Rigolets
W hen Billy turns the starter switches, the two big motors of the Delta Queen fire right up. He waits and lets the big boat sit at the dock and idle while Raul, the deckhand, goes fore and aft and unties the mooring ropes.
Once the boat is untied from the dock, Billy takes the wheel, engages the drive to the propeller shafts, and pushes the throttles forward. Slowly the big trawler moves away from the dock and into the Rigolets channel.
“The Queen’s old and kind of crusty, but she’s still a great boat,” Billy says with obvious pride. “Sam and I have completely gone over her from stem to stern.”
“Who’s Sam?” Rosie asks.
“You’ll meet him,” Billy says. He indicates an open navigation chart, puts his finger down at one point and says: “This is the Rigolets channel, we are here right now. It’s about eight miles long, leads into Lake Burgoyne and then to the Gulf of Mexico.”
Billy sets the chart off to the side. “Once we get through the channel, it’ll still take a little more than an hour to get out past Grand Island to a spot eight or ten miles west off Cat Island. That’s where we’ll put out the line. There’s a little sandbar there that the crabs seem to like.”
As the boat moves into the middle of the channel, Billy eases the throttles forward to add a little speed. “So,” he says, “why don’t you tell me how you got connected with Scott. You’re a news reporter with a liberal media outlet, and I think I know your politics. The Scott I knew was a conscientious conservative and a flag-waving patriot to the point of almost being corny. How is it he picked you to be his voice to the world on the political corruption, ineptitude, and treason of the current administration?”
Rosie tells him the whole story. How Scott had first contacted her and asked for a clandestine meeting in a coffee shop in a section of Washington where it was not likely they would run into any friends, government people or Washington associates.
“Frankly, I was skeptical at first,” Rosie says. “He was special counsel to the president’s national security adviser. That is an important and sensitive job. But Scott was a background operator. From a strictly news standpoint, he did not have a high public profile. Nobody outside official Washington even knew who he was. But he became”—she says with a kind of laugh—”what I would later come to call my Deep Throat.”
Again, Rosie laughs. “The first time I met him in the coffee shop, he was wearing this goofy disguise—a hat, dark glasses, and a false beard—and I did not recognize him even though I’d seen pictures of him and knew what he looked like. In fact, before I left the television studio for our first meeting, I read some character profiles that we had done on him and ran some old archive video of him speaking before a conservative lawyer’s group —I think it was the Federalist Society—just to get an idea of what to expect.”
“Don’t you think this is a bit much—a little too cloak and dagger?” I said, referring to the over-the-top disguise. “But he was almost paranoid, particularly in our first early meetings.”
Remembering his old friend, Billy smiles, “Yeah, Scott was like that, serious and a bit melodramatic at times, but a good and honest, well-meaning person. It’s too bad what happened.”
Rosie frowns. “All I know is that Scott’s fear was real. Slowly, in the weeks following, as I gained his trust, he provided me with the information that I used to write those initial Post articles criticizing the administration for its lawlessness, its rampant corruption, and its violations of all the accepted political norms.”
‘“These people are ruthless, Rosie,’ he told me. ‘They mean to break the law, subvert the constitution, destabilize our democracy, disrupt our elections through social media, divide us as Americans, and turn us against one another—do whatever is necessary to push their agenda, consolidate power, and maintain single-party control of the government. And the direction is all coming from the president of Russia.’ Rosie smiles. ‘The Bad King,’ he told me, ‘Is just a puppet and a mere dummy showman.”’
Rosie looks at Billy. “Scott was so upset he told me once that he just felt like going public with the whole thing. Of course, no one would have believed him. It was all just too fantastic. And he would, of course, have killed his career.”
Once they were out of the channel, through Lake Burgoyne, and out in the Gulf, Billy gives Rosie the wheel. “Okay, you’re going to be the pilot.” He points to the ship’s compass. “Keep the boat on this East-Southeast compass heading. I am going aft to work the deck with Raul. He can operate the winch and I will bait the cages and put them overboard. The water here is just forty to fifty feet deep with a sand bottom.” He points at the boat’s depth finder. “I’m going to try to run a line of about fifty to sixty cages. I’ll put out some marker buoys and take a fix with the sextant for location, and confirm it with the GPS. Then we’ll leave the traps overnight and come back tomorrow.”
Rosie says, “Aren’t you afraid someone might steal our catch?”
Billy just smiles and kind of laughs. “Fishermen aren’t always the nicest, most polite people. But unlike the people you deal with every day—politicians—they do tend to live by a code of honor and take a certain pride in their trade that does not allow for the theft of another man’s—or woman’s—catch.”
“Kind of like the honor among thieves?” Rosie says back.
Billy grins. He didn’t necessarily like the comparison, but— “Yeah, something like that.”
Rosie gets the sense that perhaps she misspoke herself and offended Billy with her remark. “I’m sorry if I offended you Billy,” she says sincerely. “I didn’t mean—”
Billy smiles back. “No offense taken,” he says.
Rosie looks away at the distant horizon. “It’s peaceful out here.”
Billy momentarily pauses, “Yeah, a man—or woman,” he says thoughtfully, with a nod meant to include Rosie, “can be at peace with themselves and the whole world out here. This is where I come when I need to think things through—unwind and just relax.”
They return to Rigolets. Over dinner and drinks that evening, Rosie asks, “So, what are you planning to do, Billy? Scott was confident that you would be able to help.”
“I’m going to call my friend, Shane, at CIA. He will be able to give us some guidance. I’m sure he’s going to want to see the Project: Red Dragon file.”
Again, Rosie stays the night on the boat with Billy.