CHAPTER 30

There was an overwhelming urge that was boiling up inside of Barbara. She knew that this encounter was possible but, had thought that she might get off lucky tonight. When she watched Jake climbing the dunes and walking in her direction, she then wondered why she ever thought that her luck would hold out. It never did with anything else. Why should it be any different with him?

Then Barbara began to wonder if it was really luck. Was he watching her? He seemed to know exactly when she walked out here and almost exactly where to go, no matter how many different places Barbara chose to sit and watch the green glowing caps of the surf. Didn’t he have a damn girlfriend!

Jake found a spot in the sand without being asked. As he sat down the only thing he had to say wasn’t a question about being invited. It was kind of like his presence here in general. Nobody wanted Jake Barton on this world. Nobody had asked for him. He just assumed it was his place, like all the other damn foriegners. How was he really any different than Horst?

What Jake did say was, “thought I might find you out here.”

“You thought?” Barbara replied rhetorically, “or you knew I was out here?”

Jake acted seriously confused when he replied, “what’s that supposed to mean?”

Barbara could not tell. She was starting to get some very serious glimplses of exactly how devious this man’s mind truly was. When she added that to the fact that he could probably kill any person at this station, every one of them if he so chose, then that made him extremely dangerous. In many ways he was far more dangerous than Horst could ever think of being. Horst was not living under the same roof.

Jake brushed the subject off and then asked, “so, I never got to ask you. Did we get any goodies?” When Barbara acted confused he clarified it, “from Helen?”

Barbara arched a brow at that, “Helen is it? Are you sleeping with her now too, Barton?”

Jake grunted, “what has gotten in to you? You been like this since we left the palace today.”

“What?” Barbara simply shrugged it off, “you mean snapping at you, insulting you, and generally fanning the flames of my anger in your direction? Is that what you’re talking about?”

“Um,” Jake thought about it and then said, “I guess so.”

“I always do that Barton, wake up,” she shot back without giving it another moments thought. Then she said, “and yes, we’re getting some new cars. We’re getting enough money to get one of our boats overhauled. Leslie is getting a permanent position and I think I might be able to squeeze a few more out of Helen before this over. Is that what you wanted to know?”

“I guess so,” Jake noted the attitude once more and sarcastically quipped, “glad to see you’re so happy about it.”

“Happy?” Barbara did not say that in a very joyful tone. “Why should I be happy? A car wash got blew up and seven people were killed. Gang wars broke out all over the city and we started them. Ten innocent bystanders almost got shot and the only people we rescued from this mayhem were probably the people who started the whole damn thing in the first place.”

Jake was going to comment and then Barbara cut him off, “and I’m not even going to mention my niece who almost wound up dead.” Jake tried to comment again and Barbara went right on, “and do I dare mention my dear sweet innoncent daughter who tossed a fire bomb in a pick up truck window?”

“Can I talk now,” Jake asked.

“NO!” Barbara bit into him.

“I’m serious here,” Jake meekly mumbled, “how did you find out about Shannon and…”

“Does it matter!” Barbara was nearly snorting fire, “all your talk of law and order, Barton. Then we go out and break more laws than the damn Germans. Is that your great plan?”

“Ok,” Jake gave up, “maybe we did. Only you’re forgetting, we tried to do the right thing. We tried to follow the law. We tried to bring order out of chaos and we were trying to save your home in the process. I don’t know Barbara, maybe you should have just went with Helen’s plan and hunted those kids down and killed them, huh? That way Horst wouldn’t have had anything to demand. Think that would have worked? Think you’d be out here still pissed at me if that’s what would have happened?”

“I don’t know,” Barbara couldn’t look him in the eye right now. She watched the ocean instead, “I just know that I looked at those kids today. They looked like stupid kids doing stupid things. They don’t deserve to grow up in a world where being a child is enough to get you, and everybody you know, killed.”

“Give it up Barbara,” Jake told her very seriously. It earned him an evil eye but at least it got her to look at him. Then he told her straight up, “you’re not in the moral business. You’re an operator. Your job is to get things done. Morals are the luxury of the people you keep safe by not having any.”

“Well that’s very human of you Barton,” she told him with no small amount of disgust. “How does that make you any different than Horst?”

“In some ways,” Jake replied with a tone that made it clear he did not take offense, “me and him are no different. We’re both soldiers and we both look at problems in, kind of, the same way. We both think about the same kinds of solutions to those problems. That’s where it ends.”

Barbara was not convinced, “yeah, you kill people and so does he. I can’t see a difference there Barton. The end result is always the same, you both leave bodies every where you go. Excusing your lack of morality doesn’t change that.”

“Really?” Jake almost took offense but, he seemed more amused than anything else. He asked her, “so name one person I’ve killed since you’ve known me.”

“What?” That was a question that Barbara had not expected. She blew it off completely, “Horst doesn’t pull the trigger himself. He has his goons do it for him.”

“OK,” Jake shot back, “you want to play it that way? Name me one person that Horst has killed or had killed? Near as I can tell Barbara, the Germans are the ones who have been taking a pounding here. Coming from me that should tell you something.”

Barbara roared to life, “he almost shot ten people today! Then he turns around and calls those kids, terrorists?”

“Almost being the operative word,” Jake shot back with equal ferocity. “I can’t say he wasn’t exactly unprovoked ether.”

Barbara suddenly became very confused, “why are you defending him?”

“I’m not,” Jake stayed firm but rational as he told her, “I’m pointing out that he is playing you and everybody else in this colony. He wants you to get pissed. He wants you to be furious. He wants you to have this internal moral debate because while you’re doing that you aren’t thinking about what he’s really doing. In your position, you don‘t have that luxury.”

A tingling sensation developed at the back of Barbara’s neck. She shivered and then balled up even tighter than she already was, “what is he really doing?”

Jake huffed, “I don’t know yet. If we’re lucky, then he’s just the greedy little ass wipe we’ve all come to love too hate.”

“And if we’re not,” Barbara asked meekly.

“After today,” Jake rubbed his forehead and thought about it before saying, “then we’re in even bigger trouble than before.”


THE END