by Stieve Adams
..."
"You're not," Valerie says sharply. "Instead, open the roof door above us"
Valerie had a strong persuasiveness. I could do nothing but what this cute woman told me. I stood on the steps that were in the cleaning scrub, and the roof door was opened. I was looking over the roof of the hotel. On one side a flat landscape, on the other side a sunny sea with beautiful dunes. I would have given quite a bit to go down to the beach as a regular tourist, buy a Pina Colada in the bar and sink into a sun lounger. Preferably in the shadow, it was terribly hot. The plate was hot so you could cook eggs on it.
"What do you see?" was asked from the bottom of the scrub. I tald them. "Do you see any fire path?". Indeed, at the back of the house there was something that could be the top of a ladder. I helped the others on the roof and we sneaked to the fire ladder. Carefully we looked over the edge and saw that the steps went down to the parking lot at the back of the hotel. I walked gently down the steps. It creaked worryingly and I suspected that there would be guards bothered to see what was going on.
If the people in the elevator were on our way to our room where we should be locked up, the alarm should have gone. But everything was quiet, only the noise of the sea was heard and a dull mumbling from the kitchen area. The kitchen was right underneath us with the window open, it would be tricky to get past that window on the steps. I looked up to warn the others. I looked up and found myself looking under the Valery skirts. Silky smooth round well-shaped legs that disappeared into a minimal reddish panty.
I now had the same color on my face as the panty. Did it feel like. It must be the heat. I had stayed but Valerie did not notice and suddenly my head was very close to the red panty before she knew where I was. If you were not on the run ...
I sneaked on the kitchen window and saw two chefs steak fish while discussing the last cricket match. I looked up again and now Valerie had moved on her dress so that I could draw those above me to be silent. They nodded nervously. It was actually happening to get past the chefs, they had no reason to look just as we slipped past the steps. The steps did not go down to the ground, there were two and a half to three meters missing to the ground. I jumped into the gravel. It was a long way, I thought. I whispered upward: "Jump, I receive". Valerie jumped and I received.
"We must be away from here, and soon. What are we doing?" Meanwhile, Boy had jumped down from the steps and sneaked to the parking lot. A handy boy, Boy. At me it seemed like he was a professional burglar. Apparently he had managed to open the hotel doors and let us out. Now he waved us from a Jaguar with American number plates. And, of course, he had a fierce Jaguar and invited me to take a seat at the wheel.
"Where are we going?" did I ask.
"To English Harbour," Valerie answered.
"Why then?"
"We're going to sail to St Lucia"
"And why that if I can ask?"
"We can not stay here, they are too dangerous"
"Who..."
Boy interrupted us as usual and prompted me to quickly leave the hotel behind us. So far I kept up with it completely.
"I have to get back to the plane and get my bag and my computer"
"Never in life," Valerie did not say completely unexpectedly. "What should be good for?"
"My job. I have all the customers in the computer. I have put your puzzle in the computer. I have ..."
Valerie's eyes sparkled, and she agreed to go back to the plane right away.
The planet was left but the question was how it was with the pilot. The planet was empty, the Mexicans had obviously found out to him, or maybe he had spied so much that he could go from there for his own machine. Anyway, I jumped into the plane. My bag was gone but the computer was still under the chair. I found nothing else useful so I went out of the plane. Long away I saw a dust cloud approaching, either they had discovered our escape or someone was on track to find out about the aircraft. One of Liat's plans could not be left anyway, it must be sought after all over the world at this time.
I jumped into the car and Valerie showed way to English Harbor.
"Why in the whole world are we going to English Harbor?" I ask
"Can you sail?"
"I've sailed optimist at home in Scotland," I said proudly
"It's not really the same as sailing a big boat."
"Shall we sail and if so then?"
"It's the best way to leave the island and find something safer. I know people who can help us. But we have to leave Antigua."
She had a certain persuasiveness, dear Valerie. Because I did not know either, I let myself get into new difficulties.
6. Nelson's Dock Yard
"We have to wait until it gets dark," says Valerie. We drove off the road and hid the Jaguar in a tree trunk and covered it with twigs so that it would not appear at a distance. I wonder when I can afford a Jaguar. It was nice to drive even though we had driven it on bad roads and even in the terrain it behaved exemplarily. But now it was time to change to boat as a means of procurement.
We lay in the grass above Nelson's Dock Yard at English Harbor. Lord Nelson was powerful famous here. He had apparently been active in the Caribbean during a less famous period of his life. We were at the height above the harbor and saw about fifty big sailboats in the well-protected harbor. We lay there and saw the boats that were inhabited and those who currently seemed unmanned. We also saw a couple of cars that quickly drove down the harbor and apparently in an upset way asked about something. They might be looking for us. I shake my mind. Everything else seemed so peaceful as seen from above.
Suddenly the dark fell but we had to wait a few hours before the activity in the port ended. The restaurant closed and eventually the harbor was almost fateful. But there was of course at least one guard. Valuable sailboats could not be left completely unattended.
We drove down after one beach and followed it until we were in front of one of the outermost boats. We undressed everything except the underpants. I screwed the computer, wrapped up in a plastic bag, and my clothes, in another plastic bag, on a board. Then we slowly dropped into the lukewarm water and dragged the board to the big white sailboat. When we arrived, I noticed that this boat was big and I did not look forward to sailing such a big craft.
First, it was about boarding which was not the easiest. Suddenly I came to think that there might be sharks in these waters why I asked a little carefully
"Are there sharks here?"
"Do not bother you" I answered. Valerie had apparently become more and more family after hand. In any case, I got new powers so that I could take on board with the help of anchors and then help the others. It was actually a nice swim, so this evening it was 25 degrees in the air and 28 in the water.
I recognized to see what was on board. A small auxiliary engine is understood, the sail ready to hoist and a wind that actually fainted towards the harbor entrance. It should therefore be possible to slowly drive out to the sea with a minimum sail. We started to slowly pick up the two anchors and the boat began to drift. But not against the harbor entrance but towards the other beach. It's not only windy to take into account there were currents as well. And there was ebb and river and a crab that I had not counted on at all.
In any case, we managed to get a sail so that the wind helped us to get in front of the inlet. But we were still driving at anxious speed against another boat. I fought in vain to get more wind in the sail. I had, as I said, sailed optimist sledge on Loch Ness, this should not be more difficult, just a little bigger and heavier. This is a collision and a big failure, I thought, but then we drove past the other boat by less than a meter's margin, and slowly we went to sea. We had the tide on our side, it could not be better if we had figured it out in advance.
We were out on the big ocean without being discovered. But there was still an even more difficult thing to navigate where we were going. And where would we go?
"St Lucia" said Valerie
"You're not wise" was my intelligent comment "Why?"
"There is a
living volcano."
As if there were any explanation.
We actually managed to hoist a sail and the sailboat took good speed away from the island. There was a smooth breeze from the southeast. It always blows a steady breeze from the southeast in these waters so that it's all that well. With the help of the compass I steered towards the southwest and the sailboat slid calmly and smoothly in the water. Soon we saw some dolphins who apparently thought it was fun to keep company.
I found a number of charts and found that the island we were aiming for was the French Guadeloupe. It was nice with land in sight, I thought. Against the darkness, I became nervous and said we had to go somewhere. We had a big island dressed with jungle On our left side so we approached carefully and released an anchor about 100 meters from the land. There we were safe for the night.
Valerie had opened a few canned cans and we got some sausages with white beans. It tasted great after a long day's run. I was considering trying to go to land, but it looked so unexpected that I was able to stay. The boat was well stocked with food and drinks so we opened a couple of cans of beer and relaxed in the salon, Valerie and I. Boy had dumped into a cabin somewhere in the bow. I was about to wait until Valerie exclaimed
"Puzzle! Have you ever come to anyone?"
"No," I said tired "who have time with a puzzle when you have to chase around the world in air, car and boat. Now it's time to get into a nice bin."
I