Missing Presumed Lost

by Fred Lockwood

  ‘The boss is upstairs,’ she explained as she led Will through a loading bay area, along a plain corridor and then through a door emblazoned with a “NO ENTRY” sign and into a reception area.

  Will couldn't help but notice how the working conditions changed dramatically between the factory floor workers and those in the offices. There were rough concrete floors and cinder block walls for some, carpets on the floor and pictures on the wall for others.

  ‘The boss is on the first floor,’ she continued to explain as she led the way upwards.

  Will was enjoying the rear view as he followed the woman up the stairs. Confident, bubbly, light on her feet, well-coordinated and well proportioned. It could work out to be a very enjoyable evening, Will thought to himself.

  At the top of the stairs a broad walkway led off to the right and at the end was a highly polished wooden door. The woman stopped outside and knocked. Will didn't catch what was said but the woman opened the door and gestured for Will to enter. She followed him into the room.

  There was only one person in the room who started to stand and offer an outstretched hand as Will entered the office and moved towards the desk.

  ‘Will, may I call you Will?’ was the greeting. ‘Please, please take a seat. I'm really grateful to you for agreeing to come tonight and provide me with some information and advice.’

  As five one hundred-dollar notes, laid out in a fan shape, were pushed across the table top, the boss added:

  ‘This may be the quickest US$500 you will ever earn.’

  Resisting the temptation to scoop up the cash Will sat back in his chair and asked:

  ‘So, how can I help you?’

  The boss sat forward in the chair and looked directly at Will and in a calm but deliberate voice stated:

  ‘When James Blake stepped on board the sailboat Pharmaco he was carrying a large, industrial looking, aluminium briefcase. The police failed to recover it when they retrieved the bodies. A search of the sailboat, the shoreline and the general vicinity also failed to locate it.’

  The boss paused to signify the importance of what was to be said next:

  ‘If the briefcase is not in and around the boat it has to be elsewhere. Where is it Will?’

  Will was stunned. He simply wasn't expecting the question. The tone of the question suggested he had stolen the briefcase, but he had merely stopped it from floating away. He had jammed it between two kit crates but had forgotten to mention he had done so. Will made a decision to lie; he then stumbled over his reply and started to stand.

  ‘Er... sorry, I can't help you. I don't know anything about a briefcase.’

  Anna was stood just behind Will's chair. She stepped forward and hit him with a sharp forearm blow to the side of the head.

  ‘Luca,’ Petra shouted as Will collapsed in a heap on the floor in front of the desk.

  Luca entered the office from a side door, his arms were full. He put a bottle on the desk and dropped the other items on the floor. He pulled Will to a sitting position and then fitted first one of his arms and then the other arm into the aging straightjacket. The coarse fabric had once been white or ivory in colour. Now it was soiled and stained but still effective! Luca lowered Will to the floor and rolled him onto his front. Expertly he secured the straps and checked for tightness. He wanted them to be tight but not too tight. Anna had picked up the leg restraint, wrapped the canvas strip around Will's legs and smoothed the Velcro strips in place. In a practised move Luca lifted Will back into the chair. Anna secured him in place with two straps. One was around his body and the chair, the other around his legs and the chair. It had taken only seconds but it was enough time. Will was recovering and starting to struggle.

  Petra knew immediately that Will was lying because she was an accomplished liar. She had given the signal to Anna and initiated what would come next. She slowly walked around the desk and neatly straddled Will in the chair, sat facing him and held his head in her hands as she looked into his face.

  ‘Will, you are a poor liar. I don't want you to be hurt but there are people who will do anything to find the missing briefcase. If you know where it is please tell me and I will protect you.’

  Even in his confused state Mrs Kovačić sounded sincere and her expression compassionate.

  ‘You can be strolling around the Old Town in fifteen minutes with cash in your pocket and,’ turning to look at Anna, ‘a woman on your arm.’

  Petra held Will's head in both of her hands as though giving emphasis to what she said next:

  ‘Will, this is serious. You don't want to know about the alternative to talking to me. Please, please tell me where the briefcase is,’ she pleaded.

  Will was now in no doubt of his predicament and took the obvious way out.

  ‘I didn't steal the briefcase,’ he blurted out. ‘I was acting as safety and was at the main hatch into the boat when Jack and Sandro went in. As they went in the briefcase popped out and I caught it before it drifted away,’ he explained. ‘Later I had to surface to get some safety lines to secure the bodies. I took the briefcase and jammed it between the kit crates on the salvage boat. It was to stop it drifting away. I wasn't going to steal it,’ he almost sobbed.

  ‘Where is the briefcase now?’ Petra asked.

  ‘I don't know. I think the skipper and his mate moved the kit crates to make more space. It was cramped on the back of the boat. I remember looking across to the kit crates as I was leaving the boat and the crates weren't there! I know we didn't take them back to the Sultano ’cos we would need to use them again. I guess the briefcase is still on the salvage boat.’

  Will suddenly brightened. His eyes grew wide as he stared at Petra.

  ‘The briefcase looks like an emergency oxygen case and so they may have thought it was part of our kit. I don't know where it is but bet it is with our kit crates,’ he said.

  ‘Will, you have only one chance and it is this one. If what you have told me is false it will be out of my hands and both of us will be in serious trouble,’ she lied.

  ‘No, honestly,’ Will pleaded, his face now pale with fear. ‘I jammed the briefcase between the kit crates. I'm certain that neither Jack nor Sandro moved them. We were together all the time. It must have been the skipper and the young guy who moved them, stored them, somewhere nearby.’

  Petra put her hands on Will's shoulders and eased herself off his lap. With a couple of flicks she knocked the creases from her skirt and turned to Luca.

  ‘You know what to do,’ she said as she left the office.

  Chapter 18

  An accidental death?

  As Petra walked from the room Luca moved leisurely to the desk, grabbed the bottle and opened it by breaking the twist-top seal. He then plucked a tissue from the box on the table and carefully placed the bottle top on it before setting the bottle back on the table. It was all done with extreme care.

  ‘Hey, do you think the drink can wait?’ Will shouted with some annoyance. ‘Can you let me out of this stuff?’

  Luca simply ignored Will and proceeded to wrap tape from a small spool around the lip of the bottle as though he didn't want it chipped – he didn't. When he seemed satisfied he handed the bottle to Anna and moved behind the chair.

  ‘What's this all about?’ asked Will in a tone that betrayed his growing concern.

  Suddenly Will felt the chair tip backwards as his head was held rock solid between Luca's hands. Before he realised what was happening Anna straddled him in the chair just as Petra had done. With one hand she pinched his nose and with the other offered the bottle to his lips.

  ‘I don't …ugh.’

  Will's protests ended abruptly as the fiery spirit shot down his throat. He couldn't breathe but could suck air through his teeth at the expense of swallowing the fluid. Will was terrified. Once, clipped to the leg of an oil rig below the North Sea, a waterproof seal had failed on his diving helmet. Later they had told him it was a “million to one chance”. However, at the time he had water gushing
into his helmet and only seconds to jettison the helmet and grab his reserve gas supply. He remembered desperately sucking the remaining gas mixture through his teeth as he fought to get the helmet off and release his reserve mouthpiece. The same frantic action was being replayed now but he had no hands to help him.

  He must have fainted because he remembered waking abruptly and coughing up a mouthful of acidic fluid. It splattered down his front. His throat felt raw but there was a glow in his stomach and he had a strange detached feeling. He suddenly remembered where he was and looked around; they were still there. Over the next hour they forced Will to drink about one third of the bottle and the alcohol started to take effect. During the second hour Will was singing the same line over and over again to himself.

  ‘... leaving on a jet plane. Don't know when I'll be back again.’

  It was almost midnight by the time they had managed to make Will swallow almost the whole bottle. Carrying him back to the car and dumping him on the back seat was easy. Getting him from the car, down the dockside ramp and onto the small motor boat was more difficult. The only good thing, as far as Anna and Luca were concerned, was that Will was now sleeping.

  As Luca laid Will on the small space at the rear of the boat Anna cast off and eased them away into open water. It was merely a case of clipping the anchor onto one of the sturdy straightjacket straps, running the anchor line over the central cleat and lowering Will over the side. There was hardly a ripple as Will sank a couple of metres under the water and barely any movement on the line as he drowned. Luca had looked at his watch after he had lowered Will into the water. He knew that a couple of minutes was all that was needed but he allowed almost ten minutes before they returned to the dockside close to where the Sultano was moored.

  Luca brought Will to the surface and unhooked the anchor. He carefully undid the leather straps and eased the body out of the straightjacket before gently pushing it clear.

  ‘It looks like Will pulled last night,’ said Kev with a smile. ‘I've just checked his cabin and no sign of him.’

  ‘Not today!’ Jack exclaimed with some frustration. ‘What he does in his private life is up to him but I wanted to begin a final check of the ship before Sandro and I go to Trieste to collect the generator. If he's late I'm not going to be too pleased,’ he added.

  More in frustration than in anticipation Jack walked out of the dining room and onto the deck. He looked out along the dock hoping to see Will coming back. What he did see was some commotion on the dockside about one hundred metres away. A small group of people were lined up on the dockside peering into the water below. There were a couple of guys in a small rowing boat and it looked like they were trying to pull something from the water. However, at this distance Jack couldn't see what it was. Then he heard the siren and a moment later a white ambulance, blue light flashing, swept along the dock and stopped near the group. Jack reckoned it must be a body in the water.

  Without oxygen to the brain the person would be brain dead in a couple of minutes. It would have taken Jack longer to get off the boat, into the water and bring the body to the dockside. Jack sighed, he had seen enough bodies for a while and turned away to let the authorities handle it. He, Sandro, Shaun, Patrick and Kev would start on the lengthy checklist.

  It was mid-afternoon and the five of them were having a late lunch. Having a massive kitchen and fully stocked cold room made the Sultano a great work place. They had almost finished when they heard Marco calling them; Kev went to check. He returned moments later and everyone could tell by his face that there was a problem. Kev stood with sagging shoulders and head bowed. In a breaking voice he announced:

  ‘The police have asked if there is anyone on board who could identify a body that was pulled out of the dock this morning. They think it is Will because a wallet was found in the back pocket. There were credit cards and a driving licence in Will's name.’

  There was complete silence in the room as Jack and Sandro, Patrick and Shaun struggled to comprehend the request. Jack was just about to speak when Kev resumed:

  ‘I know I'm not a next of kin but I know Will as well as anyone here. I'll go and identify the body. I just hope it's not him,’ he added as he turned away.

  It was Will. The orderly turned down the sheet covering his face. Someone had tried to make the body look more presentable by combing his hair. But the hair style wasn't Will's. However, despite the pale skin there was no doubt. Kev confirmed it was Will and turned away. He was led to an adjacent room where clothing was laid out on a table.

  ‘Are you able to identify any of these clothes or objects?’ Kev was asked.

  Kev's eyes were immediately drawn to the Seattle Seahawks T shirt that Will had worn a few hours before and the multicoloured trainers.

  ‘Yes, I recognise the T shirt and the trainers, the watch and the wallet. How did it happen?’ he asked in a tone that betrayed anger rather than compassion.

  ‘You ask police, better you ask police,’ the orderly replied.

  Chapter 19

  Missing presumed lost

  About one thousand kilometres due north of Split, in the rolling farmland and forests of the Czech Republic, is the unremarkable town of Pardubice. It was in this town, in the 1950s, that Semtex was invented. It has been in demand ever since. It was also in this town that a middle aged female laboratory technician smuggled minute quantities of black Semtex 10 out of the closely guarded laboratory each night. At every stage in the factory the product was monitored and weighed. Records were signed and countersigned. Employees were searched at random as they left the factory to go home. The air around them was analysed by gas chromatography sniffers to ensure no product went astray. However, the laboratory technician analysed the product before the marker chemicals were added. She simply hid tiny quantities of Semtex 10 under her brightly coloured finger nails.

  The technician had refined the analysis of Semtex samples to a point where she could 'acquire' milligrams on each testing sequence. The weights of the original and returned sample, and small amount consumed in the testing, always balanced. It takes time, but a few milligrams per day add up to several grams per month and over the years to one-third of a kilogram. Her much younger lover had convinced her that the money earned from selling the explosive would guarantee their future. Needless to say it didn't. She had been abandoned as soon as she handed over the slab of explosive wrapped in a zip-lock bag. It was several months later when a business proposition called for it to be used about one thousand kilometres south of town. The bomb maker had assembled a neat package. Even in the dead of night it was easy to slit the yellow plastic cover of the horseshoe life buoy on the rear of the Blizbanci, cut out a rectangle of foam, secrete the lethal package and stick the flap back in place. It was a very generous payment for a few minutes’ work.

  The digital timer counted down to precisely two a.m.. It didn’t matter that the actual time on the small travel alarm was several minutes fast; the clock simply did what it was designed to do. At the designated time the alarm circuit was completed and a small pulse of electricity was created by the battery. It was sufficient to trigger the explosive charge in the detonator which, in turn, ignited the main explosive charge. The result was as spectacular as it was devastating. It was just what Petra had planned for and expected after she had listened to the recording of Jack and Sandro planning their trip to Trieste. She got rid of two, no three, birds with one stone.

  The horseshoe lifebuoy disintegrated into a fireball in a split second. It was at the centre of a massive destructive pressure wave that expanded outwards in all directions. The bottom quadrant of the expanding ball of pressure simply blew the stern off the Blizbanci. One moment the boat was motoring along sedately, the next the massive explosion blew off the rear of the boat. The pressure wave from the rear and upper quadrants faced little resistance. It bounced off the water surface and dissipated its power on the open air. However, the forward quadrant did face opposition, the structure of the boat itself. The pres
sure wave expanded across the rear deck. The sliding doors to the main saloon and cabins offered no opposition; they simply disappeared as the pressure wave swept onwards. It chased down narrow corridors and exerted huge pressure on every surface it met. Bulkheads collapsed, ceilings and decks were blown away. It was channelled between the twin hulls of the catamaran. The hulls deformed with the pressure and were forced apart. The structural members that tied the two hulls together were ripped apart as the two prows of the catamaran were squeezed together. The pressure wave continued its progress. It bounced off the water and vented its full force beneath the deck of the bridge that spanned the two hulls. The entire bridge was blown to smithereens, the captain and his mate with it. One moment they were whole human beings, the next they were bloody pulp as they were shredded by aluminium shrapnel, wooden splinters and plastic shards. Fuel tanks were ruptured and the diesel ignited in a secondary explosion. For the next few minutes the dark night was changed into an orange-tinted day.

  Jack was asleep in one of the port side cabins, flat out on his back in the middle of the single bunk. The blast moved the hull over more than two metres from its original position before it came to an abrupt halt, all in a fraction of a second. One moment Jack was on this bunk, the next he bounced off the bulkhead and was dumped on the deck. It was like the party trick with a table cloth, where the table cloth is ripped away leaving the cutlery and crockery standing. However, this time the entire bunk had moved leaving Jack to fall to the deck. He had been lucky. He had moved only a short distance before hitting the bulkhead and falling to the deck. The effect of the pressure wave had been dissipated but the partly collapsed hull had increased the air pressure inside the cabin. It was like a rapid underwater descent and Jack’s ears were instantaneously painful. Disorientated and with painful ears, Jack struggled to wake up and to swallow so as to equalise the pressure.