Three times in Canada, the fellow they were supposed to deal with had been deported. The last time, they’d had to convince the guy to take a vacation. They figured they were running a hundred percent, but they never knew for sure. This time was supposed to be observation and note-taking. They were more action types, but they figured they'd pick it up.
"Don't we have spies for that sort of stuff?" Lester had asked The Boss. "It doesn't sound like a job for SEALs. Or ex-SEALs." He was right; SEALs are supposed to be dropped off the coast of Nicaragua and return two days later having stuck limpet mines to the bottom of a Soviet “trawler.” Or, the Soviet Union having vanished, they were supposed to be hidden on a mountain slope between Iraq and Iran, ambushing a convoy of special equipment meant for killing US troops. Decidedly, they were not supposed to be in Canada dressed in civilian clothes unless they were on holiday, seeing the top of the CN Tower or canoeing in Algonquin.
But a few tours of duty working as non-government contractors in Iraq for a private firm broadened both a SEAL's scope and his bank account. Sammy complained, then took things as they came, but Lester often wondered just how much of the US government knew what they did.
Waiting for their food, Lester saw four people come in. He judged them to be in their forties and probably none of them had ever been spies, even if the two men checked the room out rather carefully as they entered. He reminded himself that there were actually a lot of people living on the islands who weren't former spies.
Their egg spring rolls arrived, and the Asian waitress asked if they'd like a drink. "Anything special, here?" Sammy asked.
She shrugged. "Same drinks as usual, unless you like bourbon with a cilantro sprinkle."
"A what?"
"We don't have a name for it," she said, tilting her head at the group that had just come in. "But it's the drink of choice for those guys over there. Doesn't appeal to me; I tried it once."
For a moment, Lester considered it. But they were supposed to blend in, not stand out, and he didn't want to be added to a subgroup of people known to order strange drinks. "I'll just have a shot of Forty Creek on the rocks, if you have it."
Sammy ordered a Bud, on draft.
For a moment, Lester thought he saw one of the guys that had just come in turn his head away and stick a tongue up his nose. Couldn't be, he thought. Even Canadians don't do that.
A half hour later, they were on the ferry to Centre Island. Their destination was Algonquin Island, and the Ward's Island ferry would have taken them closer, but there were too many spooks on Ward's, and some of them could spot a special forces type a long way away. Lester watched the skyline of Toronto behind the boat. He never felt comfortable on islands unless a team submarine was waiting offshore at the end of a mission.
The two joined the crowd getting off the boat, and followed a path through the amusement rides and marinas. In no hurry, they got a coffee at the Rectory Café and watched people from the deck.
"Got a good feeling about this one?" Sammy asked.
"The pay's good," Lester said, "for us the technically nonexistent"
"Deniable, disposable, deletable." Sammy repeated the mantra of the Iraq war contractors. "No medals no matter what you do. Throwaway soldiers." He scowled as he looked around at the island. "Ain't it great?"
A half hour later, they held hands as they crossed the bridge to Algonquin Island, ensuring that most people would assume they weren't anything but tourists. On Dacotah Avenue, they found the safe house that had replaced an older cottage. It had a couple of secrets built into it, and was owned by the US government, or at least some branch of it, although no one in Canada was supposed to know that.
"Can I help you?" a white-haired woman with a regal bearing said when they tapped at the door.
"The roses bloom in Damascus each spring when the kindly rains fall," Sammy said. Lester rolled his eyes.
The woman frowned and said nothing.
Sammy started to say something else, but Lester interrupted him. "Invincible Insurance. Cheaper rates."
"You and your smartass friend can come in," the woman said, turning away and leaving the door open.
The summer had passed, but it was still warm enough to sit behind the house on lawn chairs around a patio table. Lester looked around, but he was a special forces guy, not a professional spook, so he hoped there was no one around to hear their conversation. "I'm Lester," he said. "This is Sammy. We're here because a guy named Vince Vincent told us to come here. More than that, we don't know. We're SEALs, not spies, Ms...." He looked the woman in the eye.
"They get some silly-ass ideas in Virginia." the woman said. "I'm Patricia. Do you have any idea what this is about"" she asked.
Lester looked over his sunglasses without comment. Neither he nor Sammy were wearing the Maui Jim sunglasses that might have identified them as SEALs. Sammy merely shook his head. "No. Isn't that why we're here?" He looked annoyed, waving an arm at the house as he reached for cheese and crackers to go with the Diet Coke he was offered. Lester put his sunglasses away and put on a pair of regular glasses.
Patricia sighed. "This goes back to the cold war. You've got to understand that we were fifteen minutes away from nuclear destruction."
Lester gave Sammy a look, not quite rolling his eyes. Just how young and stupid did this woman think they were?
"I'm glad I look that young," Lester said. "Now, Sammy here's just a kid, but I'm a bit older than that."
"Okay," Patricia said. "You look like a retired furniture salesman and Sammy looks like a ex-Marine who's covering up his first graying hair."
"Hey!" Sammy ran his fingers through his hair. "You weren't supposed to notice. Some of that's due to a couple of explosive devices in Iraq, though. Not all my fault."
"There was," Patricia went on, "a desire to hide a few nukes in places that the Soviet Union couldn't find." She poured herself another cup of tea and looked away. "We put one of our smaller boomer subs into Lake Ontario, circling the lake in a random pattern. Seemed like a good idea at the time."
"And?" Lester asked. Sammy, for once, said nothing.
"Don't know what happened. But we lost it." She looked each in turn straight in the eye. "We didn't want to alert the Canadians. So we stopped looking for it."
"And someone's found it?" Lester didn't look up.
"We think so. Off a village called Brighton, in the mud at the bottom of the bay." She scratched her nose and looked away.
Sammy scratched his crotch and took more cheese. "So what do we do?"
"Well, for the first part, look around and see what's there."
"And?" Lester noted that Sammy was paying close attention for a change. "Why special forces? Sounds like spook work for a guy with an innocent look."
"We think the Canadian government may be looking into the same thing. If muscle is needed, you guys have what it takes."
"Can't use muscle in Canada. We didn't even try to get a Glock through customs, darn us."
"I told them" Sammy said, "that I'd be happy with some firepower, but I guess we just have to do it with our bare hands. You got a Pepsi in this place?"
Patricia ignored that. "Look. I don't know why anybody chose you for this. Maybe you're all they could get. That seems unlikely, since there must be three thousand trained security guys looking for work after we got out of Iraq. Most of them can't find anything. And if you throw in the CIA people who got out in the last cleaning, there's a lot to select from."
"We're freakin' superheroes," Sammy said. "You don't have a chocolate donut, do you?" Abruptly, he excused himself, stood up, walked over to the hedge, and farted.
"You'll have to excuse Sammy," Lester said. "He's a health nut now, with some funny recipes, and it makes him rather flatulent. Hard being in a car with him. Might I use your toilet?"
"In the door and to the right," Patricia said. She turned to Sammy, who was just sitting down again. "Lester says you have a flatulence problem."
"Yes, ma'am. One of th
e tragedies of life."
"Doesn't that make it hard if you're trying to ambush someone?"
"Nah. The places I've served, they smell worse, and as long as the guys don't make me walk behind the bus, I'm okay. They did send me out to check out the IEDs a lot, though. Got suspicious about that, after a while." He indicated the house. "Lester's problem's with his old prostate. Gotta piss a lot. Of course he says it's a lot easier to piss in a bottle than to fart in one." Sammy gave her a big grin.
"I know this isn't official government work. Some big favors were called in by someone. Maybe you can keep secrets or something, Patricia said. "
"Maybe," Lester said, as he returned.
"Okay, there's a Pepsi or two in the fridge."
"Thanks. I'll find it." Sammy went into the house.
"Our instructions," Lester said, "were to come here. After that, well…"
"Like I said, someone trusts you guys. I'm used to dealing with spooks, so pardon me if I assume a few things that aren't true." When Sammy came back with a large bottle of Pepsi and a couple of glasses, she went on.
"You're to go to Brighton, and look around for suspicious activity by the bay. Find out what you can."
There was a long silence. "That's it?" Lester said.
"The people who sent you must be getting crazy or desperate. That's it."
"Okay. They keep paying us; we'll do it," Sammy said.
"I imagine they'll pay."
"Hey. I was guarding the leader of a country once, and they screwed us on vacation time, so we all went on strike. The poor bastard we were guarding had to hide in his basement for a week."
"Look," Lester said. "We'd be happy with any assistance you can give us. Is there a way we can get a boat?"
"You can take my boat: Serenity. She's a cabin cruiser currently parked in Cobourg."
"Your boat? Must be some favors someone's calling in."
Patricia smiled. "They'll owe me more, after this."
"Okay," said Sammy. "You have maps?"
"Just these." She opened Nautical Chart 2059, Scotch Bonnet Island to Cobourg, then pointed to a spot. "This is approximately the area." There was no mark on it.
"I can't dive that deep holding my breath," Sammy noted.
"I don't think you'll have to. Just get us as much information as you can by walking around and asking questions." She paused. "And watch out for any other of your type."
"Our type?"
"Special forces."
"Ah. In case someone needs to be strangled silently and his body hidden. Can I keep the map?"
She pushed it his way and stood up, handing him a piece of paper and a set of keys. "Here's my number. Memorize it and get rid of the paper."
Sammy stared at it for a full minute, then swallowed the paper, chewing slowly, with a broad smile.
"A comedian. Don't quit your day job." She showed them out.
Against advice, they went back by the Ward's Island ferry, touring the community of tiny houses as they did, hand in hand.
On the ferry back to the mainland, leaning on the railing, Sammy turned to Lester. "A tiny nuclear submarine, cruising Lake Ontario with Polaris missiles."
Lester started laughing so hard he blew some of his Pepsi up his nose. BBQ chips fell from his shaking hand, and were taken by seagulls before they hit the water. "And tiny reindeer," he finally managed to say. "And Santa sitting on the conning tower delivering toys to mermaids." He started laughing again.
"That seems more likely?"
"Like you could get a boomer into Lake Ontario without anybody knowing. Through the locks."
"Maybe they launched it on the American side."
"Way too big. Them mothers are over five hundred feet long – twice as long as a football field – and carry more than a hundred sailors."
"She said it was a smaller one."
"Right. Like they could make one only three hundred feet long. That would be about the minimum, what with the reactor and three or four missiles." Lester looked back at the island. "Would take a heck of a flatbed to get it from Massachusetts. And if it went down with fifty guys, the rescue effort couldn't be hidden."
"They'd try to rescue them. In Canadian waters?"
"For sure, even if it let the cat out of the bag. They had ten thousand missiles at the time. Revealing a couple wouldn't make a significant difference. They'd blame it on a faulty new system, and apologize" Lester threw the rest of the chips to the gulls. "You couldn't sail a sub that big without continuously hitting the bottom of the lake and bumping into lake freighters and getting tangled up in fishing nets."
"Suppose you're right. Then what is it?" Sammy watched the dock coming at them.
A shrug. Something smaller. Maybe the Russkis planted a nuke there. Maybe they discovered Santa's sled."
"Any why they sent us instead of calling in the spooks?"
Lester looked around. "The Boss told me that there's a suspicion in some circles that the CIA doesn't have an agent that isn't known to the Canadian spy agency."
Sammy had nodded: the CIA had screwed up so often that other agencies started looking good. "You think?"
"I suspect someone's trying to get under the radar of both governments. And we're the choice. Or the decoys." He shrugged. "Like we'll ever know."
"Then again," Sammy said, "At least we follow orders. Can't count on the spooks for that."
"Better Canada than sitting in a jungle hole full of centipedes." Lester pointed across the harbor to the CN tower. The top had disappeared into the clouds and it was starting to rain again.
"And who knows, maybe some of our SEAL skills might get used." Sammy spat his chewing gum into the water as the boat docked.
****
Toronto
On the Mainland and on the Islands
Two days before Button Day
Jack and Jim were sitting on lawn chairs outside Hatches' Corner cottage when the signal came.
On the narrow street between the cottages of Ward’s Island a couple of mainland tourists from Kitchener came by, the man, bald under a cowboy hat, was pushing a woman in a wheelchair. They saw the two men, and being visitors to this little community, waved and went on without comment.
Jack turned to Jim. “I think I got a signal.” His voice was suddenly high and squeaky, and he almost managed to make a sound no human should make.
"A signal?” Jim kept watching the tourists as they stopped to take a picture of another little house in its terminal quaintness.
“The signal.” Jack was sitting bold upright.
Jim looked over at his companion. This would be big news if it were true, but Jack had had false alarms before. It seemed to happen every few years. “Let’s see the rock” he said, skeptically.
In Jim’s hand, the rock remained totally still, and Jack was about to make a remark that would seem sarcastic on this planet when the rock vibrated once, then twice, then once again. It was still for a minute, then repeated the pattern again. Jack suddenly realized his host would pass out if he didn’t resume breathing.
“Holy fuck,” he whispered, expressions from other parts of the galaxy not being as suitable as the best English comments. He held his hand steady for another five minutes as the rock cycled through its communication a few more times.
A strangled voice came out of Jack’s mouth. “Does this mean you guys will be leaving us?”
Jack merely said, to his human host, “Yes.” The human host began to cry silently, and Jack fully sympathized for once.
“Now what?” Jim asked. “I mean, what first?”
“Well,” said, Jack, “we go over to the Piazza Manna to celebrate – it’s spring roll day, you know!”
“Damn straight,” Jim whispered. “Damn straight.”
Jack thought briefly. “I guess we should tell Barb. We owe her that much.”
Jim nodded. That was true; Barb had been a good friend for almost eleven years, and had made living in the community a lot easier. A long pause. "Yeah, s
he deserves to know." They sat a bit longer in the late afternoon shade. It was getting colder now; another winter would be coming in, but these two aliens had no plans to face it. Across the water, the buildings of Toronto stood golden in the light. Two of the ferries to the islands passed each other, out on the harbour water, looking like illustrations in some children's book.
The two turned in at the short path to Barb's cottage. A small hand-lettered sign said, "Barb's Jams" and another, hung below it, with "Open" printed on it. Below that, on a concrete shelf, were a couple of small figurines, including a garden gnome with a tiny rake and a couple of sailors.
Barb saw them before they got to her door. "Jack! Jim! Come on in. I'll make you some tea."
The two aliens arranged themselves around the small kitchen table and waited while Barb made cilantro tea. They preferred bourbon and cilantro, but Barb was a teetotaller, so they had to make do with cilantro tea and cilantro-chocolate cookies.
After a couple of sips and the appropriate thanks, a silence fell. "Is there something wrong?" Barb asked?
Jim looked at Jack, then took out the rock and set it on the table. It vibrated and moved a bit towards the down side of the surface a bit at a time.
"What's that? Barb looked at the device but didn't reach for it. There was a long silence, then Barb said, suddenly, "That's not your call to go home is it?"
Jack and Jim said nothing for a moment. Jack scooped the rock back and put it into his pocket. "That's what it is," he said.
"Holy Mazinaw." Barb took a jam cookie. "For real?"
"For real. Something's happened, we guess, and we're needed back in the Empire."
"How long have you been on Earth, now? I forget what you told me."
"Twenty-three years," Jim said. "Almost twenty-four," Jack noted.
Jeez, I gotta work on this for a minute," Barb said. She watched them and sipped tea. "I've known you for twelve years, now. Seven since I guessed your little secret."
Jack nodded.
"What happens to Jack and Jim, the Daniels brothers?" Barb asked. "Do they get their bodies back in one piece?"
“It’ll take a few days,” Jack said, “and those guys will be free and good as new. They'll be the same Jack and Jim Daniels you used to know, at least physically, but older."
"Well, you've kept the bodies in good shape."
Jack nodded. "Of course. Jack would be dead now, for one thing, if we hadn't cured him of a nasty tumour on his lung. And stopped his smoking. So he'll live a bit longer than he would have, otherwise." He reached for a cilantro cookie.