by Eric Meyer
"In that case, why does she travel with you?"
He looked mystified. "She is my wife. Who else would cook and clean for me, and share my bed?"
I saw Winter shudder. She wouldn't have made a good partner for Captain Nakos, not if he wanted to survive to the end of a voyage. It turned out that Elena Nakos was a similar size to Isra, and she was able to lend her one of her dresses and some underwear. Isra managed to persuade her to part with some make up, and after a couple of hours, she arrived on the bridge wearing a pretty floral print dress, clinched in at the waist with a wide belt. I saw the helmsman give her an appreciative glance.
"That's some woman."
I winced. "I'd be careful if I were you," I told him, "She's a good friend of ours."
"Is that right?"
"Yes," I affirmed. I was about to turn away when I saw him gaze at Isra again, and I didn't like the look he gave him, "Buddy, if I see you within three feet of her, I'll tear your head off."
"You looking out for her? Are you her father or something?"
That gave me pause for thought. Finally, I nodded. "Something like that."
* * *
SS Adriatic Ocean
The arrival of Isra altered our cabin arrangements. A single cabin would accommodate two at a pinch, but three was one too many. The Captain fixed up for Isra to share his cabin with his wife.
"It is the only way I can accommodate another female," he explained, "I have arranged for a temporary bed to be made up for me in the chart room. Besides, I could do with a break. All she ever does is moan. I don't know why. Two females together in my cabin," he shivered, "It doesn't bear thinking about. It’s really strange.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” I agreed.
I’d no idea how Isra would handle it, but that wasn’t my problem.
The Adriatic Ocean moved away from land, making top speed. Nakos told us proudly the engineer had ramped her up to thirteen miles an hour. I exchanged glances with Winter. I could see she felt like me. The ship appeared to be almost standing still. The Egyptian Navy could row after us and still overtake.
They didn’t come after us for some unfathomable reason. Maybe the guard commander of Alexandria owed money to the skipper of that police launch and preferred to let him drown. Maybe it was something else, a total screw up. I didn’t care. After fifteen tense minutes, Captain Nakos turned to me and announced, “We are now in International waters. We’re safe.”
I acknowledged and looked around us. The sea was almost empty, just the odd fishing boat, a large cargo vessel heading into Alexandria, nothing else. No naval vessels, no military aircraft. We’d made it.
I felt tired. Real tired, like a hundred years old. It had been a long time since either of us had slept properly, and I could see Winter was all in. The Captain saw my gaze and correctly interpreted it.
“You can rest. I will not do anything to harm you. The Agency pays me more money than the owner of this vessel, why would I betray them?”
After a moment’s thought, I left the bridge and went to the cabin. Winter followed me and watched as I started to settle myself on the rug.
“Why don’t you share the bed? I won’t eat you.”
“No, I guess you haven’t added cannibalism to your list of crimes,” I grinned, “I really could do with a soft mattress. The floor is solid steel.”
I kept my clothes on, even though they stank with sweat and accumulated grime, until she insisted otherwise.
“Schaeffer, you stink. Strip everything off and take a shower. You can sleep in your shorts. That shirt and pants are only good enough to ward off wild beasts.”
I followed her suggestion and enjoyed a ten-minute scrub in the tiny bathroom. I’d kept my shorts to one side, and when I emerged into the cabin, she’d rummaged amongst the first mate’s trunk and found me a creditable pair of olive-colored pants and a matching bush shirt.
“Get some sleep. You can put these on when you wake up. At least people will think you’re human and not some slavering beast from the wilds.”
I gave her a sharp glance. “Is that the way people see me?”
She was about to reply with a flippant comment, but then she saw I’d meant it seriously.
“Well, I, er…”
“That’s what I thought. The fucking Hunter Killer, last of a dying breed. You reckon they’ll lock me up in a box, ready for the next time they can wind me up and send me to kill their next target?”
“Schaeffer!”
“It’s true. I’ve been led by the nose, right from day one; from the time I left the military and became a private contractor. A hired gun, that’s what I was, and they’ve wound me up and steered me any which way they like ever since.”
“You had a choice when Brad called you.”
Her voice was sharp, but she was wrong.
“I had no choice. I’d bet they knew about that call long before I did and worked out how to handle me, and they used me. First Turner, to get me to kill Ghani Khan, and then…”
I had a sudden thought. “Turner and Jeffs. There has to be a connection somewhere.”
At least she had the grace to look shamefaced. “They’re cousins.”
“You knew all along?”
“Not what they planned, no. I helped Turner run the operation with Ghani Khan, but I didn't know the rest of it."
I felt like a knife was tearing through my guts, all the lies, and all the machinations, wheels within wheels. Brad, Manuel, Niall, all dead, and then Sabrina. I lay down on the berth, but sleep was out of the question. It's hard to fall asleep when everyone you loved is dead. Winter lay down beside me, and I recoiled. I felt her stiffen in dismay, and then her hand pulled me to her so I could feel the softness of her body. The softness I remembered from a long time ago, before she became the Iron Lady.
"Try to rest," she murmured, "We are on the same side, Schaeffer. I know we can't forget the past, but we don't need to relive it every hour of our lives."
My brain was working on a snappy reply, but it never got there. I began to relax, the warmth and the softness felt good. I remembered the odor of her, a faint musky scent mixed in with an expensive perfume I couldn't identify.
How do women manage it? We'd been to hell and back again, and yet somehow, she'd managed to make herself smell good. And then I slept. It was a time of nightmarish images, gunfire, bodies, and Sabrina calling out to me, 'Schaeffer, help me, please, help me.' I ran to reach her. She was at the top of a building and I was outside. I raced up the staircase, and at every level there was a snarling Arab with an AK-47 shooting at me. I hammered them with bursts of gunfire from my assault rifle and kept going, until I reached the floor below where Sabrina was still crying for help. Mullah Mukhtar stood there, his face twisted into a starling rictus of hate. He wore a suicide belt around his body, the canvas waistcoat with pockets sewn in to accommodate blocks of explosive. He had the detonator in his hand, and his thumb was poised over the button.
'It's too late, Schaeffer. I would never allow an infidel to go to her aid. We must all die. It is the will of the Prophet.'
I hit him with a long burst that stitched a line of holes through his head, but instead of dying, he laughed, a deep evil cackle. He looked at me through a mask of blood.
'You cannot win. I will see you in hell, Schaeffer.'
And then Sabrina appeared, running toward me. I reached for her, but before I got there Mukhtar somehow managed to decimate the vest, and everything disappeared in sheets of fire and smoke. My last recollection was of Sabrina blown out of the building and plummeting several stories to the ground. She was still screaming.
"What? What is it?"
Someone was shaking me, which was strange because I should have been dead. I found myself staring at Winter.
"Are you okay? You sounded as if you are having a nightmare."
"Something like that."
And then I shuddered and felt the overwhelming sense of loss. She felt it too, and I watched her strip off every stitch
of clothing and climb into bed with me, naked. I went to protest but she stopped me.
"I know how you feel, and this isn't what it looks like. You think you're tough, but inside you need a woman's touch."
"You think?"
"I know. All men do. Let me share some of the burden."
I let go. I was still exhausted but she had the right medicine. The touch of her, her odor, her obvious sadness and empathy took away the demons, and I dozed again, then fell into another sleep, but this time it was deep and dreamless. Once more, she woke me.
"What is it?"
"The ship is stopping. There may be a problem. I'll go find the Captain."
She put her clothes on and went to the door, but before she could open it, Nakos burst in.
"We may have a problem. We've been ordered to heave to by an Egyptian Navy frigate. I don't have any choice."
"What do we do?"
"Fortunately, we are prepared for this kind of situation. Come, we will find your friend, the girl who is sharing my cabin with my wife, and I will show you where you can hide."
I put on my clean clothes, and we followed him out. He knocked on the door of Isra's cabin.
"What is it?"
I smiled. It was the old Isra, immaculately dressed and made up, proud and confident.
"We have to hide. The Egyptian Navy is about to board the ship, and they'll be looking for us."
I saw Mrs. Nakos standing just inside the cabin, and there was something about her. A few hours with Isra, and instead of the mousey, downtrodden woman, she looked happier. Younger even. I wondered what they'd been up to in there.
"That's a pity, all those handsome young sailors," Elena Nakos giggled, and her husband gave her a stern glare, "but still, if we have to go, we must."
Isra joined us, and Captain Nakos led us down deep into the bowels of the ship. Next to the engine room, there was a low compartment, only four feet high. Nakos gestured for us to go inside.
"We use this when we carry extra ballast. Inside, there is a section of the ship's plating that looks to be the outer hull."
He had a waterproof flashlight and doubled over led the way into the cramped compartment. At the far end, he adjusted four of the heavy rivets that fastened the steel plate. Instead of being rigid, they turned easily. The rest of the rivets were dummies, and he lifted the 2' x 2' steel plate away to expose another compartment. This one was even lower, about three feet high and ten feet square.
"I'm sorry. It is cramped, but they will not find you in here."
He handed me the flashlight and I went in. The others followed, with Isra complaining bitterly about the dark discomfort. We ignored her, and Nakos refastened the plate. We were now sealed inside the very depths of the ship. Sealed, until such time as he decided to free us. If there was a time for a double-cross, it was now.
We were sealed inside the steel, airless tomb for four and a half hours. At one time, the searchers came into the ballast compartment, and we heard their boots on the steel plates over our heads. But they never discovered the concealed entrance, and we didn't need to disguise our relief when Nakos released us. He helped us out through the hatch and led the way back to the deck.
"They've gone. It's okay. They asked me about the problem at Alexandria, and I told them pirates hijacked the ship, but we managed to overcome them when we were out to sea and threw them overboard. They said they would look out for them on the way back, but I don't think they were too concerned."
It was a relief to have escaped, not least to Isra, who was still facing a heap of trouble for shooting up the Muslim Brotherhood back at Alexandria. While we were waiting in the secret compartment, he'd asked me if he was likely to face trouble for what he'd done. I tried to reassure him.
"The Egyptian Army is busy shooting up the Muslim Brotherhood right now, so I doubt a few bodies either way will make any difference."
"But what if there are elections, and the Brotherhood come back into power?"
"Then they'll be busy shooting their opponents. It's the way of the Islamic world."
"Maybe I should become a Christian," he mused.
"Maybe you should stay away from all of them," Winter said, her voice bitter, "We've all seen enough religious hatred to last a thousand lifetimes."
Isra didn't reply; a lapsed Muslim, he seemed shocked at the prospect of atheism, until I pointed out there was no evidence that atheists slaughtered their fellow man. Which could not be said of Islam.
Nakos invited us to eat with him that evening. He had a small dining area at the rear of the bridge. We were seated informally at the table, and yet already I could see an alliance forming between Isra and Mrs. Nakos. At least, they seemed very friendly. It crossed my mind that there were several possible scenarios with the two of them sharing the same cabin. I preferred not to dwell on any of them. If Nakos found out Isra was male, and even worse, up to no good with his wife, he'd likely throw him overboard. No man would put up with it, but Greeks have a certain reputation for savagery if they think their women have been interfered with. Nakos told us, with a deal of pride, that the meal was diced beef marinated in wine, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves, olive oil and cooked slowly. Some kind of Greek national dish, apparently. We hadn't eaten since the meal in the restaurant at Alexandria the night before, and we were able to do it more than justice.
I was starting to feel differently about Winter. I wouldn't say I'd regained my fondness for her, but at least I wasn't likely to see her face staring back at me when I looked through the sights of a rifle. She'd changed, in a number of ways. The Ice Maiden of Langley was melting, and a different girl was emerging. Warmer, more considerate, she'd obviously decided her employers were not the white knights she'd understood them to be. Far from it, they were capable of as much dishonesty and deceit as any other human being. The difference was they were sufficiently funded and equipped to practice their dark arts when they felt the need, which was all too often.
I guess I crossed the Rubicon at that meal. The moment came when Nakos offered the brandy after we'd finished eating. He smiled at me.
"You must try a glass of our Greek spirit. It starts out like a brandy, with a variety of distillates made from dry white wines from different parts of Greece. After periods of ageing in oak casks, the distillates are blended and mixed with a small amount of rich Muscat wine from the Greek Aegean Islands of Samos and Limnos. There are also herb and floral extracts used in the process. Even rose petals."
So far, I was managing to avoid the hard stuff. There were a number of reasons; not least of which was the need to keep a clear head until I'd finished what I planned to do. But it was more than that. I'd thrown away my life back at my shack in Rockport, Maine. Day after day, week after week, month after month of knocking back booze to help me forget. It was a strategy that many had applied in the past, and I guess they'd all found what I found. It didn't work. Sure, you can drink your stupid head off, and while your unconscious, you're out of it. And even when you're only halfway to oblivion, the booze appears to make your problems recede.
They always come back. Along with a head that's pounding as much as a vintage steam hammer. And there are other people, good friends from the past who need your help, like Brad Olsen. Maybe if I hadn't been so stupid and drunk, I'd have got there quicker and been able to help him. It was enough to make me disgusted with the way I'd lived for so many months after the terrible events in Afghanistan. The way I'd let my friends down, and let myself down. For a short time, I even considered whether a leaner, sharper, and faster Liam Schaeffer could have acted before the Fedayeen killed Sabrina. But I worked out the angles and the timings many times, until I knew I was punishing myself for nothing. Nothing could have saved her, short of a miracle, and miracles were in short supply on that day.
Winter was a different girl, and I felt drawn to her, just like I had so long ago when we'd become lovers for such a short time. In the end, I surrendered to the inevitable and we made love, and it was wonderful, almost a
cure for the devils inside my head. Almost. At the most tender moments, I still thought of Sabrina. We'd never gone further than a kiss, had never considered any kind of a future together. For me, it was almost a given; the relationship was so close that some things didn't need to be said.
On the other hand, I couldn't stop myself from wondering whether she'd known early on that she wasn't destined to survive. That the day would come when she'd have to pay the ultimate price in return for making her father pay. Not only for the way he'd treated her, but for every woman in the Islamic world who'd suffered because of men like him.
Isra and Elena Nakos were inseparable. They could often be seen walking the deck, arm in arm; two women, comfortable in each other's company, making light conversation to pass the time until we reached Marseille. Other times, they disappeared into their cabin, and I worried what would happen if Captain Nakos uncovered the truth about his wife's companion. I consoled myself that Isra demonstrated an ability to look after himself, so I tried to put it out of my mind. Winter and I speculated on the nature of their relationship, but that was all it remained. Speculation.
* * *
Marseille, France
Eight days after leaving Alexandria, we docked in Marseille. Dawn had just broken, and we passed the tiny islands a mile offshore before we entered the great harbor itself. The teeming port was crammed with ships of every description and from every continent on earth, and as the crew tossed the lines onshore, I felt sorry that our brief sojourn had ended. On board the ship, we'd been insulated from so many problems that still remained to be solved before I could go home and hang up my guns. I stood at the rail, watching dockworkers maneuvering forklift trucks between huge piles of heavy wooden crates. After everything we'd been through, this simple scene, men going about their everyday work, instead of indulging in orgies of bloodletting and killing, seemed almost alien. I sensed a presence. Winter came alongside me and slipped her arm in mine.