Bon Bon Voyage

by Nancy Fairbanks

  All the way down to the brig, the men had been mulling over John Killington’s report on a helicopter, from which all passengers except Hartwig and Patek were to be killed by Muhammad and his colleagues. They decided that the best marksmen of the group should be sent to the top deck to shoot down this helicopter if it appeared. There were four guns, so Sven and Hank Povray were selected because they were experienced hunters.

  Owen told the group that he’d been on fox hunts, but that didn’t involve shooting the fox, and he had no dogs to contribute, nor did he think they’d be much use against a helicopter; Owen can be very amusing, which was one of the things I liked about him, as long as he wasn’t amusing himself at my expense. No one else volunteered, but it was agreed that Luz, as an ex-police lieutenant, and Beau, another hunter, would make satisfactory volunteers once they finished with Patek’s foot. The captain muttered, “Let the swine bleed to death for all I care.”

  Owen, Barney, and I accompanied Captain Marbella to the bridge, where the ship’s course had to be changed and the cruise line radioed about the stewards’ mutiny, as the captain called it; the officers’ hijacking; and the passengers’ “brave and heroic retaking of the ship.” How nice to be called brave and heroic, I thought, dragging reluctantly behind the men. I didn’t feel the part. I wanted to go to bed. Still, there were things I myself felt a need to do. Find Mrs. Gross’s emerald necklace, for instance, so I’d know who killed her. Check on the chef to see if he’d be willing to prepare us a celebration dinner, not to mention something edible for breakfast and lunch.

  Barney and the captain did necessary things to the radio and contacted Miami, where cruise line executives were relieved to hear that the ship, whose position and situation they didn’t seem clear about, was now back in the hands of the captain, and that the hijackers were in captivity. Then the exchange got peculiar. They also hadn’t heard anything about a stewards’ strike. They wanted to know at what time we had taken over the ship. When they found out that it was after midnight, they expressed dismay.

  I thought I heard a man named Balsam ask if the hijackers had been forced to disarm the explosives. What explosives? we all wanted to know. Were we prepared to evacuate the ship if necessary? they asked. What, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean? we wondered. Who would rescue us? Miami said they’d have to make arrangements. We were instructed to tell our captives that they would all be tried in third-world countries and hanged if any harm came to the passengers. I mentioned Mrs. Gross and Mr. Marshand, as well as the deadly attempts made on the Crosswayses and me. In that case, if harm came to the remaining passengers, Mr. Balsam amended, they’d all be hanged.

  “No telling when we can make any threats,” said Owen. “They’re all unconscious. We drugged them with avocado soup, and those who were still half conscious, we had to knock out.” That upset the executives—more and more had gathered in the Miami offices and introduced themselves as higher and higher people in the chain of command. Finally, after instructing the captain to hold an immediate evacuation drill in case of need, they promised to get back to us with new instructions and strategies for rescue.

  I thought the whole thing very peculiar, but I slipped away with Herkule’s pass card and began a thorough search of the officers’ cabins. Within fifteen minutes, I found the emeralds under the mattress in Umar Patek’s cabin. Not only was the man a murderer and a terrorist, but he was greedy, as well. He’d stolen jewelry from a corpse and then attempted to loot the ship’s safe. At that moment I didn’t care if his foot fell off his ankle.

  Next I headed for the kitchen to chat with Demetrios. He’d be so pleased to hear my news and would, I was sure, be delighted to recompense me and all the ladies for the Mother’s Day celebration we’d missed. He and I reached the kitchen together, having taken the same elevator up. Demetrios was grumbling about having slept badly and dreamt of people making loud noises in the hall and entering his room. However, his pique was nothing compared to the explosion of fury that ensued when he discovered that not a single employee awaited him in the kitchen. “The soup, Demetrios,” I reminded him. “They’re all unconscious.”

  “My cooks don’t eat the soup,” he rumbled angrily.

  “Then they’re all locked in.” We sat down in his office and had a cup of coffee and croissants while I explained the night’s activities. He was, as I expected, pleased, and he began to plan the belated Mother’s Day feast immediately, real avocado soup, a spicy shrimp pasta, rack of lamb with ratatouille . . . I didn’t dare object, but avocado soup made me nervous, and lamb? Well, of course it wasn’t going to be Mrs. Gross, but still—Oh well, I’d keep a stiff upper lip and enjoy it no matter what. Mind over matter, Carolyn, I told myself. “Might I suggest dessert?” I asked. “Could we have the double chocolate raspberry mousse again?”

  “But of course, dear madam,” he shouted, embracing me. He might not have been so enthusiastic if he’d known that I planned to have two, one of which I’d pass on to Herkule. My dear steward, even though he’d thought he was on strike, had done his best for me with descriptions of food and keycards that made our mission ever so much easier.

  “So now we will go to let my staff out of their dormitories,” said Demetrios.

  I had to agree; he was being so nice about everything. We headed back to the elevator only to hear the rattle of gunfire high above our heads.

  The helicopter, I thought. They were trying to shoot it out of the sky, Luz and Beau among them if they’d finished with Patek’s foot. And the terrorists probably had arms aboard their helicopter. If Beau and Luz were killed—I could feel the tears coming to my eyes—who would take care of the wounded? Bad enough that I’d had to help deliver a baby once. I simply could not deal with gunshot wounds.

  47

  An International Incident

  Luz

  After we finished with Patek, which was a matter of stopping the bleeding—Beau said he was no orthopedic surgeon, so someone else would have to take care of the rest—other members of the team hauled Patek away. But first they stopped to tell us that Carolyn had discovered Mrs. Gross’s emeralds under the head steward’s mattress. She had a one-track mind, that woman. She wanted to know who killed Mrs. Gross, and by God she kept looking till she got an answer. Carolyn would have made a great homicide detective except she’d have driven everyone in Crimes Against Persons completely nuts.

  Beau and I were asked if we’d be willing to stand guard with two others and the two remaining guns up top in case some helicopter showed up. Sven and the rancher were already up there, probably swapping hunting stories. Beau would fit right in, but the only things I’d ever hunted were criminals and a good score on the departmental shooting tests. Still, I was happy to get out in the sunshine after being indoors so long. We scattered over both sides of the deck, scanning the sky with binoculars, and then sprawled in the shade so we could shoot from cover if the helicopter showed up. I never was quite sure why we were expecting a helicopter or why we were going to try to shoot it down or even if you could do that with these guns.

  Still, sure enough the damn thing swooped in an hour or so later. Looked military to me, dull colors and all, but when it got close, I could see the Arabic letters on it. Crap! Maybe they really were terrorists. The damn thing made a hell of a lot of noise as it hovered over the end of the boat, blowing deck chairs down and sending sand and cigarette butts flying from ashtray stands. This was one of the few places aboard people could smoke.

  A lot of shouting went on. The guys in the copter were hanging out the windows looking for someone on the decks and yelling in whatever their language was. The only word I caught was Hartwig, which was enough for me. Povray got in the first shot. He just stood up and winged one of the Arabs. I stayed under cover, took aim, and shot a rotor blade off. Then the helicopter slewed over and tried to turn.

  I think Beau ran a line of shots along the side, while I tried for the nose, which promptly caught fire. Both the Arabs dived out into the sea and swam ar
ound shaking their fists at us. When Sven put some more bullets into the copter, it blew up and fell like a comet, fire and parts spewing everywhere. The Arabs must have had some special deal with their God, because they managed to dodge the flaming debris.

  Of course, people began to get off the elevator to gawk at the helicopter sinking into the water. “Now,” said Beau, “we have to decide what to do about those two.” He was talking about the Arabs.

  “Hell,” said Povray, pushing his cowboy hat back on his head, “let ’em drown.”

  Barney disagreed. He’d seen enough to decide that they and their copter belonged to somebody’s army. “We have to rescue them,” he insisted. “Geneva convention.”

  “Terrorists,” Sven objected. “Probably booby trapped, like those suicide bombers.”

  “Well, if they are, their bombs won’t be any good after being dunked in seawater.”

  Barney won the argument, and we hauled them up, took a good look at them before we brought them on board, and when we couldn’t see any explosives, they got locked in the brig with the rest of the hijackers. That caused a lot of shouting, so I heard, between the helicopter Arabs and Hartwig.

  Jason

  My crew and I were in the process of reassembling the ship’s filtering systems, which were clogged in places and had had to be cleared out. Some had been deactivated by placement of the wrong filters. It had been a long, messy, exhausting job carried out by sailors and Tenerife laborers under the direction of Spanish-speaking harbor inspectors and myself. I was also assigned more U.S. Navy sailors, as well as technicians provided by the harbormaster’s office, men who, when asked, ran analyses on what was running in the pipes and through the filters. The results were often unexpected.

  Frankly, no matter what I’d said to the captain in order to get aboard, this was not work to which I was accustomed. My university labs were clean and filled with equipment that had been purchased rather than slapped together on the spur of the moment to meet unexpected needs. My students spoke at least some version of English. And, for the most part, I expected to work regular hours in clothes that were not soaked and stained with various unpleasant substances. I just hoped that my wife would appreciate these efforts on her behalf. I may have missed Mother’s Day, but my intentions had been good.

  Just as I was about to give the next set of instructions to my motley team of workers, a sailor popped into the area and informed me that the captain wished to confer immediately. After a skeptical look at my clothes, the man repeated, with reluctance, the word immediately. So I went as I was.

  “Well, the shit’s hit the fan,” said Captain Wickendon when his new toxicology expert appeared on the bridge, causing several officers to back away from the smell.

  “It certainly has,” I agreed. “We’ve found it in several of your—”

  “Not talking about the pollution problem,” the captain interrupted, as if all that work was no longer of any interest. “What I need to know is if we can leave port.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “The sooner the better. It seems that we’ve got an international incident on our hands. Someone on the Bountiful Feast shot down a Moroccan military helicopter and took the two pilots prisoner. We have it on satellite photos, and a passing Moroccan fishing boat radioed home that the Americans had—well, you get the idea. We’ve been detailed to steam out there immediately. Chances are that Morocco is sending a ship as well, or at least a flyover. They’ve already protested to our state department. So can we sail? I don’t care if we trail pollution from here to wherever. We do have coordinates for the cruise ship. I just have to know that we’re seaworthy.”

  “Hmmm,” I said in my best professorial manner and with every intention of accompanying the ship. “If we put the Canary Islanders ashore immediately, I think I can direct your crew in the last of the reassembly while you make ready to put out to sea. A half hour to do what has to be done, and it should be safe to leave. As for pollution, the problem may well be solved, but only tests while under way will determine that.”

  “In other words, you’ve got to stay aboard,” said the captain, eyeing me narrowly.

  “No, not if you can wait. Three or four hours might do it.”

  “Lieutenant Hodgkins, clear off the guys from the island. You want to explain it to them, Professor Blue?”

  “As best I can,” I replied. “My Spanish may be inadequate to the situation.”

  “Hodgkins will translate.”

  “But captain—”

  “Let me guess. You don’t speak Spanish, either. Don’t we have a galley seaman who does?”

  I returned to the chaos below deck and ushered the Canarians off the ship while multiple translations went on. I couldn’t be sure what they thought was happening. Evidently, the harbormaster kept asking if Spain was at war with the United States and was assured that definitely it was not Spain, but possibly Morocco. They were as anxious to leave as I was to see them go. I wanted the destroyer under way before the captain changed his mind about the necessity of keeping a toxicologist aboard. Also, I did want to run tests to see if I actually fixed their problem. If so, it would make an amusing article for Chemical and Engineering News.

  Once I got the cleanup under way and could no longer see the harbor of Tenerife in the distance, I took two sailors from the cleanup crew to help with testing of the ship’s wake and borrowed clean clothes from the lieutenant. I did not want to greet Carolyn looking like a plumber who had spent hours cleaning out a cesspool. She might refuse to get anywhere near me.

  48

  A Mother’s Day to Remember

  Carolyn

  We were having our delayed Mother’s Day feast as a mid-afternoon meal, which would be served as soon as the chef could produce it. Staggering crewmembers were reappearing at their posts, groggy but helpful. The lifeboat drill ordered by the captain had been performed while we were awaiting the feast, leaving us time to shower and dress up in our best clothes. Luz looked absolutely gorgeous in her boutique dress, and she wasn’t even a mother. I was presentable by comparison, but certainly not gorgeous, and Vera was really grumpy.

  The noisy events of the night had awakened her repeatedly. She had no interest whatever in our daring exploits, and she warned me that if I attempted to have the stewards and the spa and gym attendants arrested for mutiny, I would become persona non grata in her eyes. When have I ever been anything else? I thought bitterly. I had every intention of telling Jason every single thing she’d done to me. Never, never would I go on another vacation with my mother-in-law.

  In fact, I didn’t even sit with her at dinner. Barney did, faithful man that he was, but Luz, Beau, Owen, and I sat at the captain’s table, guests of honor for our counterattack against evil. If he’d had medals on hand, I’m sure Captain Marbella would have pinned them to our chests.

  The avocado soup was superb, especially after Demetrios appeared and took the first bowl to prove that it was safe to eat. We all laughed heartily and applauded him. I must admit that I was very relieved to see him swallow spoonfuls and down a glass of the champagne with the soup. And the spicy shrimp pasta that followed was very tasty accompanied by a lovely white wine. But the lamb! Oh, the lamb. Little chops, separated from the racks, pink inside, perfectly glazed outside with lovely lamb gravy inching into the ratatouille. What an absolutely perfect combination paired with a fine, bold red wine.

  All through the meal, toasts were drunk to those of us who had participated in the countermutiny, while those who hadn’t looked glum. We were a rowdy group—happy, relieved, a bit tipsy, replying to toasts with speeches of our own. I said that this meal made the wait and staying up all night to round up the hijackers well worth it. Owen said he had never expected to get such an exciting book out of this cruise, and we should all look for ourselves on his pages. Luz said she’d discovered that cruising was more fun than she’d expected, and never having gotten to shoot down a helicopter, she was glad she’d come along. Beau said he hoped his m
edical license wouldn’t be suspended for all the undoctorlike things he’d done, but he felt that protecting the lives of the many passengers at risk would excuse him. Barney said sailing on the Bountiful Feast was almost as much fun as submarining. Vera didn’t say anything because she wasn’t asked. But I did, at the end of dinner, get up to explain that I had two double chocolate raspberry mousses in front of me, not because I was any longer binging on desserts as an anti-stress measure, but because I wanted to give one to my sweet steward, Herkule Pipa, who had been so much help in assisting us to retake the ship and who was being taken on as an apprentice chef by Demetrios Kostas el Greco, our own famous executive chef on the Bountiful Feast. Herkule was led forward, weeping emotionally, to be presented with his dessert and a modified version of a chef ’s hat.

  That’s when the explosion occurred. One chandelier and pieces of the ceiling of the Grand Salon at the other end fell down, fortunately not on those of us who took back the ship.

  The captain jumped up and began issuing orders to us and over a telephone, and we were all herded to the emergency stairways and forced to rush to the lifeboat floor. We couldn’t go to our rooms for the abominable foam life jackets, but life jackets from the boats and railings were forced into our hands as the boats were swung out, over, and down to deck level. It was terrifying. We had to climb into them as they wobbled over the ocean, while being ordered by shouting crewmembers to blow up our life jackets once the boats hit the water.

  I just clung to my seat, closed my eyes, and prayed. Owen was beside me and shouted, “Maybe it’s not too bad. There was only the one explosion.”

  “So what?” I shouted back. “We won’t be able to get back on the Bountiful Feast again.” The lifeboat slapped into the water, and he suggested that I put on the flimsy little jacket. I was too scared to let go of the seat, so Owen tried to pull my jacket away from me. Naturally, I panicked and pulled back.