Sakira

by Robert blanton

  “Sure, bring it on,” Kal replied.

  “Where can we play?”

  “The Mea Huli,” Blake suggested.

  “The what?” Aaron asked.

  “Our yacht,” Blake replied.

  “How will that work?” Charlie asked. “We could get what, five players?”

  “Oh no, we have room for everybody,” Blake said. “It’s a big boat.”

  “Who’s in?”

  Sheri, Charlie, Paul, and Aaron raised their hands, along with Blake, Liz, Kal, and Catie.

  “The kid wants to play?” Charlie said.

  “Keep digging that hole, Charlie,” Liz said.

  “Does she even know how to play?” Sheri asked.

  “I learn fast,” Catie said.

  Blake looked at Marc, “Well, Bro?”

  “Don’t look at me. If all of you want to give her your money, I’m not going to argue.”

  “We’re not going to give her our money,” Charlie said. “We just want to make sure you’re okay with us taking hers.”

  “You can try,” Marc said. “But Catie doesn’t lose at cards. Ever.”

  “Hah!” Aaron shot back. “Where’s this Mea Huli? We’ll grab a case of beer and meet you there.”

  “What about cards and chips?” Sheri asked.

  “We’ve got them on the boat,” Blake said.

  “I’d prefer new cards,” Charlie said.

  “We have brand new decks,” Blake said. “But feel free to bring your own new deck.”

  “As long as they’re wrapped, I’m cool.”

  “See you guys there.”

  Thirty minutes later, everyone was aboard the Mea Huli, setting up the card tables. Blake brought out the poker chips and two new decks of cards.

  “Which game are we playing?” Catie asked.

  “Texas hold ‘em,” Charlie suggested.

  Blake could see Catie accessing her HUD to look up the game. After she finished, he motioned her to remove her specs and her earwig.

  “What!” Catie gave him an indignant look. “Okay.”

  “You sure you don’t want to play?” Blake asked Marc.

  “I have to give her enough money already without letting her just take it from me,” Marc said with a laugh. “But please go ahead, the more money she gets from you guys, the less she’ll be asking me for.”

  “Bawk, Bawk, Bawk,” Blake squawked.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Marc said as he headed up to the sundeck to relax.

  “When is the kid’s curfew?” Charlie jested.

  “We won’t need to worry about that,” Marc called over his shoulder. “I give you two hours before she has all your money.”

  “Psych-ops,” Kal laughed.

  “What’s the buy-in?” Aaron asked.

  Catie was already handing Blake a $100 bill.

  “One hundred, it is,” Aaron said. “Who’s in?”

  Blake gathered up the eight hundred dollars and put it into the card box that he’d just unwrapped and removed the cards from.

  “High card deals,” Charlie said as he shuffled the cards. Liz cut the cards, and then Charlie dealt out a card to each player. “Aaron’s deal.”

  Blake handed out the chips. “Whites are one-dollar, reds are five, and blues are ten. You can buy more chips before each deal, but you have to have the chips to bet. No borrowing, no side bets.”

  “No limit?” Kal asked.

  “Pot limit,” Sheri suggested.

  Blake looked at everyone. “Pot limit it is. Catie, you get all that?”

  “I think,” Catie replied. She was grinning ear-to-ear. “Pot limit means you can only raise what’s in the pot, right?”

  “Got it in one,” Charlie said, winning him a glare from Catie.

  An hour later, Marc wandered back down to check on the game. “How’s it going?”

  “We’re doing fine,” Charlie said. “Your daughter is up twenty dollars, but nothing exciting.”

  “How many hands have you played?”

  “This will be our twelfth,” Charlie said.

  “Okay, I’ll watch for a while, then.”

  Catie won the next hand, filling out a flush on the river card. She folded the hand after that on the ante. The next hand, she ran the pot up to $300 before winning it on a full house, aces over fours getting the third ace on the river card. On the next hand, she bluffed her way through, and everyone was getting a little gun shy.

  “Anybody need to buy chips?” Blake asked. “I’m buying another one hundred from Catie.” Blake handed Catie a $100 bill, and she counted out the chips for him.

  “I’ll buy mine from the bank,” Charlie said, handing Blake a $100 bill.

  Sheri bought another $100 from Catie; Aaron and Liz said they had enough to play, and Paul bought $50 from Catie.

  Catie folded on the next hand, lost the next after feeding $100 into the pot. The next hand she ran the pot up to $300 and caught another full house on the river card. It only took another hour before Catie had everybody’s money.

  “Gawd,” Charlie cried. “It’s like she knows every card.”

  “She does,” Marc said.

  “What, you mean, she marks them?” Charlie snapped.

  “No, you do,” Marc said.

  “What does that mean?” Charlie asked.

  “By the tenth hand, most of the cards are slightly different, a crease, a smudge, folded curve,” Marc said. “She just memorizes them all.”

  “That’s impossible,” Aaron said.

  “Catie, show then.”

  “Ah, Dad!”

  “You’re not going to be playing them again. And I think Blake, Kal, and Liz have learned their lesson,” Marc said.

  “Shuffle the cards,” Marc told Blake.

  Blake shuffled, then dealt out five cards face down.

  “That’s the ace of hearts, the four of clubs, the jack of clubs, don’t know, the seven of hearts,” Catie said.

  Blake turned the cards over.

  “She got four out of four,” Aaron whined. “Do the next five.”

  Blake dealt the next five cards.

  “The six of diamonds, the queen of spades, don’t know, the eight of hearts, don’t know.”

  Blake turned them over, “Three out of three.”

  “She does better when you’re holding your cards,” Marc said. “With Texas hold ‘em, they don’t get handled as much, so it takes her longer. Try playing gin with her.”

  “Jeez, not fair,” Charlie whined again.

  “I warned you,” Marc said.

  “And you had to go and make her mad,” Sheri smacked Charlie on the shoulder.

  “We should play again, with a new deck,” Charlie said. “This time, we won’t handle the cards.”

  “It’ll just take her longer,” Marc said. “You can’t shuffle them without marking them. And besides, she’d beat you just playing the odds and your tells.”

  “I’m glad to hear you’re leaving Hawaii,” Aaron said. “I’d prefer word didn’t get around that a twelve-year-old cleaned my clock.” “In poker and paintball,” Liz said, giving Catie a high-five.

  Chapter 8

  Treasure Ships

  “You guys ready?” Blake asked Catie and Marc as they walked to the taxi. He’d stayed up after the poker game drinking expensive scotch whiskey from the Mea Huli’s bar.

  “We’re ready. Not so much to worry about with a private flight.”

  “It’s definitely going to spoil you,” Blake said.

  “I like being spoiled,” Catie added.

  “We’ve noticed,” Marc teased.

  Catie stuck her tongue out at her father.

  “I’ll see you guys in Antigua on Wednesday, Dude,” Blake said.

  “We’ll be there.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  The crew from the plane met Catie and Marc when they arrived at the private terminal. They immediately took their luggage, and the flight steward escorted them onto the plane.

 
“It’s just the two of you, so take any seat you wish,” she said. “My name is Fatima, and I’ll be taking care of you today.”

  “Thank you,” Marc and Catie said together.

  “Would you like anything before we take off? It should only be about ten minutes.”

  “Orange juice for both of us,” Marc said.

  “Only ten minutes,” Catie gushed. “Uncle Blake was right; this will definitely spoil us.”

  Just as Fatima indicated, they were wheels-up ten minutes later. After the flight leveled off, Marc turned to Catie and said, “You know summer is almost over. We have to talk about when you head back to school.”

  “No way!” Catie squeaked. “You can’t send me back.”

  “You have to go to school,” Marc persisted.

  “I can homeschool,” Catie shot back. “With ADI, it’ll be easy.”

  “What about socializing with other kids?”

  “I don’t socialize much anyway.”

  “That’s a problem. You have to learn how to get along with others.”

  “I get along with you and Uncle Blake. And then there’s Liz and Kal.”

  “But you didn’t do too well with Sally.”

  “We did alright when we were diving,” Catie defended herself. “But she was just silly.”

  “You have to learn to get along with silly people. Sometimes you have to make nice, so you can accomplish your goals. What if you need Sally’s help one day? Do you think you bonded with her enough that you could count on her?”

  “I wouldn’t want to have to count on her.”

  “But if you had to. One day she could be the only person who could help you.”

  “But, isn’t that using people?”

  “No, it’s making contacts that you can count on. Even though she was silly, she seemed like a nice girl.”

  “Yeah, she was.”

  “Then you should have sucked it up and made friends with her. You don’t have to become best friends with everyone, but you need to create bonds with people. That takes practice.”

  “Can’t I practice on adults?”

  “Yes, but one day you’re going to find that the people in a position to help you are all around your age. You have to start learning how to make that work.”

  “Okay, but that doesn’t mean I have to go to school,” Catie complained.

  “Maybe not. But your mother is expecting you back in San Diego.”

  “But she’s always at work. At least I can be with you when you work.”

  “Maybe she needs you.”

  “I think she was happy when I left for Hawaii.”

  “Sure, she was glad to see you get a vacation, to get to see Uncle Blake and me.”

  “I don’t know. She was pretty stressed. I think she was happy not to have to worry about me.”

  “You’ll have to work things out with her when we get to Miami.”

  “Why can’t I just call her now?”

  “We’re on a plane.”

  “We have our comms and ADI; besides, they have Wi-Fi.”

  “Oh, then go for it. I’m going to go sit in the back.”

  “ADI, call Mom,” Catie instructed.

  “Hi, Catie,” Dr. Linda McCormack said as she answered the phone.

  “Hi, Mommy, guess where I am.”

  “In Hawaii.”

  “No, I’m on a private jet on the way to Miami.”

  “Oh, your father said you were going to Miami. But a private jet?”

  “Pretty cool, huh? We’re the only two passengers.”

  “It sounds like your father is spoiling you.”

  “I kind of like it.”

  “Hmm, I’m not so sure about that.”

  “He’s making me read and work on my studies. With the bucks he got from the Navy for selling Hyperion, we’re splurging on this flight.”

  “Okay. What are you going to do in Miami?”

  “Daddy needs to do some research, so I’ll tag along with him and help. It’ll teach me how to dig up information and stuff. And we’ll do some fun stuff. I think we’ll go to Disney World, too.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “It will be. Later we’re going to the Bahamas and Antigua.”

  “The Caribbean, nice. What about hurricanes?”

  “We definitely plan to avoid those. We’ll watch the weather and move Mea Huli out of the path if we have to. She’s really fast.”

  “That’s good.”

  “We might even go to Europe.”

  “Sounds like a lot to accomplish before you have to come back for school.”

  “Uh, that’s why I’m calling. Can I stay with Daddy for a while? I’ll do homeschooling on the internet. I promise to study hard and everything. But this way, I get to spend a lot more time with Daddy, and do some cool stuff.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Please, please. You’re always at work, and either Daddy or Uncle Blake is always around, so I get lots of supervision.” Catie said ‘supervision’ like it tasted bad.

  “And we all know how much you like supervision.”

  “But they’re fun to be around, and I am learning lots.”

  “Well, I need to think about it. I’ll discuss it with your father, and we will decide.”

  “Do you want to talk to him now? He’s right here.”

  “No, let me think about it first. Then I’ll call him. You’ll just have to be patient.”

  “Okay. I love you, Mommy.”

  “I love you too, Baby. Have fun in Miami.”

  “I will, bye.”

  “So, how did it go?” Marc asked when Catie came back and sat next to him.

  “She said she’d think about it.”

  “That sounds promising.”

  “You think so?”

  “Sure. If she didn’t push back right away, then she’s open to it. She just has to come to terms about being apart from you for a long time. That’s hard on a parent.”

  “I guess. Anyway, I told her we’d go to Disney World.”

  “You did? Funny, I never heard that,” Marc said as he poked Catie in the ribs. “How come I let you con me into things like that?”

  “Because I’m your daughter and you’re supposed to spoil me,” Catie said. “I’ll even pay.”

  Marc laughed. “I think I can cover Disney World. I wasn’t sure you’d want to go.”

  “We can’t go to Florida and not go to Disney World. I am still a kid. And what would other kids think about me if they found out I passed up a chance to go to Disney World?”

  “You definitely have a future in negotiations,” Marc laughed. “Do you want to see if the pilot can redirect to Orlando, and then we can go tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  It only took the pilot ten minutes to reroute to Orlando. Marc made reservations for a suite at the Four Seasons.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “Admiral Michaels, I have that report for you.”

  “What does it say?”

  “The guys at the NSA are really impressed with the math, but they say it’s way above his previous work.”

  “So?”

  “They think he had help.”

  “Interesting. Tell our friends to keep watching him.”

  “Yes sir.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  The flight to Orlando was eleven hours. The time went by pretty fast, given that they were traveling in the lap of luxury. Marc dove into the work he was doing to research the ships and their histories. Catie went back to her study of geometry and practicing with the flight simulator. She also kept up her querying of ADI about the technology on the ship, at least what she was allowed to know without getting the Captain’s permission.

  Fatima served them breakfast right after Catie finished talking to her mother. Lunch was served at the halfway point, after which both Catie and Marc took a nap. It had been a long day with the paintball and the late celebration. Fatima was just serving them dinner now.

  “Wow, this is pretty nice,�
�� Catie told Fatima.

  “Only the best,” Fatima answered. “The charter company always uses a gourmet chef to prepare the meals. This pasta primavera is one of my favorites.”

  “I can see why. Thanks for being so nice to us.”

  “It’s my job; besides, you guys are pretty easy to be nice to.”

  “I’ll be back in twenty minutes to pick everything up,” Fatima said. “Press your call button if you need me sooner. We’ll be landing in about one hour.”

  “Great, what time will it be?”

  “It’s nine o’clock now, we’ll land at about ten.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Catie and Marc spent Saturday at Disney World. Catie made Marc go on all the rollercoasters, Space Mountain, Expedition Everest, Splash Mountain, Rock ‘n Rollercoaster and finally Slinky Dog Dash. Then she had them finish up with Mission Space, the simulated journey to Mars. Catie insisted it was the prep for when they got to fly one of the spaceships.

  On Sunday, they flew to Miami. Marc had the private jet under contract for the next few months. It was a comfortable flight with Fatima taking excellent care of them. They arrived at Miami-Opa Locka Executive airport right after 10:00 in the morning. Catie thought it was perfect timing since they could get to Surfside, check into the Four Seasons, and be on the beach before noon.

  Once they checked in, Catie spent five minutes checking out their two-bedroom, ocean-view suite, three minutes changing into her swimsuit, another minute urging her father to get changed, and then they were heading to the beach. Beach robes and beach sandals were provided by the hotel. Both wore their wraparound specs; they left their comms in the hotel since they had unpacked the comm-drone so ADI could take over that function. Once they found the lounge chairs that the hotel had reserved for them, Catie dumped her robe, kicked off her sandals, and ran into the water. Marc marveled at her tan. When they had lived in Boston, she had been pretty pasty, but after a couple of years in San Diego and five weeks in Hawaii, she now sported a soft cocoa tan that would easily handle the Florida sun.

  Marc lay back under the umbrella and continued his prep work for their day at the University of Miami library tomorrow. He would be researching the history of various Spanish treasure fleets that had been lost in the Caribbean and off of Florida. Although they knew right where the ships were, he needed to establish a credible trail of how they had found them. He needed to minimize any suspicions that would lead to the wrong kind of surveillance and questions.