Facing the Storm (Brice Bannon Seacoast Adventure Book 1) Read online

  Bannon clasped her arm and gave it a squeeze. “No need to show off for our host, Blades.”

  She harrumphed and strolled toward the super structure. Bannon turned to McMurphy. “Sorry about you taking that shot to the jaw.”

  McMurphy rubbed at his chin, laughing it off. “That camel turd hit like a girl.”

  Bannon laughed. “Don’t let Blades catch you saying that.”

  McMurphy watched as Tara stepped through the hatchway. “Why do you think I waited until she was gone?”

  Bannon picked up his personal belongings from the barrel head, including the car fob on his keychain. “You’re smarter than you look, old friend.”

  “If you two are done yucking it up. In less than fifteen minutes we’re going to go boom. We need to start evacuating the ship.”

  Nichols pointed at the black inflatable a hundred yards out where Faaid and his men were climbing from the inflatable up a ladder onto another, larger ship, his men lugging the weapon-filled crate aboard after him. The last man hung from the bottom rung and plunged a dive knife into the inflatable. It shriveled as it was set adrift.

  Bannon glanced at the super structure, at the hatch Tara had gone through. “Captain, Tarakesh Sardana, besides being the most gorgeous distraction I’ve ever seen, trained with MARCOS, the special forces unit of the Indian Navy. One of her many specialties is demolitions. She’ll dismantle any IEDs these half-wits came up with, I guarantee it.”

  “And can devise one a thousand times more sophisticated in the meantime,” McMurphy added.

  “Fine,” Nichols said. “Okay. Good. The CALEB floats to see another day. We’re still stuck out here with no way to communicate or,” he pointed again at the departing terrorists’ boat, “to chase down those escaping…animals hell bent on destroying American lives.”

  “Don’t worry, whatever those jackals did to disable the engines, I’ll get them back up and running toot-sweet,” McMurphy assured the ship’s captain.

  “They’ll be long gone by then, leaving us completely powerless to stop them.”

  “I wouldn’t say completely powerless.”

  Bannon held the key fob up in the air, as if inspecting it. Staring at it, he could also see the speeding boat in the distance, skimming over the smooth ocean surface, growing smaller, getting farther away.

  “When you caught me in the cargo hold below, did you notice me toss my cell phone into the crate with the launchers and missiles?”

  Nichols shook his head.

  “And remember what McMurphy said about Blades—excuse me—Tara being able to devise an IED more sophisticated than anything Faaid and his people could come up with?”

  “Yeah, sure. So?”

  “She did.”

  Bannon aimed the key fob at the departing boat, little more than the size of a child’s bathtub toy to them by now. “The cell phone is packed with C-4 and equipped with a remote triggering device.”

  He keyed the fob.

  The escaping terrorist’s boat exploded in a gigantic roiling black fireball, sending billows of hot, black clouds skyward. A second ticked by before the roar of the explosion reached the MV CALEB.

  “Mission accomplished,” Bannon said with a grim smile. “By any means necessary.”

  ###

  WHAT MEETS THE EYE

  THE BAR DOOR opened on squeaky hinges and threw a shaft of bright summer sunlight into the dimly lit watering hole’s interior. The Keel Haul was closed, it being 8:30 in the morning and all. That didn’t stop the young boy from walking in and letting the door slap shut behind him.

  He stood for a minute and blinked, trying to get his eyes adjusted to the dark.

  Brice Bannon sat at the end of the bar, the owner of the establishment, going over the latest whiskey replenishment orders with his business partner—and bartender—Tarakesh Sardana, who stood behind the bar drying glasses. They watched the boy navigate his way around tables with chairs turned upside down on them, past the pool table under the big bay window,—shuttered now against the glare of morning sun— raising over Hampton Beach.

  The boy reached the bar. He was barely a foot taller than the black padded and polished mahogany surface. His brown hair was windblown and his cheeks flushed. He looked at Bannon with a serious expression. “Are you Brice Bannon, the private investigator?”

  “That would be me,” Bannon said. Sleuthing was a side business, in addition to running the Keel Haul. “What can I do for you?”

  “I want to hire you,” the boy said.

  A smile tugged at the corner of Sardana’s mouth. She continued to dry glasses.

  “You need a detective?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. Why don’t you take a seat and tell me about it.”

  The boy pulled a barstool out. It scrapped across the floor. With a bit of effort he climbed up on it. Bannon resisted the urge to pull it closer to the bar.

  “Can I offer you something to drink?” Bannon asked.

  “I’m too young to drink alcohol,” the boy said. “I’m only nine and a half.”

  That made Bannon smile. “I was thinking more along the lines of a soda or juice.”

  “Oh, then yes. A glass of milk, please.”

  With a smile, the bartender poured the milk from a carton they kept in the refrigerator under the coffee pot that held a fresh-brewed pot. She set the glass of milk in front of the boy on a coaster.

  “How much do I owe you?” the boy said.

  “It’s on the house.”

  The boy’s forehead wrinkled, as if he had a problem with that.

  “Only because you’re a potential client,” she quickly added. “Otherwise it’d be full price.”

  Satisfied, he nodded. The boy drank the glass half empty, put it down, and wiped the milk moustache from his upper lip with the back of his hand.

  “That’s good,” he said. “Nice and cold.”

  “Glad you enjoyed it,” Bannon said. “Now. You know who I am. And this beautiful lady behind the bar is Tarakesh Sardana.”

  She offered the boy her hand, clearly getting a kick out of him. “Call me Tara.”

  He shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, Tara.”

  “Same.”

  “And you are?” Bannon asked, also shaking hands with the boy.

  “Tommy. Tommy Hendrickson.”

  “So, Tommy Hendrickson, tell me what it is you think I can do for you?”

  “I’ve been accused of a crime I didn’t commit.”

  Bannon and Tara exchanged glances. Both thinking the same thing: what on earth could this charming nine-and-a-half-year-old kid have done?

  “I see,” Bannon said. “What is it you’ve been accused of doing?”

  “Stealing.”

  “Stealing?”

  “Stealing. But I didn’t do it.”

  “And you want me to investigate and prove it.”

  “That’s right.” He drank some more milk. He swung his legs, his feet not reaching the lower rung of the barstool. “But that’s not all.”

  “It’s not?”

  “No. I also want you to prove who really did do it.”

  Again, Bannon said, “I see. How about you start from the beginning and tell me what you’re accused of stealing.”

  “Cookies. From my mom’s cookie jar.”

  Still leaning against the counter, her back to the shelves of bottles behind the bar, still drying glasses and listening, Tara’s dark eyes twinkled, an amused expression on her face.

  “You’re accused of stealing,” Bannon repeated, “cookies from the cookie jar?”

  “Yes. But I didn’t do it. I told my mom but she doesn’t believe me.”

  “And you think someone else did it. Do you have any idea who stole the cookies—” Bannon shot Tara a warning look. Don’t you dare make me laugh. “—from the cookie jar?”

  “Yes. It was John.”

  “Who’s John?” Bannon asked.

  “He’s my mom’s new boyfriend. I don’t like him
. He’s scary.”

  “How do you know John stole the cookies?” Bannon refused to add from the cookie jar.

  “I saw him,” Tommy insisted. “I was right there in the kitchen when he took a fistful of ’em. That night when I wasn’t hungry for dinner—actually I was hungry, but dinner was corn beef and cabbage.” He stuck out his tongue. “Who’d be hungry for that?”

  “I’m with you on that one, kid. Cabbage.” Bannon shuddered. “Ugh.”

  “But its John’s favorite,” he said in a mocking tone. “Anyway, Mom yelled at me, wanting to know what I’d had to ruin my dinner. I told her nothing—which was true. But she looked in the cookie jar and she found all them cookies missing. She asked me if I ate ’em and I said no. But she didn’t believe me. She told me I was fibbing and sent me to my room for lying.”

  “You didn’t tell her that John had taken the cookies from the cookie jar?” Tara asked.

  “No.”

  Bannon smiled. Had to admire the kid’s integrity. “And John, where was he when all this was happening?”

  “Sitting right there at the table, eating corn beef and cabbage and drinking beer.”

  “He didn’t admit to taking the cookies?” Tara asked, incredulously.

  “Nope. Just kept stuffing his stupid face with more food until his cheeks were out like this.” Tommy blew air into his own cheeks, expanding them to capacity.

  “No wonder you don’t like the guy,” Tara said. “I wouldn’t either.”

  “When did all this happen?” Bannon asked.

  “Last night.”

  “And your mom and John, where are they now?”

  “Mom’s at home. She works evenings, most nights. John?” He shrugged. “Work, I guess. He don’t live with us, but he’s there so much it’s like he does.” Tommy had stopped swinging his legs. He sat with his head hung, looking down at his feet. One sneaker lace was untied. Quietly, he said, “I wish she’d never met him.”

  “Where’s home, Tommy?”

  “Walton Road in Seabrook.”

  Seabrook was the next town south from Hampton along the New Hampshire seacoast. It bordered Massachusetts. “You said your mom’s home, how’d you get here?”

  “I rode my bike.”

  “All the way here?” Bannon said.

  “Yup.” Tommy slipped off the barstool.

  He dug his hand into the pocket of his jeans, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he dug deep. When he pulled his hand out, he had a fistful of cash—crumpled bills and change. He dumped it onto the surface of the bar. He reached in for more and dropped a few more coins onto the pile.

  “I can pay you,” he said, proudly indicating the money on the bar.

  “How much is there?” Bannon asked.

  “Thirty-nine dollars and fifty-seven cents. Is that enough?”

  When Bannon didn’t answer right away, Tommy’s face creased with worry. “I can get more. I’ll sell my baseball card collection and I got some old comic books I can…”

  Bannon hurriedly put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “No, no. That won’t be necessary. It’s more than enough for me to get started.”

  “Really?” Tommy asked with bright, happy eyes.

  “Really,” Bannon said. He looked at Tara. “You can hold down the fort while I look into this, can’t you, Blades?”

  “Of course.” Tara shook hands with Tommy again. “Good luck. I hope you two get your man.”

  He thanked her and let Bannon lead him out of the bar with a hand laid gently to his back.

  The Keel Haul occupied the corner storefront under the casino, across from the band shell and beach. The Atlantic Ocean crashed into the sandy beach stretched out across the horizon. Already warm, the sun hung low in the sky. The vehicle traffic along Ocean Boulevard wasn’t awful yet.

  The sidewalks were quiet too, with only a few older vacationers walking up and down the boardwalk. It was too early for many of the young beach crowd; except for some early morning runners, the rest were either in their hotel rooms still sleeping it off or nursing wicked hangovers before venturing out to do it all over again.

  Such was the life in a beach-front community.

  “Sweet ride,” Bannon said as Tommy picked his bicycle up off the sidewalk where he’d left it; a sparkling red 20” BMX racing bike.

  They walked down D Street, away from the water. Tommy wheeled his bike.

  Around the rear of the building, they came to a parking lot. Bannon took the bike from Tommy and put it in the bed of his black Ford F-350 pickup truck. It had a red and white dive decal in the back window.

  “Sweet ride,” Tommy said.

  He gave Bannon his address and they drove the five miles inland to his house down the road from the Seabrook Elementary School.

  Bannon pulled to the curb in front of a modest, white, clapboard colonial that like a lot of houses in New Hampshire appeared to have been built in sections over time. It consisted of the main house with a room added on to one side. In the back, the house connected to a barn-style section with a hip roof that jutted off the rear and to the right, and that further connected to a two car garage at the end of a wide driveway alongside the house.

  The home was neat, well cared for, with flower beds lining the front of the house and along the driveway. Yellow and white daffodils sprouted tall and healthy from the black, rich smelling potting soil.

  Together Bannon and Tommy pulled the BMX racer from the bed of his truck. Setting it to the ground, the front door of the house burst open and a woman with frizzy auburn hair came running down the stoop, yelling, “Tommy! Oh my God! Where have you been?”

  “I’m fine Mom, sheesh.”

  The woman scooped him up in her arms and smothered him with hugs. “I’ve been worried sick. I’ve called everyone we know looking for you. I almost called the police.”

  Tommy squirmed to escape her bear hug. When he’d successfully disengaged himself from her grasp, he said, “I’m okay, Mom. I can take care of myself.”

  The woman glared at Bannon. As she did, she grabbed Tommy by the shoulders and pulled him away from Bannon. A safe distance back, she held him against her body. She clutched the boy tight, fiercely.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. “What are you doing with my son?”

  Bannon had his hands stuck in the front pockets of his jeans. He evaluated her from behind a pair of dark aviator sunglasses. She was a pretty woman, her hair the same brown color as Tommy’s. Bannon guessed her to be in her mid-thirties, but those years had not been kind to her.

  “My name is Brice Bannon. I’m a private investigator.”

  She recoiled. “A private investigator? What do you want?”

  “I’ve been hired to look into a matter.”

  The woman narrowed her eyes. Her forehead creased with worry lines. “What matter?”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Bannon said. To Tommy, he said, “Can I tell her?”

  “Tell me?” She twisted Tommy around to look at him. “Young man, what have you done?”

  “Nothing, Mom. I swear. Go on. Tell her.”

  “Your son, he hired me.”

  “Hired you? For what?”

  Bannon studied the woman. She seemed on the verge of hysteria. And while Bannon could understand a woman’s concern over a missing child, now that he was back, she was openly hostile to Bannon, the person who brought him home.

  To him, her reactions seemed over the top. Off. But then, he didn’t have children.

  “Hired you for what?” she demanded.

  “You can tell her, Mr. Bannon. It’s okay.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” His expression suggested he saw another punishment in his near future.

  Bannon explained how he’d met Tommy and what Tommy had hired him to do. When he was done, he said, “So I brought him home and thought—”

  Tommy’s mom didn’t let him finish. She turned Tommy to face her, held him by the shoulders and stared hard into face. �
�Did you do that?”

  “Yes.” The word barely a whisper.

  “Why on Earth—”

  “Because you don’t believe me!” And like a flood gate opening, Tommy was off. “You think I lied. But I didn’t. I didn’t steal those stupid cookies. I didn’t eat your stupid corn beef and cabbage because I hate corn beef and cabbage. It makes me want to puke. And so does John. I hate him. I told you that but you won’t listen to me. Not about corn beef and cabbage. Not about the stupid cookies, and not about stupid John. I hate him and I hate you.”

  Tommy broke away from her, tears streaming down his face as he ran for the house. He bolted up the stoop and inside and slammed the front door so hard the brass knocker banged.

  Bannon and Tommy’s mom stood together, silently staring at each other.

  Finally, with her voice barely above a whisper, she said, “I’m sorry. That was embarrassing.”

  Bannon waved her apology away. “Forget it. Rising children is a challenge.”

  “Do you have kids, Mr. Bannon?”

  “Please, call me Brice.” He smiled. “And no, none of my own. But my brothers and sisters, they’ve given me more nephews and nieces than I can count. I’ve seen what they’ve gone through raising them. It can’t be easy.”

  “It isn’t. But it’s not all bad either.” She paused, then said, “Well, thank you for bringing Tommy home. I’m sorry he wasted your time this way.”

  “Not a waste at all. I enjoyed meeting him, Mrs. Hendrickson. He seems like a good boy.”

  “He is.” She gave Bannon a weak smile. “Most of the time.” She turned to go back inside. “Again thank you.”

  Bannon watched her go. Then he called out, “Mrs. Hendrickson, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  She paused, hesitated, then turned. “Yes, Mr. Bannon, as a matter of fact, I do. I’m sorry but goodbye.”

  The woman walked up the stoop, pushed the front door open, and went inside.

  He couldn’t be sure, but as she turned to close the door she stared out at him with a haunted look in her eyes. It didn’t last long, but in that look he saw something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t tell what.

  Then she pushed the door closed.