by D. B. Goodin
Jet grimaced as she moved around the cabin. The pain in her left arm was constant. She made her way toward a narrow hallway near the back of the vessel. As she was leaving, she heard the doctor ordering lunch. Her stomach growled at the thought of eating. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d last eaten. There were some rooms on both sides of the narrow hallway. She had to grab hold of the handrails attached to the walls for support. The boat rocked, but not as roughly as before. She reached the end of an open hallway, and there was a door to the left with a restroom sign on it. Seymour stepped out, and his eyes darted in several directions.
“Please,” Seymour said as he kept the door open for Jet.
You are not a gentleman. Who the hell do you think you’re kidding? Jet thought.
Just as she attempted to enter the small bathroom, a large wave crashed against the vessel. A spray of seawater hit Jet and Seymour and, as she looked out toward the water, a dark gray sky loomed overhead. She shivered as the combination of the cool air and cold water hit her skin.
Seymour grabbed Jet’s bad arm, and she backhanded him with her good arm.
“Ahh, that hurt,” Seymour said as he touched the tender area where Jet had struck him. He continued to stare at her until she shut the door.
Several minutes later, Jet rejoined Dr. Randy.
“I was getting worried, but there are few places to get lost here,” Dr. Randy said, chuckling. “Have a seat, my dear.” He pointed at a place setting opposite from where he was seated. A block of cheese, crackers, and an assortment of fruit lay before her on a platter. The food moved a bit at the boat rocked. Jet picked up the small knife next to the block of cheese and paused for a moment. The weight of the knife felt good in her hands. She cut a small piece of cheddar and then placed the knife back next to the cheese. Need to wait for the right moment, Jet thought.
“Where are you taking me?” Jet asked the doctor. She tried to remain calm. She pushed down her anxiety and tried focusing on other things, like the food.
“To meet the Sultan.”
“Who is that?”
“Oh, forgive me. I forgot that you haven’t been properly briefed. Every year, the Sultan selects two women for his harem. This year, he made an exception: he picked a third. You.”
Don’t I feel honored!
Dr. Randy’s smile widened, and Jet got an uneasy feeling. She didn’t want to press her luck by trying to escape; that would have to come later.
The boat rocked, and the half-eaten platter slid across the table, spilling over. Several young servants came in to pick up the cheese, fallen cups, glasses, and silverware. Jet glimpsed something shiny on the floor.
“Time to secure you again,” Dr. Randy said.
“I don’t want to be tied up!”
“I’m sorry. It’s for your own protection.”
Jet got up and made a run for the open door. Dr. Randy stopped her well before she got there. He proceeded to tie her up again, this time to the chair that she was sitting in.
“This will only be for a short while, I promise.”
Jet’s eyes filled with tears. She gave Dr. Randy a pleading look.
“I’m so sorry, my dear.” Dr. Randy looked at Jet for a long moment. “It’s for your safety,” he repeated.
Dr. Randy left Jet to her own thoughts.
Jet rocked back and forth, but the chair would not budge. The chair must be fastened to the floor, Jet thought.
Several minutes later, Seymour reentered the cabin. He seemed unaffected by the constant rocking of the boat. He squatted down beside her and stroked her hair again. “You do remind me of my daughter. She was so lovely. I miss her,” Seymour said.
“What happened to her?” Jet asked.
Seymour didn’t speak for a very long time.
“She had an accident. I tried to help her.”
Seymour untied Jet’s right hand—her good hand. He placed it on his face, closed his eyes, and then groaned.
What the hell is the matter with this guy?
She was about to pull her hand away when she saw a glint of something out of the corner of her eye; it was the knife that had dropped during the servant’s hurry to get the table cleared before the storm. It was less than two feet away, but she would need to bend down to pick it up. Seymour suddenly placed her hand over his mouth and kissed it. Jet pulled her hand back in disgust. Seymour grabbed it again—hard. Jet head-butted him as hard as she could.
“Argh! You bitch,” Seymour said, staggering back.
Jet reached for the knife, but the blade was just an inch or two short of reaching her hand. She wiggled her body, trying to gain just another inch. Her finger touched the tip of the blade, and she moved the knife toward her. Seymour regained his footing, and then lunged for her.
Jet let out a scream. Seymour slapped Jet, then put his hand over her mouth. She opened her mouth then bit down on the fleshy portion of his palm.
“Argh!” Seymour called out in pain, backing away and examining his hand. In a sudden, quick motion, she straightened her arm as far as she could and grabbed the knife by the blade. Seymour grabbed her by the throat, choking her. Jet coughed. She realized that she had the knife in her hands and, with a thrusting motion, she lunged at Seymour’s throat, feeling it hit its mark. He smacked her. Jet started flailing the knife in random, short, stabbing motions. Seymour grasped at his throat then left the room.
I must have hit a nerve. Good! Jet thought.
Chapter 9
Dr. Rogers entered the room. Nigel, and Ralphie was sitting next to Ellen. Natasha, and John sat nearby. Cassidy, and Milo were sitting on an unoccupied bed. “I’m afraid the accident caused several internal injuries, including a collapsed lung. We cannot stop the internal bleeding, so we have no choice but to operate,” Dr. Rogers said.
Ralphie’s lower lip quivered. He was on the verge of tears. Natasha did her best to comfort him.
“Since Ellen is unconscious, and her children are minors, I need you to sign the paperwork,” Dr. Rogers said, looking at Natasha.
“Of course.”
“I don’t have your name written anywhere.”
“It’s Gretchen—Gretchen Appleton,” Natasha blurted. John Appleton raised an eyebrow. Dr. Rogers handed her the paperwork to sign.
“We will prep Ellen for immediate surgery. The boys are welcome to stay in the room next to their mother’s. It is unoccupied,” Dr. Rogers said.
Cassidy’s phone began chirping. Soon after, Nigel’s phone joined in.
“Nige, I think I found her,” Cassidy said. Nigel jumped up and looked at his phone. The alerts from the Find Friends app that Jet and Cassidy had installed and configured paid off.
Cassidy held her phone out for Nigel to examine. After a few taps, he could verify that the location was correct.
“It looks like Jet is in Newfoundland, around the St. Pierre and Miquelon area.” Nigel said, frowning.
Natasha gave Nigel a cold look. “What do you mean? I thought she was working with you two.”
Nigel couldn’t say anything, and his voice modulator device had nothing to do with it. He hoped that Jet’s cell phone was in a spot where it could locate her more precisely. He was worried. It had been several days since she’d vanished on the night of his mother’s accident. And according to this app, she was far away in an unusual location.
He took out his laptop and connected his external antenna that allowed him to boost his weak Wi-Fi signal. Nigel examined the logs from the Find Friends app. The last US location reported was the Newport docks. After he secured his connection, he pulled his ShowALLD scan results from cameras at the Newport docks. A few short minutes later, he could see an image of the Newport harbor. Nigel reviewed the scan results from ShowALLD.
“There are three cameras in the Newport harbor. Two have vulnerable patch levels, and it appears that these cameras haven’t been updated in a long time,” Nigel said to no one in particular.
Nigel opened another terminal
window. He was in the zone. He found the correct exploit and ran a Datasploit reverse shell, which gave him terminal access directly to the servers controlling the cameras. Several minutes later, Nigel was viewing camera footage minutes before Jet’s phone went offline. As Nigel reviewed the video footage, his blood went cold. Four men were carrying what appeared to be a wooden box; then they almost lost their footing. It was almost as if something heavy had shifted inside the box. A fifth man, dressed in a suit, was overlooking the transfer. After Nigel accessed another vulnerable camera, he was able to view the same footage from another angle. Some of the men appeared to be Middle Eastern. He showed the footage to Natasha and John.
“I think I know who has her,” John Appleton said.
“Who?” Nigel and Cassidy asked almost in unison.
“I believe the Taker has her. If that is true, then she is probably long gone,” John said. “The Taker not only kidnaps his victims—he also methodically researches and matches them.”
“Matches them with whom?” Nigel asked.
“He keeps a detailed dossier of each person he profiles. His modus operandi in past cases suggests that he sells his victims to the highest bidder. Last year, we had to let him go due to the lack of direct evidence. He was in the Washington, DC, metro area when several kidnappings occurred there, but we couldn’t link any of the evidence to him.”
“What’s his name?” Natasha said.
“Seymour Willis.”
“We should probably perform our own investigation,” Natasha said grimly.
“I’m already on it,” Nigel said.
Nigel turned his laptop screen so Natasha and John could see it.
“I found nothing on the surface web, but I did get some photos online, so I ran a reverse image search of the driver’s license photo I found for Seymour,” Nigel said.
“What did you find?” Natasha said.
“A news story about his daughter’s death. The police ruled it an accident.”
“That was in the file, but we didn’t find that relevant to the kidnappings,” John said.
I wonder about that, Nigel thought.
“We know where she is, Agent Appleton,” Cassidy said, while looking at her phone.
“Where?” John asked.
“Her phone pinged in eastern Canada.”
“I have a friend in Interpol. Perhaps he can help,” John said.
“Can you enhance the driver’s license image?” Natasha asked.
Nigel tried rendering the image with higher-quality settings.
“This is the best I can do,” he said after a few minutes.
Natasha took a picture of his screen with her phone. “I’m sending this to Collective Systems,” she said. “Where the FBI fails, we deliver!”
Several hours later, Dr. Rogers approached Natasha near the coffee machine.
“The operation was a success,” he said.
Natasha felt relieved.
“She will need to stay at the hospital for several days for observation, but I expect her to be discharged after that. In time, she should make a full recovery.” Dr. Rogers smiled as he delivered the news.
“Thank you, doctor,” Natasha said.
John Appleton had put an arm around Natasha; she allowed it because she was playing a part. As soon as Dr. Rogers was out of sight, she shunned his affection.
“We need to wake the boys,” Natasha said. She knew that Nigel and Ralphie were due some positivity right now.
Natasha entered the room next door to Ellen’s, where the boys were sleeping. Nigel was awake, looking out of the window. Natasha put a hand on Ralphie’s shoulder. He stirred and sat straight up when he saw Natasha.
“Can we see her now?” Ralphie asked.
“Not yet, sweetheart, but soon.”
John led Milo and Cassidy into the room to share in the good news.
Rick Watson was sound asleep next to his girlfriend Julia. A few hours earlier they got home from the long drive from Miami’s south beach.
“The damn phone is ringing again,” Julia said.
The phone stopped. Seconds later, it restarted.
“Rick, it’s your phone again. Someone must really want you.”
Rick moaned. It had been a long, fun night. Why was the damn phone ringing this much?
“Damn, is someone dead?” Julia said.
“Someone better be,” Rick said as he got up.
It was Mr. Tage.
“Yeah,” Rick answered, “what do you want at this hour?”
“Good morning, my boy. I thought I would be the first to tell you the good news.”
“What news?”
“Your ex-wife is in the hospital,” Mr. Tage said.
Why is he so . . . cheery about telling me? Rick wondered.
Rick got up and stepped into the next room. The less Julia knows about my former life, the better.
“Wha . . . Ellie?” he said in a whisper. “What happened?”
“She was in a bad accident. She’s at the hospital now. I’m afraid that she is in bad shape, and the doctors are not sure if she will recover. She might have to relinquish custody of your two boys. Isn’t that what you wanted?” Mr. Tage said.
“I . . . didn’t want her injured. Sure, I want the boys to come live with me, but not like this,” Rick said.
“You need to seize the opportunity, my boy. You can’t let this woman run your life forever,” Mr. Tage said.
Rick looked at his watch.
“I need to check on flights to EIA from Tampa. I can probably be at the airport in an hour. I will book the next flight,” Rick said.
“You going somewhere?” Julia said, walking into the room with him.
“I . . . need to leave for a business trip,” Rick replied, looking away.
“Really? I didn’t think that accountants needed to travel on short notice.”
Damn, she has me there!
“Err . . . my company just acquired one of our competitors. They need help with due diligence.”
“Oh,” Julie said, heading back to bed to get more sleep.
“The next flight leaves in ninety minutes. I suggest you be on it. It is rumored that EIA is going to close due to the weather,” Mr. Tage said.
Rick hadn’t worried much about the weather since moving to Tampa with his mistress.
Where is my jacket, anyway?
“I’m leaving now,” he told Mr. Tage.
Natasha watched the rising sun from the hospital window; it looked so pretty cresting over the ridge. She’d enjoyed sunrises since she was a girl, and held fond memories of many since. This dawn reminded Natasha how beautiful the sun looked rising above the Motherland Memorial in Kyiv. It gave her hope.
“Hello, wife.”
Natasha knew that voice behind her. It was John Appleton.
“You realize that you played your part already?” Natasha said.
“I thought I would continue, at least until Ellen is out of the woods.”
He put his hands on Natasha’s shoulders.
She turned and gave him a cold glare.
“Let’s check on Ellen,” Natasha said as she left the room.
Natasha noticed that the hospital hallway was a little too silent for her liking; she had a bad feeling. She continued down the hallway until she reached Ellen’s room. No change—Ellen was resting.
Natasha went next door to check on the boys. Ralphie was asleep. Nigel was sitting in an uncomfortable-looking chair in the corner, working on his laptop.
“What you working on?” Natasha asked.
“I’ve been replaying the video from the surveillance cameras, looking for clues. I did another perimeter sweep. Found another camera positioned to look down the dock, away from the boat,” Nigel explained.
“Were you able to find anything useful?” Natasha asked.
“I found flaws in its firmware, so now I have access. The only interesting finding was the van the box came out of.”
“Why was it interesting?”
“I could get a partial license plate number. A quick check of DMV records—” Nigel paused. “Don’t ask me how easy it was to get into that system!”
Natasha smiled.
Nigel continued, “The partial plate revealed that the van belongs to a company called West Sand Holdings. I checked all known company databases, and no such company exists in the US. But I found one in Morocco.”
Natasha frowned. What does this mean? Nigel’s excited about it, so it’s worth a deeper dive, Natasha thought.
“Any more information about the Taker?” Nigel asked.
It impressed Natasha that Nigel could remember such details, despite all the physical and emotional stresses he had been under these past weeks.
“Not yet—”
A loud rap on the door interrupted her train of thought. It was Dr. Rogers. Ralphie stirred, but went back to sleep.
“Sorry to interrupt, Gretchen. Do you have a moment to talk?”
Dr. Rogers gave Natasha a “follow me” gesture. She followed him down the hall.
“I didn’t want the children to get alarmed.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Ellen, your sister isn’t regaining consciousness, so we ran an EEG; it’s standard procedure, the test is painless, and . . .” The doctor licked his lips.
What is he hiding?
“What’s wrong?” Natasha said, more forcefully than she had intended.
“She reacted violently to the tests. Do you know if your sister has epilepsy?”
The question surprised Natasha, and she couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Gretchen?” Dr. Rogers said.
Natasha snapped out of it, but she was so tired. When was the last time I slept?
“No, I don’t think she has that.”
“We stopped the test as a precaution, but an EEG is effective at diagnosing brain disorders,” Dr. Rogers said.
“We couldn’t find you, so we did some checking and found a phone number for a Rick Watson—”
“Did you call him?” Natasha said, cutting Dr. Rogers off.