Auckland Harbor, New Zealand,
11:00 pm   July 10,
 

Angel moved closer to his unsuspecting victim, a loud and flashy man leaning against the bar of the smoky nightclub.  Wearing a gold watch, polyester tie and outrageous alligator boots, the annoying man boasted about his yacht and his beautiful, young wife.

He bored Angel with amazing talent.  Angel faked a belly laugh, doubling over and slapping his knee.

The man howled at his own joke and didn't notice Angel's hand.

Angel slid his hand into the man's back pocket.  His knuckles lightly dragged against fabric, and he felt the man's body heat.  He pulled back slightly, tracing the chain connecting the wallet to a belt loop.  He pinched hard and unfastened the chain.  Slipping his fingers down the slick and bumpy alligator skin wallet,
he palmed it as he slipped it from the pocket.

Angel crept through the crowd to a dark corner, and caught his breath.  Though stealing the wallet took only two and a half seconds, his pulse raced madly as he counted his take.

The wallet, loaded with money and credit cards, held a picture of the man with a protective arm around his wife.  An awful scar crossed the woman's nose and cheek, extinguishing the fire of her youthful beauty.  Yet she possessed another kind of beauty as she gazed lovingly at her husband, the beauty of peace.

The photo startled Angel and the thrill of a perfect hit vanished cold.

Angel returned to the man by the bar. “Hey,” Angel said. “I think you dropped this.”

“What the--?” The man grabbed his wallet and thumbed through its contents.  Satisfied, he said, “Thanks, thanks a lot, I think I owe you a beer.”

“Nah,” Angel said. “It's nothing.”

Angel joined Kevin who stood staring out a window.  They watched the ripples of the night water snaking across the bay as boats bobbed in rhythm to the music.

Finally Angel said, "Did you see Dusty?  Girls all over him, but ten bucks says he leaves alone.  All those good looks wasted on that anti-social."

Kevin forced a smile.  "I'm really beat, I'm going to turn in.”

"You don't fool me.  Gonna swim, aren't you?  Listen Kev, there're lots of fish in the sea, but um, who wants fish?  Hey, check it out."  Angel leaned close to intrigue.  "That brunette and her friends invited us to stay at her cabin in the mountains.  Come on, I'll introduce you."

“I told you I'm not missing the boat tomorrow, so get off my case.” Kevin sat at the bar that ran along the window, and crossed his arms.

Angel sat next to him, tapping his fingers on the bar. “It has nothing to do with your stupid, little job. It has to do with women and skiing.  Think about it.”

Dusty came and gracefully slid his tall, muscular body onto a spindly-legged bar stool next to Kevin.  “What’s up?”

Angel asked, “Wanna go skiing for a week with some beautiful women?”

“Me and Dusty are finally getting our lives together,” Kevin said.  “This is good for us, we’re growing up.  You should try it sometime.”

“Working won’t change things.” Angel’s bright, hazel eyes moved slowly from Kevin to Dusty, though he knew they deserted him for something better, his smooth, square face and furrowed brow showed his confusion.  They needed the job, but losing them still hurt like hell.

A waitress took their order and left, promptly returning with Angel’s beer and two waters.

“You’re fast.” Angel winked and tipped her generously.

She said, “It’s well worth it just to see your gorgeous smile.”

After she left, Angel said kindly, “You guys are fooling yourselves, everything will always be the same.”

“Don’t give me that smile, I see right through those stupid dimples.” Kevin roughly ran his hand through his short blond hair.  He stared out the window for a second then raised his vivid green eyes to meet Angel’s gaze directly.  “It’s sour grapes, you got fired and we didn’t.  Get over it.”

Just then the band finished their final set.  As the last guitar note faded, a heavy silence smothered the three young men.

Angel watched people grabbing coats as they headed for the door. Except for a few drunks at the bar and a young couple making out in a corner, the bar emptied in about a minute. Angel mumbled, “Like everyone has someplace better to be.”

A couple of minutes later they watched the band throwing black boxes and guitars into a salt-eaten van. Beyond the van, flickering boat lights lined the cold, black harbor.

“Well I have better places to be.” Kevin pulled his light wind breaker over his broad shoulders. “I’m going swimming.”

Angel caught his sleeve, keeping him from standing. “In that ice water?  Never mind, I forgot, your not part fish, you’re part polar bear.”

They all laughed at the old joke, not because it was funny but because of the tension building under their skins, the strain of their close friendships ripping apart under the stress of growing apart.  They were more then just friends who happened to meet a few years ago at the lowest point of their lives, they
had always considered themselves brothers.

“What do you want from me?” asked Kevin, willing to do anything for the person to whom he owed his life.

“Forget it,” Angel smiled again.  “Just can’t believe you’re still working the pleasure cruise.”

“They treat me good, like I’m…” Kevin’s voice trailed off to nothing as he stared at the harbor, focusing on the distant Greenpeace boat, the Rainbow Warrior.  Working for the environmental group exhausted him, in a good way.  “They take me like I am, they like what I can do.  For once I don’t feel like a freak.”

“They’re taking advantage of you, you got an ability no one else in the world has, if you wanted, you could get a million bucks for that, and these guys don’t even pay you.”

“They pay us.” Kevin said, looking to Dusty for some help.

Dusty sat motionless and emotionless.  His handsome face was a mask, hiding his thoughts.  Any turmoil within belonged to him alone, unless he chose to speak.

“You call that pay?”  Angel persisted.  “A couple dollars here and there while you risk your life swimming around, playing point man against the evil pollution empires.  I know you want to protect the sea and all but get real.  Some whaling ship’s gonna harpoon you while Dusty turns into a giant callous, all that  sweeping and mopping and peeling potatoes he does.”

“I don’t peel potatoes.” Dusty slowly slid his callused hands under the dark wood table, as he lifted his face just enough to clear the long brown bangs from his dark eyes.  He said, “I like it.  Wish you could go with us.”

“Yeah right.  Like I want to work myself to death sinking boats and planting computer viruses.”

“That wasn’t your job, they told you not to destroy things,” said Kevin.

“Like they didn’t get all excited when I sunk that whaling ship.  You said yourself that mama whale would be dead if it wasn’t for me.”

Dusty asked, “When are you going to go straight?” He asked innocently, really wanting to know and respecting whatever answer Angel gave.

“My dad taught me laws are written for suckers.” Angel smiled sadly.  The steel trap of his life would never open her jaws, he was born a criminal and he knew he would die a criminal, and that was it.  He couldn’t escape his destiny.  He said,  “You losers didn’t complain when I broke the law for you.”

“No one made you do anything.” Kevin shifted in his seat, avoiding eye contact with Angel. “I’m sorry you got fired. You knew your hatchet jobs didn’t fit their image, you cost them public sympathy.”

Kevin stood and added, “I have to get out of here.”  He strolled quickly out the door.

“You gonna take off, too?” Angel asked Dusty.

“It’s been a long day.” Dusty put his hand out and caught a bug running along the window sill.

“Oh great, now you’re catching cockroaches.”

“It’s a cricket.  They’re lucky.”  Dusty let it go.

They watched the cricket scramble along the window sill until it reached a man downing the last bit of his beer.  The man saw the cricket just in time to smash it with his heavy glass mug.

Dusty jumped as if his own finger had been smashed.

“Guess his luck was bad,” Angel said. “Like mine.  Your captain blew it.  I could’ve solved a lot of his problems, I told him so, when he fired me, I told him he’d be sorry.”

“He had no choice.”  Dusty stood. His powerful body and huge shoulders gave a sureness to his stance, a sureness betrayed by his darkened eyes and soft words.  “If you want me to quit, I will.”

“You kidding?”  Angel tilted back dangerously on his stool. “I don’t care what you do.  Just thought  if you were tired of it, we could hang out like before.  Forget it.”

Dusty hesitated, then mumbled, “Thanks.” And he was gone.

The sudden peace made Angel think, he loved a loud party but quiet times were hard because he had memories just waiting to creep out and whisper painful things in his ear.  Strange, that the things he tried hardest to forget built the sturdiest homes in his head.

He stared at the bottom of his empty beer mug. Drinking wasn’t a habit, but he considered making it one.  Though an American, he faked a decent New Zealand accent when he called the waitress.  He always spoke with the local accent whenever he traveled.  American tourists never got good deals. “Another one, please.”

Angel sipped the frothy beer and wiped the foam from his mouth. He nursed it slowly, not wanting to come to the end when he’d be forced to choose between ordering another or going back to the hotel.

He watched moored boats bobbing on black waves and wondered if Kevin went swimming.  His mug sat empty for a long time, then suddenly, a brilliant light shot through the water catching Angel’s attention and holding it, and time stopped.

The underside of a large boat glowed from the fierce white light.  Fountains of water splashed skyward as fireworks surrounded that particular boat.  Angel blinked against the glare.  Then the tremendous roar of the blast shook the windows.

The bar talk fell silent as every eye turned to watch the hot light burst across the dark waters.

"Holy shit!"  Angel jumped to his feet, feeling the excitement of the blast cursing through his veins.  Something terrible just happened, though he knew nothing else, the light of the awesome blast alone terrified him as if it threatened his very destiny.

Then the intensifying sound stopped, as suddenly as it began, leaving only an echo in Angel’s ears.  Shaken to his core, he stuttered,. "That boat, that, that Greenpeace boat…."