Fire on the Sea

Ty Callison for Kennebec7 (#14)

I know too much. It all just keeps whirling around in my brain. Makes me feel stupid. I’m just not smart enough to put it all together in a way that delivers the right results. I want to sleep, but the worms keep turning in my brain. If Lakshmi dies, then everything was for naught. I’ll have to hang it up and just sit in front of a shack in the desert until I blow away like dust.

          The one redeeming factor is that Seng is alive and he’s home. Well, almost home; actually he’s right here— somewhere in Bangkok Hospital in Phuket— like me and Lakshmi.

          Seng was the mission. The mission that I had proclaimed. His buddy, Phunamee, the Thai narcotics cop who joined the operation because he didn’t think an Arizona detective and an Indian female sage could handle the Burmese navy and drug dealers working out of an island somewhere in the Andaman Sea; well Phunamee’s not coming back. We couldn’t even retrieve his body. Our gypsy friends who survived told us the sharks got him, as well as their own family members who got blown into the sea by the smugglers and their gypsy allies.

          “Hello… Anybody in there?” I felt Jill’s hand gently touching my rather elaborate, extraterrestrial-like head bandage.

          “Yeah, we’re here, Jill.”

          “Lucky they got you in the most impenetrable part of your body.”

          “Have you no sweet words for the suffering, girl?”

          “Didn’t even puncture your skull, I understand. Epidural hematoma, Doctor Rausch tells me.”

          ”I fell, Jill.”

          “I’m really pissed that you did this, Ty.”

          “Seng’s alive.”

          “The hospital is littered with victims from this excursion.”

          “How is Lakshmi?”

          “Stable, Ty, but she’s not going to be up and walking around very soon. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound like a bitch. But it hurts so much to see you all like this. It’s crazy; we didn’t come over here for something like this. God, Lakshmi turned out to be a pretty ferocious counterinsurgent, didn’t she? She seems pretty pleased with herself.”

          “You spoke to her?”

          “Of course. How else would I know the story? Blew the hell out of the druggies.”

          “Lit up the sky,” I told Jill. Then I started feeling dizzy again. It happens with an epidural hematoma. I kept reminding myself to stay calm. This is the same kind of injury that killed Natasha Richardson. But how could I ever forget the image of Ivan’s boat heading for me, while I held Seng above water. Suddenly there was a huge explosion – fire on water. It was Lakshmi with the Winchester. Despite her broken shoulder bone, she had swum to Badu Pulo Island and gotten a shot off.

          We had gone on gypsy boats to try to find Seng, who you might remember was kidnapped by the Slovakians Ivan and Bobby (can’t pronounce or spell those last names), who were running drugs to Southeast Asia purportedly with the backing of the Burmese navy. A different clan of gypsies who were patrolling for the smugglers intercepted us.

          Phunamee was killed, and Lakshmi seriously wounded. Me? I had been previously dropped off at another island, so that I could infiltrate Badu Pulo from the south using an inflatable raft and my weaponry.

          “Where did you find Seng, Ty?” Jill’s voice penetrated the fog of remembrance I was plodding through.

          “In a cave. A labyrinth.”

          “Well you did it, Ty. He’s got a head injury, too. A lot of surface wounds, but he’s going to make it.”

          I didn’t know what to say, what to feel, anymore. I had a terrible headache, but I knew it was not time for me to die. I would survive this, too.

          “I’m going to let you get some rest, Ty,” Jill told me softly.

          “Have Seng’s parents seen him yet?”

          “They’re coming. I think his dad has been pretty ill himself. You know, I got your message.”

          “What message? My satellite phone was one of the first things to end up in the sea.”

          “A stranger called himself Ty and told Heidi and me that he’d be back in two days. That was Wednesday. We met him in a bar.”

          “And…tonight is..?”

          “Friday.”

          “Warn’t me, Jill.”  I rang for the nurse. My head felt like it was being crushed by an anvil.

          “I had to swim into that place where Seng was, Jill. I killed a lot of people.”

          “Nasty people.”

          “I suppose….” I felt the dizziness slowly making cotton candy of my brain. I felt the taste of regret in my mouth.

          A nurse came in. Gave me some medicine. Jill handed me a glass of water. I slugged it all down. I sighed, waiting for sleep.

          “I’ll be back in the morning, Ty,” Jill said. When I looked up at her, she was smiling. I could see bright lights around her face. “You’ll want to know what’s happening with Miranda’s case. I haven’t been sitting on my hands.” She took my fingers in hers. “Right now, get some sleep. A dreamless sleep.”

          I didn’t want to let her go quite yet. “You’ll make sure they take care of Lakshmi? She’s the gladiator in all this.”

          Jill laughed. “I will. I’m sure she’ll appreciate the label.”

Ty Callison

Phuket, Thailand

July 23, 2010