by Jack Dey
"Who is this...?! Samantha, is that you?"
"You know very well who it is and your tactics aren't going to work!"
"Are you drunk...? And on my money, too! What on earth are you talking about?"
"I am on to your little scheme, Jordan, and it's not going to work."
She forcefully threw the phone back into its cradle, revitalised at uncovering Jordan's little plan and telling him about it. Feeling so fired up and empowered after her conversation with Jordan, Sam decided to take a victory walk and if she saw Jordan’s man in the car, she would give him a piece of her mind, too.
One end of Sam’s street ended in a large, manicured park and the road wound past a busy, suburban shopping centre on the other. She decided to stroll down to the mall and wander through the vendors’ businesses and do some window shopping. Being a Sunday, the businesses would be closed, but she didn't want to buy anyway. She just wanted to get out into the warm sunshine. She walked briskly at first, burning off the nervous energy but soon slowed her pace as the mall came into view. Her pleasant stroll took her past an open newsstand and a headline caught her eye. There was a picture of a young girl and the caption... MISSING!
Riveted by the headline, Sam picked up a paper and began to read.
Possible link between missing school girl, Gracie Freeman, and the Magician, the name given to a man suspected of the disappearance of three women in the local area.
The media rag had her attention and she read on.
The suspect has been seen sitting in a car, parked outside his victim's residence and shortly after, his intended victim just disappears, without trace.
The tabloid’s tale continued.
Police have warned women in the area of the missing school girl not to go out alone and to report any suspicious behaviour.
Samantha shivered... Gracie Freeman lived in the next suburb.
*~*~*~*
Chapter 15
Carissa leaned on the balcony rail of her sixth floor room at the Ohana Waikiki West Hotel and breathed in the warm, salt laden night air. Waikiki beach was only a city street away, but her view was blocked by the other high rise buildings surrounding her. The humid air was making her feel enchanted, and at the same time, she was hesitant about the coming week aboard a ship out in the deep waters of the Pacific ocean. She had never been at sea before, let alone on a warship.
Madame Elishia, Jamie and Simon had gone into Honolulu to take in the sights, but she had opted to get an early night and prepare herself mentally for the upcoming ordeal. Her thoughts soon turned to Simon, as they often did, while she chided herself for feeling jealous and possessive of Simon's affections, and resolved to be more adult in the emotions and actions she showed around him. That wasn't going to be easy. She loved Simon. She always had. Ever since she’d first laid eyes on him.
She sighed and turned to walk inside into the air conditioning and prepare for bed, assured the next week would certainly be more different than any other adventure she had been on.
*~*~*~*
The suspension creaked and groaned with the four people in the hire car. The chassis scraped along the ground as it contemplated the city streets. Although the occupants weren't big people, the little car had obviously seen its fair share of extreme loaded capacity and its disposition had been bent into a permanent sigh.
A loud burst of laughter came from within the car as Jamie nicknamed it, Beyond. It was difficult to see beyond the smoke pouring out of the engine and no one was sure whether it would make it beyond the next gas station.
Elishia drove Beyond into a vacant car space directly opposite USS Hopper. As she switched off the engine and all four occupants got out, the little car creaked and sighed, as if it had just run a marathon carrying a two tonne payload.
The scene in front of Elishia was in stark contrast to the scene which had been before her and Simon yesterday. The ship's company, smartly dressed in Navy brown, stood at attention in neat rows on the deck, as Captain Tom Therickt addressed them. The crew were then dismissed into their duties and they disappeared into their specific areas aboard ship, while preparations to get underway were well advanced.
The civilian visitors were welcomed aboard by the three senior officers. Captain Tom Therickt, a greying veteran used to command; Executive Officer John Lavis, second in command; and Lieutenant Ben Lewis, Officer of the Deck, in charge of safety aboard ship.
Carissa, feeling awkward in her new surroundings, tripped on the end of the gangway. Ben stepped in and caught her before she hit the deck, thus injuring her dignity as well as her body. Ben's gaze met her innocent, soft brown eyes and a zap of electricity hit him.
He gently assured her, "It's okay, ma'am. It's easily done."
Embarrassed, Carissa flushed red and apologised for her clumsy feet. Although Simon was behind Elishia and Jamie on the gangway, he had witnessed the whole interlude.
*~*~*~*
Jamie settled in to the top bunk, above Simon. He’d thought this was going to be like a second honeymoon with Elishia, until she’d showed him to his room and followed Carissa, to hers. Elishia had just smiled at Jamie, a plea for understanding lit softly in her deep green eyes. He understood the predicament they were in and would miss her at night, but this was her time to shine.
*~*~*~*
The constant pitching and rolling of the vessel made Carissa feel sick. In the Officers' Ward Room, the four civilians had joined the officers for their meals. Ben, sitting across from Carissa, noticed her lack of appetite and her green disposition. He smiled. He'd seen seasick land lovers before and ordered one of the crew to bring her some seasickness pills from the ship's infirmary. Once Carissa had swallowed the pills and gone to bed, her sea legs began to grow and she felt so much better in the morning.
It took the night hours for the vessel to enter the area flight QF1156 had last been heard from. Elishia had had a sleepless night, rolling around her bunk as another large swell hit them, staring at the small indentation of Carissa’s body in the bunk above her head and had felt envious of Carissa's drug induced sleep.
Carissa appeared to be the brightest of them all around the breakfast table in the Ward Room and she searched for Ben, to thank him for his thoughtful actions, but he was on duty somewhere else on the ship.
Once breakfast had been consumed, Elishia cracked the whip on her staff. It was time to locate this missing plane. In the armoury room, the three people worked the computers as the ship did a zigzag pattern over the search area. The red light blinked as the computer connected to the sensor, collected information and then transferred it to the image converting computer.
In the Communications Control Room in another part of the ship, an active sonar beam, aimed at the sea floor, collected echoes on the ship’s transponder towed behind the vessel. The navy was doing their own search.
At the end of each ten hour stretch, Elishia analysed the images and instructed the computer to remove all photons that weren't metal and give a read out. The alarm was set so that when the computer picked up on a metal object, it would give an audible warning and four eager people would gather around the screen to see what they had discovered.
During one ten hour stretch, the alarm went off and when it was analysed, it turned out to be an old metal anchor, with a broken chain attached. The image was as clear as looking at a photograph, but there was a sense of disappointment, until Simon pointed out the depth indicator on the computer screen: it was showing 2.8 miles. Elation soon took the place of disappointment, at the success of Simon's modifications, but there still was no sign of the missing aircraft.
*~*~*~*
Carissa stood alone at the stern of the vessel, holding onto the handrail. The sea air filled her lungs and she felt peaceful as the vessel gently pitched through the calm ocean, mesmerising her with the colours of the sun going down over the water. Golden orange and then yellow, while a dark hue divided sea and sky.
Simon had seen her from a porthole and wanted
to talk to her. He made his way out to the stern deck, but by the time he made his way outside, she was laughing with Ben, who was standing close to her, sharing the sunset. With a stab of envy, Simon watched the scene for a moment; the way Carissa's jet black hair caressed her face, as the wind played. He watched her small frame touching Ben's as they stood together. A feeling of jealousy and intrusion churned his stomach and wistfully, he turned around and left. He’d been hoping to tell Carissa of his feelings for her, but as usual, the words wouldn’t come and now it seemed too late.
*~*~*~*
Jamie noticed the gathering storm clouds between Carissa and Simon. Elishia was too consumed with the images the computer was relaying, to worry about any developing stress between her employees. It was the third day of a hunt that would only last seven days and they still hadn't found a single clue... yet!
Ben stuck his head into the armoury room, smiled at Carissa and asked Elishia whether she had found anything. Simon excused himself and walked outside. He could hear Ben and Carissa talking, even though he didn't know what they were talking about.
Elishia showed Ben some images of the anchor and chain they had found, and the depth at which they had found them. His reaction was one of amused scepticism and Elishia knew he wasn't convinced.
"If I were to throw one of your hatches overboard, do you think my system would be able to find it?"
Ben looked surprised. "In these depths, ma'am, I would say you would have absolutely no chance of finding it."
"Are you prepared to lose a hatch plate to prove me wrong?" Elishia challenged.
Jamie smiled. Elishia was about to make a point and he loved the way she just couldn't let go, once she set her mind to a project.
"Why yes, ma'am, I think we can find a hatch plate."
"Tell you what. Write a message on both sides of the plate and don't let anyone see it, then throw it overboard. Give it thirty minutes to settle on the bottom and then I will find it for you and read the message on it."
Ben had a dubious look on his face that said, you're crazy, lady, but he was up for the challenge and disappeared to find a hatch plate. Simon returned to the armoury room and decided to concentrate on the work, instead of Ben.
Within half an hour, Ben was back. Fifteen minutes later, the imager alarm sounded. Elishia glanced at Ben, a knowing twinkle reflected in her green eyes.
"I believe we just found your plate."
Everyone waited, with baited breath as the image came onto the screen. Ben's eyes were wide, as he recognised the plate and the embarrassing revelation of his hand about to occur.
"The water depth is 2.3 miles and your message says, ‘Carissa, I think I am falling for you’."
*~*~*~*
Chapter 16
Elishia was getting worried. They had covered nearly a thousand miles of ocean and in a short time, the vessel would turn her bow for Honolulu and head for port; mission completed successfully, but with no sign of the missing jet liner. The imager had found all sorts of metal objects, some recognisable, some not. The depth had increased to three miles in some places as the vessel traversed over deep trenches carved into the ocean floor, while the device, stretched to capacity, still returned faultless images.
*~*~*~*
Ben, had kept his distance at the embarrassing revelation of his admiration for Carissa. Still, the disclosure was true and he wanted to make his feelings known to her in a proper manner. She haunted his thoughts and his dreams, but time was running out.
He had to make his move.
*~*~*~*
Simon and Carissa had barely spoken in the past three days. Ben's faux pas had left Carissa confused and Simon sulking. She longed to talk to Simon about her feelings, and the beautiful women he had so heartlessly flaunted in front of her, but she didn’t know how to approach it. She recognised the ugly presence of jealousy in Simon's actions and now she knew how her own jealous emotions must have looked to those around her.
The realisation that she was the focus of two adoring males competing for her emotions, made her pride swell and her self-image soar. Ben's whirlwind approach had left her head spinning, and while she wasn’t used to such attentions from men, the situation was confusing her intensely, leaving her emotions in a tangled web.
*~*~*~*
Elishia and Jamie met with Captain Therickt, to discuss their findings and debrief the unsuccessful, successful operation. They played for him, on the Elishia’s laptop screen, the highlights of the search. Nearly one hundred and fifty hours of collected data, compressed into a few minutes. Therickt was impressed with what he saw, but the results still missed an important fact: they still hadn’t detected the downed airliner. He admitted the navy’s own attempt hadn’t found anything of consequence, either.
"I will make my official report to the US and Australian governments. As you can see from the images of the past six days, there appears to be at least two possibilities. The airliner crashed in a totally different place, outside of the coordinates given. Or, it made it to land and the crash site is in a remote place, somewhere else," Elishia stated gravely.
Therickt’s gaze rested on Elishia’s green eyes and his authoritarian demeanour confirmed why the navy had chosen him as a commander. His presence seemed to fill the room and Elishia felt intimidated by the older man’s musings. Eventually, he agreed with her analysis, flooding her with relief. A man of few words and he wasted none, but she was sorry for any sailor on the receiving end of his castigation.
*~*~*~*
Jamie could see the stress on his wife's face as she dismantled the equipment and packed it away. She had hoped to bring closure to the grieving families of the victims of flight QF1156 and she had been certain her imager would find it.
"You did your best, honey," Jamie comforted.
Elishia turned towards her husband. A quivering bottom lip melted his heart, while two large tears fell to the ground. Instantly, he pulled her into his embrace, wanting to protect and comfort the woman he loved.
"You can't find something that isn't there," he assured her.
She sniffed back the tears. "I know. I was just so confident of finding the plane."
A thought formed in Jamie's mind.
A holiday in Honolulu and the other islands of Hawaii would be a welcome reprieve from the stress of the past week, giving Elishia the chance to distance herself from the emotional tug of war and recharge her overstressed batteries.
The icy silence between Carissa and Simon hadn't helped, either.
*~*~*~*
The USS Hopper had come about and was making way, back to the combined facility at Hickman Air Base and Pearl Harbour. The late afternoon sun was warm and the vessel sliced through the swells effortlessly, as she gained speed.
Carissa found her usual place at the stern railing, drinking in the delights of shipboard life for the last time before they returned to port. Even so, she was keen to get back to land and find her land legs again. As she contemplated the setting sun, her body swayed with the gentle motion of the vessel, enticing her into a dreamy, relaxed mood. The boisterous salt laden air tussled with her hair, gently caressing her face with dancing, soft black locks.
She closed her eyes, imagining the moment and the words she longed to hear, but when she opened them again, the sudden appearance of Ben beside her startled her. They talked together for a long time. Serious confiding gave way to laughter, as the emotional tension released between them like a tightly wound spring, suddenly unwinding.
*~*~*~*
Simon’s decision had taken a lot of courage and now he was eager to find Carissa and put an end to his misery. He wanted to tell her of his feelings and then, she could decide. He wound his way through the labyrinth of steel passageways until finally, he exited the confines of the ship and onto the stern deck. This was her place, where she loved to go.
As he pushed open the hatchway door, the last remaining hurdle to his mission, the dark sea and the deck lights gave a clear impression of
Ben and Carissa, together.
He was just about to approach, when Carissa reached up to Ben's neck, placing her arms around him and giving him a hug. A knife went through Simon's heart and he stared at the scene playing out in front of him, willing himself to turn around and leave Carissa and Ben to their privacy.
As she broke off her embrace, Carissa’s glance fell upon Simon’s downcast stare. The look was telling and another comedic, poorly timed situation was in progress. She had been caught red handed, in an innocent act, that would have seemed anything but, innocent. Simon broke off his stare and spun on his heels to leave.
"Oh... no...! Simon!"
"Simon!"
"Simon, please wait! It isn't what it appears!"
Carissa’s emotional voice carried across the deck. She ran after him and took hold of his arm in a frantic bid to put a stop to the comedy of misconceptions. She had had a confusing time sorting out her feelings, but now, nothing was surer than the love she had for her wounded knight.
Simon stopped in his tracks, as Carissa cut off his escape route and peered directly into his sombre face. Her soft brown eyes melted his heart and everything inside him wanted to fight, to win her, but now he felt he had been ousted by a competing suitor, vying for the affections of the woman he craved.
"When you saw me hugging Ben, I had just told him that my heart belongs to another."
Simon appeared as if someone had just punched him.
"Who does your heart belong to?!" the bewildered tone escaped his lips, signifying something much deeper was at play.
Carissa suddenly looked quite vulnerable. "To you… if you want it."
She continued in almost a whisper, "Ben still wanted to be my friend, even if he had no chance of capturing my heart. I was so overwhelmed by his selfless understanding and the thoughtful things he did, I just hugged him. There was nothing more to it!"