Reborn

by Lynda Filler

  The girls walked arm-in-arm, chattering about guys, food, clothes and music. The usual things.

  “What happened with your last boyfriend?” Rosy looked up to Sabrina, a vibrant and ambitious political analyst. She’d defied her traditional Lebanese parents by refusing to study at Oxford and instead, graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

  “My parents think I should marry Ali. I’m only thirty-two! But my mother is a traditional wife, and she thinks I’ll be an old maid if she doesn’t get me married soon.”

  They stopped to look at books in an antique shop, and then admired the French lingerie at the boutique next door.

  “I thought you liked Ali.”

  “That’s the problem. I like him. He was always their choice. An arranged date. A ‘blending of two dynasties’, my father said. But, we broke up.”

  “So, what you’re trying to tell me is the sex was bad.” The girls laughed out loud.

  “I’m hardly a traditional woman in any sense of the word. I will make my own choices. Anyways, I’m too busy for love. Where should we eat tonight?”

  “Let’s do Café Brood near the Borough Market. We can drink and catch up, then eat.”

  “Perfect, I’m in the mood for Mediterranean food. And if I remember correctly, there’s a hunky waiter you like who works there.”

  “Well, there might be; but it’s all about the Paella. And the wine. And tonight, we have no men to distract us.”

  “Sure, if you say so Rosy. I have very exciting news. The station is considering giving me my own exclusive time slot! They loved the research I did on ISIL. They think it’s important to have a Muslim point of view. And the fact that a friend of mine is inside MI6 sharing bits of information doesn’t hurt my appeal to host this show.”

  Rosy continued walking, thinking about her friend’s life.

  “I don’t know, Sabrina. I mean, you’re already relatively famous. Do you really want to go after ISIL on British Television? Don’t you think that might be dangerous?”

  “No. I’m not the least bit concerned. I feel safe in London. I mean, it’s not like I would be going to Afghanistan or into Syria. I won’t be reporting from war zones. Same office, same station. Nothing would change in my life, except I would make more money and be less dependent on family pressures and my father’s money.”

  They continued down Tooley Street, and crossed over the busy intersection, heading toward the Borough Market and Café Brood. The sun, what there was of it, had set behind them.

  “But let’s forget about work for one night and enjoy ourselves!”

  North West London, England

  IN ANOTHER PART of London, the locals stood in line at a warehouse to receive their daily wages in cash. The boys cursed their place in the food chain and headed to the local café to smoke hashish and talk about news from home.

  A white utility van with a local rental company logo on the side shifted gears, pulled out of a parking spot in this northwestern suburb of London, and hit the highway. The driver kept his visor down to avoid the CCTV cams and kept to the speed limit. He checked his rear-view mirror continuously and eased into the busy thoroughfare heading down town toward central London. The dreary sky had buried whatever sun had tried to shine and the day quickly turned to night.

  From time to time, his fellow passengers spoke quietly with each other. But most of the forty-five-minute drive was spent in silence. As they moved quickly along the major roadway, the younger of the three started to cry.

  The driver yelled at him in Arabic. He hung his head in shame.

  The third man looked down at his damaged hand. He’d arrived the week before on a ferry from Calais, France. His left hand was missing a finger; the damaged stump oozed pus and smelled putrid. He was in tremendous pain.

  He cursed the life that had brought him to this foreign country filled with infidels.

  Borough Market, London England

  COMING FROM THE opposite direction, a group of Millennials comfortably dressed in pricy distressed jeans and designer t-shirts turned into Borough Market. Shopkeepers were sweeping out the fronts of their trendy stores, anxious to extinguish their antique lights, tired after a day of haggling with loud American tourists whose body language showed a complete lack of respect for the British order of business.

  “Last week you decided where we go. This week, I want Asian!” A Guns ‘n Metal t-shirted man demanded, his voice weak, his hair prematurely receding.

  “No, we agreed that the girls get to decide!” A plump blonde glanced toward the other women.

  They talked over each other, animatedly sharing stories of boring jobs and nasty clients and disappointing romantic partners. Each one looked forward to an entire evening of debauchery at the pubs.

  “It’s my turn and that’s final.” The tallest of the girls waved her cell phone in the air and put her finger to her lips, demanding silence while she spoke urgently to her office.

  “Yes. Yes, I know, but I’m taking a Saturday night off. You don’t understand. My best friend is getting married. I’m maid of honor and this is her stag!” She looked toward the group who had stopped to listen and grinned at them.

  “Yes. Of course, I’ll keep my cell phone on.” Her friends roared with approval.

  “No, that’s not my friends making fun of you. I’m at the Brood Café. There’s a large crowd at the table beside us watching a rugby match.” She looked toward the group, stifling her laughter and begging them to shut up.

  “Okay. Yes. The newspaper will still go out without me there.” She nodded, smiling at her entourage. “I know, I owe you one. I’ll be there for you when you need a favor. Pretend you don’t know where I am if anyone asks. Say we switched.” She waited. “Great!”

  They’d arrived at the busy restaurant. The group motioned toward the waiter to find a table for six.

  Sabrina looked up and recognized the female reporter. She wasn’t competition, but she was moving up quickly. Her words were being read in newspapers around the world. She nodded to the group seated at the table across the restaurant and continued chatting.

  Rosy looked around and whispered to Sabrina to check out the group of rugby fans over by the television. They were acting like guys do after one too many beers and knocking each other’s favorite team.

  “Looks like they’ve been here for hours.”

  Sabrina glanced over, and her eyes were drawn to the big grin on the ruddy face of a fit lad wearing a cap, tinted John Lennon glasses, and sporting a ginger mustache and rugged beard. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t quite place it.

  “Let’s order, have some wine or maybe Sangria, and trash-talk men!”

  “Rosy, is your guy here tonight?” Sabrina looked around again, her eyes drawn to the ginger in the corner. She caught him in mid-stare, his eyes focused on her while he chatted with his mates. She felt a jolt, maybe lust or something more—somewhat unfamiliar.

  “Come back, Sabrina!”

  “Yes! But he’s cute.”

  “You’re incorrigible. He’s just a nerdy guy who likes football. And I’m your date for tonight!”

  “There’s something about him.” She looked back but turned quickly when she saw he was still staring.

  The girls talked about anything and everything. Whenever they got together, all sense of time disappeared. Sabrina found herself glancing at the guy in the corner. And each time she did, he seemed to be watching her.

  “I think we’d better order. This wine is going right to my head.” Sabrina looked down at her menu, lost in contemplation.

  “Excuse me, ladies, but may I buy you a drink?”

  Sabrina began her usual eye roll, annoyed at being hit on by losers in a bar. She looked up and her heart stopped beating. Before her stood the quirky Brit with the ginger moustache and the rugged sandy beard. Only now, lovely sexy eyes stared back at her behind his Harry Potter glasses. It wasn’t her fault, really. Her self-control decreased when he
r alcohol consumption went up.

  “Sure, join us. This is my friend Rosy. I’m Sabrina, and you’re?”

  “My friends call me Xavi.”

  Rosy was intrigued. This was a whole new side of Sabrina. There was something immediately intense about the attraction of the couple. This was third-wheel-territory and she was uncertain how she felt about that.

  “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting, but I recognized you from your reporting on TV and I’ve always wanted to meet you. Sabrina isn’t it?”

  Xavi raised his middle finger at his teammates who were hollering off-colored comments from their seats around the end of the bar.

  “Ignore my buds. We’ve just come back from Afghanistan and they’re trying to drink the sand out of their system.”

  Sabrina smiled. “You look familiar, too. But I can’t quite place you.”

  “Nah, people are always telling me that. I fly helicopters for the military. So, ladies, what’s for dinner?”

  And just like that, for Xavi and Sabrina, the outside world ceased to exist.

  Cape Town, South Africa

  THIS TIME, LUCI left the exclusive hotel by the front door.

  It was after midnight and the few guests that were still up lingered at the lobby bar talking the fine points of South African wine and cuisine. She admired their lives, knowing that hers was anything but normal. But then, she’d made her choices many years ago.

  She waited by the porte-cochere, the black bellman discreetly glancing in the opposite direction, instinctively knowing that this was a woman with whom one never attempted small talk.

  Did she have any regrets about her life? Sometimes. She grew up in Israel with two amazing parents, both doctors, who’d been born in London, but were Jewish children of the Holocaust. When they’d decided to return to Israel with Samaar, she’d been intrigued yet sad to leave London. And a few years later she’d been allowed to return to continue her studies in London. Until her parents met an untimely death by suicide bomber. Samaar had no choice. She’d enrolled in the Mossad. She’d trained in all the martial arts to the point where she’d become known in international intelligence reports as Israel’s most lethal assassin.

  And between missions and liaisons with MI6 she’d fallen in love. And he, too, died.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the abrupt arrival of a blue and tan rusted van.

  A window rolled down and a dark face, lit up with a big grin, a strong set of white teeth and a leer. He pointed to the backseat. The door was opened from the inside and Luci hesitated only for a second, then accepted another hand held out and jumped up into the rumbling truck.

  The bellman shook his head slightly and said a prayer for the woman in black. Only a fool would play with those boys at this time of night.

  7

  THE TWO MEN were somber on the drive to False Bay. It wasn’t the first time they’d been approached to dive at night. But it was the first time a lone female had chosen to go out at one in the morning on a moon-less night to the most dangerous Great White Shark area in the world.

  They were known by their friends as crazy boys and rarely, if never, backed down from a challenge. So, when the woman came looking and offered them more money than they would make in a month, they prepared their tanks and got ready to dive. There was only one catch. She refused to use their cage. They would be free-diving.

  Finally, the driver broke his silence.

  “Are you sure about the cage, ma’am? You can get up close and very personal with the sharks while protected in the cage.”

  Luci sighed. She’d faced death so many times. But lately, flirting with love with Raven, and the threats on her life and Alice’s, she felt like she was losing her edge. Going soft. She craved a deadly encounter. The other night she’d gone hunting in the barrio—a warm-up at best. Great White Sharks, diving at night without a cage; this was intense. Some might say insane.

  Their rusty vehicle lumbered along a seldom used, sandy, rock-strewn coastal road. No lights and no people, total solitude, total silence. The vehicle pulled up beside a decrepit wooden dock, barely visible in the middle of the night. The three of them got out of the car.

  Dead fish and briny waters, the drama of the darkest hours of night, and the waves crashing against the shore, made her feel alive.

  “No one comes to this section of the coast; it’s very private like you asked. You understand, ma’am, we are not authorized to take you out at night. We could lose our license.”

  They waited for her response.

  She said nothing.

  Luci pulled on the wetsuit the divers offered. She added a face mask for the chilly waters and took special care to secure her black ceramic knife in the side of her bootie. She carried a watertight waist belt that she quickly wrapped around her waist. She’d secured her money here but more importantly, her buddy Zach suggested she try the Glock 19 anytime she was in rugged areas. Its durability and seventeen rounds gave her the extra bit of security, when she was entering unexplored situations.

  “The Great Whites cruise at night. Continuously eating for energy.” Her dive master handed her a tank. “Last year, I heard about a team off the Atlantic coast near the island of Guadalupe who monitored sharks from a sub. They caught them sleeping with their mouths open, so the water could flow through and aerate their lungs.”

  “Well, if you’re ready to go, we’re going to find out.” Two black men dressed in their own diving gear checked Luci’s equipment carefully. Then pointed toward their mid-size motor boat.

  They rowed from close to shore through the tumbling waves, until the waters were deep enough to turn on the outboard motor.

  Luci felt the biting cold of night off the ocean. The salty sprays sprang up around them, licking her face mask and occasionally landing in her eyes.

  “Not much further now.” One man looked toward the other and Luci caught a glimpse of uncertainty in his eyes. He nodded to his partner, then slowed down the engines until they were idling.

  The shore seemed miles away. Very few lights flickered along the coastline they’d left behind. But Cape Town could be seen on the far left. There were no other boats out at this time of night, except a luxury liner many miles to the east.

  “Look!”

  Luci turned toward the direction her guide pointed and suddenly, an arm came up around her neck. She cursed herself for letting her guard down. Her legs were low in the boat and she couldn’t get a grip anywhere to turn or stand. Her body was strong, yet her medical operations had left her weaker than she’d realized. But, her attackers had underestimated her ability. In a surprise move, she released her killer with her right hand, grabbed her knife from its concealed spot in her bootie and struck up at his exposed neck. His carotid artery spurted blood in all directions and he fell face-forward over the railing of their craft. His screams stopped abruptly. His blood blended with the black ocean depths. She ignored his disappearing corpse and turned toward the other guide who was edging cautiously toward her. His eyes bulged out of his head, shocked at the turn of events and the speed with which she’d dispatched his friend to hell. He reached down for a weapon he’d secured under his seat but before his hands came up, Luci’s blade entered the base of his skull. He slumped over, his body draped over the controls. The boat idled, rising and dropping with the waves, miles from shore.

  She cursed out loud at her stupidity. She’d paid too much money in her excitement at the opportunity to swim with the sharks at night. They must have figured she was alone, vulnerable, and rich. And they figured there would be more money back at her hotel, once they’d killed her. The surgeries had dulled her senses.

  A sudden jarring against the boat knocked her back in her seat. She turned to see a Great White Shark, its jaws open at least three feet wide clasping the head of her first attacker. With a loud splash, the mauled corpse disappeared into the swirling ocean waters. She pushed the second man away from the controls. While she tried to figure out the options, another set of jaws app
eared on the other side of her motor boat. She acted on instinct, pulled the body of the second victim and heaved him off the side of the boat where the other shark circled. She watched the body sink down to the waiting jaws of the predator.

  She quickly turned the boat back, circling wide around the churning waters and looked away from the feeding frenzy taking place all around her. She took control of her emotions, gunned the engine, and headed back toward the faint sprinkle of lights along the shore.

  London Bridge, London England

  The white rental van lumbered along the major arteries of London. It was Saturday night. The sweltering summer sun had fallen into the polluted haze of the city around the center core. Over eight million people, lived, ate, worked and slept within a city that stretched back to Roman times. But no one was talking about its history on this soon-to-be historic night.

  The vehicle arrived at the agreed location, then waited until the appointed time. The inside of the van reeked of the pain sweating from the pores of the Calais recruit. He was required to pass on the mission verbally during evening prayers at the local mosque. Wreak maximum destruction in minimum time. Invoke terror, the likes of which London has never seen.

  The three men were silent, weapons ready, determined to do what their leader had demanded. This time, the infidels would be dealt a blow that would make them realize that nowhere was safe.

  They blended in with the traffic gearing up to cross London Bridge. It was 9:55 pm.

  Brood Café

  XAVI LAUGHED AT a joke Sabrina made. She looked into his sad eyes and knew that this was a man who’d seen pain and suffering. This was no mama’s boy, college-educated, sissy man.