Goliath

by Richard Turner

The Yacht – Imperator

  Coast of Mauritania

  Jen paced back and forth inside her locked cabin as if she were a tigress kept in a cage far too small for her. She was dressed in a loose-fitting, teal-blue jumpsuit, and wore a pair of leather sandals on her feet. When she had awoken from her drug-induced sleep, Jen had yelled and screamed to be set free, but found that her pleas went unanswered. Her cabin was her prison cell. Meals were brought to her by a pair of armed men who were constantly on guard outside of her room. The same questions kept running through Jen’s mind: Why would someone go to such great lengths to kidnap her, and why was she on board a ship?

  Just as Jen was about to lose her cool and lash out at the nearest piece of furniture, the door opened. A stone-faced guard motioned for her to follow him.

  Jen’s stomach clenched in a knot; she had wanted to be set free, but now that the door was open, Jen was not so sure that she wanted to leave the known quantity of her room. She stepped out into the corridor and fell in behind the hulking guard. They walked in silence down a long, carpeted corridor, until they came to a set of metal stairs leading up to the next deck. Jen could smell the warm salt air as they climbed up until they arrived on the main deck, where they walked out into the open. The bright sunlight was hard on Jen’s eyes. She raised a hand to block the sun as she looked around. Jen was amazed to see that she was being held on a multi-leveled luxury yacht, not some run-down rust bucket, as she had half-imagined in her mind. The guard led her to the stern of the yacht where a tall man dressed in khaki pants and a light-blue shirt stood looking over the railing at another ship anchored a few hundred meters away.

  Whatever was going on, continued to mystify Jen.

  The guard stopped short of the man, then told Jen to take a seat on a white leather chair looking out over warm, deep-blue water.

  An ocean? It had to be. But which one? Jen remained at a loss. She sniffed the air, the scent triggering memories from years ago, and settling some puzzle pieces into place.

  She sat there with her arms crossed, and looked at the other ship anchored nearby. It looked to her like a high-tech catamaran on steroids. On the aft deck, it looked as though men were preparing a dirty, orange-painted sea container to be moved. Jen wondered what was going on, when the loud rhythmic sound of a powerful helicopter’s blades beating through the air filled her ears. She looked up and saw a large, camouflaged military helicopter fly right over their ship. It maneuvered itself into position, hovering just above the catamaran. A man with a pair of paddles guided the noisy helicopter down until it seemed to hang in the air just over the sea container. Ever so slowly, the helicopter descended until it was no more than a couple of meters above the container. Right away, two men jumped up, grabbed the chains secured to the sea container, and then latched them onto a hook on the bottom of the helicopter, before jumping down from the container. Barely a second later, the helicopter took up the slack, and then, with its engines revving for all they were worth, the helicopter and the container steadily rose up into the cloudless sky. Jen watched with rapt fascination as the helicopter with its cargo seemed to leisurely bank over, then pick up speed as it headed away from the catamaran, flying toward the sandy shore in the distance.

  The tall man turned about and looked over at Jen; his cognac-brown eyes seemed to be studying her. Jen looked away.

  A waiter dressed in an all-white uniform walked over and handed Jen and the man each a cool bottle of Perrier. With a nod, the server departed, leaving Jen and the man alone on the deck.

  “Good afternoon, Miss March,” said the man with a smile. “I hope that you are finding your accommodations satisfactory.”

  Jen took a mental inventory of the man she presumed was her host. He was well-kept, from his short, black hair to his neatly trimmed circle goatee. He looked to be in superb physical shape. Jen figured that he was in his fifties, and, judging by what she had seen of his yacht, he was unbelievably rich. Lifting the bottle, Jen took a swig of her Perrier, felt the cool liquid soothe her parched throat, and then spoke, “Yes, my room is quite satisfactory.” If you like being held hostage.

  “That’s good to hear,” said the man as he took a seat across from Jen. “Miss March, you must be very puzzled by what is going on. First off, let me introduce myself. My name is Dmitry Romanov, and as you have no doubt already figured out, you are no longer in Alaska.”

  “By the smell of sand mixed with spices coming from the mainland, I would say we are somewhere off West Africa. I did some charity work here a few years back. The aroma is quite distinctive,” said Jen.

  “Well done, Miss March. To be precise, we are currently anchored off the coast of Mauritania,” said Romanov as he leaned forward in his seat. “Now, you must be full of questions as to why I have brought you here. You can ask me anything you like.”

  “Okay then, Mister Romanov, why am I here?” said Jen, getting straight to the point.

  “Miss March, I am here looking for my past as well as my future. You see, there are some items belonging to my family that were lost in the desert decades ago, and I have been told by someone very special that you, and you alone, are the key to finding them for me,” explained Romanov, with a bright gleam in his eyes.

  Jen shook her head. Putting together the Romanov name and the story of the missing jewels she’d heard in Alaska, Jen did not have to be told what the man was looking for.

  “Mister Romanov, I’m a history professor, not an archeologist,” explained Jen. “If you’re looking for the Romanov crown jewels reputed to have been on the Goliath when it disappeared, I’m sorry, but I may not be the best person for the job. I hope this is all a big misunderstanding, and that you have the wrong Jennifer March.”

  “Oh no, Miss March, I am quite certain that you are precisely the person I am looking for, and shortly you will help me retrieve what rightly belongs to my family. What I want is still buried somewhere out there, waiting for me to come and find it,” said Romanov, waving his arm at the distant shore.

  Jen looked toward the windswept shoreline, wondering if Romanov could possibly be right. She was genuinely intrigued, but still failed to see where she fit into his scheme to find the Goliath.

  “The information found with you in Alaska has proven to be most useful,” said Romanov. “But it does not provide the missing piece of information that I need.”

  “Sir, those weren’t my notes,” said Jen, becoming exasperated with the man. “Your people murdered the man who wrote them. As I already said, I’m not an archeologist.”

  Romanov stood and looked down at Jen. “Miss March, I know this, and if there had been another path to follow I would have taken it, but you have been chosen.”

  Jen looked into Romanov’s cold eyes and asked, “Chosen by whom?”

  A smile emerged on Romanov’s face. “Miss March, like my forefathers, I am a true believer in mysticism. Ever since I was a young man, I have believed in my ability to shape and control my own destiny. With the guiding hand of Madame Yusuf, an old Romanov family confidant, I have never once failed to achieve whatever I set my mind to. It was Madame Yusuf who told me about my future and the part you would play in it. Her mother was the spiritual advisor to Czar Nicholas II’s wife, Alexandra. She is a psychic and true believer, like me.”

  Jen couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She shook her head, unable to decide if the man was mad.

  “I see the doubt in your eyes, Miss March. Please, let me explain. It was Madame Yusuf who told me that in order to secure my future, I must first sow chaos in my homeland, which I have done by financing revolution throughout Russia. Secondly, she told me to find my past here in Africa, and that by finding my family’s jewels, I would gain credibility with my future subjects in my homeland. Lastly, she told me that you, and you alone, Miss March, would lead me to the jewels. Surely, it’s clear even to you that you have a part to play in this grand endeavor.”

  Jen sat back and looked over at Romanov. “Sir, honestly, I don’t belie
ve in mysticism or psychic abilities. It’s nothing more than carefully posed questions designed to draw the right responses out of the people seeking guidance,” said Jen.

  “Well, Miss March, we will have to agree to disagree on this matter, and I hope for your sake that you allow yourself to embrace your hidden abilities, or things might not go so well for you and your mother,” said Romanov.

  “You have me; you don’t have my mother. She’s in protective custody with the police.”

  Romanov smiled at Jen. “I am sorry, but that is not quite accurate. She was in police protective custody, but now she is on her way here. My people found her safe house and took her from it earlier this morning.”

  “You bastard,” snarled Jen, as she jumped up from her seat.

  A guard instantly appeared, with a pistol in his hands aimed straight at Jen’s head.

  “I think we have finished our little discussion for today, Miss March. I need to place a call to a friend in Moscow,” said Romanov, as he stood. “I will see that your mother is brought to you the instant she arrives.” With that, Romanov walked away, leaving Jen sitting there, trying to control the growing hatred in her heart for the man.

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