Free Found: A Matt Royal Mystery by H. Terrell Griffin

Over the years, he had become one of their top agents and he reported directly to his director and to the president of the United States. Jock had extraordinary powers given to him by the president and Jock gave the president deniability, cover from any mission that blew up in the politicians’ faces. So far, that hadn’t happened.
    Jock was called on to do many things in fighting terrorists and other enemies of the United States. Sometimes he killed the bastards in cold blood, and while every one of them deserved his fate, when the body count reached some sort of undefined critical mass, the actuality that it was he who sent them to hell would sporadically slam Jock into a state of wretched self-loathing. He would slink onto Longboat Key and hole up in my cottage on the bay, watching the boats and birds and people and slinging back glass after glass of good bourbon. He’d talk and tell me about the horrors he’d seen, the men he’d killed, the destruction they had wrought that made them undeserving of mercy or due process. Just death at the hands of an assassin they had not seen coming. And when he’d drunk himself into a stupor, Jock would crawl into bed and sleep for hours. Some nights I’dhear him sobbing through his pain, and the next morning he’d attack another bottle of bourbon.
    Three or four days would pass without my leaving him. I made sure he ate enough to survive and I listened as he poured out the details of a life that was his personal scourge. And on the fourth or fifth morning, he’d wake up early, shower, and drink glassfuls of water. “Ready to run?” he’d ask, and I would know it was over, the bad days that we called the “cleansing time.”
    We’d run the beach, pounding the booze out of his system, and then we’d go to the Blue Dolphin Cafe for a huge breakfast and lots of coffee. The old Jock would be back, the self-assured man with the ready smile and a kind word for everybody. He’d stay a few more days, play golf with Logan, drink his nonalcoholic beer at Tiny’s or the Hilton or Pattigeorge’s, joke with his many friends on the island, and then fly off to Houston and home until the wars again came knocking on his door, bidding him to join up and start the terrible process all over again. It was Jock, and men like him, who stood between us and the devils who crashed planes loaded with civilians into buildings filled with office workers. His work was honorable, but I knew that he left a little of himself on the battlefield after every skirmish. Someday, there would not be enough left of Jock Algren for me to help rehabilitate. And then my friend would die and a large piece of my life would go to the grave with him. I wasn’t sure how I’d survive that.
    I tossed and turned in the bed, the dreams and thoughts crashing around in my turbulent brain. I felt J.D.’s hand on me several times, her quiet whisper letting me know she was there. Finally, I got out of bed and went into the kitchen to make coffee. Four a.m. on a dark Thursday morning. A time when predators roam the earth.
    I took my cup into the living room and sat in the dark, staring at the bay through the sliding glass doors that opened onto the patio. The security lights on my dock cast shadows on the black water, providing an unsettling sense of dread.
    I crept back into the bedroom and retrieved a pair of shorts, a sweatshirt, and my running shoes. I put a note for J.D. on the kitchen counter and left the house. The only way to rid myself of this creeping anxiety was to run it out of my system. I jogged down Broadway to Gulf of Mexico Drive and headed south, past Cannons Marina and the Euphemia HayeRestaurant. I turned around at the Centre Shops and picked up speed as I ran north toward the village. I slowed to a walk when I reached Broadway and ambled toward home. It was still dark, and the coolness of the early morning was quickly drying the sweat I’d exuded during the run. The endorphins had kicked in and my mood