Scene Nine

Block Island

 

 

The fast boat was launched out the side ship kind of like a rubber pontoon slip and slide out a hatch into the brine so the submarine could get clear. Hard rains were coming down and the four with their one bag each took up most of the little vessel. It hit the water with a splash and Kudzai prayed to not drown or be shot to death in an ambush.

They all had to row that little inflatable dingy to shore in the pouring rain as the Black Mermaid went back under the deeps to safety. Kudzai flashes the signal light torch blue three times, then switches to three red bursts.

 

A short boat ride thorough rocky waters brought Yulia, Adelina, Oleg and Kudzai to safe house on Block Island in the dead of night. Via a small flashing green beacon a woman named Tanya T-Bird Tallflame Luv guides them to shore. They move quickly in unison dragging the light boat with them. Then Tanya quickly shuttles them all in her jeep to the island’s Underground Railroad station at the Majestic Hygeia Hotel. Now they are most vulnerable for they are under the protection of a foreign cell. A voodoo coven of black witches. Shaman sorcerers it should be said, witches begin too derogatory. Oleg doesn’t have too many prejudices. Only Adelina appreciates the full significance of T-Bird’s evident powers. As she has them too. The night is darker than it should be. The beach is a fog that shouldn’t be there. They are safe she reasons in the loving arms of an infamous Uhuru leader.

 

By sea they landed and soon were safely sitting for tea at the Majestic Hygeia Hotel. The gabled roof of that quaint old place is red, the walls are a faded off yellow gold and structure is three stories tall with about sixteen rooms. During its peak season, which is now, during summer and fall you’ll never get a room unless you book far in advance. The island has forty little hotels, but as of lately only this one is cost effective. The boat people of New England inundate New Shoreham with boozing and revelry until it becomes too cold to be pleasant sometime around Thanksgiving. Then the island population drops under 1,000 persons, wind and rain make the place desolate and it is really only accessible by a twice daily fairy coming from Port Galilee, Rhode Island. But as if prearranged to be so, the hotel is empty now in late August, reserved entirely for the four new arrivals. The boat ride to shore through those sloshing blue black waters carrying their clandestine unit had gone most seamlessly. Albeit in highly inclement weather.

 

 

T-Bird guides them into the Hotel entrance getting out of a cold, empty fog in a freezing stormy night inappropriate to the August weather out here as if scientifically created for their arrival. She’s got thin well-kept dreads, wears a black leather jacket. Oleg notices she wasn’t carrying a gun. She beams at them and gives the women hugs.

This cell could trace its origins back to the genocide in Salem when aligning with Irish pirates, escaped slaves, bootleggers and Mohegan Indian they had fallen back to New Shoreham to take full control of the island, which was now called Block land. It had long been a place for prohibition busting hotel parties and booze running depot on the supply line from Canada to New York to Miami. The island was of course legally part of the United States, but it had been long before conquered for other things.

In the Night, Tanya T-Bird Tallflame Luv looks like she is in her early forties. She’s actually younger but she’s long seen the struggle. She sizes the new arrivals up. She has a beautiful baby face smile. Her long dreadlocks are wrapped up above her head in a taam. Which is a Jamaican word for dreads bonnet. By day she transforms somehow and looks half that age. She seems to only look war aged in the night time. When the moon and stars fade in about two hours she will drop back her years by the coming of day light.

“We have this whole facility booked just for you!” she tells them, “Girls rooms, boys room, rooms to relieve stress in a constructive consensual way. As you like.”

She points them to cups of warm tea and hot coffee.

“Thank you for having us here,” Adelina tells her, “It was long ride under the sea.”

“We heard about Madeira,” T-Bird says.

“We weren’t there,” Oleg replies.

“Thankfully,” T-Bird says. Absorbing them into here grey eyes.

“The rest of the squad are asleep. We have somebody out on the watch tower but the storm generator always works well and even with Madeira, well, it’s a nuclear fucking submarine cruising way below. We didn’t need to keep everyone up all night.”

 

Oleg knows that she’s lying and that there are lots of people with guns out in the woods. Everyone finishes their tea or coffee without much being said and turns in to bed. The thrashing off the rain outside slowly dies down, they pull the curtains in four separate rooms. Then crash out into different frequencies of sleep.

 

 

Oleg when he finally awakes comes downstairs to find breakfast. In kitchen area of the three floor yellow and red hotel Oleg barely recognizes Tanya Tallflame, she looks about twenty years younger. All the sorcery alarms him. He wonders what drugs had slipped into him by the sneaky rebel Israelites. Or fed to them enroot so he could be so susceptible to their acid like manipulation of the senses. Oleg had lived for some time in the Israeli city of Nazareth and served two years in its military police force before immigrating to America. This was not his first rodeo with either Israelites or American black majik. Oleg knew well that the Israelis are one of the sneakiest, most manipulative peoples alive.

Oleg Medved feels the same way about Judaism as he does about witchcraft. Maybe a tiny little bit more sentimental about Judaism. Though being a committed atheist. Because witchcraft doesn’t have any warm welcoming family holidays that he is aware of. Though he can’t say exactly last time he was confronted with majik. Why did they these witches, shaman sorcerers, black radical whatever’s help them obtain entry? The blue American passport that makes him the only legal member of this little unit lies next three others back in his rucksack.

“Good morning,” Tanya beams, “Sleep well?”

He doesn’t remember going to bed.

“Like a dream,” Oleg replies. He notices Yulia, Kudzai and Adelina are all seated around the table with coffee, tea and or lemonades.

“So, may I offer any of you fine people a Bajan truffle oil scone,” asks assertively Tanya T-Bird Tallflame Luv.

“Why thank you,” he replies and pops the crunchy beige cake in his mouth. Yay, more poison shit, he thinks. But it’s tasty.

“Welcome to American!” she says, “Anybody’s first time?”

“Yulia and Kudzai,” raise their hands.

“Well you’re a whore and you’re a nigger,” she laughs, “Welcome to my country,” she exclaims.

A little less than a nervous giggle from them.

She brings them the scones and then some plates of eggs with hash brown fried potatoes.

 

“So, don’t get mad. But I have the orders are here to separate your cell immediately. Mr. Bear you and Ms. Yulia Romanova will leave for New York this morning from the mainland by car. The candidate shaman, beautiful Ms. Adelina Blazhennaya will take her partner Kudzai here up to Boston and get your safe houses established,” says Tanya.

“We’re all supposed to stick together,” Adelina responds.

“Here’s the thing though baby,” Tanya replies, “No one knows how New York will go down so we have determined to only lose two of you if it all gets to violent and weird. The ones being paid.”

“I don’t need everyone to find them,” Oleg says, “Whatever you all think is best.”

“You’ll either all be reunited shortly, or you won’t,” says Tanya, “But Adelina needs to stay in Boston where it’s safer.”

“As you wish,” says Oleg.

“You’re gonna find him through that Bulgarian Social Club, it won’t take very long,” Tanya says.

“Don’t you think we need more time before we make contact,” Kudzai asks.

“No. The enemy made contact two weeks ago. We’re behind schedule as usual,” says Tanya.

“One ought not to be fashionably late to a revolution,” Oleg notes.

 

And Tanya T-Bird Tall flame Luv agrees. Even if Oleg does not believe in the magic, it is clear to her that Solomon selected a very good team to assess her network. To get this revolution back online from here to New York and then via underground rail road out to Oakland, California. He figured Emma gave them all slightly differing tasks. That Adelina is one of these magic people and that Kudzai is cadre. That he was in demand and Yulia too in her own ways. He pretty much insisted that they rope her in if they wanted him. This paid a lot more than whacking people in Europe.

The finish in breakfast in relative silence.

“Where are your truest loyalties Mr. Medved,” Tanya asks him suddenly before he heads up to his room to get his gear in order. She wonder can she just call him Alan? She wants to assert he’s hired help and not anyone anyone trusts.

 

“To the art I make and the money I’m paid and women that bed me for both when I am so fortunate,” Oleg replies, “and absolutely no other things you’re privy to.”

 

“Fair enough, like all men,” Tanya replies. A typical Ukrainian Israelite spy answer, she thinks. “I’m privy to a lot more than you might thing young man.”

Yulia pops her slinky brundinite head into the dining room and says in Russian, “I think they drugged us. I had really weird dreams.”

 

“It’s the blue moon rising,” interjects Adelina. Tanya nods.

 

“The blue moon has a power that will dash the best of plots and largest of armies into lunatic disarray. You should thus make haste for New York. Sebastian is not himself and hasn’t been for a while” Tanya explains, “And please remember that for whomever else you work for or actually report up chain of command to, you’re in the American arms of the resistance now. We budget for bribing and drinking, but not for whoring and gambling.”

Oleg the Bear grins, “We are internationalists, and this is still a supposedly free country.”

“What the blatnoy is a blue moon,” Yulia asks in Russian.

“You’ll know when you see its effects,” says Tanya the Pagan shamanic sorcerous in Amharic.

“We don’t speak your dessert wasteland gibberish,” Yulia declares, “Only English, French and Russian!”

“See what I did there,” Tanya replies civilly.

But, Oleg inferred what she meant and decided that he was quite uncomfortable with the American resistance’s widespread use of magic. One could not bribe magic or placate it with whores, or get magic too drunk. You could not car bomb magic or drone strike magic’s cell phone. Poison it with radioactive isotopes or hurt its family members. Most unnerving work conditions to be sure. Unlimited operations can get so fucking hectic and they do so fast. A real big steal and a zero sum game at every point.

 

“What do you mean he hasn’t been himself,” Adelina asks Tanya.

“They take him a lot. He’s been out of the network now since 2005. He just has his own little outlaw. Nobody is connected to them by us and the Irish,” Tanya replies.

“Why is he important to Emma?” Kudzai asks.

“He probably knows where Avinadav is for one. They tortured him a lot and wiped out a lot of his ability, but it’s in there. Or someone near him knows,” Tanya tells them.

“Maybe he flipped?” Oleg suggests.

“My ass he flipped,” retorts Tanya.

“Well either we ensure his total cooperation, or completely destroy his heart,” says Yulia.

“What do mean by all that?” Tanya says “kill his will to keep to moving?”

“Emma said the princess here is the only one who can make the final call,” Oleg says pointing to Adelina.

 

“I am sure that man did not give anyone up,” Tanya firmly replies.

“But yeah, if he flipped. I’ll kill him myself,” says Oleg.