After that, Walt learned what true loneliness felt like.
In the aftermath of his partner’s death, a shitstorm descended, the likes of which Walt had never before experienced, and Meghan Cobb was in the middle of it. To remedy the situation, Walt agreed to early retirement, secured his pension, and headed to the Caribbean where he limited his contact with Meghan to once a year—one night each June when he returned to New York to attend the annual survivors meeting. In the days leading up to the event he battled a combination of excitement and fear. In the days after, he suffered buyer’s remorse over what he’d gotten out of the trip and always wished for a do-over. He wished he had found the courage to confront her about her lies. He wished he had found the strength to express his anger about being placed in such a precarious position.
The regret passed. It always did. Then, just one dominant emotion lingered. At the bottom of every glass of rum, he found guilt. It was a dangerous spiral, and Walt Jenkins had no idea how to pull out of it.
CHAPTER 14
Negril, Jamaica Wednesday, June 23, 2021
HE TOOK ANOTHER SIP OF THE HAMPDEN ESTATES AND ENJOYED THE sweet burn at the back of his throat. A big catamaran crept into the cove. Drunken tourists dove into the blue waters and swam toward Rick’s Cafe. Like ants emerging from a hill, the red-shouldered, paled-faced travelers climbed the ladders and materialized from the rocks below to swarm the bar. Some staggered after having chugged too much rum punch on the sail over from the all-inclusives in Negril. The herd barked orders to the bartender as Peter Tosh and Bob Marley blared from overhead speakers.
“Rum Runner.”
“Red Stripe.”
“Jamaican Breeze.”
Walt lifted his glass from the bar, slipped off his stool, and made his way through the crowd and out onto the cliff-side patio. A table for two was free and he took a seat. He wanted time to enjoy the sun and the view, to sip his rum and allow it to work its magic, but the arrival of a catamaran was usually his signal to head home. Off to his left, a local cliff diver climbed to the top of a birch tree whose limbs stretched over the edge of the bluff. A platform had been built tree-house-style into the limbs and allowed the climber to stand nearly one hundred feet above the cove. Everyone stopped drinking and craned their necks to watch his progress, cameras and cell phones trained on him. The reggae music quieted when the man sat down with his legs straddling the wooden platform and swinging in the afternoon breeze, teasing his audience and making them wait for his impending dive.
With everyone preoccupied and staring up the cliff, a man slipped into the seat across from Walt. When Walt noticed him, they both smiled.
“What an entrance,” Walt said. “Very Jack Ryan of you.”
“Sitting down with an old friend is considered a form of espionage?” the man asked.
“It is when you sneak up on me in the middle of nowhere.” Walt laughed. “James fucking Oliver. What the hell are you doing in Jamaica?”
“I’ve been looking for you for some time, and a little bird told me where you’ve been hiding.”
So far this afternoon, Walt had barely sipped two ounces of rum. His mind was clear, not yet clouded the way it had been for the last few days since leaving New York. He was thinking lucidly, and the sight of his old FBI boss caused the neurons of his mind to fire like they used to when he was active in the Bureau. An eighteen-year veteran, Walt’s reaction to, and analysis of, all circumstances was shaped by Oliver’s training and experience. Three years removed from the Bureau, those old senses had dulled a bit. The sight of his old supervisor, however, brought Walt’s training and instincts flooding back to him. He had been careful over the last couple of years not to tell people where he was staying. Only his parents and siblings knew he was renting a house in Jamaica with no plans of returning to the States. And not even his family knew that Walt’s original visa had been parlayed into dual citizenship. He had been especially careful to avoid telling any of his old FBI buddies where he was hiding. There were many reasons for his recluse nature, but mostly it was because in the wake of the shooting, and the scandal that broke afterward, Walt had become unwelcomed within the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He had hoped time would solve that issue, but three years hadn’t put a dent into restoring his reputation in the eyes of his former colleagues.
As Walt stared at his old Bureau boss now, two things occurred to him. First, Scott Sherwood—his old station chief from when Walt was a young detective in New York State, and whom Walt had accidentally run into at the survivors meeting—was the one who ratted out his location. It was suddenly obvious why Scott had insisted so strongly on exchanging contact information. Second, if James Oliver had gone to the trouble of planting Scott Sherwood at the survivors meeting to pin down Walt’s whereabouts, he sure as shit wanted something. And if the Bureau wanted something from him three years after they forced his retirement, it was nothing good.
“Let me guess,” Walt said. “That little bird was a shithead named Scott Sherwood.”
“You always were the sharpest agent I had. I see nothing’s changed.”
“A lot’s changed, Jim.”
Jim Oliver looked around Rick’s Café. “That’s for damn sure.” He pointed at Walt’s glass of rum. “But some things have stayed the same.”
“Old habits die hard. Can I get you one?”
Oliver shrugged. “When in Rome.”
Walt waved over the waitress. “Two more, please. Hampden Estates overproof on the rocks.”
“No problem,” the waitress said in a pleasant Jamaican accent.
As she walked toward the bar, Walt looked back at Oliver. “This shit’s expensive. I assume the Bureau’s picking up the tab?”
“Why would you assume that?”
“Because if you’re sitting in front of me at a cliff-side tavern in Negril, Jamaica, the Bureau wants something. And if this is an official meeting, the agency can pick up the tab.”
Oliver shrugged again. “Why not. It’s the least we can do.”
A collected gasp came from the crowd as the cliff diver stood up on the platform perched high in the birch tree. With his legs tight together, he puffed out his chest and extended his arms straight out to his side, crucifix style. Then he bent at the knees and jumped. His body rotated in a slow backward somersault as he jetted toward the water, taking a full two seconds to cover the one-hundred-foot jump before landing feet first and disappearing into the cobalt water, barely producing a splash in the process. The crowd erupted in cheers.
“I must admit,” Oliver said, taking his gaze off the action and looking back at Walt, “retirement sure sounds good at the moment.”
“Forced retirement. Remember? You made me quit. But it’s grown on me. And, Jim, I’m really happy here all by my lonesome.”
“Come on, Walt. A forty-something-year-old guy, in the prime of his life, day drinking by himself at a bar in Jamaica? You’re not happy, you’re a goddamn cliché.”
“Whatever you think about me, just know this: I’m not interested.”
“Is that any way to treat your old boss? I came all the way down here to see my friend and have a chat.”