I heard both engines shutting down as soon as he gave them power. I supposed I could walk home from there if absolutely necessary, but I couldn't say how long a trek north through Central America and Mexico would take. Once I reached the US, it was still over a thousand miles home. I'd wait, hoping to avoid the walk home.

I watched Sydney climbing the ladder to the bridge. Since the engines were three decks below, I calculated he didn't go to fix them. He was on deck with me when they gave out, and from what I heard, this kind of mechanical failure was why Sydney Peacock was on the Horizon. It wasn't our first mechanical failure and Sydney was involved in fixing whatever went wrong.

After several attempts to start the engines, silence prevailed. Sydney didn't climb back down the ladder, but the inside passage would have furnished him with a way to get to the engine room without me seeing him go. There was nothing left to do but wait, after hearing the sound of the anchor dropping.

There were no sounds coming from the Horizon after that. We were dead in the water. I went to the galley to get a bowl of stew before I went to bed. There wouldn't be any need to be up early in the morning, unless we got underway some time tonight.

We hadn't done any work that day. No one wanted to miss the canal. It was worth the time it took to get from one side to the other. The one thing I didn't do was photograph it. Neither Logan or me got a camera to shoot pictures of our passage. If we were still there in the morning, I was taking a camera on deck to photograph the birds that were flying around on the Atlantic side.

We'd shot all the film that might make it into Logan's documentary, and he was making up his mind what piece of film would go where. It had to be in close to chronological order, but some scenes of the reef would be sliced into other scenes not shot in the same day or week for that matter.

Most of the footage taken underwater could be interchangeable. If you found footage that gave you the transition you needed, almost any underwater footage could be placed anywhere in the film, as long as it wasn't a totally different looking environment.

That didn't leave me much to do in the lab. I often went to see if I could help with the process or clean up once Logan had spliced film together to get the effect he was after. It could get messy if you didn't clean up after yourself. I didn't mind helping clean up and on days when Logan didn't leave the lab, I took him a sandwich or something. When Logan was focused, he hardly took breaks. It was Logan in a creative state of mind. He knew what he wanted and he didn't stop until he got it where he wanted it.

Logan completed the final cut of the documentary on the way to the Panama Canal. He was now watching it over and over again. He showed it to me one time. He wanted my opinion and it was beautiful to me, but I liked weird stuff. Logan's film was important when it came to Bill's work and it would give some idea that because Bill did this work, the world might last another few years, if people stopped polluting.

He went over the footage he didn't use to reconsider his options. I liked most of the film I shot, except if I was knocking over the camera while it was running. I didn't do that often, but when I did, it became footage that didn't mean anything most of the time.

Logan says nice things about the film I shoot, and I know which is mine, because of the way we see the same scene. Our footage looks different because it is different. Logan still uses some of my footage, when his footage is similar. I was the assistant to the cameraman, and that's why he used my footage.

It wasn't as important to me, as it is to Logan, to have my name on his documentary below his name. It was Logan's documentary. It represented Logan's body of work as a professional filmmaker and friend of the environment.

I watched him. I listened to him. I learned from him. I liked his style because Logan was accepted in the environmental circles as an excellent filmmaker who told the story of the environment they were trying to save. I wanted to do what Logan did.

No one knew Dylan Aleksa-Olson from a pile of discarded tires. My purpose would be to take what I learned from Logan and tell my father's story with the tools he helped me hone.

I wanted my father to be on center stage in telling the story of an environment in trouble. When he spoke, my film would accompany his talks. Dad wouldn't merely tell his audience about lost habitat. He'd have the films I made to show them what he was talking about.

It was silent except for the bird songs I heard while in my bed the next morning. It took me a while to get out of bed. I only half recalled the events of the day before, but I knew what I'd do as long as the Horizon's engines refused to start. I went to the film lab and got out the camera I'd been using.

Logan wasn't up and wouldn't be up for hours. I stopped at the empty galley, and I stood at the coffee pot to pour a big black cup of coffee into one of the mugs stacked there. I stepped to one side to get to the cream and sugar, and I loaded as much as I dared into the cup.

"Sit down, Dylan. Biscuits and gravy," Greek said.

I stood and drank coffee while I waited. No telling how many hours it would take for Sydney to fix the problem. I could take the time to have a real stick to your ribs breakfast.

As soon as the plate hit the counter right under my nose, I swooned at the smell of the gravy that bubbled on top of Greek's biscuits. The plate was full from stem to stern, and I did not waste a morsel of a meal I'd never get at home in the cove.

"Thanks, Greek. That hit the spot. Anyone else up?"

"Captain,Rolf, and Sydney's been working all night. He says it's the generator and he'll have it fixed sometime today. I took him down a plate of biscuits and gravy an hour ago. He's got parts and pieces all over the floor. He had to come to the stairs to get the plate. I think he knows what every piece is on the floor down there," Greek said.

I watched Sidney at work as I stood on the stairs. The empty plate was on the floor beside him as his greasy hands kept moving.

"How's it going, Sydney?" I asked.

"Slow and steady, Dylan. We'll be underway later today."

I went back up the stairs and took my camera out on deck. I was surprised at how light it was, but we were on the eastern side of the Panama Canal. I didn't know if the canal worked all night. Mostly the time it took to pump water into the locks and then pump it out was what took so much time. You could make the fifty miles in less than three hours, if you were running at normal speed, but in a confined basin, you couldn't go very fast.

I had plenty of light to film the opening of the canal going west as a freighter moved forward into the first lock. As soon as he was positioned to go forward into the canal, all kinds of birds took flight. I grabbed my camera and filmed the ship and the birds.

Bill identified the birds for me the day before, and the red parrots were a vivid red. Some of them looked strange to me with long thick bills and beautiful plumage. I sat alone on the deck chairs that stayed in place all night.

Except in Guam, we hadn't been in sight of land of any kind for months. I was enjoying the jungle scenery and especially the birds that stirred everything up for a few minutes when a ship showed up.

I sat there alone for about fifteen minutes. I'd used the camera for about five of those minutes. Bill came out of the passageway, stretched and yawned before looking at where I was sitting. He came over and took the chair beside me.

"Sydney says it's the generator on engine one. Because of how it ties into engine two, neither engine runs without both generators working properly. He'll have it fixed later today or tonight," Bill said.

"I stopped in the engine room before coming on deck," I said.

"You're the early bird this morning," Bill said.

"Heard the birds. Since we're going to stay put today, I decided I needed to get some film of the birds."

"That's the same thing Alfred Hitchcock said," Bill said.

"Alfred Hitchcock?" I asked.

"Movie director. He made the movie, The Birds."

"Oh," I said.

I hadn't seen that movie.

Each time a ship came or went, and they did at a regular pace, I picked up the camera to film the birds, the vegetation, the ships, and how the sudden eruption of noise and color flared up and settled back down all morning. Then, it became peaceful again.

Bill went to get biscuits and gravy and Dolf came out to sit. He was still half asleep, but he told me about the generator on engine one. I listened and didn't tell him that I heard that before.

Greek came out with two cups of coffee. He walked to where I sat and he handed me one of the cups.

"Don't know if I got enough cream and sugar in it, but I put about as much as I see you putting in it," he told me.

"It's fine," I said, surprised that I could drink it. "Pop told me, 'As much sugar as you consume, you'll have diabetes one day."

I only used sugar in my coffee. The sodas and cereal I consumed had plenty of sugar already. It was the normal diet for a kid. Would we all have diabetes one day?"

"The generator on engine one is broken. Sidney thinks he can get us moving by tonight," Logan said, bringing a cup of coffee out on deck with him. "Greek made biscuits and gravy. Man, is it good. You need to go get some before it's all gone."

"I might do that," I said, still stuffed from the plate full I ate.

Logan went to the film lab after a few minutes. He wanted to look at the documentary again before looking at footage he hadn't used. If there was plenty of time, he wanted to get some work done. This was the kind of thing I knew I couldn't help with. This was about a filmmaker's creative mind. It was his documentary, not mine, and I knew what he decided on would fit fine with what he had.

After taking about twenty minutes of birds and ships, I decided any more would be redundant, and I took the camera back to the film lab. I put the canister of film with my things. I'd take it with me to have developed in Fort Myers. I might find a way to fit the bird footage into something I worked on at the cove.

Once I left my cabin, I went to get my first root beer of the day.

"We switching from breakfast to lunch, Dylan?" Greek asked.

"Speaking of which, what's for lunch?"

"Same as yesterday. Nothing like cold cuts to keep the restless folks happy. Always the same when we come to a halt. They can eat when they want, plenty of cold cuts to go around."

*****

The senator had been home for more than a week when the invitation came. He claimed to be busy with planning the coming campaign with his campaign manager and Lucy Olson, who was sitting in Harry's old congressional seat.

Ivan had been home for weeks and Clay hadn't decided he'd had enough of the man he loved yet. Any spare moment they were together. They sat, talked, and held hands much of the time. The sex had calmed down to two or three times a day.

Clay still woke up sweating and with a fear he'd never see the love of his life again, only to find him in his arms, and he cried with relief. His dreams seemed so real, as Ivan's dreams did. He had a similar dream that kept recurring. He was a million miles away and couldn't get back to Clay, no matter how hard he tried.

Ivan woke with his heart palpitating and with Clay in his arms.

It was on a Tuesday at nearly three when Clay parked the Buick in front of Harry's house. The door of the house opened as the boys moved up the walkway to the front door. It swung open for them.

"Morning, gentlemen, the senator is in his study. I'll take you back," Algie said, after answering the door.

He walked them back to the study, swung open both doors, and closed them behind Clay and Ivan.

It was a surprise to see Congresswoman Lucy Olson seated to the right of Harry's desk. There were two chairs placed directly in front of the desk to make this an intimate meeting of the minds.

Harry sat with his usual bourbon and branch water in front of him. Clay suspected it was tea in Lucy's cup on the desk, unless the congresswoman had taken to drinking something stronger these days.

"My word don't you two look spiffy," Harry said, before getting up to fetch a Coke for Clay and a root beer for Ivan from the fridge directly behind his desk.

"Love can do that for you," Lucy said, moving her chair so she could see everyone. "They've looked that way for several weeks."

"No one is happier for them than I am," Harry said.

"To what do we owe this invitation, Harry. You've been home a couple of weeks, and I haven't seen hide nor hair of you."

"Careful planning," Harry said. "I wanted to leave you two alone. I know how ... anxious Clay's been about you, Ivan. I didn't know if a few weeks was long enough, but things have come up, and it's time we talked. As reluctant as I am to stir Clayton's emotions again, it's not something that can wait if we are finally going to dispense with the difficulty at hand."

"I have no difficulty at all, Harry, as long as nothing changes. Things are exactly as they should be," Clay said.

"This is a particularly odd group to be meeting with you Harry," Ivan said. "Lucy, her brother, and me aren't usually moving in the same circles. I'm not as cerebral as the rest of you," Ivan confessed.

"Nice try," Clay said. "You're as smart as anyone here."

Harry laughed. Lucy smiled.

"Aren't they cute?" Lucy said.

"I feel under dressed, Sis. That's a beautiful outfit. You and Harry dating?" Clay asked.

Lucy wore a stunning black pants suit with a red blouse that had ruffles and black buttons. She looked ready for a business meeting.

"I asked her to dress for a business meeting," Harry said.

"No one told me," Clay said. "I don't think I've ever seen you in that before. I rarely see you in anything but cutoffs and a tee-shirt."

"Leave your sister alone, Clayton. We met with my campaign manager, and she dressed like she cared how he saw her. Not everyone wears jeans and tee shirts all the time, except for you."

Ivan raised his hand, since he was dressed identical to Clay.

"Yes, the little boy's room is out the door and two doors down on your left side," Harry said.

"Cute, Harry," Clay said. "I'm not a fashion plate. I dress for the campaign trail or when I appear for the Conservancy to give my talks.

"Yes, you do. I have no complaints. You are a credit to your profession, and mine for that matter," Harry said.

"Glad you noticed. Haven't seen you around the establishment lately. I spent a lot of time catching up on my reports too," Clay said.

"This is the end of my preparations for the upcoming campaign. I plan to be off for the rest of August. Campaigning will begin in earnest once September rolls around."

"Your campaign manager will be handling my sister?"

"A combination of him and me. We'll campaign together this year. She's sitting in my seat you know," Harry revealed.

"That sounds cozy," Ivan said.

"No comments from the peanut gallery," Harry said.

"Which reminds me, what am I doing here? I'm not a politician or an employee. I do have a shop to run, however."

"You're here for dinner. The last time I saw you, you looked a bit emaciated. I figured to have you over for dinner. Make sure you're eating properly," Harry said.

"When was it you saw me, Harry? I don't recall seeing you at all since I arrived back in the states. You wouldn't have been waiting at the Tampa airport when I returned, were you, and if you were, what the hell were you doing watching the plane land?"

"That's the other reason I asked you here today. We need to talk," Harry said.

"My sister is here why?" Clay asked.

"She's my protection from you," Harry announced.

"Me?"

"You. I never know what to expect from you, and this is not going to be a happy clappy reunion. I've got things to say, and Lucy will keep you from coming after me before I finish saying them."

"When have I ever ...," Clay said.

"Only for the last three months have you been a constant pain in my ass. I get your boyfriend home, and you're still as mad as a wet hen. I need witnesses and buffers. I don't trust you, Olson."

"Makes two of us, Harry. Your government was holding my lover against his will. That concerns me and it involves you. You may not consider that as your business. I do. Not only do I work for you, but I depend on you to keep your government's hands off my man."

"Which is why I was at the Tampa Airport when Ivan landed."

"This didn't perhaps have something to do with the plane I was on being ordered to land in Honolulu, does it?"

"Bingo. I wanted to make sure the people who formulated that order, did not show up in Tampa to implement it," Harry said.

"Who? It wasn't the NTSB. The pilot didn't swallow that one."

"You know who as well as I do, Ivan. I called the director as soon as Bob Alexander called me," Harry said.

"Bob knows about the Honolulu deal?" Clay asked.

"Yes, and he flew to Tampa for the same reason I did. He suggested I be there, just in case. He didn't say he was coming."

"And Bob was planning to do what if they tried to take me off his plane?" Ivan asked.

"He was planning to drink. He wasn't going to do anything. He wanted to know if I did anything," Harry said.

"What did you do?" Ivan asked.

"He's got some wonderful booze on his Learjet. We drank and waited," to see what happened.

"You sat drinking. What, if they did come on the plane to get me, you were going to have some popcorn too?"

"I called the director. I told him if he came near you, I was going to put a hold on his funding, and we were going to have such an investigation of his agency, he wouldn't survive it, even if the agency did survive."

"You threatened the director?" Clay asked. "Where do you want your flowers sent, Harry?"

"You planning to do something to me, Clayton?"

"You threatened the director. I won't need to do anything."

"That's why we are here. He came to my office the following week. He wanted to iron out any misunderstanding between us. I spoke to him in terms he could understand. I let him know I had senators lined up to investigate how it was that Ivan was in custody, never charged, and only set free when he agreed to undertake a mission he was responsible for. I showed him Angus McCoy's report on his investigation of the Mason murder, and he names the prime suspect. McCoy had no knowledge of why Ivan was supposedly arrested for a crime he had no knowledge of, according to McCoy."

"How did that have anything to do with the law?" Ivan asked.

"It has nothing to do with law or being illegally arrested. You were held against your will by an agency that has no authorization to do anything within this country. I know it. You know it, and the director knows it and he doesn't have a leg to stand on. He won't risk an investigation, because even the notion of investigating his agency will see him out of a job," Harry said, drinking from his bourbon and branch. "Anyone need a refill?" Harry asked, getting up for a refill.

"What I don't get," Clay began. "How do they get away with breaking the law, which they obviously did? Kidnapping, restraining Ivan without any way for him to communicate with the outside world to ask for help or find recourse?"

"There are people who obey laws and follow convention. We do many things because it's how things have always been done. Then, someone comes along and decides he is doing it differently. Convention is corrupted and no one knows how the change came about. To make it an issue without knowing when the change came about or who authorized it, no one wants to say anything. Make waves and you're expected to argue your point. When a powerful agency takes up the argument, do you really want to bring attention to yourself, or simply let it go. Let it go and perhaps the agency will let it go as well, not knowing how solid the ground is they stand upon. Challenge them, and they decide they need to prove their point, and they start looking for ways to get the best of the challenger. The smart move is to say nothing, wait, and if they don't move, we are in good shape. They know I have them on my radar. They've been warned. That is as far as I comfortably can go. I suggest you leave it there. They weren't at Tampa. Coming onto my turf wouldn't be smart, because I've given them a lot to think about," Harry said, picking up his bourbon and branch and drinking it down.

"I'm home. It's where I want to be. I have no desire to go head to head with people who have grabbed me twice," Ivan said.

"Isn't that what I just said?" Harry asked. "No point in making waves. We have what we want. They seem satisfied. We need to accept victory and back off. We'd have heard by now if they intended to go at you again, Ivan."

"They'd left me alone for five years, until this little gambit."

"They got sent home with their tails between their legs. We had nothing to do with that. They went after you because you served their purpose, which is no longer operative, because the general is on to them. Unless there are other incidents over in Asia you haven't told us about," Harry said.

"No, nothing else. It was an accident I knew Ken Ho, and no, I had no idea he was a general. He was and is a nice man who liked talking to me."

"Let it rest. I think we're OK," Harry said. "I've been in DC since you came back and there is no indication anyone has anything to say about you being home or how you got there."

"Exactly," Clay said. "Leave it alone. I'm satisfied," Clay said. "I don't need a pound of flesh. I need them to leave Ivan alone. If they don't, we'll go to war."

"What he said," Ivan said, pointing at Clay.

"That's the only business I wanted to discuss with you. I'm satisfied you're satisfied, and I'm satisfied the Company is satisfied," Harry said. "My word, I can smell Twila's prime rib from here."

"I feel like I've walked in on the middle of a spy movie," Lucy said. "I have no idea what's going on and I'm happy not knowing."

Algie came to the library and opened the double doors.

"Senator, dinner is served. Twila is ready to put the prime rib on the table. She sent me to get you gentlemen and Ms. Olson."

"Your timing is perfect, Algie. I just finished my presentation. Clayton, Ivan, Lucy, you're about to have a meal that is exquisite. Twila's prime rib never fails to get my juices flowing."

Lucy, Ivan, and Clay went behind Algie and Harry brought up the rear as they headed for the dining room.

**********

I watched Sydney climbing the ladder to the bridge. Since the engines were three decks below, I calculated he didn't go to fix them. He was on deck with me when they gave out, and from what I heard, this kind of mechanical failure was why Sydney Peacock was on the Horizon. It wasn't our first mechanical failure and Sydney was involved in fixing whatever went wrong.

After several attempts to start the engines, silence prevailed. Sydney didn't climb back down the ladder, but the inside passage would have furnished him with a way to get to the engine room without me seeing him go. There was nothing left to do but wait, after hearing the sound of the anchor dropping.

There were no sounds coming from the Horizon after that. We were dead in the water. I went to the galley to get a bowl of stew before I went to bed. There wouldn't be any need to be up early in the morning, unless we got underway some time tonight.

We hadn't done any work that day. No one wanted to miss the canal. It was worth the time it took to get from one side to the other. The one thing I didn't do was photograph it. Neither Logan or me got a camera to shoot pictures of our passage. If we were still there in the morning, I was taking a camera on deck to photograph the birds that were flying around on the Atlantic side.

We'd shot all the film that might make it into Logan's documentary, and he was making up his mind what piece of film would go where. It had to be in close to chronological order, but some scenes of the reef would be sliced into other scenes not shot in the same day or week for that matter.

Most of the footage taken underwater could be interchangeable. If you found footage that gave you the transition you needed, almost any underwater footage could be placed anywhere in the film, as long as it wasn't a totally different looking environment.

That didn't leave me much to do in the lab. I often went to see if I could help with the process or clean up once Logan had spliced film together to get the effect he was after. It could get messy if you didn't clean up after yourself. I didn't mind helping clean up and on days when Logan didn't leave the lab, I took him a sandwich or something. When Logan was focused, he hardly took breaks. It was Logan in a creative state of mind. He knew what he wanted and he didn't stop until he got it where he wanted it.

Logan completed the final cut of the documentary on the way to the Panama Canal. He was now watching it over and over again. He showed it to me one time. He wanted my opinion and it was beautiful to me, but I liked weird stuff. Logan's film was important when it came to Bill's work and it would give some idea that because Bill did this work, the world might last another few years, if people stopped polluting.

He went over the footage he didn't use to reconsider his options. I liked most of the film I shot, except if I was knocking over the camera while it was running. I didn't do that often, but when I did, it became footage that didn't mean anything most of the time.

Logan says nice things about the film I shoot, and I know which is mine, because of the way we see the same scene. Our footage looks different because it is different. Logan still uses some of my footage, when his footage is similar. I was the assistant to the cameraman, and that's why he used my footage.

It wasn't as important to me, as it is to Logan, to have my name on his documentary below his name. It was Logan's documentary. It represented Logan's body of work as a professional filmmaker and friend of the environment.

I watched him. I listened to him. I learned from him. I liked his style because Logan was accepted in the environmental circles as an excellent filmmaker who told the story of the environment they were trying to save. I wanted to do what Logan did.

No one knew Dylan Aleksa-Olson from a pile of discarded tires. My purpose would be to take what I learned from Logan and tell my father's story with the tools he helped me hone.

I wanted my father to be on center stage in telling the story of an environment in trouble. When he spoke, my film would accompany his talks. Dad wouldn't merely tell his audience about lost habitat. He'd have the films I made to show them what he was talking about.

It was silent except for the bird songs I heard while in my bed the next morning. It took me a while to get out of bed. I only half recalled the events of the day before, but I knew what I'd do as long as the Horizon's engines refused to start. I went to the film lab and got out the camera I'd been using.

Logan wasn't up and wouldn't be up for hours. I stopped at the empty galley, and I stood at the coffee pot to pour a big black cup of coffee into one of the mugs stacked there. I stepped to one side to get to the cream and sugar, and I loaded as much as I dared into the cup.

"Sit down, Dylan. Biscuits and gravy," Greek said.

I stood and drank coffee while I waited. No telling how many hours it would take for Sydney to fix the problem. I could take the time to have a real stick to your ribs breakfast.

As soon as the plate hit the counter right under my nose, I swooned at the smell of the gravy that bubbled on top of Greek's biscuits. The plate was full from stem to stern, and I did not waste a morsel of a meal I'd never get at home in the cove.

"Thanks, Greek. That hit the spot. Anyone else up?"

"Captain,Rolf, and Sydney's been working all night. He says it's the generator and he'll have it fixed sometime today. I took him down a plate of biscuits and gravy an hour ago. He's got parts and pieces all over the floor. He had to come to the stairs to get the plate. I think he knows what every piece is on the floor down there," Greek said.