by Roman Klee
Nathan’s first reaction was to feel left out. He didn’t remember Carla saying anything about a visit to Monte Carlo the previous day. Then he thought they probably wanted time to talk in private about things.
He had almost forgotten that while on board Anastasia, he was a guest, not one of the family, even if Carla had done a very good job in making him feel welcome.
There were many delicate subjects up for discussion, which no one would feel comfortable talking about in front of an advisor from the Trust on the look out for ways to get new business.
But it also provided a good opportunity to cover up any dealings they could be having with Budd’s kidnappers. Monte Carlo was an ideal place to do an exchange. On the other hand, maybe they just wanted to play some Blackjack in the casino. Whatever their reasons, Nathan could put the time alone to good use.
He opened his laptop and navigated to the special program Thom had installed for him. It was designed to monitor and intercept emails by using deep packet inspection technology, which simply meant it could snoop on anyone’s online activities. Thom assured him similar software was popular with government departments across the globe.
A few more clicks and Nathan could read all the emails in Carla’s account. But once again they proved disappointing. She exchanged several messages with Jade and Mary Beth. But there was no mention of Budd. She sent a note to Sophia, but so far received no reply.
So much for technology, it could only get him some of the way. Then Nathan called his cabin steward, but instead of hearing Julius’s friendly voice say, “Good morning Mr. DeAngelis, how can I help you today?” he got an answer machine, with polite instructions to leave a message after the beep. He ordered his usual breakfast.
Nathan showered and dressed, confident he would be hearing a knock on the cabin door, by the time he had finished. But he heard nothing, no one came.
He wasn’t surprised there was no noise coming from Mary Beth’s cabin, because she had left for Monte Carlo with everyone else. There was nothing for him to do, but head for the main deck salon and find out what was going on.
Nathan couldn’t understand how quiet the boat had become. He felt like calling out, but then it would only make him appear desperate if anyone replied. He walked through to the dining room.
Once again there was no sign of anyone. The table was not set. He heard no noises of food preparation coming from the galley. He assumed the entire crew had been given the day off, which didn’t seem unreasonable. But surely someone was left on board.
Nathan knocked on the captain’s cabin door. Again no answer. He tried the handle. It was locked. He went on to the bridge. No one was there.
He moved outside and began walking back toward the stern. Then he heard a couple of men talking in Italian. From what he understood, he assumed they had come to carry out the initial survey work.
He thought about going up to the sundeck and introducing himself. His Italian was good enough to hold a conversation, and he figured they might know what had happened to the rest of the crew.
But before reaching the stairs, he heard the sound of a cell phone and one of the surveyors say, “Pronto, mi dica!”
Then silence, followed by, “Buongiorno dottore Orofino …”
Nathan was stunned.
Antonio Orofino was talking to two random guys on the French Riviera. Clearly he was not using all that cloak and dagger security nonsense he had gone on and on about. And Nathan assumed there must be a very good reason.
He heard some choice swear words, and when the call was over, both Italians started arguing with each other.
Then he heard a curious hissing sound. Nathan had no idea what it could be. So he went straight up to the sundeck.
Either they were rushing, because of something Orofino had said or they were not very expert at the task in hand, but whatever the reason, neither one of the surveyors had any idea how to safely use an acetylene torch.
The men were concentrating so hard on cutting open the lower portion of the funnel, they failed to notice that sparks were jumping onto the ropes that secured the sun canopy. Slowly but surely it began to smolder. Then with a sudden gust of wind, a whole section caught alight.
As luck would have it, Nathan knew there was a muster point just inside the doorway that led through to the bridge. He retraced his steps. Locating the hydrant, he now had to find the hose.
He opened several recessed wall lockers, before discovering it. Without bothering to work out whether it would be long enough to reach the sundeck, Nathan secured it tightly with the threaded brass ring.
He began to open the valve, turning it in the direction of the flow arrow, expecting the hose to rapidly inflate under the pressure of the water.
But it didn’t. Instead he heard a low humming sound and the wall panel directly in front of him slid open, revealing an oval shaped room without a single window.
The green baize table was still there, so were the high-backed chairs and the video screens. The décor matched the rest of the yacht. Without the players, it was just as Nathan remembered it. The only difference was that he could hear the surveyors overhead and their hissing acetylene torch.
Nathan’s eyes did not deceive him. It was making sense, he was right all along. This was where they had played poker—L.A.Y.D.E.E.s poker.
The gaming room was designed to neatly fit below the funnel area and above the engine room. Nathan was annoyed for not working it out sooner. Anastasia was not powered by steam, so the funnel did not run through the center of the yacht, even if it gave that impression.
It was obviously false, added by the yacht’s designer because it simply improved the line of the yacht.
Nathan knew the situation on the sundeck could soon become critical if he didn’t get water to put out the fire. He had no time to celebrate his discovery.
And he couldn’t work out how to close the wall panel. He tried turning the valve counterclockwise, but nothing happened.
He abandoned the idea, found the nearest stairs and went back up to the sundeck.
His eyes were instantly dazzled by the intense mid-morning sun. Nathan looked across to the center of the deck, where he thought he saw one of the surveyors remove something from the exposed section of the funnel, and then place it on top of more stacked packages—but he couldn’t see well enough.
The entire sun canopy was now ablaze and no one was doing anything to put the fire out. Nathan tried to get the attention of the two Italians, but the next few seconds became a blur.
He suddenly felt very light headed.
Burning pieces of canvas were now falling down all over the deck. He instinctively raised his arms and tried to protect himself, but it was no use.
The hissing of the acetylene torch grew louder.
An intense pain, of the kind he had never experienced before, surged down the middle of his back and seconds later, Nathan lay unconscious on Anastasia’s perfectly restored teak sundeck.
Δ = T –08,227,440
The nurse warned him that he might see disturbing images flash in front of his eyes, as he came round from the anesthetic. She assured him this was quite normal and he need not worry, because with time they passed and things would go back to normal.
On the first night, when the lights were turned down and he was alone again with just his thoughts, Nathan dreamed of Loretta and Steven.
And the walls of his room began to move. Then he looked more carefully and noticed it was not the walls, but certain objects on the walls that were moving. What were they? Did he really want to find out?
He reached out and they felt slimy. And then he realized what the surgeons had done with the worms they removed from inside him. The ones that had twisted themselves around his intestines and had to be cut out.
And for some odd reason, he saw the face of Alva Grenelund. It was attached to the writhing body of a tapeworm (Na
than assumed Grenelund’s face was the head, but couldn’t be sure). And there she was, jaws moving up and down, as she voraciously feasted on her generous host.
Later the nurses replaced his dressings, put him on an intravenous drip and adjusted his catheter. And that’s when the reality of what had happened finally hit home.
No one called. No one came.
No one cared what happened to him. Was this what they meant by hitting rock bottom at AA meetings?
It was like he’d been left alone to work things through, making all the costly mistakes on his own ticket, taking the beatings, absorbing the punches, saying nothing because that was what was expected of him. He practiced stoicism, hoping things might improve.
Maybe he was wrong. He had not been awake much of the time. Someone could have come and sat at his bedside. How could he know for sure? He asked a nurse again, had anyone called in to see him while he was unconscious.
And once again he got a negative reply.
Then a glimmer of hope; the nurse came back later to say she misunderstood and was wrong. There was one person, she sat in his room, watching over him—a young nun from the local convent. She prayed at his bedside every afternoon.
He asked if anyone else had come.
This time the answer was definitely no.
He probably deserved it. Why should anyone come to see him? After all, no one knew how long he would lie in a comatose state. He could not speak. Maybe he would never recover and there would be a court case and relatives would argue about who had the legal right to shut down his life-support system.
Some days he felt as if his efforts were as significant as adding a grain of salt to the sea, and hoping later in the day that someone might notice the water tasted saltier than usual. If he couldn’t make a difference, then what was the point of trying?
What about his children?
They must surely have heard about his accident by now. Okay, if they were stuck in a remote part of Borneo perhaps not. But wouldn’t his ex-wife have dialed the emergency contact number? Surely she would have told them to send a get-well card to their dad, as he lay on his back in the intensive care section of a French hospital.
Nathan suspected Carla knew all along what she was doing, and how to play him. She understood he was curious to find out more about her. She was used to men doing this, because it was obvious what they were after.
What in the world did he expect?
It was total guesswork, but he thought it likely she had been acting on either Jade’s or Budd’s instructions.
For Nathan, nothing made much sense. And the more he delved into the workings of the Wright family, the more he realized that it was often better to leave some things well alone.
As he started to clear up his belongings, in anticipation of being discharged early, he noticed that a card had lodged itself between the side of the nightstand and the mattress.
He assumed a previous patient must have left it behind. But still, he reached down to retrieve it. As he suspected, it was a Get Well Soon card, with a picture of a bear on the front.
On opening it, Nathan was startled to see his name at the top. He glanced down at the signature—it was from Thom.
So the nurses either did not know, or they were lying. Thom, his faithful family friend, had come to visit. The silent, oppressive weight that had been building up and resting on his shoulders suddenly began to ease.
Nathan had not been forgotten or left totally alone.
And there was a number for him to call.
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Nathan had made good progress, thanks to the care and attention of the medical staff at the hôpital Saint Roch. The skin grafts had taken well and since the scars were on his shoulders and upper thigh area, no one would notice them. He was even beginning to pick up a few words of French, though he found most of the nurses and doctors spoke English very well.
But he had been away too long. Confined to a sick bed on the Riviera, isolated from what was going on in the real world, Nathan was now dangerously out of touch and even less in control of events.
The source of his problem was that the hospital didn’t allow patients to use cell phones or any other kind of electronic device. He tried many times to get a signal, but had no luck.
And since he was unable to walk to the hospital’s telephone room, Nathan had not managed to keep in contact with the Trust or anyone else.
Pete Cunningham had finally gone cold on his kidnap idea and came up with another explanation for Budd Wright’s disappearance, which allowed him to cling to his Doppelgänger theory.
Following the plane crash, Wright accepted that he had limited time ahead of him. He slipped below the radar, with the intention of visiting some of the sights around the world he had never seen while traveling on business. There was a good chance he would also meet up with Liz to attempt a final reconciliation.
Nathan’s encrypted email updates were designed to help Orofino and Cunningham work out Budd Wright’s most likely locations. They assumed that Carla would be in regular contact with Jade and there would be frequent family discussions about what Budd was doing, as well as attempts to contact Liz. But the reality had been different.
Nathan was never included in family discussions. Liz was never mentioned and Budd’s name only ever came up in passing conversation. Nathan had been waiting for Carla to knock on his cabin door, but she never came. The piece of spyware he tricked her into downloading from iTunes, let him read her emails, but they contained nothing he could use about Budd or Liz.
So Nathan became creative. Using the photo scrap books he found in the library, he constructed a list of places Wright was likely to visit again, and it was just possible he would stumble upon Liz’s hideout. And to make it all sound more credible, he claimed his discoveries were the result of overheard conversations and the occasional indiscreet comment by a family member.
Now that Nathan was about to leave hospital, he dreaded getting back in contact with Orofino. The guy had no doubt discovered that his reports were largely works of fiction.
And his default reaction was also predictable; he would assume that Nathan was a slacker, who had grown too close to the Wrights and was enjoying the highlife. Injury or no injury, the only thing that counted was getting the job done—and so far Nathan had fallen a long way short.
Frankly, his contact with Carla Wright and her husband had not yielded the results expected. His mission had been a failure and he expected to pay a heavy price.
It was something he tried not to dwell on too much, because he was sure that if he focused solely on the negatives, his chances of making a full recovery would be slowed down.
When Nathan finally got a signal on his smartphone, he was expecting to find several months of missed calls, unanswered texts and emails. He couldn’t believe what he saw.
There were no get well messages from either Loretta or Steven, small gestures he would have really appreciated. There was nothing from his ex.
Well, no great surprise there. She had obviously cut him out of her life, and now he had to do the same. But what really shocked him was the stream of abuse from Antonio Orofino.
WTF? Get off your fat ass! Do something! NFE!
BFD U got hurt! HMD! Quit moaning MOFO. Friggin loser!
QFU LPOS. Need results RFS!
ROTFLMFAO U muppet!
And all this was sent by the guy who said he would never contact Nathan by phone ever again and whose company clearly didn’t use automated profanity detectors.
Nathan knew it was no good clinging to the past, refusing to let go. From his work at Solomon, he understood what time decay was all about and decided to make his new found resolve work in his favor.
Some days, he sympathized with the plight of hapless CEOs.
He remembered a story about Bill Adams, who used to be the head of a
major Wall Street investment bank. He was the kind of guy who hated receiving bad news. One day, two hedge funds managed by his bank blew up—highly leveraged bets on mortgage-backed securities turned sour. Rival investment banks had been fiddling with their models and decided the securities were worth a lot less than they originally thought.
Now Nathan understood why, during the height of the crisis, Adams sought sanctuary at the Phoenician Country Club, preferring to hone his short game.
The CEO appeared to care about the firm, only to the extent that it paid his salary and bonus and funded a very generous pension—for when he was forced to take early retirement.
But Nathan’s predicament was several orders of magnitude more serious. He had no nine figure pension pot to fall back on. No one was arranging a bailout fund for his benefit. His future was far from secure. During his stay in France, dark forces were starting to circle and they had him in their sights.
There was a limit to the number of rich and powerful people Nathan could hack off.
And he had overstepped the mark some time ago.
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What started off as a little joke among friends was now snowballing out of control. Since the beginning of Nathan’s Mediterranean cruise, the number of public appearances made by Budd Wright had been multiplying, and annoying the hell out of Nathan’s former work colleagues.
The one question Solomon’s junior traders on the prop desk kept repeating was: Is it okay to stay long Wright L.A.Y.D.E.E.s, boss? At one meeting, Solomon’s head of derivatives trading suggested that they close out all open positions and stop making markets in L.A.Y.D.E.E.s. He had the backing of his team. But the firm’s senior partner overruled him.
Alva Grenelund pointed out that the Brothers had built their reputation by serving clients in good times and bad. Sure they were greedy to make money, but they didn’t do so at the expense of their best clients.
She was met with howls of protest from the firm’s highest earners, who wanted nothing to jeopardize the payment of their regular eight figure bonuses.