Free Nantucket Five-Spot by Steven Axelrod Page A

officially someone else, someone much more prosperous and sophisticated, someone who had only two things in common with the ex-con from Miramar he used to be: a face, and a mission.
    The next step was contacting Scooter. Zeke had maintained an e-mail correspondence with him from a secure address in the Brig office. He had followed Scooter’s career as closely as he had monitored those monthly deposits to the war-chest bank account. It was typical of Scooter that he had gotten personally burned in the big bust just as badly as Zeke, but nothing showed. He buried it inside, out of sight. It didn’t affect his Army career or his discharge. Scooter’s genius for the quick escape, his ice cold ability to just turn and walk away had made everything possible—for both of them.
    They both would have loved to nail Eddie, but the General was on the Joint Chiefs of Staff now, all the evidence long buried. Back then, Zeke’s CO could have taken Eddie down. The CO could have made a difference, but he didn’t. The CO chickened out and walked away. The CO made promises he couldn’t keep, and Zeke had paid the price. Nothing else changed. The drug trade was up and running again by Christmas. A few little people got trashed, so what? A few bodies by the side of the road, who cares?
    That was the CO’s attitude.
    But that attitude was going to change. Because the CO was going to find out some old school home truths now—actions have consequences and betrayers pay for their crimes. That was why Zeke had kept quiet for once. He had been offered a sweet deal—he could have ratted Scooter out. They both knew it. But he didn’t, and now he was reaping the benefits. It wasn’t only the bank account. It was the unity of purpose that mattered now. Scooter owed him and Scooter was still angry and Scooter was still hurting and Scooter was committed to seeing this thing through to the end.
    That was worth more than money.
    The waiting was over now. For both of them.
    Zeke touched the screen of his new iPhone and listened to the ring on the other end. When Scooter picked up, Zeke said “I’m ready.”
    In the pause that followed he could hear Scooter’s breathing. Zeke understood it. He knew that hesitation. He had felt it himself. It was one thing to know you were going to do something important and dangerous, at some point in the future. It was something else when the future ran out and there was nothing but the present, and you had to commit.
    â€œI’m there,” said Scooter.
    Then he hung up. As always, Scooter knew exactly what to say—just two words, but they told Zeke everything he needed to know. Now he had a plan and he had a partner. He had a trap and the means to set it.
    All he needed was the bait.
    The girl was innocent, but so what? She wouldn’t get hurt. She was just the primary ignition, something both trivial and cataclysmic—the discarded cigarette in the late August hay barn. The fire was what counted.
    And the fire itself, a bizarre scheme, a preposterous conspiracy of bombs and planted evidence? That had nothing to do with Zeke Beaumont. He hadn’t thought that one up. No way—that was the CO’s idea, coming out of his fucked-up head and his drunken mouth, night after night in the officers club bar at Camp Doha. It was all about him. He figured it out and brooded and added all the neat little extra touches—always adding little curlicues to his perfect revenge fantasy. And that was the point, right there. For the CO, that’s all it was—a fantasy, a game he played with himself to stay sane in the desert.
    Zeke’s inspiration was to take that drunken desert mirage, and make it real—to steal the CO’s daydream and turn it against him.
    Zeke stood up and stretched. He walked to the big picture window with its view of the cluttered roofs and the smog. It would be time to order dinner soon.
    He walked back to the