by Sean Blaise
"She did not know. This is very last minute. I'm sure we can prepare a bed for him, yes?" Alexi asked.
"Absolutely, sir, I will wake Ingrid immediately."
"No, never mind waking her. He will be fine in the starboard guest cabin and will tend to himself during the trip."
"Very well," John said quietly.
It seemed that Alexi wanted to say something further, so John stayed seated. Alexi looked very pensive, like something was bothering him.
"How is our security, John?"
John paused, unsure of what to say. Alexi and John had disagreed over having guns on board the vessel. John wanted them, and Alexi didn't. Alexi's point was practical mostly, when yachts clear in and out of foreign ports, there are often local laws against gun ownership onboard. And when a yacht traveled as much as the Ivana, it would be quite a hassle to have to deal with the local authorities regarding the weapons at every stop.
However, in John's mind, there was a fine line between convenience and being secure. Here in the Middle East, John wanted the weapons plain and simple. It was one thing to not be armed in the Caribbean, but a totally different thing in this part of the world. Ultimately, Alexi's opinion had won out.
"As well as can be expected, without guns," John said.
"Ah, yes, very well. You know we have reasons for not being armed. It would, how do you say, send the wrong message, if a rich Russian carried Kalashnikovs on board, no?"
"We should be well off the coast tomorrow. I believe Captain Brown has made it around eighty nautical miles from coastal Somalia; so we should be fine, sir."
"Very well. Good night, John," Alexi said dismissing the young officer.
Chapter 3
Abdul rested on the back deck of the Somali speedboat, smoking as the boat rolled lazily beneath him. It was ten weeks to the day exactly that he had been offered this job. Abdul remembered being invited to an unknown Saudi Sheikh's house. Abdul had no idea who the Sheikh was, just that he was summoned for a possible business transaction. That had been more than enough incentive for Abdul.
Abdul hadn't been afraid of an ambush or getting killed. One of the advantages of having his reputation was that no one in their right mind would attempt to cross him. Abdul had no illusions about a client's loyalty to him, there was none. He was paid to be completely and utterly expendable. Dependable and expendable _ that's what the clients wanted.
Abdul recalled walking into a large house on the outskirts of a neighborhood in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for that meeting. The house was a large, ornate mansion with massive, green gates, covered in traditional Arabic calligraphy. Abdul recognized some of the passages carved into the gate as having come from the Koran, but he couldn't remember what verse they were from. Abdul was hardly religious.
Although his business was predominately Middle Eastern, with the occasional mob job thrown in every few years, Abdul had little tolerance for religious rhetoric. It wasn't that he minded talking about Islam so much, as it was that he just didn't care. He didn't care why his clients needed what they needed. He just wanted their money.
In his long history of being a hired gun, he had found that his Middle Eastern clients almost always felt the need to justify to him why they were taking the actions they were taking against their enemies. It was as if his clients felt that he was their confessor, as well as their handy man whose job it was to murder their enemies. It was a sham, and both Abdul and the clients knew it. The things he had been asked to do, were because of greed, it was a simple as that. Religion had nothing to do with it.
That's why Abdul had always preferred working for the Russians. The Russians knew how to party and do business. Money and only money was their God. Just like him.
As he walked up the steps to the mansion, Abdul had a dreadful feeling that this was going to be a long, drawn-out event. The inside of the house was completely dressed out in traditional Bedouin decorations, with thick rugs and lamps mimicking the tents that the Saudis had lived in for thousands of years in the deserts. The owner had ironically spent millions to make his mansion look like a tent. Abdul despised such hypocrites.
The Pakistani butler led him to a heavy metal door leading to a cellar. A large bodyguard was standing in front of the door and he looked undecided about whether or not he would move and let Abdul pass. Finally, he seemed to make up his mind and he stepped aside and opened the door. Abdul was liking this less and less.
The stone steps to the basement looked cold and just recently swept. Not that it mattered much, as there was still fine dust everywhere. No matter how nice the house, keeping out desert dust was as futile as pissing in the wind. The dust would always get in.
At the bottom of the steps yet another door stood fast. Abdul opened it slowly. The room was brilliantly lit. It took a moment for Abdul's eyes to adjust from the dark stairs. There were several men in the room, mostly older, with a particularly young man working a camera. Abdul knew what this was instantly. An execution.
The prisoner was a young man, perhaps in his mid-twenties. He was hog-tied with some kind of traditional twine, that ran from both his ankles to his bent wrists that were wedged unnaturally behind his back. The room reeked of urine and fear. The man's eyes were wild with panic. He knew he was going to die, and most likely he had known it for some time.
What must that be like? Abdul wondered.
The young man squirmed relentlessly on the ground, like a large earthworm, wriggling to escape his fate. But his fate seemed to rest in the fat foot of a large bellied man, who was standing over the boy. The man wore the typical ghutra, worn by Middle Eastern men which covered what appeared to be a fleshy face. In his hand he held a nasty Arabic dagger, the same type Abdul always carried, with more jewels. The dagger alone was probably worth more than Abdul's Mercedes back in Egypt. It gleamed ominously in the room; its sharp edge hungry for blood.
The man with the knife was screaming in Arabic, with the same old, tired speech railing against the Western world. His desires and complaints were boring to Abdul. He had heard them all before. Abdul wondered whether or not all Islamic extremists got the same talking points from some big Middle Eastern PR firm.
The boy's head came off with surprising ease. The knife seemed to open a seam in the boy's neck that gushed hot, red blood onto the cold stone floor. The boy shook violently, twitching and yearning to get free, but he was already dying. Once his windpipe was severed there was a strange wheezing and bubbly sound as the boy’s lungs continued to pump in and out like an accordion, pushing and sucking the air through his severed neck. The fat man continued to saw at the boy's neck slowly, seemingly savoring the moment in some sick trance. He finally reached the spine and sliced through it with a crunch that sounded like gravel underneath heavy shoes. The dead man's eyes kept blinking wildly, and he caught Abdul's eyes for a moment. Abdul had seen the look before. He had seen it when he killed men, when he stole their lives away from them.
The Sheikh finished severing the man's head and placed it proudly on the man’s back between his own shoulder blades. He said a few more words in Arabic about traitors and such, and then he told the cameraman to shut it off. The boy operating the camera turned it off then quickly ran over to the corner of the room and threw up. Clearly, he had never seen a head come off before. Abdul had to admit it was a first for him too.
The Sheikh wiped his bloody hands on his white robe and walked over to Abdul, a huge smile on his fat face.
"Welcome, brother, peace be upon you," he said to Abdul sticking out his bloody palm as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Thank you, sir," Abdul replied quickly.
The meeting had proceeded painfully slowly after that. There had been mint tea, which Abdul hated, and typical Arab dates and dishes served while the host proceeded to explain in lengthy detail about the religious motivations for his every action in life. Apparently, this Sheikh considered himself quite the moral and attentive Muslim, which, no doubt, the dead man in the basement woul
d disagree with.
The Sheikh also had what Abdul thought was a pretty questionable idea of right and wrong. Whenever the Sheikh lost in business to a Western power, he deemed it an attack on Islam and tried to right the wrong. Whenever the Sheikh lost a deal he reacted like the ultimate sore loser and tried to attack whoever beat him.
The topic of conversation finally came around the point of the meeting. Some Russian tycoon named Alexi Popovich was planning a takeover of a rival oil company refinery in Yemen.
"An Arab oil company should never be owned by an infidel pig," the Sheikh shouted.
"Of course not,” Abdul said with a glaring lack of enthusiasm.
“Mr. Popovich is set to receive a case in Monaco; this case is extremely important to our cause. Do you understand?”
“What is it?”
“That is unimportant. I want you to go to Monaco and get the case before he does and kill the Russian. Your contact is Mr. Dubois,” the Sheikh said.
Abdul nodded. Seemed simple enough. Monaco sounded like fun, Abdul thought.
Chapter 4
A black Mercedes pulled up quietly on the dock alongside the Ivana. A man in a dark suit exited swiftly and made his way up the gangway to the port door. He punched in the predetermined key code on the security pad and scanned his right thumbprint on the scanner by the door. All of the yacht's crew were asleep and the eighty-six million dollar yacht had only the best security money could buy. Once his identity was verified the airtight door pushed opened with a hiss. He walked quickly through the door, and headed to his cabin as quietly as possible, trying not to let the chain on his wrist bang against the case.
"Welcome, Dmitry," Alexi said, as he turned on the lamp next to the couch he was sitting in.
"Alexi, I did not expect you to be up," Dmitry replied quietly.
"Something as important as this? How could I sleep? How did it go?".
Dmitry lifted his left arm with a smile, showing the case handcuffed to his wrist.
"Very well, Alexi.”
"And Mr. Dubois?"
"Dead."
"By whom?" Alexi asked.
"I am unsure. He was killed right after I left."
"Do you think he talked?" Alexi asked with more force.
"I do not know; I was being followed. I had to make my escape.”
"And the money?" Alexi asked.
"I gave it to Dubois as agreed once the information was received and verified."
"We must assume he talked so we can't delay. Take the case to my vault. We leave at once."
Dmitry walked towards the master suite and the vault when Alexi called after him.
"And, Dmitry? Say nothing of this to my crew. They know nothing and it must remain that way."
Alexi retrieved the boat phone from the end table next to his chair. He dialed the simple one-digit number of the captain's cabin. Captain Al Brown had the phone cradled next to his ear by the second ring.
"Hello sir," Captain Brown said attempting to clear the grogginess from his voice.
"My friend, I know it is early, but I would like to get underway as soon as possible. My schedule has changed."
"Roger, sir, we'll be underway in less than an hour. Is our destination the same?"
"Yes, captain, Tahiti. The sooner we get there and begin the search the better.”
Captain Brown quickly hung up the phone and pressed a brass button by his dresser. Six floors below Captain Brown’s cabin on the bridge of the ship, a bell went off once in Chief Officer John Otter's cabin. He knew the meaning immediately, and five minutes later he was out the door.
He knocked quickly at Chief Engineer Jean Michelle’s cabin. Jean was a cantankerous Frenchman, who had rules on how he was to be woken up, how coffee was made, and just about everything else. He felt obligated to share his view on everything, which was typically dished out in condescending and pedantic tones regarding American thinking, life, and politics. He was rarely easy to deal with, and one of John's biggest pains in the ass. But he was so talented with a wrench, that he was able to fix any and all systems aboard the highly complex Ivana. And since the boat was built in France, he was also the only person on board who could read the ships technical diagrams. He was also so anal retentive that he had every part, for everything on board, in reserves. They had gone for over 6 months before Jean had requested to order anything through John. John had never experienced such unbelievable attention to detail before. Jean was someone the vessel just simply could not live without. And, although he hated to admit it, John actually liked the prick.
"Wat eeez it?" Jean called grumpily through the door.
"We're getting underway. Fire up the mains," John replied.
"Of course, I must, otherwise how could you get underway?" came the sardonic reply.
Wonderful, John thought moving on, Jean is going to be a bucket of joy today. Swiftly he moved on to his second officer's cabin. Sweeney as he was simply known, was John's brother in every sense of the word. They had worked together for years on various boats and he was, without a doubt, John's right-hand man. Sweeney could be relied upon to run the deck on a day-to-day basis, while John handled some of the multitudes of paperwork that Captain Brown loved to drop on his desk.
"Gonna be you one day, son. Better get used to flexing that wrist instead of them biceps kid!" Captain Brown loved to remind him daily.
Ingrid was already coming out of her cabin. John swore that woman never slept. She was the chief stewardess of the vessel and, therefore, in charge of life on board. Beneath her were four girls tasked with the job of keeping the vessel tidy, operational, and livable. Ingrid was a stunning example of Eastern beauty _ her Russian accent was thick, her bones were chiseled, and her eyes had the icy hue of a glacier.
She also had a rough sense of humor. John, who was well known to be the light-hearted leader, sometimes found his humorous anecdotes falling flat on her Russian ears.
Ingrid was in her mid-thirties, John surmised, though he never had any real confirmation. She was almost robotic in her efficiency and worked like a hired slave. As Alexi's personal assistant, amongst her other duties on board, she was trusted with any information. She had worked aboard the Ivana since its construction, as well as on all his previous seven yachts. She was difficult and set in her ways, and disliked John's new ideas. They butted heads quite often. But she was careful to always maintain her composure. One thing you could say about Ingrid, she was always perfectly composed.
Her relationship with Alexi had always struck John as odd. It was almost a slave and master-type relationship, although he could sense real affection from Alexi toward her. And she practically worshipped the ground he walked on. There was history there, but no one ever spoke of it. John had the distinct impression that at some point in the past, Alexi had done a great favor for Ingrid, and she owed him forever for it. John had no doubt, that Ingrid would jump in front of a bullet for Alexi.
She gave John a brief cold smile and then began banging loudly on the doors of her stewardesses to wake them up. She was a brutal taskmaster and John, on more than one occasion, had to put out the fires that Ingrid's rough leadership created. In his three years onboard, he had seen each of the girls reduced to tears on at least ten different occasions.
Chapter 5
Ingrid and John had also slept together once. After Alexi had left for a prolonged business trip in New York, the rest of the crew had gone out to let off a little steam. John had been unlucky enough to have to stand watch that evening; so, he was forced to remain on board the Ivana. Ingrid had chosen to stay behind and finish up her accounting paperwork. The stewardesses had not fought hard to have their overbearing boss out that night. And none of the other crew ever tried to get Ingrid to do anything she was opposed to.
Shortly after the crew had left, John was on the bridge, sipping a rum and coke and wishing he was out partying with the rest of the crew. The vessel was secure and having one drink was never against the rules when tied to the dock. John had
barely had a sip of his drink when Ingrid had called him below to the crew quarters on the vessel’s intercom to go over receipts. John rolled his eyes. The woman never rested he had thought sourly.
John remembered hopping in the elevator and heading down the six floors to the crew mess area. He noticed Ingrid sitting in front of her laptop, working away furiously on that month’s sizable expense report. She had on librarian glasses that ignited every male fantasy, and an unusually low-cut top. John walked over beside her and tried to make sense of the receipt. While looking at the receipt, which had unfortunately been partially erased away in his work pants pocket, he caught a glimpse of Ingrid's creamy breasts through her low-cut top. They swayed when she typed, and he found the sight incredibly arousing.
Ingrid, having that timeless female instinct, sensed the predatory assault his eyes were committing and looked up at him. Her stare was cold, and he quickly looked away flushed. He dropped down to the chair across from Ingrid and laboriously looked over the receipt, attempting to avert his attention away from the stare of a seemingly furious Ingrid. He felt her eyes bore holes into him and he progressively became more and more uncomfortable. Finally, the silence became so unbearable that John looked up at Ingrid. The cold blue eyes gave him a chill, like an icicle being dropped down the back of his shirt.
"Um…I think it was for paint,” he stammered as quickly as possible pointing to the receipt.
What happened next shocked him. Her blue eyes became almost red. She had grabbed him roughly and led him to her cabin, like a frightened schoolboy losing his virginity. Even though John was more than experienced, Ingrid had controlled the entire evening. It was like a dam that was unleashed, and she was ravenous. Ingrid had been anything but frigid between the sheets. John smiled fondly at the memory of how sore he had been the next day. They had humped like teenagers.