by Harper Lin
Granny on Board
A Secret Agent Granny Mystery Book 7
Harper Lin
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
GRANNY ON BOARD
Copyright © 2019 by Harper Lin.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
www.harperlin.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
About the Author
A Note From Harper
One
My boyfriend, Octavian, had really outdone himself this time.
As if figuring out a way to alert the police when we were kidnapped inside a miniature submarine or helping me with a murder investigation at the Cheerville Country Club wasn’t enough, now he had gone one better.
He was treating me to a cruise.
The cruise was a gift for my seventy-first birthday. Octavian had shown some sleuthing skills to find that out. It wasn’t the sort of information I shared. The sneaky fellow had asked my grandson, Martin, when we were all having milkshakes at Fatburger one day. He must have asked when I had gone to get extra napkins to clean up Martin’s inevitable spill. Martin, being thirteen, of course didn’t know my birthday, so Martin asked my son, Frederick, who probably had to look it up. Then the information got passed down the line back to Octavian, and my boyfriend popped the question.
No, not that question, but whether I’d like to go on a cruise with him.
I’m Barbara Gold. Age: barely seventy-one. Height: five foot five. Eyes: blue. Hair: gray. Weight: none of your business. Specialties: undercover surveillance, small arms, chemical weapons, Middle Eastern and Latin American politics. Current status: retired CIA agent, widow, and grandmother to a teenager who seemed to be in cahoots with my boyfriend.
Addendum to current status: wondering just how serious this relationship was getting.
Addendum to addendum: feeling a mixture of joy, terror, and a complete bafflement as to whether I was ready for this or not.
I must admit that my first reaction was to say no. I’m fond of the old dear, but a cruise? It would involve a flight down to Florida together, then getting on a ship, staying in separate cabins (he had been most clear on that), and sailing around the Caribbean for ten days.
One thing I learned in all the international operations I did, was that you didn’t really know someone until you traveled with them. I’d known agents who were capable back at base, lots of fun on R&R, and who turned out to be grade A pains in the you-know-what when in the field. There’s something about being in forced proximity with another person that reveals all their flaws and annoying personality traits.
And your own too.
Until now, Octavian and I had spent no more than a whole day together, with the knowledge that at the end of it, we would go back to our separate houses and separate lives. Being on the same ship for ten whole days could scupper our blossoming relationship.
Or—and I have to admit I feared this just as much—take it to another level.
And there was another problem—it was a seniors’ cruise.
“A seniors’ cruise?” I said when he told me. We were sitting at the Ticktock Cafe, the noisiest place in town because of the hundred or so ticking clocks on the walls. I raised my voice as much to be heard as to express my surprise.
“What’s wrong with a seniors’ cruise?” Octavian asked.
“Well … it will be a bunch of … seniors. Won’t it be boring?”
“Not at all. I’ve been on them before, and I’ve been on regular cruises. The problem with regular cruises is you get too many younger people. The dance floor is packed, and the music is terrible. And then everyone is stumbling past your cabin drunk at three in the morning causing all kinds of commotion. The seniors’ cruises are much more civilized, and they aren’t boring. They have lots of activities.”
I studied the brochure from the cruise company. It did look like a nice ship, with a pool, several Jacuzzis, a disco, a casino (I’d pass on that), four restaurants, three cafes, three bars, a drama theater, and a movie theater. It also stopped at a couple of Caribbean islands with arrangements for day trips on shore.
I considered my options. It was this or have a quiet birthday at home with my family. Much as I love my family, they do not throw good birthday parties. A mediocre supermarket cake, a couple of presents I didn’t really need, and a birthday card that I was morally required to keep on my mantelpiece until the next birthday rolled around.
Or I could throw the dice and see what would happen with Octavian.
Having been a CIA operative for all my professional career, one could say I was a risk-taker. So I decided to take the risk. What was the worst that could happen?
Famous last words.
Two
The Silver Siren was Surf n’ Sun Cruise Line’s dedicated seniors’ cruise ship. It was a huge thing, moored at the pier in Fort Lauderdale. I had never been on a cruise or even seen a cruise ship up close. It looked like a city block of high-rise apartment buildings. I marveled that the thing could float.
The white deck and superstructure gleamed in the Florida sun. On the prow was painted the profile of an older man and woman looking out to sea, with rugged features and silver hair like a pair of retired Greek deities. Rows of portholes showed the locations of the cabins, with larger windows for those on the upper deck. The suites even had porches. You could sit out on deck chairs watching the sea.
Octavian and I stood in line with a few hundred other senior citizens filing through the welcome center before going up the gangway. The amount of gray hair, canes, walkers, and unfocused grumpiness in the line was depressing. I was getting a bad feeling about this.
While it was only natural that most of my friends were my age, I had made a point in my retirement to spend a large amount of time with younger people. I had moved to Cheerville to be with my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson after all. I had even taken my grandson and his friends out for pizza. Ever taken a group of thirteen-year-olds out for pizza? I’ve been in battles quieter than that.
So I wasn’t too keen on spending the next ten days with only old people. Being around old people for long periods of time made me feel … fossilized.
“Ready for some fun?” Octavian asked, giving me one of those winning smiles of his. No one on the far side of seventy has any right to such a good pair of teeth. They were even real.
“Sure,” I said, keeping up a brave face.
We got to the counter, where a pair of young women with pasted-on smiles checked our tickets and handed us information brochures and the keys to our cabins. I noticed the brochures were all in large print. They hadn’t even asked if we needed that. Then they took our luggage, which would go on board separately and be delivered to our cabins. “That’s Silver Siren service for you!” one of the young women chirped.
They indicated the gangway, which wasn’t one of those sloping little boards like you see in movies. A large door big enough to drive a truck through had actually op
ened up in the side of the ship, and a platform the width of a two-lane highway allowed all the passengers to board. A good thing, too, because a lot of those passengers couldn’t have handled an incline. They could barely handle a completely level two-lane highway. I hadn’t seen that many walkers, canes, and mobility scooters since I stopped going to the Cheerville Senior Center.
One of those mobility scooters had stopped scooting and was stuck sideways, blocking part of the path. Somehow a few wheelchairs, walkers, and more mobility scooters had gotten tangled and caused a backlog of passengers who were trying to help untangle the whole mess but really only causing more of a traffic jam.
We got stuck in back, trying to peek over a sea of gray and bald heads to see if a group of frantic sailors was having any luck fixing the whole mess.
After a few minutes, it became apparent that they were not. People began to grumble. People began to tut-tut. People began to say, “Back in my day …”
Now I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old person who complains about every little thing, but if there is one thing I cannot stand, it’s grumpy old people who complain about every little thing. Life’s hard enough without being surrounded by crabby people, and these sailors had a tough enough job without getting grumped at by a few hundred senior citizens who were supposed to be here enjoying themselves.
The grumbling was rising in pitch. Canes were shaken in the air. Shouts of “I’ll complain to the management!” mingled with “Wait until I tell my travel agent. He’ll never do business with you again!”
It was time to take action.
“Excuse me,” I said, trying to edge my way through the press. I barely got a step forward.
I tried a different tactic.
“I need the restroom, and I forgot my adult undergarments!” I shouted in a loud, clear voice.
The crowd parted like the Red Sea. Or the Gray Sea, I should say.
I strode to the mobility scooter. A sailor had the panel off and was inspecting the electric motor. The woman riding it sat impassively, not even looking at the sailor fiddling with the engine, waiting for someone else to fix her problems for her.
While I am not a trained mechanic or engineer by any stretch of the imagination, in the field, I had to know a little bit about everything and to be able to solve problems quickly. I peered over the shoulder of the sailor who was on his knees trying to figure out how to get the mobility scooter started. Some of the other sailors were talking about carrying her in, but the combined weight of the scooter and its passive occupant looked prohibitive. The rising anger of the crowd demanded an answer, and quickly.
One of the sailors was on a walkie-talkie. From the half of the conversation I could hear, he was calling the ship’s engineer. It sounded like the engineer was below decks and wouldn’t make it for several minutes, though.
A few minutes too late.
“Let us through!” rose from hundreds of warbling throats.
The grumbling, hobbling crowd began to push forward. A woman shrieked as a wheelchair tipped and nearly overturned. A couple of people near the front got shoved and would have fallen, but the press of the crowd kept them upright. Someone was going to faint pretty soon if this kept up.
“Please keep calm!” one of the sailors shouted in anything but a calm voice. “We’ll have this solved in a minute.”
He and his shipmates pushed back.
“Unhand me!” some irate senior citizen said, rapping a sailor on the skull with his cane.
This was turning ugly quickly. I stopped looking at the scene around me. The best way out of this was to focus on the engine.
Then I saw the problem. The circuit between two connections had broken. The metal strip on the circuit board had taken a knock somehow, and part of the metal had chipped off. The wires were still in place—the sailor had been looking for something obvious like a loose wire, and that’s why he couldn’t find the problem—but it didn’t matter, because the circuit board itself was faulty.
I reached between the burly shoulders of the line of sailors trying to gently but firmly push back the angry mob and plucked a hairpin off the nearest gray bun.
“Stop! Thief!” the woman shouted.
Then she tried to punch me. Actually tried to punch me.
Luckily her aim was off, and she missed, instead landing her fist on the square jaw of the nearest sailor.
“Ow!” she wailed. “You’ve broken my hand. I’m going to sue!”
I went back to the mobility scooter and clipped the hairpin between the two connections, and the engine hummed to life.
“Get going!” I shouted to the woman on the mobility scooter over the roar of the crowd.
“It’s about time,” she said, turning her scooter to face front and zipping into the ship.
“You’re welcome!” I called after her.
The sailors moved back slowly, allowing a few people at a time through the cordon while some of their shipmates untangled the mess of walkers and wheelchairs. Soon the crowd was moving forward again in a frowning, grumbling mass. At least it was a frowning, grumbling, orderly mass.
Octavian reached me where I was standing to one side next to a cluster of sailors.
“You all right?” he asked, taking my hand.
“Did I mention I don’t like being around large numbers of people my age?”
“Once or twice,” he said, abashed. “Or perhaps more.”
Immediately I felt sorry. He was trying to give me a nice vacation, and here I was grumbling like the herd that had just stampeded its way onto the ship. The fact that I had good cause didn’t change anything.
I gave him a peck on the cheek. “Never mind. It will get better from here on.”
We entered the ship together, coming into a giant ballroom. A huge crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. To one side stood a large round stage around which curved a sweeping staircase going up to the next deck. Signs pointed every which way, giving directions to the rooms. The crowd broke into smaller streams, heading off down hallways or up the stairs. Some lingered by the stage, where a band was playing.
And what an odd band. A lead singer who looked to be in his eighties but with muscles to shame any gym jock a third his age was singing a tune while wearing only running shorts, sneakers, and a muscle T-shirt. His band was made up of four women not much younger than he was who were similarly outfitted. They all looked in remarkable health, too, although I noticed a walker tucked behind the drummer’s chair and a cane leaning against the stool on which the lead guitarist sat.
The song sounded familiar too.
“I’ll spot you, baby,
I don’t mean maybe
When you do your bench presses
I’ll stroke your long tresses.”
“It’s—” I began.
“Tony Iron and the Bar Belles,” Octavian finished.
We gaped at a legend from our youth.
Tony Iron had been the heartthrob of our generation. Just as Octavian and I hit puberty, Tony Iron had hit the charts with songs like “Power Lifting Love” and “When I do Squats, I Call the Shots.” America was on a fitness craze that decade, and he sang the songs that everyone sweated to.
Being teenyboppers at the time, we weren’t going to the gym, but the girls loved Tony Iron because he was so handsome and muscular, and the boys loved him because he was always surrounded by the gorgeous (and amazingly toned) Bar Belles. These people actually did workout routines on stage while going through their songs.
I hadn’t heard them in decades. They’re one of those bands from your youth where you occasionally find yourself humming a tune of one of their songs, but you never get around to looking up whatever happened to them.
What happened, it turned out, was that they had grown old and were giving concerts on seniors’ cruises.
Seeing them like this was like mortality giving me a slap in the face. I had an enduring image of Tony Iron and the Bar Belles from my younger years—Tony looking like a Greek statue wit
h a tan and a pompadour, the Bar Belles gorgeous and strong. They had been the paragons of youth and beauty. In fact, the Bar Belles had been my first female role models of women who were tough and yet remained feminine. They could bench-press their own weight, and their mascara wouldn’t run. The whole band used to run marathons for various charities and look just as good at the end as they did at the beginning.
They weren’t running any marathons now. They moaned through one of their old numbers, “Kissing Between Reps,” at a slower tempo than I remembered it. Tony tried to strut and flex like he did before, but he looked tired, a shadow of his former self. His pompadour was still shiny black without a touch of gray, and this obvious dye job only made him look older. The Bar Belles stumbled through their notes, barely looking at the audience.
The whole scene made me depressed.
I glanced at Octavian. He looked anything but depressed.
His eyes shone, his mouth open in a big grin, and he was softly singing along to himself.
“Were you a fan?” I asked.
“Weren’t we all?”
I chuckled. “I suppose so.”
“Tony Iron was a hero of mine. I was a ninety-pound weakling in middle school. Then I sent away for his Tony Iron Muscles of Steel Training System.”
“The one advertised in the comic books?”
“That’s right. It worked! I ended up on the football team. I even played in college.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Oh, my athletic days are well behind me. Now I’m what they refer to as spry.”
I smiled. And here I thought Octavian only did seniors’ yoga to pick up women.
We watched until Tony Iron and the Bar Belles finished their set. We cheered, stayed for an encore of “Doing Curls for the Girls,” and cheered again as they hobbled offstage.