.”

  “So, when are we going? I still have some clinics to run.”

  Debra, a highly-trained nurse, ran free clinics in several Athabaskan villages near the lodge. She was, without question, the most revered white person in the area. This was even more remarkable as she was a foreigner. A South African, whose own country had a torturous racial history.

  “We’ll go as soon as you’re free.”

  ...

  THEY LANDED AT Tijuana’s international airport on a windy Saturday. Chris had to remind himself that although they were far south of Alaska, the autumn blast coming off the Pacific was surprisingly cold, thanks to the Humboldt current that snaked up from Antarctica.

  They checked into a motel on the Malibu Baja beach, as Chris wanted to do some saltwater fly-fishing. The prized roosterfish, with a dorsal fin that flares like the comb of a fighting cockerel, would be the ultimate prize.

  He phoned the lawyer, Alejandro Dumas, making an appointment on Monday to fetch the antique bamboo rods. After that, he and Debra went to a local restaurant and did what most tourists in Mexico do — order nachos and a pitcher of Margaritas.

  Baja Malibu was fourteen miles south of Tijuana, and Chris hired a car to get to the lawyer’s office at mid-morning. Senor Dumas, casually dressed and looking more pro bono than corporate, introduced him to a wiry old man in starched white shirt and khaki trousers.

  “Pablo Pérez was Don Geraldo’s estate manager,” said Dumas.

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Chris, shaking his hand.

  “I recognise you,” said Pablo in heavily-accented English. “Your picture with the Patrón hangs on the wall of the fishing lodge.”

  Chris knew which photo he was talking about. On one of his trips to the Anvik, Don Geraldo had landed a fifty-pound King Salmon, the biggest in Alaska that year. It had been a remarkable angling feat on a twenty-pound leader.