by Melissa Roen
“Do you really think Graciella will let us use her yacht to escape?”
I’d been on the Dawn’s Edge a couple of times, for parties. A fifty-plus-meter Benedetti, it should be seaworthy enough for the run down the Italian coast to Rome. Best of all, it was fast—since we’d still have to pass through the waters of Liguria. Without guns and enough security guards to defend her, a yacht decorated like an opulent jewel would be an enviable prize for any pirates worth their salt lurking around the Med.
“I’ll convince her,” said Lucy firmly. “She trusts me for spiritual guidance. I’ll make her understand she has to trust me to save her life. Don’t worry. She’ll understand.” Her eyes were fierce as she continued. “But without enough firepower, we’ll be fucked. If he can’t turn us back on the seas, he could send helicopters after us with rocket-launched missiles. I don’t know everyone he has in his pocket. Ministers, the cops, palace officials—now that the Prince is missing—everyone is afraid to cross him. I’ll give you whatever you want if you’ll help me. I have plenty of gold. You could buy your way home. I know if you’re on the boat, Abdul will do everything in his power to make sure you come to no harm.”
Somehow, that didn’t sound like a boat I wanted to be on, being Anjuli’s human shield, with choppers and missiles on our tails. But I knew both Abdul and Giovanni would love to have her intel on Slava. Having a mole in Slava’s camp could change the balance of power.
Her offer of gold and Graciella’s G5, waiting on the tarmac at Rome, represented another option should things with Abdul not work out. I didn’t like having my back against a wall. I wanted to believe Abdul would do right by me and help me get to Oregon. But everyone had his own agenda. I had to laugh. Anjuli said I was one of the only people she could trust with her plan to escape. Besides Joe, and maybe Bilal, I didn’t know anyone in this messed-up town, really, who I could trust.
I looked at her, all artifice and trace of Anjuli del Solaire vanquished by fear. Lucy Brown peered out at me from those light brown eyes. No matter that she thought she’d amass riches and power by manipulating people’s fear and desire for spiritual comfort in a desperate time. Perhaps I was a fool to believe she could change. Didn’t we all dream of a second, even a third, chance? To her credit, she was ready to defy Slava and work his downfall, now she saw the true face of the monster she’d been allied with. Her scars and proposal were proof of that.
I thought of Tasha. So beautiful and so lost. I hadn’t been able to help her. I was haunted by enough ghosts. I didn’t want the images of Lucy’s death stalking me in my dreams. No one deserved such a fate.
Lucia Montero Brown had always been a greedy bitch. I might live to regret this. But I would pass on her message of assistance and her plea for help.
CHAPTER 26
LIMBO
The insurgent forces were battling for Frejus, their forward thrust slowed as the tide of war surged first one way, then the other, then back again. The French had finally woken up and thrown themselves into the fight. The line had to hold, or there would be little to stop them until the outskirts of Cannes.
The Emiratis and Anjuli made a deal. I wasn’t privy to the details. Anjuli del Solaire would have to stay in Slava’s camp for a while longer, while they milked her for intel.
Lucy Brown had been fearless on the basketball court, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine the courage she called upon to remain by Slava’s side and bear his touch. If he could beat her so brutally for just trying to leave, what would he do if he found out she was aiding the Emiratis? The whipping she’d already endured would feel like a gentle handshake.
The countdown was starting for me as well. All that stretched before me was the uncertainty of a long and dangerous journey to find Leah and a new life among the silent, ancient redwoods. Chaz would be there, as well as Mama, Sloan and the dogs. I tried to hold onto that image: safely reunited with my family. But it wouldn’t come into focus. It felt like someone else’s dream.
My companions on the first stage of this journey would be people I couldn’t entirely trust. Maybe if I had a friend like Giovanni by my side, leaving would be bearable. But Giovanni was staying in Monaco. He was slipping farther and farther away each time I saw him. It was as though a fire consumed him until he was honed like a blade with only one purpose. He wouldn’t abandon his adopted homeland and would oppose Slava till his last breath. Monaco needed people like him: stalwarts who would stand against the coming darkness.
The internet had been off and on for almost a week. Most of the time, cell phone reception was disrupted. I hadn’t been able to get a signal for days. The invisible web of communication that connected the globe—and had magically continued to function all these months—was finally breaking down. I couldn’t get through to Leah. I didn’t know if they’d been forced to flee Coos Bay. I needed to let her know I would be starting my journey soon.
Abdul was gone frequently, on the Sheik’s business or closeted in strategic sessions day and night. Anjuli’s intel was proving invaluable. On the rare evening when Abdul insisted I accompany him out for a night on the town, I noticed that more Emirati security personnel were appearing on the streets of Monaco; more of Slava’s new henchmen, too. Both sides preparing for the inevitable showdown.
Most nights when he was in town, usually sometime between midnight and dawn, Abdul would appear at my door. Some nights, I would feign sleep and not let him in, until the memories and dreams of Julian would become too much to bear and I would open my door and seek forgetfulness once again in his arms.
Then, after he had left, I would slip out of the hidden gate at the bottom of my garden and climb down to the shore. I didn’t care how reckless it was, how vulnerable I could be to anyone who might wish me harm.
I swam for kilometers, knifing through the crystal seas, until my arms were so tired I couldn’t lift them for even one more stroke. Then, I would float on my back in the sea-green grotto hidden inside the granite cliff walls. Rocked on the gentle swell, I would let my mind float free, wishing I could sink beneath the waves. That the saltwater would melt my flesh and bones until I became once again a simple organism, a water thing, living peacefully at the bottom of the sea.
Once a small pod of bottlenose dolphins—a half-a-dozen, two-meter-long, gray individuals—swam into the bay, and circled me as I swam offshore. For a half an hour, they frolicked and leaped through the sparkling waters in front of the grotto, before heading out of the bay towards open sea. One dolphin stayed behind.
He weaved about me, brushing against my side. My heart missed a beat when I saw him open his rostrum. I watched mesmerized as the rows of his conically-shaped teeth loamed closer to my bare arm. For an instant, I thought he was going to bite me, but instead, he took my arm, so gently—the pressure wouldn’t have broken an egg shell—between his wicked-looking teeth. I stroked him on his nose and under his jaw, and like a puppy, he rolled onto his back so I could caress the smooth, rubbery skin on his light-colored belly. I could see the spark of intelligence and humor glowing in his eyes. He released his hold on my arm, and swam in lazy circles, bumping against me, like a cat rubbing against its owner’s legs.
He once more clasped my arm between his teeth, and hesitantly tugged me towards the mouth of the bay. I marvelled at the playfulness and gentleness of this vastly-stronger creature who could have snapped the fragile bones of my arm with one crunch of his jaws. He towed me along for a few meters, before releasing my arm once again.
We stared into each other’s eyes, two very different creatures who didn’t speak the same language. It seemed as though a strange telepathy passed between us. Almost as though he was asking me if I wanted to run away, and join him and his kind—living in freedom—past the horizon’s edge.
As he swam away, I felt a pang of longing and homesickness remembering that once, I, too, had been a creature of the sea. I watched his leaping form dwindle, and then finally disappear into a glimmer of sunlight shimmering at the mouth of the bay…<
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Most nights, after a long swim, I would fall into bed, muscles exhausted from the hours spent in the sea, and blissfully sink into dreamless oblivion. But some nights, I dreamt of a red comet bleeding across the sky, while the wings of shadows wheeled through the blood-red mist and drums of war beat in the background. Those nights, I awoke with the chill of death deep in my bones and fear hammering at my heart, demanding to be let inside.
I knew the nights Bilal guarded my home when Abdul was away on one of his secretive trips. I smelled the smoke from his Turkish cigarettes drifting on the wind. Anjuli was right; as long as I was under Abdul’s protection, no harm would come from Slava’s thugs. But I chafed under the restrictions of my movements just the same. I hadn’t seen Buddy in more than ten days. I couldn’t risk anyone following me. The Astrarama was still my secret.
Abdul had left this morning for a week. I saw him off, Bilal at the wheel. An hour later, I let myself out of the bottom gate, my backpack loaded with extra supplies, both the Glock and the Judge nestled in my gun bag. I watched my back trail, staying hidden motionless for thirty minutes in the bamboo brake to be sure that no one followed me.
Buddy was waiting for me as I came around the last switchback before reaching the Ecole de Chiens Guides. He stood on his perch above the trail and gave a bark of joy as he recognized me. He leapt from the rock, bounced off the path once, and launched himself into my arms. There I was, flat on my back in the dust, forty kilos of golden retriever and fur pinning me to the ground, tail wagging furiously while he licked my face.
I didn’t know how he sensed that today I would finally appear, or if he’d kept a lonely vigil and watched the trail for days, wondering if I’d abandoned him. I wrestled with him in the dirt, laughing until tears streamed down my face. I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been holding on, the tension and fear squeezed into a hard fist of pain. I felt it ease, and for the first time in weeks I could breathe.
He finally let me up, and I sat there for an hour, my arm around Buddy, watching the ant-sized people crawl over the scraps of flesh on the festering bones of the coast. A lone hawk wheeled overhead through the clear air of the heights, and the Indian summer blazed overhead like a brand searing these hills down to their essence of rock, sky and ancient bones.
I stood and whistled. Buddy followed me up the trail to the Astrarama.
There is no way to hold back the tide. Some things like time, disease, or natural phenomena move forward, relentless, like a tidal wave that can’t be outrun. But you can occasionally raise your head above the raging waters and gasp a last breath of precious air, see the beauty of the sky and land once again before being submerged and buffeted like flotsam, tumbling head over ass towards a distant shore.
No matter where I went in this world, constellations wheeling across the heavens would always be my companions. This was the same night sky that Leah saw shining through the branches of the trees in her woodland glade. That Julian saw while smoking a cigarette on a bench by a lake after surgery. That Buddy saw perched on his rock. These stars would soar across the vault of the desert sky and shine down on the endless waves of dunes in that country by the Arabian Sea.
I would be separated from the ones I loved in the darkness of the nights to come, and starlight would be the only thing to still connect us, lost to each other in the world’s immensity.
I thought of the day at the beginning of the summer when Buddy first appeared in my life like a golden glow. I would always think of him as part of this land. Under the autumn light, the hills had taken on the mantle of his coat, all the colors burnished like a sea of bright golden wheat swaying on the breeze. I couldn’t bear to leave him behind. I would never be ready to say goodbye.
I knew in the back of my mind there might be a reckoning when I returned home. Explanations would probably have to be given to Abdul, about where I had disappeared to these past days.
I really shouldn’t have worried. No explanations would be required. My absence was lost in the tumult of events unfolding, even as I spent my last days on the heights with Buddy.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the reel of my life was speeding up and already fast forwarding out of control. Frejus had fallen. While I slumbered under the metal dome of the Astrarama, there was fighting on the palm-lined streets of the Croisette and on the steps of the Palais de Festival in Cannes.
The Red Star had finally arrived in our night sky, just as the Hopi Prophecies had predicted. Although it remained hidden from sight—for now—by the gaseous trails of swirling nebula.
You can’t hold back the tides, no matter how much you might wish otherwise. They just keep rolling in until the end of time.
CHAPTER 27
CARPE DIEM
The harvest moon was waxing. October had passed in a blur, as my mood swung between numbing apathy to the heart-wrenching realization that Julian was lost to me forever, and back again to apathy. In ten days it would be Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival that marked the end of the months of light and the beginning of the long darkness, when the ground would lie barren and no seeds would grow. All Hallows’ Eve, when the door between worlds is flung wide open and spirits and ghouls roam unchallenged in the darkness from midnight to dawn.
Tonight, clouds shrouded the moonlight, blanketing everything? in shadow as fingers of fog crept over the waves. West towards Cannes, jagged explosions of light sprang from the earth as though reaching up to lacerate the soft underbelly of the sky.
At this hour, the harbor master’s office in Fontveille was shuttered, everything battened down for the night, the bobbing flashlights of the night watch on the far side of the yacht basin the only sign of life. The sigh of the wind and the creaking of masts muffled our footsteps as we hurried down the quay towards the darkened silhouette of the seventy-five-meter Feadship, Carpe Diem, that had just docked near the harbor’s mouth. Bilal carried the heavier bag, and I had a smaller one slung over my shoulders—just the bare necessities; I was traveling light.
The gangplank swayed under my feet as the first mate extended his arm to help me aboard. The deck hands cast off from the dock, and with a low rumble of engines, the yacht stole out of the harbor into the night. With running lights turned off, we set course towards the Cap Ferrat and the Baie de Fourmis.
It was after midnight, and I was the last one to board; Graciella, Madeleine, and the other passengers had already retired to their cabins for the night. I left Bilal with the first mate on the aft deck and followed the steward who, flashlight in hand, led the way down the wood-paneled hallway towards the staircase that led to the lower deck. My bare feet sunk into the luxurious thickness of the carpet underfoot as we crossed the vastness of the darkened living room. I could see the dim outline of couches and low tables scattered about.
My stateroom was spacious, the queen sized bed mounded with fluffy pillows, already turned down for the night. The bathroom was stocked with any toiletry items I might have forgotten; soaps and bath oils perfumed the air. The monogram of the yacht was embossed in gold thread on the towels and thick bathroom robe that hung on the door. I was surprised to find that my two bags were already in the closet atop a luggage rack.
“There’s a mini fridge with water and juice, but please don’t turn on any lights. Since we’re trying to sneak away, it would spoil the surprise. My name is Leo, if you need anything.”
Must be from South Africa, I thought. The accent was too guttural—a hint of Dutch Afrikaner—to be from Australia. I immediately thought of Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond. In fact, this Leo had the same lithe build and thick sandy hair, too. They were hard men, the South Africans, and no strangers to a firefight. I could see Abdul had chosen the right crew for this trip.
“Here’s a flashlight to use. Remember, no other light. I’ll leave you to settle in, but if you need anything, just ask the watch officer or any of the crew.”
The door had barely swung shut, but already the walls of the stateroom felt like they were closing in
on me. I could feel the boat slicing through the waves; the deck rocked under my feet down here in the vessel’s bowels. Too much had happened in the last few days, and I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts. I opened the door to call for Leo, but he’d disappeared through a passage known only to the crew. The long hallway was dark and silent; not even a beam of moonlight dispelled the gloom.
I grabbed the flashlight and my bag. Closing the door softly behind me, I set off to explore the ship.
No one was on the aft deck. The crew must have been up on the bridge towards the bow or down in their quarters. I couldn’t smell Bilal’s Turkish cigarettes either, but somehow I knew he wouldn’t be far.
The decanter of whiskey that I found on the living room bar sat on the low table to my right, as I leaned back with my feet up in the lounge chair, cigarette in hand, and watched through the spray of the yacht’s wake the fog-shrouded lights of Monaco recede from sight.
The Dawn’s Edge had sailed towards Corsica and Sardinia as a decoy, earlier, from Monaco’s main Port de Hercules. In broad daylight, Graciella and her guests, attired in sunhats and dark glasses, lounged on the sun deck, champagne glasses in hand. Everything had been choreographed. They’d even sat for an hour at the quay before pulling up anchor, peals of laughter and loud music attracting the attention of anyone out for a stroll by their berth.
Five hours after leaving the port, they had rendezvoused with Carpe Diem at sea, and Graciella’s party transferred ship. The Dawn’s Edge then continued its voyage, with the three female crew members taking their places, in large hats and dark glasses, when they made port at Calvi in the northernmost tip of the island of Corsica. Witnesses would remember the fifty-meter Benedetti yacht arriving, its passengers, all fair skinned, lounging on the top deck.