Secret of the Loch

by Aiden James

  We exited the cab and turned our attention to the main entrance, where other travelers scurried inside to avoid the frigid air peppered with tiny snowflakes.

  “Holy shit, Nick—look!”

  Ishi pulled my attention back to the curb, where another taxi approached. The sedan driven by Brodie MacFarlane had disappeared.... I looked in every direction, and for as far as my vision could reach, the car that had just been there fifteen seconds ago was nowhere to be found.

  “It was just here, Boss… the car was—”

  “Please just drop it, Ishi,” I said, tersely cutting him off. “Let’s get the hell out of this crazy place!”

  Stepping out of the cold and into the terminal, we headed for the Delta ticket counter to check in our one bag and pick up our boarding passes. It was the only thing in days to go without a hitch… at least until we headed to the concourse.

  “Nicholas Caine and Ishima Cuyamel,” said a young man’s voice from behind us. “Don’t go any further!”

  Two young men and a woman—all blondes—closed in on us, seemingly out of nowhere. The men grabbed us by our arms while the woman showed an ID. One I vaguely remember seeing once long ago on a British television news series: SCDEA.

  “What in the hell’s going on?” I asked, gruffly, while my heart raced. I figured this could be in regard to anything and everything from using my alias illegally to trespassing at Loch Morar, to the blown-up and ditched vehicles—hell, even to Marie’s death.

  Maybe someone found her body?

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” said the woman. “Come with us peacefully and we won’t have to make an unpleasant scene.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Regardless of how this latest little excursion away from our intended path turned out, mingling inconspicuously among our fellow travelers was now an impossibility. It seemed as if everyone watched Ishi and me being escorted away from the concourse. Yes, I realize this is mostly paranoia and it certainly wouldn’t be completely true. Maybe a few folks would notice and then carry on with their own immediate concerns…. But the heat of embarrassment that comes with being singled out by a trio of cops can have that sort of effect. Not since I was a kid being raised by my uncle and aunt had I experienced anything quite like this; and whereas back then my crime was shoplifting a box of candy bars, my more recent list of illegal activities included a few that could put me behind bars for much of the next decade… or longer.

  The three agents led us through a door that I assumed would take us outside, perhaps to a waiting vehicle equipped with a steel cage to keep us from physically engaging our captors. Instead, we entered a long concrete hallway lit by fluorescent lamps along each side. Halfway down the corridor, the woman advised us to wait while one of the men knocked lightly on a steel door. Another young woman soon answered, a brunette this time. As nattily attired as the other agents, she nodded to our escorts and motioned for us all to step through the doorway.

  “Agent Jacobs is expecting you, and will be here shortly,” she said to Ishi and me. “Have a seat.”

  The guys didn’t remove their grip on our coat sleeves until we had sat down in a pair of high-back leather chairs and the brunette had locked the door. She and her blonde counterpart then left the room through another door while the guys stood behind us. So far, this all seemed very odd. I could tell Ishi felt the same. He nodded warily while allowing his gaze to take in the slight opulence in this much warmer place, as compared to the sterile coldness of the hallway. It appeared to be a small boardroom, with a long cherry table and other handsome appointments including the floor covered in polished travertine tiles. A bit fancy for an airport management team to conduct business meetings, I wondered how many of the employees working at Glasgow International Airport even knew about the room’s existence.

  After what seemed like ten minutes had passed, the door through which the young ladies had disappeared swung open. A tall, comely man with curly dark hair and light blue eyes stepped into the room. Dressed in a suit similar to the guys watching over us, he wore a knowing smirk while regarding Ishi and me.

  “Tom and Nick, you can go now,” he said, and unlike his two male counterparts and the women from earlier, who seemed like native Scots, this guy’s accent was American. Sounded like he was from one of the Midwestern states… Missouri would be my guess. “I’ll take it from here.”

  He sat down, and the pair nodded in silence as they left the room. I watched them leave, glancing back at us when the other man spoke.

  “Nicholas Caine?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Ishima Cuyamel, I assume.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Ishi.

  “And who in the hell are you?” I asked, regarding this man suspiciously.

  “Good… It’s good that we finally meet,” he said, for the moment ignoring my brashness. “My name is Brandon Jacobs, and I have traveled from Washington D.C. just to see you two. It hasn’t been easy keeping up with your whereabouts over the past six months.”

  Ishi sat stone-faced, and I nodded slightly while searching my mind for specifics as to: a) Where I had traveled to during that timeframe; and, b) What I had ‘looted’. I figured it would be helpful to gain a leg up on what kind of trouble we were in.

  “What do you want from us?” I asked.

  “In short… I want to be your boss,” he said, opening up a briefcase he had set upon the table. “My employer would like to be your employer, Mr. Caine. And, since we know that Ishima is a close companion of yours, the deal is for him to be our employee along with you.”

  “Well… we appreciate the offer, but we prefer to work alone,” I said, hiding my surprise and sitting up straight. I leaned toward this man named Brandon Jacobs. “We do better that way. I’ve never been one to take direction from others very well.”

  He reacted as if he expected that response, and I could tell from the look on his face that he held more cards than he was showing… game winning cards, as it turned out.

  “You might believe that you can go back to the life you enjoyed before working with Marie Da Vinci, but I assure you that’s not the case,” he said, his tone remaining pleasant. My gruffness wasn’t wearing on him… yet. “Up until your business dealings with her, you were largely regarded as a petty problem in the antiquities black market. Not that it hasn’t paid you well over the years, but you had never participated in the heist of national treasures belonging to a number of countries—governments who often spare little expense and manpower in recovering stolen items. Often the tactics used to do that are brutal, and sometimes fatal.”

  I must admit that my heart froze at the mention of Marie’s name, and honestly I was more curious what Agent Brandon Jacobs knew about her than what he had uncovered about my recent activities.

  “What’s so bad about working with Marie?”

  “Well… first let me ask when you last saw her?”

  Didn’t expect that question. When I tried to answer it, my throat constricted, forcing me to draw a deep breath first.

  “She deserted us two days ago,” I said, skirting the line between fact and fiction. “It was in the Highlands…. I doubt we’ll ever see her again.”

  He studied me in silence, lightly drumming the fingers of his left hand on the table. Everything about this meeting had felt wrong from the outset, and the feeling was becoming unbearable to deal with.

  “Look, Mr. Jacobs… I’m flattered that you would like for Ishi and me to work for you and your employer,” I said. “But regardless of what our relationship with Ms. Da Vinci entailed, we’re just not suitable to work for anyone other than ourselves. We intend to go back to the simple life we knew in Honduras.”

  He chuckled.

  “If only that life was there for you, Nicholas,” he said, his attempt to move to first names not lost on me. I hate being manipulated. “But as I said, your former life is not an option. There are at least four governments with active bounties on both of your heads. And, if the Scottish governme
nt ever found out about certain items you were planning to take with you to the United States, it would be five governments: Honduras, Egypt, Maldives, England, and possibly Scotland next.”

  “That’s bullshit,” I said, feeling my blood begin to boil. “Even counting the small trinkets that everyone takes from Honduras, we never took anything from the Maldives, or from anywhere in the UK. And, if the Egyptian claim comes from Yassir Ali—”

  “It does.”

  “Well, that makes it total bullshit—the guy’s a crook and has been trying to kill us for months—and for no good reason!”

  No need to add that our Egyptian problem was likely taken care of, courtesy of Morag—a subject I intended to keep secret for the rest of my earthly existence.

  “Hmmm,” he said, pulling out a manila folder from his briefcase. He opened it, and I was surprised by the amount of color photographs stacked neatly inside—several dozen and possibly more. He took the first photograph and pushed it toward me. “Recognize this?”

  I glanced at the photo and shrugged my indifference. The photograph was of our incinerated rental car’s remains near Loch Ness.

  “Oh, I’ve got several eyewitness accounts from Edinburgh, too, concerning a certain gun battle that took place at the rental car agency on Picardy Place,” he said. “Would you like to see more?”

  I eyed him sullenly. Meanwhile, Ishi regarded me nervously… he would probably crack first in the interrogation. A slight smile tugged on the corners of Agent Jacobs’ mouth. He opened his jacket, revealing a holstered gun. He removed a small cell phone from his pocket, flipped it open to make a call.

  “Aeileen?” he said into the receiver, after I heard a woman faintly answer his call. “Can you have Tom bring the suitcase in here?... Sure…. Thanks.”

  It took me a moment to comprehend that he was talking about our suitcase. I had no idea what Ishi had stashed inside our lone luggage piece we checked in at Delta’s ticket counter. Not until the damned thing was placed upon the table and we witnessed the agent named Tom using a knife not unlike the Bowie-style I favored to rip it open.

  Ishi began to protest, but Jacobs motioned for him to remain quiet until his assistant had finished fishing out a pair of small gold figurines and a handful of Roman coins, also made of gold. We were so screwed….

  “What in the hell is this?!” I hissed at Ishi.

  “Souvenirs?” he replied, sheepishly.

  Great. Just frigging great.

  “Well, fortunately for you, Ishima, you might only face a two-year jail term for this,” the agent advised. “And, Nicholas, would likely get half that long as an accomplice. Be glad you weren’t trying to smuggle these small items out of Egypt, or it could be so much worse….”

  He studied us both expectantly, as if we should be able to easily follow along where he was going with this. Yes there were clues already present, since offering a job to someone headed to prison didn’t seem like a wise or logical choice.

  “Oh, wait…. It seems to me that you might’ve smuggled a mere fortune in gold and jewels from Egypt this past summer, and it’s sitting in Geneva, Switzerland at this very moment. So, if you two want to keep your independent careers going, this is just the start of some very bad news coming your way,” he said, surely enjoying our slumping postures as we considered the weight of this announcement.

  We were stuck between a proverbial rock and hard place. More like held fast while an invisible vice squeezed the very life out of us.

  “Well, is that what either of you want?” Jacobs continued. “You do have a choice in the matter…. Would you like to hear my employer’s offer?”

  “Sure,” I said softly, watching my fantasies of trying to forget about Marie’s selfish suicide while strolling along one of Key West’s famed beaches evaporate. “What is it?”

  “Give your commitment to work for us in tracking down stolen relics and the thieves who are destroying the heritage of what’s left of the ancient world,” he said. “You have the skills to know what to look for, and dangerous locations are not a deterrent for the two of you. Especially you, Nicholas…. As I mentioned, we’ve been watching your activities for a while.”

  I hated working for someone else. In fact, did I not just make a recent vow to never let anyone else’s agenda get in the way of what I wanted to do, or where I wanted to explore? Yet, aside from the fact we had been caught red handed with some hot loot—courtesy of my Tawankan pal—it sounded intriguing to find stolen relics. It even sounded interesting to track down bigger thieves than myself. Hell, maybe I’d learn a thing or two that could come in handy for Ishi and me down the road.

  “I suppose we’ll have to give this back first, huh?” I pointed to the figurines and coins, and fully expected I would have to relinquish quite a bit of what I had taken over the years—except for the items I had hidden that Ishi didn’t even know about. Of course, this also meant saying ‘bye-bye’ to the Egyptian gold and jewels presently stored in our Geneva safety-deposit boxes….

  “Actually, my employer—who will now be your employer—says you can keep it all.” Agent Jacobs smiled, and it looked genuine this time. Maybe he wasn’t a pompous ass after all. Maybe we could actually work for the guy and not come to hate him. “Think of it as a down payment for your services. You’ll be given a generous salary, along with medical and 401k benefits, too…. The only other stipulation is that you’ll now reside in Washington D.C. for the duration of your employment with us. You’ll officially working for the United States government, but will also assist other countries in this endeavor.”

  “How long is that?” asked Ishi. I could see the wheels turning, since he was understandably hoping he could return to his family home in Honduras on a permanent basis within the next year.

  “Five years… to start,” our new boss-to-be advised. “After that, your contract will go to a yearly renewal, until Nicholas decides to retire…. Oh, one other thing. The offer is for you two only, and when we get back to Washington, you will be signing confidentiality agreements. None of what you’ll be dealing with can be discussed with anyone other than yourselves and us. And, if Ms. Da Vinci ever returns to your life, you will be required to contact us immediately. The offer is for you, Nicholas and Ishima, alone.”

  There was a hint of animosity toward the woman I had just lost, and I wanted to lash out at Jacobs. But to do so would warrant a painful trip down memory lane when what my heart and mind needed was peace. Besides, if what Brodie MacFarlane told me had any grain of truth to it, Marie’s reappearance in my life might not fit what Jacobs and our new employer expected. Lots of convenient loopholes might exist that could be sewn up tightly if I revealed too much now.

  In the meantime, I allowed other questions to flow through my head—natural ones, like who in the hell were we working for anyway? Was it an agency with a familiar name?

  “So, do we have an agreement?”

  “It’s up to you, Nick,” said Ishi, when I deferred to him first.

  “What can it hurt?” I said, smiling weakly. “And, we get to keep our loot.”

  Ishi nodded enthusiastically to that aspect, smiling shyly.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll do it.”

  Brandon Jacobs extended his hand, and Ishi and I sealed the deal by answering his strong grip. We were going to America to help catch people like us… well, more accurately, thieves worse than us. Looters without a conscience.

  As for Marie?

  “Maybe she’ll survive and come out someday,” Ishi whispered to me on the chartered flight back to the states, while Agent Jacobs was on the phone taking care of the final arrangements for our relocation to the nation’s capital. “Maybe she’ll find you, Boss.”

  Perhaps… or perhaps not. Regardless, life goes on, and now I am a hunter of looters. Maybe, if I’m a good boy, I can come back to Scotland someday and look for her again. If not, I pray someday she finds me. Even if she has become something akin to the nicer side of Morag, I would accept her. I would e
mbrace her with open arms.

  In the meantime, I heard our new boss discussing Ishi’s and my familiarity with several South American countries that included the Amazon River basin. Jungles Ishi and I knew quite well…. My hunch is this will likely be our first assignment. Should be interesting, if nothing else. Just hope our employer’s ambitions to create an honest man out of a slightly dishonest one are on the mark.

  So, that’s it for now.

  But stay tuned…. I just might have an excellent adventure to share someday soon.

  Nick

  The End

  Nick and Ishi’s adventures will continue in 2015 in River of the Damned, coming in late spring. Thanks so much for your support! ~ Aiden

  Available now:

  The Dragon Coin

  The Judas Chronicles, Book Four

  (Please read on for a sample)

  Getting out of Podgorica proved easy enough, and we were on the main highway by four-thirty that Monday afternoon. Traveling by train would’ve been quicker, but having a car as a possible getaway source seemed to be the wiser choice. Besides, if Roderick wasn’t correct about Dracul’s residence being in or near Budva, a car gave us more immediate options to rectify that potential problem.

  That was my opinion, anyway.

  We checked into the Hotel Astoria shortly after six o’clock, and after a quick dinner overlooking the beach we headed downtown. Standard logic wouldn’t necessarily help in determining the layered illusion supposedly waiting for us from Dracul. But we went with a version of common sense anyway, visiting the oldest part of the city first. A place that preceded my existence by more than five hundred years.

  The locals refer to this area as ‘Old Town’. In truth, it has always been Budva’s trademark, and is a sandy peninsula that once was an island. Legendary even when Roderick and I first visited this area of the Adriatic coast eighteen hundred years earlier, it remains the biggest tourist attraction in the area.