Devlin's Defiance: Book Two of the Devlin Quatrology (10 page)

After his shower, he
went downstairs, took a sausage-and-cheese muffin from his
refrigerator, took the top part of the muffin off, broke the
remainder in half, wrapped one half of that back up and put it in a
sandwich bag. While the other half was nuking, he spread a thin
layer of peanut butter on the top part of the muffin, wrapped that up
and put it in the sandwich bag, which went into his beach cooler.
Then he slowly ate the heated part, along with a glass of orange
juice and a multivitamin, while checking the morning's news and his
email, finding nothing that couldn't wait till the evening.

He packed the rest of
his cooler, took it down to his car and got fully set up at the beach
by about 8:15. The early-morning sun caressed his back, making the
71-degree temp feel much warmer. A light easterly breeze rippled the
calm water of the Gulf under a bright blue sky, free of clouds.

He lit one of his small
cigars with his magnifying glass, then sent VRs (Vicarious Rays; had
he been religious, they might have been called prayers) to friends
and friends of friends around the world. If they had any real
effect, he had no idea, but it made him feel good.

He gave a few “good
mornings” to some of the people who came walking by and got
smiles, nods, waves or “good mornings” in return from
most of them.

When he finished
smoking, he put a tablespoon of ice cream in his mouth, slowly
swallowed it and rinsed with some water from his cooler. Then he
applied sunscreen to his forehead and nose and some SPF 45 lip balm
to his lips and a scab that he'd discovered on his left ear, pulled a
small spiral notebook and pen from his bag, lay back on his lounge
and began jotting some notes. One read “Mix in the banal with
the bizarre,” and another was “Maybe change POV for new
ideas/twists?” And then “Too much violence? Hmm.”

About 9:30, Louise, an
art professor at a local university, showed up, accompanied by two
men, one tall, lanky and bearded, the other short, portly and
clean-shaven. She set down her bag, flipped open a beach chair about
15 feet from Gordy's lounge and draped a towel across it. Then she
came over with her companions.

“
Hi, Gordy.”

“
Hey, Doc. How
ya doin' on this fine morning?”

“
Great, thanks.
Gordy, these are two colleagues of mine, Dr. Steven Spectrochianski,
chairman of the political science department, and Dr. Bruce
Patrikopoulos, chairman of the economics department. I gave them
your book and they've read it, wanted to meet you. Okay if they stay
and talk with you while I run?”

“
Sure, Doc.
Still keeping track of your points?”

Louise, laughing, said,
“Oh, yeah, sure, Gordy. 700 so far.”

“
Cool; just 300
to go.”

“
Right. Have a
nice chat, guys. See you in an hour or so, Gordy.” And off
she ran.

“
Sorry, guys.
Your names again? Just first names, okay?”

“
Steven.”

“
Bruce.”

Stifling a chuckle as
they shook hands, Gordy said, “Thanks; my memory isn't too good
with names. So what can I do for you?”

“
Well,”
Bruce began, “Louise gave us each copies of your book and we
read it, and we'd like to talk with you about using it in our
classes.”

“
But,”
Steven added, “we'd like you to cut out all the fluff outside
of the policies that your dictator sets out, focus just on those.”

“
Well, you two do
get right to the point, don't you?”

“
We don't have a
lot of time. I've got a class to teach at 10:30, and Bruce has one
at 11:00.”

“
Okay.”

“
We've gone
through the book and marked the parts we'd like to keep in, and a few
edits within those parts, like getting rid of the audience commentary
in Chapter 5 and some of the press conference questions.”
Steve held out a copy of the book to Gordy, who began thumbing
through it.

“
So what you want
is basically just the Donne parts?”

“
Exactly.”

“
Hmm. That's the
part most readers have trouble with.”

“
I can understand
that. It's probably too much economics and policy.”

“
So you like his
policies?”

“
I didn't say
that,” Bruce, the economics professor, replied, “but
they're outside the box enough to trigger some critical thinking and
debate among the students.”

“
And that's what
college is about, after all, wouldn't you agree?” Steven asked.

“
I guess so,”
Gordy nodded, distracted, still leafing through the book.

“
So what do you
think?” Bruce asked.

“
Well, I'd have
to talk it over with the – uh, with some people, but it sounds
interesting.”

“
Good. We've
also put some notes and ideas for discussion and debate on those
papers in the back there.”

Gordy looked at those
briefly, then studied them more closely. “'What might be some
intended and/or unintended consequences of a Sovereign Wealth Fund?'
Would Donne's tax and regulatory policies actually achieve his goal
of ten percent GDP growth within eight years?' 'What
advantages/disadvantages are there for a dictatorship versus a
democracy? And how would you define (in depth) democracy?' You guys
have put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?”

“
And a lot of
argument and debate,” Steve said, as Bruce nodded. “But
we've got to run. We taped our business cards on the inside front
cover, and we'd appreciate it if you'd give us a call and we can
maybe get together and go through it all in some detail.”

Gordy looked up at them
and out of the corner of his eye saw Rosemary coming onto the beach.

“
Sounds like a
plan. I'll need a week or so to go through this all, but if that
works for you, I'd be happy to do it. Okay?”

“
Great. We'll
look forward to hearing from you,” Bruce said.

Steven added, “No
rush. We can't do anything about it until after the first of the
year, anyhow. Bureaucracy, you know.”

“
I do,”
Gordy said. “Sounds good.” Glancing over at Rosemary,
he held out his hand and shook both of theirs, and with appropriate
goodbyes, the two professors headed back to the parking lot.

Rosemary came over to
Gordy, set her chair down, and said, “What was that about?”
Gordy gave her an abbreviated outline of the conversation.

“
That's great.
I'd be excited if I were in your shoes.”

“
We'll see. And
I think you mean in my flip-flops.”

Rosemary chuckled and
said, “Right; sorry.”

“
So how ya doing
on this fine morning, Ro?”

- 29 -

November
13, 2012
3:32
a.m. local time

On the Aegean Sea

As Cam sped away from
the monastery, towing the other jet ski behind her, she failed to
notice the naked and bloody bodies and body parts falling from above.
Further away, again enjoying the vibration of the jet ski on the
choppy water, she also failed to notice the scores of dorsal fins
carving the surface, swimming rapidly past her toward the monastery.

Even further away, with
visions of Armando exaggerating the effect of the machine underneath
her, propelling her on to an unimaginably powerful, nearly volcanic
internal eruption, she also failed to notice the single huge dorsal
fin directly ahead of her.

- 30 -

November
13, 2012
5:36
a.m. local time

Aboard
Defiance

On
t
he
Red Sea

Jake awoke groggily,
finally noticing the rumpled and very damp and sticky red satin
coverlet under his back. To his right, her left arm stretched across
his chest and her left leg over his legs, her red hair tousled and
twisted, Pam slept with her mouth slightly open, her warm breath
regular against Jake's neck.

To his left, JJ's
blonde hair, also tousled, but not at all twisted, flared around her
head as she lay on her back, her right arm lying across and down
Jake's stomach, her hand cupping his privates.

Jake slowly lifted his
head and looked around the room, trying his best not to disturb his
naked bedmates. Scattered near the sides of the bed were several
ostrich, flamingo and marabou feathers, and on top of the
refrigerator/freezer were two empty cartons of Neapolitan ice cream
and a squeeze bottle of chocolate syrup. An odd-looking harness hung
on ropes halfway to the floor from the ceiling, and a riding crop,
whip and several narrow strips of leather with gold studs and metal
connecting rings were piled on the floor below it. Next to that was
a scattering of plastic and rubbery items that he recognized only
with some difficulty.

All of that slowly
reawakened his memory, and he smiled, lay his head back down and
gradually drifted back to sleep.

An hour later, he awoke
again as Pam lightly slid her fingertips across his cheek, chin and
lips, then kissed him gently on his lips.

“
Time to get up,
sleepyhead,” she whispered. “The helo's coming for JJ in
less than two hours, about 8:30.”

“
Mmmm,”
Jake mumbled.

She kissed him again
and his eyes opened. He smiled up at her smiling face and pulled her
head down for another, deeper kiss.

“
No, no, no, not
now; we don't have time; really. Time to rise and shine.”

“
I can rise,
possibly.”

“
Sorry, Jake;
later. But come on now; we gotta get going.”

“
Okay, okay.
Where's my teeth?”

“
Right here,
hon.” She pointed to a small glass on one of the nightstands.

“
Thanks. Okay,
okay, I'm up. Shower.”

“
But don't ask me
to join you this time. Later, okay?”

“
Okay.”

As he stood up, he
noticed that the suite had been completely straightened and cleaned;
nothing remained to show what had gone on there during the night.

“
Wow, you two are
good.”

“
Thanks, Jake,
but you don't need to keep repeating that; you said it enough last
night.”

“
Okay, okay.”

“
Shower time.”

“
Right.”

As Jake headed into the
shower, Pam took the coverlet, sheets and pillowcases off the bed and
left the suite, closing the door behind her behind.

While Jake showered, he
discovered a certain tenderness in one part of his anatomy, but he
managed to get through the shower with no further damage or injury.

Half an hour later,
walking carefully in loose-fitting khakis, flip-flops and a fresh
tropical shirt, he joined Pam and JJ on the foredeck at a table set
with a sumptuous breakfast buffet.

- 31 -

November
13, 2012
4:07
a.m. local time

80 feet above the
Aegean Sea

“
No, no, no! Be
careful with that! It is extremely fragile.”