by Cara Charles
Dave prayed for the fog to continue to provide cover for Elise.
“Tell her, ‘lights off’ till the plane passes but keeping coming on.”
“N-O—L-Y-T-S”
“K.” She signaled back.
Lights out, Eamon cut the engines to idle, inching closer to Elise.
“A Seaplane on a western heading,” Mac said.
The plane turned on a searchlight and searched the middle of the San Juan Strait going west.
“If she buzzes us twice, we shoot and ask questions later, agreed?”
“Yes,” all hands said simultaneously.
They watched from the dark boat.
The seaplane flew low up and down the San Juan Strait.
Then it disappeared from view.
Dave used a pocket Mag light and signaled Elise, “E-N-E-M-Y”
“C-O-M-I-N-G…” Elise replied.
Dave left the Mag light on until he heard the plane close by. He had to risk it.
Elise flashed them when they were within fifty yards. They inched along as the plane was once again, traversing back and forth in the Strait.
There she was. Eamon pulled alongside of her. Sammie leaned over on his belly to give her the life ring that she hooked an arm into. She inched out of the kayak collar then she put the life ring around her waist.
Iain kept watch.
“Hi Sis. Hey, hero! You OK?” Sid, Sam, Mac, and Dave said reaching for her.
“Sammie! Hey, Dave! Everyone. God! I love you guys! Get me inside will you? She’ll be coming back this way. I’m so lucky! Thanks so much for my wonderful care package! You geniuses saved my life! That kayak was a brilliant, miracle of an idea.”
“We’re so happy to see you Honey. Hold onto the bowline best as you can. We’ve got to haul that in too. Hurry Sultans. Let’s get her and the kayak on board. Don’t turn loose of it, very important we haul it in,” Sid said.
All hands pulled her out of the kayak with her help. They grabbed the bowline and hauled her up the ladder. Once aboard, first Sam, then the rest hugged her.
“You are remarkable. Let’s get you below,” Dave said, holding onto her longer than anyone else.
Dave picked her up. Elise hugged his warm neck, grateful. “You’re safe now.” He kissed her forehead, he couldn’t help himself. “You’re cold, kiddo.”
“Let us check you out,” Mac said, feeling her freezing face.
Dave carried her down below. She began to shake a bit.
Dez kissed her forehead. She was freezing. The edges of her lips were blue.
Mac and Dave gave Dez a look and she nodded. ‘Could be the beginning of hypothermia,’ they were thinking.
Eamon helped Sid and Iain haul the kayak aboard and cover it with a tarp. They looked in on Elise.
Inside, Dez got her out of her suit and into warm dry hooded fleece and sweat pants.
“I’ll get her the cocoa,” Iain said searching for the thermos.
“I wasn’t really cold, until now,” Elise said her teeth began to chatter.
Iain poured her hot chocolate. Dave smiled at her as he put another fleece hat on her and rubbed her hands to warm them. Sam sat beside her, hugged her and rubbed her shoulders, as Dave got out the first aid kit. Mac was examining her IV site and saw the rope burns on her arm and leg. Dave cleaned it. Her pulse was fast, still on her adrenalin surge, physically she was fine.
“Why am I shaking?” Elise was really quivering now.
“The shaking is emotional,” Mac lied to her and Dave looked at him, knowing why he lied. “Like relief from the stress. You’ll be OK, hero!” Mac smiled at Elise.
“Here’s Dez’s remedy for the cold. Brought me around, like that,” Iain said.
Elise reached for the cup, but she was shaking so badly now, she dropped her hands, knowing she couldn’t hold it. Iain held the cup to her lips. She sipped.
Dave rubbed her arms and legs. “We’ve got to warm you up,” Dave said grinning.
She smiled. As she looked up at Iain, a thought hit her. She struggled to stand, reaching for him. Iain took her in his arms and held her. She hugged him hard and long. Elise kissed his cheeks.
“Iain, it was you. Wasn’t it? You attached the kayak to the stern. It was you that saved my life. Thank you. Thank you. It means so much to want to live.”
“I was just the delivery boy. It was Sid’s idea. We’re a damn fine team, aren’t we? Surviving an experience like yours brings a whole new perspective to this life we have. Let you in on a little secret. It was two kayaks, actually.”
“Two? I saw the rope…”
“They must have cut it away. It was white. The blue one paid off like we hoped. Get warm, love. Rain check on more of those kisses,” Iain helped her back to Dave.
Sid came inside, followed by Sam and Dez watching from the door. Eamon had turned them back to Snug Harbor.
“Thank you, everyone. Truly.” Elise said as she looked into each of their smiling faces.
Elise wobbled to Sid, and put her arms around his neck. “Thank you. Thank you for giving me my life back,” Elise broke down and cried.
Sid held her tight then guided her to sit down in the space Dave got up to give them.
“I’m so thankful to be alive. I thought about this beautiful life, this second chance I’ve been given by you all, as I was paddling home. Thank you. You should know, they scuttled the sub then escaped. I never saw her. They got what they wanted, killed the crew with poisoned Champagne, then left the swim escape hatches propped open. I’m just lucky to have so many heroes on my side,” Elise’s tears welled in her eyes.
“Oh my God Elise,” Dez embraced her.
“You all trained me to survive. Dez, whatever you implanted must have come out pretty quickly because they celebrated, then they were gone.”
Dez gave Sid a look that said, ‘she’d failed Elise.’
Elise noticed their exchange, “Dez? I’m alive, grateful for your brilliance! All of you! What a remarkable team we have, right Sam?”
Sam nodded. He was too choked up to speak.
Dez looked at Sid, he nodded. Dez’s smile returned.
Elise cried because she was happy, grateful, and relieved. “Thank you all… for second chances.”
“It’s OK honey. We’re your family now. If you and Sam will have us,” Sid said.
Elise nodded, and buried her face in his neck. She cried her heart out. When she’d gathered her composure she reached out to all of them.
“We always wanted a big family. Right, Sammie?”
Sam nodded and kissed her on the forehead. Sid kissed her on the cheek. He kept his arms around her, holding her tight, knowing she needed him. Comforting Elise made Sid miss his daughter. Elise took her mug of chocolate from Iain now and drank it down. She’d stopped shaking.
Eamon looked at the radar and said, “Sir? The plane is turning this way.”
Sid leapt out of the cabin followed by Iain.
“Boys? Let’s go play fisherman, Eamon. Throw out more traps, and everyone get in here. Bogies coming this way.”
Eamon cut the engines, hoping to be dead in the water, dropped the small anchor only ten feet. Sid threw a few buoys with crab pots attached into the water. They all squeezed back inside the wheelhouse, pulled the drapes over the windshield. They watched the plane scan the shoreline with its searchlight.
Mac watching through binoculars, called out the plane’s ID number. He’d handed off the rifle to Iain.
“NZ1289Q,” Mac said. “We can take her out, sir.”
Sid opened his Blackberry and said, “Iain can you spot while I’ll look it up on Flight-aware. It probably is our murdering Russian princess.”
“Ah… sir. 89Q is turning our way,” Iain said watching, chambered a round.
“A J-Hawk is coming too.”
Mac tried to see the passengers, but couldn’t. The moon stayed hidden as they continued skirting the southern Victoria coastline then, turned east and disappeared from view.
A
J-Hawk chopper from the U.S. Coast Guard base in Port Angeles was traveling west in the Strait of Juan de Fuca to investigate the stationery sub.
“Seaplane traveling due east, turning to a southeast heading. J-Hawk continues on a westerly heading. Head for Snug Harbor, sir?” Eamon asked.
“Give her five minutes. If it’s her, she’ll be back to check on us. This old cat is gonna outwit this little mousey.”
Dez hugged Elise. “Darling girl, if you’re up to it, we can be airborne as soon as we get back on land and follow her. You can come or stay here with Sam and rest.”
“We’d better come to help you. Sadly I don’t know what I told the woman, Dez.”
“I’m confident she got the new mis-information, darling. I believe that was the first and only thing that came out. Would have taken them a very long time, otherwise. I’m confident we’re still secure,” Desiree said. “Makes me feel better to get to our next phase. Sid, I believe it’s time to brief our team.”
“Go ahead Dear. We need to stay topside… But as long as we’re waiting…”
Desiree began, “We, the men and women of METAPHOR, are on a sacred mission of extraordinary incredible circumstances. We’ve dedicated our lives to protection. Elise is only part of it. Ms. Kimirov’s true mission is to make herself the wealthiest woman in the world by finding an African American woman your government has been protecting since the signing of the German surrender, seventy years ago. Mavra’s grandfather, industrialist Ivan Kimirov was a soldier in the Russian Army occupying Berlin from the East, and a second level interpreter. Ivan rescued our asset from a German POW camp. They sought political asylum from General Eisenhower. Mrs. Roosevelt took over and our mission is entirely Mrs. Roosevelt’s plan.”
Dez continued, “Mavra Kimirov is assuming Elise may know of our asset’s whereabouts because FDR and General Eisenhower gave Elise’s father, Charles, this protection assignment decades ago. This is why Mavra Kimirov attacked Elise’s family, to traumatize her into remembering anything about Charles’ mission. Trauma is the universal key to unlocking long suppressed memories. When Elise was four years old, Charles and I developed techniques of total regression and recall, designed exclusively for young Elise’s protection. The foundation of my memory work originated with my late father, Daniel Richards. Only the two of us, Charles and I could unlock Elise’s hidden secrets to our asset’s hiding place and warn her. Once we had Elise memorize the asset’s timetable, we destroyed it. We must go to our asset, Professor Shanti Larsen of George Washington University, who is somewhere on the road with the President’s elderly valet Joseph Jefferson, en route to Warm Springs, Georgia.”
Sid said to Eamon, “We‘re going below. Call us when she back.”
All the men but Eamon on the wheel, went below.
Below now Mac asked, “This woman has to be ninety years old. And why does a billionairess want an elderly woman so desperately, she’d keep killing to attain her?”
“For now, Mac and all of you, why this woman is being hunted has to remain classified, on a need to know basis, understood?” Sid said.
They all nodded yes.
“Wow,” Mac said as a possible answer came to him.
“What?” Dave said, turning to Mac.
“Leave it for now, Davey,” Iain said. “I read them Charles’ background, Dear.”
Sid said. “Just remember the purpose of METAPHOR’s mission. Why we are, who we are. We all left worldwide organizations, faked our own deaths, disappeared to become someone else, to become METAPHOR. Elise and my new Sultans, are you ready to know it all? Knowing will mean your lives. Our mission is a lifelong commitment.”
Dez continued, “Sid and I and the others are getting long in the tooth. We desperately need you all and your various talents, as our next generation of METAPHOR. METAPHOR 2.0. To carry on. When you have decided to take an oath to protect assets against some governments, who will create wars to attain them, only then will we finish the briefing. When you take the oath, you will be swearing that any one of us of the First Generation and you, the Second Generation, with a second from an additional member, may sanction another member’s death upon the discovery of betrayal to our mission. To that, you must agree.”
They nodded to each other. They were in. “We’re in. We’re all in.”
Dez raised her hand. The others followed.
“On your head, be it sworn as the second generation of METAPHOR, an activist, philanthropic group of dedicated, multi-talented heroes, committed to protecting and serving the asset and anyone like her, you hereby pledge, you will serve the truth, and be in service to the advancement and preservation of life, and the environment that sustains us against all corrupt and self-serving personal, corporate and government self interests. Repeat after me… By my troth I here do pledge my life to this goal, knowing full well, as I enter into this moral contract, my life will be forfeited if I dishonor the mission of METAPHOR, and these members are witness to my pledge of allegiance.”
Each of them in turn said, “On my head I swear by my troth, an allegiance to METAPHOR and to each other, to the death.”
Mac looked at Iain.
“Eamon and I took our oaths a while ago.”
“Done. Welcome to the Eternal Order of METAPHOR,” she kissed each of them. Her phone rang. It was John the spotter. “Have you got it, John?” Dez asked.
“Coast Guard going further down the Strait. Plane Two turning back this way.”
“Here she comes. Keep us informed. And ready the jet, please. We’ll be coming ashore soon. Out.” Dez said, standing by Sid, “She’s coming, Eamon.”
“Yes Dear,” Eamon said as they watched the seaplane complete its turn and came their way. All men went up top and took up their guns.
“Ready boys?” Sid took his eyes off the plane checking their positions.
“Sir? Let me shoot down this merciless bitch,” Iain says.
“If she does something bold, don’t fall for it and keep your faces covered. Just one of you need to be out there, right honey?”
“I’ll not tempt the Fates, I promise Sid,” Elise said from below.
“Revenge is a dish best served cold, darling.” Dez put her arm around Elise.
As the sound of the plane came closer Elise said, “That’s her. I recognize it.”
“Boys? Elise recognizes the engine.”
“Aye to that,” Iain said. Iain put on a cap, through his thermoscope the plane turned entering Haro Strait. “Coming in fast,” Iain said, wishing he could see their faces.
As they made the turn into Haro Strait, Mavra in dry clothes and jacket was in the back seat. She popped the cork on the last Champagne bottle. The pilot looked at her.
Dimitri shoved him to get him to focus on the boat.
“She said buzz that boat down there.”
“Keep your hands off me man. They’ll report me to the FAA.”
“Let me worry about that. We’ll make it worth your while.”
Through his scope, Iain saw the flash of a light. He ran outside with his rifle, “Molotov cocktail! Get the extinguisher ready!”
Sid grabbed the extinguisher and pulled the pin. The plane was overhead. The flame was falling toward them.
“Fire at will, fire at will,” Sid yelled.
Iain shot the bottle out of the sky as the plane banked, east. Bravely, ignoring the flames falling on him, Iain opened fire on the body and the wings where the tanks were. He hit it several times. Flaming Champagne landed on the deck and on Iain, “Stay inside. I’ve got it.”
The back of his shirt was on fire. Sid put out the flames on Iain’s shirt.
“We’re hit, we’re hit! I’m losing pressure. We aren’t going to make it!” the pilot struggled to control the plane, heading for the cliffs of San Juan Island.
“Take over, will you lover?” Mavra said, enjoying the excitement.
“Fisherman, huh?” Dimitri took over the right seat yoke.
“Everyone carries in open water.
I told you!” the pilot screamed at him.
Dimitri punched the guy in the jaw. He was out cold. Dimitri banked to go around again to set up another approach. They were rapidly losing lift.
“Stop that, no! I can’t save him and us! Don’t! Mavra!”
Dimitri was fighting her with one hand, struggling with the yoke with the other.
“I want to live, you can die the hero.”
Mavra unbuckled the pilot’s seat belt, held onto the belt, and opened the door. Then she pushed the husky guy out of the plane as the cliffs rose in front of them.
Dimitri flipped on the landing lights. The cliff, dead ahead. The door hung open.
“I told you, no more killing! Pull up!”
“Do this D! You can do this!” Mavra grabbed the yoke, pulling with all her might closed her eyes. She didn’t want to watch death snatch her away from her victory. The loss of 220 pounds of excess weight was enough to clear the cliffs.
“We’re clear. Let go. I’ve got it,” D said, relieved. Dimitri trimmed the ailing plane, looking for a road without trees. “Get in his seat.”
“No! I’ll be in your way.”
“Do it! I need your help. Find me a big road.”
“There!” She climbed over into the pilot’s seat and struggled to shut the door.
Dimitri leaned across her to pull the door closed. He was over Hannah Heights weaving through the trees and rooftops. Luck was with them as always. They’d found Bailer Hill Road dead ahead, with its east-west axis. The engine was sputtering, losing lift.
Dimitri’s pontoons were clipping the tops of the trees on the winding road until it connected with the straight section, now a perfect downhill runway. Dimitri crested the hill and descended.
“Bravo darling, bravo! My God! You are amazing!”
Dimitri sighed. The wheels touched pavement. “Cops will be all over this.”
Headlights far in the distance were coming their way.
“Hide the plane and we’ll flag that ride coming our way.”
Dimitri cut the landing lights.
Mavra snapped on a flashlight that lit the road. Just as they were about to lose the tree cover, Mavra saw Ranch Road, a dirt road.
They ran the dying plane up that road as far as they could without clipping off the wings. Dimitri shut down the engine. They both jumped from the plane and ran to the road as the headlights were about a mile away.