Destination, Wedding!

by Xavier Mayne

  “Mr. Ramavastava—Ankur—do you know why you are here?”

  Ankur swallowed visibly. “Mr. Rutherford said something has been stolen.”

  “Now, Ankur, I know you’ve spent the night in this suite for the last three nights.”

  A stifled cry made Ankur’s distress apparent to everyone in the room. He nodded, tears running freely down his cheeks.

  “Have you, during that time, noticed anyone or anything unusual, either in the room or in the hallways?”

  Ankur’s surprise was evident, as if he’d been expecting an accusation rather than a question. He gaped at Lyndon, an expression mimicked precisely by Sandler.

  Lyndon chuckled warmly. “You look as though I were going to have you brought up on sodomy charges and given forty lashes at sunrise. Come now. We’re all adults here.”

  “So Ankur’s not in trouble for spending the night here?” Sandler asked.

  “No,” Lyndon replied. “We don’t encourage such behavior, of course, but neither do we punish it. That Ankur was discreet speaks well to his character. We have had some young seamen who seem to relish gossiping about their relations with passengers more than they do the relations themselves. We quickly suggested other employment for them, off the ship.”

  “But is Ankur still under suspicion?” Donnelly asked.

  “Not any longer. While we’ve been talking, my staff has been reviewing the security footage in detail, and they have updated me on their findings,” he said, tapping his ear, from which a coiled wire could be seen running from a device in his ear down the back of his dress uniform. “They have observed that upon leaving this suite, Ankur made his way directly to the upholstery shop, where he deposited the cushion. The cushion has been examined, and there was nothing secreted inside it. We have also confirmed that upon leaving the shop, he went immediately to breakfast, where Mr. Rutherford found him. I have no evidence whatsoever that links Ankur to the theft.”

  Ankur very nearly collapsed upon hearing this news, and Sandler joined him on the couch, putting his arm around the trembling man.

  “However, we may yet have questions for you, young man, relating to this case. In the meantime, I ask that you not mention the theft to anyone, crew or passenger. I’d like to have some time to gather information before this becomes widely known.”

  “Of course, sir,” Ankur assured him.

  “If I may ask the same of you, Mr. Birkin? Mr. Donnelly?”

  “Yes, of course,” Donnelly said, while Sandler winced a bit.

  “I will have to let the protocol officer know,” Sandler said. “Losing a pouch is a pretty big deal.”

  Lyndon nodded. “Of course.” He pulled a card out of his shirt pocket and wrote a number on it. “He’s in this cabin,” he said as he handed Sandler the card. “The ship’s operator will connect you.”

  “Thank you,” Sandler said with a sigh. “This is going to be a tough call to make.”

  “Please assure him that while I acknowledge that this is an unfortunate situation, I have every confidence that we will resolve the matter before we arrive in England.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do your best,” Sandler said, shaking Lyndon’s hand.

  “We shall, sir. We shall.” Lyndon shook Donnelly’s hand as well. He strode purposefully from the room, followed by Rutherford, who bowed to the men before walking backward out the door.

  “I am so sorry,” Ankur blurted, his voice a tremulous wail.

  Sandler wrapped both arms around him and held him close. “Shh. You have nothing to be sorry for. I know you weren’t involved in this.”

  Sandler’s assurance seemed only to unleash greater desolation in Ankur, who dissolved into sobs on his shoulder. They sat, entwined, for several long moments.

  Finally, as Donnelly poured his third cup of coffee—trying to focus on the view out the window rather than on the canoodling couple—Ankur disentangled himself from Sandler’s embrace and wiped his cheeks. “I must be getting to work,” he said sadly.

  “And I must as well,” Sandler replied. “I need to start asking some subtle questions of my colleagues in the diplomatic service. It’s all very well for Lyndon to wish for silence, but no one gossips with such ruthless efficiency as diplomats do. Word of the theft will be all over the ship by noon.”

  “Then we should get out there and make some inquiries before it becomes common knowledge,” Donnelly said.

  “Will I see you again?” Ankur asked, his voice small and a bit hopeless.

  “Of course you will,” Sandler replied. “We’ll meet at the usual. I’m not going to let anything as trivial as a treaty violation come between us.”

  Ankur smiled, sweet and innocent, and Sandler kissed him delicately on the nose.

  “Until tonight,” Ankur said as he stepped to the door. He let himself out and shut the door behind him.

  “Well, this has been quite a morning,” Sandler said once Ankur had gone.

  “And we have more ahead,” Donnelly replied. “Gonna grab a shower before we head out?”

  “Is that a hint?” Sandler asked, deadpan, as he sniffed his armpit.

  “Of course not. I just thought you might want to freshen up before we go talk to all of the ambassadors. Is what I’m wearing okay?”

  Sandler laughed. “You’re fine—we’re not being presented at court. Diplomats love the frippery and pomp of protocol, but once they’re off the clock, they’re pretty much regular people. From what I’ve seen, they’ve been treating this trip like a vacation, drinking too much and lounging around speculating on partisan voting patterns in sub-Saharan parliamentary by-elections.”

  Donnelly wrinkled his nose. “Sounds delightful. Now hurry up—I simply cannot face an ambassador without blueberry pancakes.”

  AS THEY exited the restaurant—after blueberry pancakes, of course—Sandler stopped for brief conversations at four different tables. Donnelly dutifully waited in the foyer for these hushed confabs to conclude, which they did in just a few minutes.

  Sandler emerged from the restaurant and pointed down the colonnaded corridor to the aft of the ship. “Apparently there’s a card room that’s pretty much been taken over by the staff of several embassies. One of them may have been interested in that pouch.”

  “You didn’t tell me how it went with the protocol officer,” Donnelly said as they strode purposefully along the corridor. “I did my best not to listen in.”

  “He was, naturally, upset,” Sandler replied, “as much about the theft as about my being the one who let it get swiped. I guess my record helped me out there—this is the first one I’ve ever lost.”

  “You were robbed,” Donnelly said seriously. “You didn’t lose it. Someone stole it from you.”

  “Still, it’s not something anyone likes to have happen.”

  They walked along awhile. “Did he say anything about what you should do about it?”

  “I told him Lyndon was on it, and that I’d be working whatever contacts I could find on the ship. He seemed okay with letting it go for a couple of days. But if we don’t find it before we arrive, I think he’s going to pat down every passenger personally.”

  “Sounds like fun. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Sandler said, smiling for the first time this morning.

  They arrived at the ornately carved doors of the card room, and Sandler grasped the massive brass handle and pulled. The room within was hushed and rather dimly lit for card playing. Heavy tapestries hung on the walls, and rich velvet curtains marked the placement of what were probably windows. The occupants of the room sat in knots of threes and fours, and many cast suspicious eyes at the doorway. No one was holding cards.

  “Fun group,” Donnelly whispered.

  Sandler nodded but made no reply. He stepped into the room and looked purposefully about, seeming unaware of all of the eyes turned toward him. A quick nod let Donnelly know he had found the person he came to speak to, and he stepped briskly
across the room, smiling widely. Donnelly kept right with him, a half step behind.

  Sandler approached a group of three men sitting in closely drawn club chairs. Two of them held cups of tea in both hands as if partaking in a ritual of some kind while the one in the middle held a small leather-bound notebook, which he quickly but casually closed as he looked up with a practiced smile.

  “Sandler,” the man said softly, in a voice that seemed to Donnelly’s ear that of a serpent rather than a diplomat, “what a delightful surprise to find you here.”

  “Oswald,” Sandler replied with a perfunctory nod. “It’s a pity I didn’t know you were on board until this morning. We should be better friends than that.”

  “Yes,” Oswald said with a soft sibilance. “We should be. There was, of course, talk of your being on board, if only because of the rarefied circles in which you have placed yourself. And this must be your… escort?” Oswald’s milky blue eyes rolled in a graceful arc toward Donnelly but wasted no time looking at him before sweeping back to Sandler. It was the kind of glance one might give a precocious child—meant to acknowledge but not encourage.

  “This is Gabriel,” Sandler said. “He generously offered me passage when his partner was unable to make the trip.”

  “How lucky for you,” Oswald replied, and this time cast a more serious glance at Donnelly from his head down. Donnelly suddenly felt naked under the man’s scrutiny. “One imagines such a passage to be quite… pleasant.”

  Sandler yielded no acknowledgment of Oswald’s insinuation. “Gabriel, this is Oswald. He’s something of an attaché at-large, offering his services to governments unable to fully staff their own embassies.”

  Oswald gave a wan smile, devoid of both joy and modesty. “I do what I can to foster diplomatic relations.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Donnelly replied. It was as pure a lie as he had ever told.

  “Now, what’s this I hear,” Oswald said, turning back to Sandler, “about a”—he leaned forward and whispered—“pouch going missing?”

  Sandler smiled stoically, as one might when a cancer patient makes a joke. “Funny you should mention that,” he said. “It’s why I’ve sought you out. I figured that on a ship full of scheming, self-serving diplomats, you would naturally be the one with the best information.”

  The corners of Oswald’s artificial smile hardened as if he were biting them, but he didn’t so much as bat an eye. “I am flattered, dear friend. Flattered indeed.”

  “I’m sure you are, dear friend,” Sandler replied through a smile just as tight.

  “As it happens,” Oswald mused, fingers idly tracing the razor crease of his trousers, “I heard something just this morning in the sauna.” He looked up at Sandler. “I do love to start the day with a brisk massage and a sauna. So invigorating. If you are interested, I would be happy to share with you the name of the best masseur on the ship. And in exchange you might provide me the name of a service professional who meets your needs—a bar waiter, perhaps?” He smiled, and Donnelly half expected a forked tongue to flick out from between his tight, thin lips.

  Sandler didn’t acknowledge the jab. “You were saying you’d heard something this morning?”

  “Ah yes, let me see.” Oswald adopted the posture of a man trying to remember something of little importance to himself but of great value to his listener. “Someone—I simply don’t recall who—mentioned that several of the ship’s crew were quite violently attached to a rather repressive military figure in their native country and had been seen slipping out of the stateroom of its embassy staff quite late at night. They were apparently able to elude the notice of the ship’s security cameras due to their knowledge of monitoring schedules and motion sensor placement.” He shrugged. “It all sounded very complicated and frankly uninteresting. I’ve simply never had much experience with spiriting crew members out of my room in the wee hours of the morning.” He blinked innocently up at Sandler.

  “Yes, your life has been rather monastic that way, hasn’t it?” Sandler said, pity thickly layered on his voice. He suddenly drew himself up to full height. “Well, thank you for that snippet of information, Oswald. It’s not much, but it’s better than we had before.”

  Donnelly considered this to be an unfair, and frankly rather rude, summation of their conversation, but he immediately saw he had misjudged Sandler’s intent in offering it. Oswald, clearly stung by having his sauna-gathered gossip dismissed so coldly, recoiled like a dowager empress smelling a fart.

  “There is one more thing,” he said peevishly.

  Sandler had already turned to take his leave, but now he swiveled gracefully back, a smile springing to his lips in a flash of insincerity. His expression was one of polite impatience laced with low expectations.

  “If I were ever to misplace a pouch,” he began, then paused to roll his eyes theatrically at the very idea. “My first order of business would be to speak with the ones who committed it to my care. No one simply steals a pouch, Sandler, and it hasn’t walked off by itself. It’s highly likely the person holding its leash works for the same government that gave it to you. Their motives, however, may well diverge significantly from the official ones.”

  Sandler blinked slowly, twice, as if letting this information wash gently over him. Then his expression was all diplomacy once again. “Thank you, Oswald. You’ve been more help than you know, and certainly more than you intended. Enjoy the rest of your cruise.” Sandler turned briskly to Donnelly. “Shall we?”

  Donnelly nodded, uncertain that he had understood any of what had just transpired. The men walked from the card room, Sandler leading the way back amidships. At one point Donnelly began to ask a question, but Sandler motioned that they should wait a moment until they reached the door to the promenade that circled the entire ship. They stepped out onto the sheltered deck, across which blew a cutting North Atlantic wind. Sandler began to walk the deck, and Donnelly fell into step beside him.

  “I’m not going to be so paranoid as to think that our suite is bugged,” Sandler said. “But on the off chance, I thought this might be more… secure.”

  “Difficult to eavesdrop on an entire deck,” Donnelly replied. A quick look fore and aft confirmed that they were completely alone. “So did you get what you needed from that Oswald guy?” He shivered at the memory. “He kind of gave me the creeps, to be honest.”

  Sandler laughed. “He has that effect on pretty much everyone. Oswald makes his living by being indispensable at precisely the right moment. No one would choose to spend any time with him, except when he’s the only one who can get something done. He’s kind of a fixer for the diplomatic community. He knows everyone, and more importantly than that, he knows the dirt on everyone. Luckily he’s the soul of discretion—at least until his secrets are worth more than his silence.”

  “Sounds like a great guy.”

  Sandler shrugged grimly. “He’s a necessary guy. Sometimes things just need to get done, and he’s usually the one who can do them. I met him years ago when relations between Britain and Ecuador were strained, resulting in my being held in a windowless office at the airport in Quito for a day and a half. Oswald showed up and had a word with the customs agents, and within twenty minutes I was on my way. I’d never seen anything like it. I asked him to have a drink with me at the hotel bar after I’d delivered my pouch, and he nursed one glass of absinthe for two full hours. He has the rare gift of telling stories of great intrigue that reveal nothing but his own prowess. He told me things that were quite frankly impossible, and I let him rattle on because he had freed me from that horrible little room.”

  They rounded the bow and began to walk back down the other side of the ship. After a quick glance around to confirm they were still alone, Sandler continued his tale.

  “I asked around about some of the stories he told me and found he’d not embroidered anything but his own panache—he styled himself rather a James Bond, suave and dangerous. But the substance of his stories checked out, and it
was honestly terrifying to have spent two hours in the presence of anyone who had seen, and done, the things he had. That kind of thing would have to hollow a man out after a while.” Sandler gave a shiver, as if recalling specific instances of Oswald’s hollow nature. “Well, he must have gotten up to even worse after that conversation, because the higher echelon of diplomatic missions won’t have anything to do with him anymore; these days he puts his unique skill set at the disposal of smaller, more desperate governments who need a problem fixed and aren’t terribly particular about his methods.”

  “Are we talking about crimes-against-humanity kind of stuff here?” Donnelly asked, wincing.

  “No, nothing as blatant as that. But he has definitely made it easier for people who commit such crimes to remain in power.”

  Donnelly shivered as he came to realize they’d had an audience with the devil himself, or at least one of his devoted demons. He shook it off as quickly as he could. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “As vile as that little fiend is, he generally has good information. Not that bit about political unrest in a distant land causing ninja-like antics among the crew—that part was simply Oswald having a bit of fun with us.”

  “Why would he make up something like that?”

  “Oswald is like a snake. He’s only going to do the hard work of slithering up onto a warm rock if he’s going to get something out of it. He wants us to poke around and make some trouble for those crew members, and I don’t much care why he wants it. Lyndon didn’t strike me as the kind of person who would countenance such shenanigans, so I think the whole story is highly unlikely. But the second part, that’s what’s got me worried.”

  “You think someone from the British government took the pouch so it couldn’t be delivered to the British government?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking. The diplomats on this ship may all have divergent views on how the world should be arranged, but all of them absolutely depend on the sanctity of the diplomatic pouch. That’s why Oswald made up that story about the crew being under the sway of a rebel movement. He knew I wouldn’t buy the notion that any of the recognized governments would do such a thing. It was only when I insulted his ability to deliver gossip that he told me what he really thinks.”