'A' for Argonaut

‘A’ for Argonaut

Michael J. Stedman

‘A’ for Argonaut

Michael J. Stedman

© Copyright 2012 Michael J. Stedman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

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Edition ISBNs

Trade Paperback 978-0-9856477-0-4

E-book 978-0-9856477-1-1

First Edition 2012

This electronic edition was prepared by

The Editorial Department

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Cover design by Pete Garceau

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events herein are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Dedicated to

Barbara, my brilliant wife,

our three sons, Michael, Scott, Daniel,

and their wonderful families.

In memory of Jimmy Fuller

Fraternity brother, worthy American

Died: December 21, 1988

Lockerbie

Prologue

Castle Island, South Boston, Massachusetts

Mack, keep your promise
. Now! Mack. Mack Maran!

Amber Chu pleaded for the first time in her young life.

M
oonlight rays streaked through the summer storm clouds, bathing South Boston’s Old Harbor in spectral patches. Lightning brightened the pitch black with intermittent flashes. Thunder broke the silence of the night. The rain fell in torrents; water poured from spouts on the granite bastion corners of the pentagonal old Fort Independence.

The fort was at the center of an island, surrounded by a seaside park and Pleasant Bay, a section of Boston Harbor, now attached to the mainland by a causeway at the end of Day Boulevard. The only route on or off was by that road or by sea.

This late at night, the area was deserted. Even the private security force that policed the buildings along the docks was on a skeleton shift, Friday before a long weekend. Vangaler sat in the driver’s seat as they pulled into the parking lot. One of the killers sat in front with him; the other two bracketed Amber Chu in the back seat. A bit chunky, she qualified as ripe with an Afro-Asian complexion accented by crimson lip gloss. The one Vangaler called Ace had the top of her evening gown stripped to her waist. They were ripping off the rest of her dress when Vangaler stopped the car.

She felt helpless. It was a feeling she hadn’t had since that day twenty-two years earlier as an eleven-year-old in Luanda, Angola. They had surrounded her in an alley behind her school, three boys with evil in their eyes. The thugs would never forget her exacting response, nor the pain of their ruptured testicles.

“Stay still, you bitch,” Ace said as he joined the other man groping her breasts and ripping her sequined blue gown. They had already torn off the costume diamond necklace.

Enough.

She choked, forcefully gagged, tightening her stomach with all the technique at her disposal, and projectile vomited all over Ace’s face.

“You fuck!” he screamed. He flew out the door wiping frantically at the undigested mess that covered his face and chest.

It was all the opportunity she needed. She flew out the door behind him. Before he could react, she was on the attack.

“
Kiai!”
she shouted as she leveraged herself on one leg and delivered a hammer kick with a straight-leg to Ace’s throat, felling him.

“Help me! Is anybody here?” Amber screamed as she lifted the hem of her blue gown and ran headlong towards the high security fence, a possible escape route.

Near naked, her tawny skin glistened under the watery glow of the security lights. The blonde wig flipped off and the wet shanks of her coal-black hair unfurled behind her, while her cries sank under the torrents of rain and the crash of the surf on the granite seawall. Lost. Lost in the fury of the storm.

She had kicked off her high heels, raced with all the power in her legs. Barefoot, her feet trailed blood, cut from the broken bottle strewn path; her legs and arms burned with abrasions caused by the brutal treatment from the violent men. Although she was a competitor, an athlete as a student in Cabinda, Angola, she was afraid she would fail in this race for life. The remnants of her satin, slashed into blue spiral ribbons, trailed like an ethereal cape, brilliant against the moon-washed puddles.

Her breaths shortened, her lungs tightened.

One of the men in the gang yelled.

“Stop, Amber!
Ons gaan jou nie seermaak nie. Ons wil jou help
!”

She understood.

Afrikaans!
“Amber, stop! We won’t hurt you. We want to help.”

She knew how desperately someone threatened with such horror might grasp at any promise of deliverance. She also knew her personal charms wouldn’t get her out of this one. If anything, they were what got her into it when it all began.

So long ago now.

On the near hill above, the team of tuxedoed African assassins ran across the grass, fanning out from the Revolutionary War fortress. Automatic weapons fired, bullets chipping the stone wall, clanging off its old cast iron rail that rimmed above the breaker rocks and their splashing seawater waves. One of the beasts stopped to snap in a loaded clip while the other three closed the gap.

Strangely, she remembered words from her youth, words uttered famously by the black American baseball player, Satchel Paige: “Don’t look back, the bastards will catch you.” She could see the vision of Antonio, her seven-year-old son in front of her, guiding, urging her speed. She strained her legs, pumped ahead through the pain. Now the chain links of the fence were right there.

Cargo depot! Dock Security! Guards!

The men were gaining. Hulks, knuckle-draggers. Their shoes wouldn’t help them on the fence. On the chain links, her agility would give her the advantage she needed.

A rock! She tripped. A flash from a halogen flashlight illuminated her, blinded her when she glanced back, unable to resist. They were so close.

On the hill, the one with the gun took aim again. She rolled out of the fall onto her feet, charged ahead. She’d survived Cabinda, Kinshasa, Antwerp, and now she was determined to survive this.

A shot. She launched into the air and stretched her arms with every ounce of her strength. Rusty fence wire ripped her delicate palms. Her bloodied hands slipped.

My grip! I can’t!

She scarcely noticed the pain as she clawed her way to the top.

The killers were at the foot of the fence now. They shook the links violently. She clung for her life, stretched, reached for the top. In seconds, she’d be over and free.

The one with the gun ran down the hill.

The top‌—‌YES! I can do it!

Instead of razor wire, the fence was topped with an aluminum strap.

She was there. Her hand opened, gripped the strap.

“NO!” she screamed.

Blue arcs zapped like lightning from the straps. They sent an electric charge through her body that burnt off her eyebrows, singed her hair. Pain rippled from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. The stench penetrated her nostrils. Her body was flung like a doll from the top of the fence. It landed, limp, at the feet of the men.

Inside the old fortress
, in a cell that had been used as an arsenal for gunpowder by the revolutionaries in the American War of Independence, the three men moved hypnotically around a large, white circle they had drawn on the concrete floor with a can of spray paint.

Slang Vangaler was clearly the leader, short and lumpy with hulking shoulders and limp hands. He was dressed formally in black tie and wore black patent dress shoes. His teeth gleamed eerily in the firelight. The other men were also dressed for their earlier fake roles as orchestral musicians. Telltale rolls of ropy flesh at the back of their necks strained against the fabric of their collars. The muscles under those rolls indicated a tough regimen of military, not musical, training. Joseph Kwa Njebe, Vangaler’s lieutenant, was a giant, like his superior, a former mercenary from C-10, the notorious torture unit at Vlaakplaas, the old South African Defense Force’s Apartheid-era prison complex.

They were engaged in a quick devil-worship ceremony used by Vangaler as a control mechanism over his minions. He prided himself on his macabre rituals, most of which he picked up on dagga-and-booze-soaked nights watching “Secrets of Santeria” on A&E Cable TV.

A man lay spread out on the ground in the center of the circle, hands tied behind his back, mouth duct-taped, eyes wide. He wore the uniform of a security guard from the dock storage facility at the port. A pool of blood flowed beneath him from a series of razor cuts across his wrists and arms.

“This will be a sign to Lt. Colonel Mack Maran,” Vangaler said to Njebe, grinning through the jeweled gold dental grills that lined his chrome teeth.

“Reg, baas,”
the Gargantua answered in Afrikaans. “OK, boss,” he agreed, looking back at Vangaler.

“Ons is hier.”

“Here we are,” Vangaler chanted.

“Ons is tog hier om die diamante van Mbuji-Mayi to beskerm,”
Njebe responded. “We are here to defend the sacred diamonds of Mbuji-Mayi, yes.”

He raised his head. His body began to shake. The men followed, repeating the chant together like automatons, chillingly reverberating echoes bouncing off a faraway cliff. Njebe had learned the language after being captured by the South African Defense Force in Namibia decades earlier. All the followers were impressed with the sacred language of the occult spoken only by their holy leaders of the dark.

Closing his icy eyes in rapture, Vangaler continued his chant. Then he stepped into the next granite-walled cell within the Revolutionary War fortress and out, down the embankment to the compactor.