Page 22 of Player

So, well before the punch lands, I know what I’m going to do.

Nothing.

His fist connects, and I take it like a professional. “Ouch,” I say in a flat voice, the devil within too damn proud to act the maggot. Let him have his fun and think he’s won. A black eye is just the face-value kind of cred I need to build a rapport with the cutthroats in Cork.

“One word about this, Antonio, and there’ll be more where that came from. Now get out of my sight.”

I place my hand over my aching eye and amble off like a man on the sauce, deciding then and there the captain’s cabin is long overdue for a thorough inspection.

The next day, while the captain is badgering another crewmate for spilling coffee on the deck, I steal into his private quarters. It doesn’t take long to discover just what a dirtball he is.

I hold a two-by-four, cellophane-wrapped brick up to the light.Well, what have we here?It’s white, though it sure ain’t a thick dollop of cream for me Sunday biscuits.

Stacks of the same are neatly stacked within a built-in drawer beneath the captain’s platform bed. Funny flour.Cocaine, as most like to call it.

I open a second drawer and then a third. Each is filled with kilo-size bricks. One brick has a street value of twenty-five thousand dollars. Ol’ Cap has to have a hundred here.

Drug dealers are the lowest ofgobshites. A half step up from weapons dealers. And the airs the pigeon-hating wanker puts on, he’d made you believe he’s a bird-loving saint.

I have half a mind to toss his stash out the portal window. Millions washed away with the tide.

It takes great willpower to return everything as is. I need to make it to Cork without causing a ruckus.

Now is as good a time as any to locate the uranium. The problem with these ships is they carry feckin’ massive steel-encased containers. Some stacked forty feet, some twenty. Even with the ship being a quarter way full, it’s taking me a long time to locate the uranium. But I’ve come onboard prepared, with several small GPS devices that I’ll fix to the containers so TORC can track their locations. Keeping an eye on the merchandise until Hayden decides our next step.

I take a few extra moments to search for a shipping manifest but come up empty-handed.

I crack my knuckles, mildly annoyed but remind myself to be patient. That we’re ten days out and I’ve nothing but feckin’ time.

Pocketing one of the bricks for insurance purposes, I head off toward the bow.