Butler Did It!
A
Matthew Butler Adventure

by Keith and Sally Pomeroy 

Copyright 2011 Keith and Sally Pomeroy
Smashwords Edition


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<<>>

MOMBASA, KENYA

Tommy Cooper jumped into the passenger seat of the battered jeep pickup. 
“Did you find any Tequila?” asked Matthew Butler, not looking up from the map he was examining.  
“No,” Tommy replied, “I had to settle for Rum.  I guess there’s not much call for Tequila in Kenya.  I also got Captain Z his Johnny Walker.  For beer, I got plenty of Tusker, the Budweiser of Africa.  I grabbed the last of the Guinness, and to round out the order, I got 10 cases of a South African beer called ‘Old Four Legs’.” 
“I’ve never heard of it,” Butler grunted half-heartedly.  “Is it any good?”
“No clue!”
“Well, it really doesn’t matter.”  Butler reflected.  “As long as the label says its beer, the Pelican’s crew will drink it.”
“The store said they’d deliver the order to the ship as soon as they can borrow a truck,” said Tommy.
“Good, we can check booze off the list.”
“The owner offered me a taste of something called kumi-kumi.  Unfortunately, he said it had to be drunk on-site, and I didn’t think you’d want to wait while I did the local moonshine justice.”  Tommy said.
“That’s just as well, seeing as how you can launch a fighter jet on kumi-kumi.  It’s not a friendly drink.”  Matthew said, as he slipped the jeep into gear.”  As I understand it, it’s a local concoction made from coconuts.  Well, mostly coconuts.  Apparently it brews in a matter of hours, and has been known to make a man insane in the same amount of time.”
“Sounds like I missed an opportunity to drink with the Big Boys.” 
“Nah, the boys that drink kumi-kumi don’t live to be Big Boys.”  Matthew lifted his ball cap, revealing sweaty blonde curls plastered to his head.  “So, what else do we need to get?”
Tommy consulted a hastily written note, wrinkled and sweat stained from riding in a shirt pocket in the midday heat.
“It looks like we’ve got to go down to the street market.  EB wants some local handicrafts,” he said, referring to the chief engineer on the Pelican.  “She specified either carved wooden sculptures of African animals, or some of those happy-face tribal masks.”
“What in God’s name does she want with African tourist schlock?” 
“She sends the stuff home to her brothers, a little something from everywhere we visit.  Anyway, since we left Mozambique in a hurry, she claims she didn’t get time to do her usual souvenir shopping, and today she had to stay aboard to repair that number two engine, so you and I have been delegated to do it for her.” 
“Lucky us.  Well, we had one hell of an excuse for leaving Mozambique in a hurry.  We were too busy running for our lives to do any souvenir shopping.”  Matthew declared.  “It’s been over a week and I’m still dragging from the adrenaline hangover.”
“So am I.”  Tommy sympathized.
Tommy and Butler were silent as they drove the rented rust and white colored jeep pickup through the dusty streets of Mombasa at a crawl.  The slow, sweltering afternoon closed in around them.  Even the perspiring pedestrians were moving faster than the traffic jam that filled the area around the street market.  Thunderstorms loomed on the horizon, pressurizing the seventy percent humidity into a suffocating ninety-degree sauna.
As they suffered through the urban congestion, each man was thinking of the dangers they had faced in the remote gold mining region of northern Mozambique.  They had gone in with a group of military experts testing land mine clearing devices, and a group of innovators bringing water purification technology to the villages along the Romuva River.  The illegal and badly organized gold rush was happening on the border with Tanzania.  Placer mining was filling the river with mud, defiling the only water source for hundreds of villagers living along its banks.  Unfortunately, as it turned out, a militant mining boss had objected to their presence in the area.  Getting out alive had been a major accomplishment.
“You know, I think a little rest and relaxation is in order,” said Matthew.  “We have a couple of weeks before we have to start the next project off Sri Lanka.  I think we should arrange for some playtime on the way.  I was thinking of asking Captain Z if he would mind dropping anchor in the Seychelles for a few days.”
“Hey!  That sounds great!”  Tommy replied.  “I could sure do with a little R&R before things start up again.”  He rested his arm on the open window of the jeep and got happily lost in a daydream about the cool sea breezes and perfect white sand beaches of the Seychelles.  In his mind, he watched as a beautiful woman in a skimpy bikini brought him beer and cheered him on while he created the finest sand sculpture ever attempted.  In the middle of the best part of his daydream, an abrupt tug on his wrist dragged him back to reality.  He locked eyes briefly with a grinning, filthy young boy who had just stolen his wristwatch.  In a flash, the boy turned and jinked away through the crowd.
“Stop the jeep!”  Tommy hollered, leaping from the moving vehicle and tearing after the kid.  Butler slammed on the brakes, narrowly missing a fruit seller’s cart.
“What’s the matter?”  Butler shouted at Tommy’s back.
“That kid stole my watch!”  Tommy yelled, before disappearing around a corner in pursuit. 
Matthew Butler sighed heavily and put the jeep back into gear, crawling along with the dawdling traffic.  Butler knew that the thief would easily disappear into the labyrinth of alleys surrounding the street market, and that there was no chance that Tommy would catch him.  Butler also knew that there was no way to stop Tommy from trying, either.  It was just as likely that Tommy would realize that his chase was futile and give up long before Matthew got anywhere with the jeep, so with another sigh, he kept on driving.
Half a block later, Tommy caught back up with him, sweating and gasping curses.  
“Have a nice run?”  Butler politely inquired.
“That little creep would have met with a big surprise, if I’d gotten my hands on him, I’ll tell you!”  Tommy exclaimed. 
Butler laughed.  “It’s only a watch,” he said.  “I’ll bet you can find another one just like it right here at the market.”
“It’s not that,” Tommy steamed.  “He just took it right off my wrist - right off my wrist!  It’s like I’ve been violated!”
He caught Matthew’s look and then they both laughed.
“Do you really want it back?  It was just an old watch.” 
“Of course, I do, it’s my favorite.  Besides, that watch is nearly an heirloom; I’ve had it for years.”
“Now, you and I both know that you won that watch off me playing poker last summer, and that in all the years I owned it, it lost a least five minutes every hour.”
“Yeah, it is a crummy watch.  But it’s the principle.”  Tommy grumbled.
With that, Matthew gunned the jeep out of the ooze of traffic into a recently vacated parking spot.
“Come on.  Let’s you and I do a bit of wandering around.  Maybe we will find something for EB.”
Half an hour later, they just happened to find Tommy’s watch; for sale at a sidewalk stall. 
With an oath, Tommy yelled, “That’s my watch!”
“Yes, it is a fine watch and will look very good on you,” responded the vendor with an oily grin.  “This handsome watch was once owned by the President of Kenya, but today I will give it to you for the very reasonable price of three dollars American.”
Butler tried to pay the three dollars to buy the watch back, just to keep Tommy from getting them into an argument, but he was too late.
Fueled by the righteousness of principle, Tommy bellowed, “Give me back my watch, you Son of a Bitch!”  As Tommy leaned forward to grab the watch, the vendor quickly whisked it out of his display.  With a mighty heave, Tommy overturned the seller’s table like a wrathful Son of God, sending dozens of questionable bargains into the air.  Suddenly, amid a rain of merchandise, the street filled with scrambling people.  Tommy’s gesture earned him a punch on the jaw that sent him flying backward into Butler.  The pair, as one, careened into a cart so laden with pots, pans, ladles, coffee pots, and strainers that only the wheels of the cart were visible.  The cart fell over with an unbelievable crash, followed by an extended crescendo of rolling, spinning, and clattering goods flowing down the street in a noisy metallic avalanche.  Within moments, the street market erupted into an unrestrained brawl, with punches and kicks flying so recklessly that it was hard to tell exactly who was attacking whom at any given moment.  Tables of goods went flying, throwing every describable kind of flotsam into the street full of traffic.  An old woman came shrieking out of the din to give Butler a good whomp on the head with a carved elephant, knocking him into the dirt.
In the middle of the melee, Tommy spotted the watch thief standing across the street, looking highly entertained.  Tommy lurched to his feet and tried to go after the youth but with one leg tangled in the pot and pan cart, he only succeeded in dragging the entire mess further out into traffic.  Hopping on one foot, he tumbled across the street and rolled free of the mass of tangled metal.  He took a few good licks to the face from various participants in the brawl before he was able to extricate himself.
While everyone not actively involved in the fight was watching Tommy’s acrobatics, Butler saw his chance and crawled away to the jeep.  Quickly starting it up, he threw it into reverse and backed into the melee around Tommy, scattering the crowd.
Butler took all the money from his wallet and threw it high into the air, and then yelled, “Get in!” 
The sudden rain of loot turned the brawl into a game of ‘Diving for Dollars’.
Tommy made a leap and landed head first in the passenger seat with his legs sticking out of the window, as Butler raced the engine and bulled through the crowd toward a less congealed thoroughfare.  Honking and swerving wildly, the pair rounded a corner.
“Did you get your watch?”  Butler asked.
“No,” moaned Tommy, “It’s not right of them to steal it and then try to sell it back to me.”  His upper lip was beginning to swell and he was certain to have a black eye by the time they got back to the ship.  
Butler didn’t look that much better, with a lump on his forehead from the elephant and bleeding elbows where he had hit the pavement.
“You’re a man of principle, my friend,” said Butler sarcastically.  “I’m sure you taught them a lesson they won’t soon forget.”
“I think I broke a tooth” was Tommy’s miserable reply. 
Of course, after only a half dozen left and right turns to avoid pursuit, the pair became thoroughly lost.  In this area of Mombasa, there was no grid and the streets wandered narrowly between tightly packed rows of buildings hung with ornate but decrepit balconies.  After what seemed like hours of wandering around in the sweltering heat, they passed under an arch made from two huge tin elephant tusks, a gift to Mombasa by Queen Elizabeth II in 1952.  From this well-known landmark, they got their bearings and were able to make it back to the Pelican before dusk.

<<>>

When Matthew and Tommy finally returned from their shopping adventure, the fiery chief engineer of the Pelican, a tall, slender, dark-haired woman known as EB, greeted them.  She leaned against the ship’s rail, beer can in hand and called down to them.  
“And where have the two of you been for so long?”  She asked sarcastically.  “We loaded Professor Wilkinson and his cargo container a couple of hours ago.”  As Butler and Tommy got closer, she got a better look at their torn khakis and bruised faces.  
“God, don’t you two look a mess!”  EB declared, not terribly surprised.  “Oh, by the way, the booze you ordered was delivered half an hour ago.  I hope you’re ready to drink whatever they brought, since I had no way of knowing what you ordered.”  She casually took another swallow of the beer and made a face.  “I think you might have made a mistake with this ‘Old Four Legs’.”  
At about the same time as Matthew and Tommy were limping up the gangplank, another journey was beginning in a distant land.  

<<>>

LONDON, ENGLAND

The big jet liner climbed slowly into the grey skies over Heathrow Airport.  Kobi Tenatta felt a lifting of his spirits as he settled into his seat.  It would be a long trip before he arrived at his home in the central highlands of Kenya.  The lengthy flight would take him to Nairobi, but that was only the first leg of his journey.  After that, it would be a two-hour drive to his home in Nakuru.  He was grateful, at least, to have begun.
Kobi was a small, black-skinned man with the characteristic round face and mild features of the Tiburu tribe of Central Africa.  At about 5’4”, he was shorter than most of his friends and family, but his body was hardened from a life of physical activity as a Park Warden at Lake Nakuru National Park.  His warm brown eyes showed the intelligent confidence of a man who held a position of respect in his family group and who had proved himself in the dangerous battle against poachers in the African wilderness.
As his father described it, he was the eldest son of the eldest elder’s eldest son. 
That’s a lot of elders, he thought.  One day I too will be an elder in the tribe.  That’s the reason I’m on this plane.
One week earlier, he had traveled all the way to London to represent the Tiburu People in a ceremony celebrating the return of two tribal artifacts that had been in the possession of the British Museum.  The objects had been stolen from his tribe in the late 1800’s during a time when the various European countries had divided the continent of Africa into ‘spheres of influence’ in an effort to control the rich land.  During this time of conquest, military actions against the loose tribal governments of the native people were common and often excessive.  Because of these raids, many different tribes saw their most prized possessions carried off by arrogant and uncaring white men.  The Tiburu treasure had been one of the many artifacts that now lay forgotten in museums around the world or had found their way into private collections to remain unrecoverable.
To pass time, Kobi had picked up a brochure about the objects.  They had been on special exhibit in the Museum for three months before being returned to Africa.  Strangely enough, he personally knew very little about what the objects actually were.  The story, which his family had handed down over the generations, was more a story of the noble hearts of those who had protected it, rather than a story of the objects themselves.  One day, as a part of Kobi’s coming of age ceremony, his grandfather had taken him aside and told him the tale.
“In the times long back, travelers from far to the north came to our lands to pay tribute to our King and to partake of the bounty of our land.  These men brought with them a very great treasure, which they presented as a gift, to show the esteem of their ruler for our King.  In the court of our King there was a man named Kuyu.  He was the most noble of the King’s advisors and a very great general.  Kuyu found favor in the eyes of the king every day for his truthful spirit and the steadfastness of his vows.  He did not waver in anything to which he had dedicated himself.  Because of this, the king held him in great esteem.”  
“There came a day when the enemies of the king had grown strong.  News came that the warriors of his enemies were coming to devour the kingdom and the wise king knew that he could not overcome them.”
“To Kuyu he said, ‘Here is my greatest treasure, the gifts of a far away land, nothing like this has ever been seen in our world.  To you I entrust this tribute, given to me in honor of the richness of the land.  Take this treasure and keep it safe from the uneducated men that would try to destroy my kingdom.  Vow to me, with your life, that you will preserve my honor throughout your generations by keeping these objects safe from those who would disrespect them.’”
“Kuyu vowed that he and his family, through all generations, would preserve the king’s honor, and hold sacred their vow to keep the treasure safe.  The family of Kuyu fled along with the rest of his people, who eventually migrated south to a fine land of rich soil in the shadow of the volcanoes.  They carried the King’s tribute on their backs and did not let any strangers know of its existence.  The tribute was safe in this new land and the Tiburu Tribe grew strong and honorable, knowing that a vow from a man’s heart is the most valuable thing he can possess.  The Tiburu people took possession of the land, which they inhabited and made fruitful.  The secret of the king’s treasure was shown to the eldest son of the family of Kuyu, now a symbol of an honorable man’s duty, to make vows sacred and keep them with his whole heart.  Each son of Kuyu who became an elder renewed the vow of his ancestor to keep the Tribute safe as a symbol of the honorable heart of a Tiburu man.”  
Kobi’s grandfather looked sad as he said, “My own father was killed keeping this vow.  The ignorant white men came and ripped our homes apart; taking whatever they wanted for themselves.  The white man is possessed by the devil of greed, thus he robs without discrimination.  The man who shot my father held the King’s tribute in his profane hands and laughed as my father died.”  
“Since then, the Tiburu have honored my father as a man who died keeping his vow.  The Tribute was lost to us, but we kept our honor.  This honor has preserved our people and made us strong during times of change.  The last century changed every part of African life, but the Tiburu have adapted and prevailed.  The time will come when you, too, Kobi, will be an educated man and will come before your people to dedicate yourself to honor, the keeping of your vows, and the welfare of your people.  It is a great thing to be the descendant of so many honorable men.”
Kobi remembered the sun on his grandfather’s face that afternoon as he told the story.  For Kobi it had been a moment out of time, when for an instant, he had joined with all the Tiburu men before him who had kept that vow.
Sighing and settling uncomfortably into the airline seat he took up the brochure produced by the British Museum, where he read the history according to British archaeologists.  

In the eighth year of her reign as Pharaoh of Egypt (1465 BCE), Queen Hatshepsut sent a fleet of five ships under the leadership of her Chancellor, Senenmet, to the Land of Punt to establish trade relationships.  Included in the tribute to the King of Punt was a small golden statue of the God Amon, whom the Egyptians believed to make his home in Punt.  The statue of a golden serpent on a pedestal was small enough to fit in a man’s hand.  Along with the serpent, she also sent a small stone stele inscribed with the story of her direct descent from the God Amon, whom she claimed had destined her to rule as Pharaoh over Egypt.  It was recorded by Senenmet that the King of Punt greatly valued these objects for their beauty, as well as for their artisanship.  They exemplified skills the people of Punt did not possess.  
To this day, it remains unknown what happened to the fabled Land of Punt and its Kings.  Curiously, the Tiburu people of Central Kenya tell a legend which claims that the last King of Punt entrusted Hatshepsut’s gift to a favorite general, and enjoined that man to vow that he and his family would guard this treasure with their lives.  
Over the course of time, the Land of Punt disappeared, or rather became something else, and Punt was forgotten by all, except select scholars deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics who found references to the mysterious land.  The people of Punt, whom it is suspected, eventually became the Bantu tribes of Africa, migrated south into the rest of Africa.  So, also, did the tribute, kept by one family, who guarded it with their lives to the end of all generations.  
No one knows whether this legend is true, but two objects, a statuette of a Serpent, and a stone Stele were in the possession of this Tiburu family until they passed into British hands in the 1880’s.  They were given to our Museum by the estate of Sir Henry Waite in 1939.  With the hardships of World War II, the museum had little time to investigate the gift and consequently it was stored in the basement archives until the current time.
The true and startling value of these particular objects went unknown until August 2004 when international philanthropist Alexander Levasseur began efforts to get the tribute returned to the Tiburu people of Kenya.  Because of Levasseur’s interest, the museum staff began to investigate the nature of the Tiburu objects.  When the objects were unearthed from the museum vaults they were seen to be of great historical interest, since most existing references to queen Hatshepsut were all but obliterated by her successors.  The well-preserved Stele told a story that gave further credibility to the tale of the Queen Who Declared Herself King, and was of great interests to Egyptologists around the world.  
In addition, the location and fate of the land of Punt is one of history’s great mysteries.  The serpent statue and the stele would appear to be the only existing relics of that great Empire.  Will they be the key to unraveling the fate of these people?  Will the Land of Punt turn out to be Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, or some other place heretofore unsuspected?
It is with great gratitude to the people of Kenya that the British Museum has exhibited these exquisite pieces of Egyptian history for the last three months.  Thus, on 15 March 2010, in a ceremony presided over by a Royal Representative, these precious objects will be returned to the Kenyan people.  Representatives of the Royal Historical Society, the British Egyptology Institute, and the Queen’s Treasury of Cultural Objects will accompany Kenyan officials and historians in escorting the treasures to Nairobi, Kenya.  There they will assist in the placing of the Golden Serpent and the Stele of Hatshepsut in the Nairobi Museum of Culture, on proud display for the people of Kenya.

Kobi laughed to himself.  The British Museum’s brochure certainly put a good face on the situation.  It didn’t exactly agree with the African’s view of events.
The handing-over ceremonies in London had been long and tedious as ceremonies inevitably were.  Now that they were over, Kobi was aching with fatigue.  While in London he had enjoyed the opportunity to see some of the friends he had made while in school at Oxford, but he really was happy to be going home to his wife, their new son, and the blue skies of Kenya.  Thinking of that joyful homecoming, he drifted in and out of sleep as the aircraft made its way across two continents.
The entire flight was thirteen hours long, including a one-hour layover in Dubai.  At about the time they were leaving United Arab Emirates airspace, Kobi had been informed that they would not be landing in Nairobi as was planned, but instead, were going to Mombasa.  His travel weary mind could barely comprehend the news of a rebel mortar raid on the airport at Nairobi.  Now, the plane was being re-routed to Mombasa.  
Why would rebels shell the runways of one of the most secure air terminals in all of Africa?  What could they hope to gain?  Except, of course to cause inconvenience for everyone flying out of Nairobi.
All he knew was that instead of a two-hour drive to get from Nairobi to his home, the journey was now going to take well over forty-eight hours.  However, the inconvenience was not his alone.  Besides the ancient Tiburu treasure, the plane also carried many dignitaries from the museums and governments of Britain and Kenya.  As a result, the Kenyan officials decided to relocate the ceremony they had been planning in honor of the Frenchman, Mr. Alexander Levasseur, to the airport in Mombasa.  Levasseur was the man who had been almost solely responsible for persuading the British to return the artifacts.  
Levasseur was a mystery to Kobi, and to quite a few other people, it seemed.  He hadn’t been able to discover much about the man from any of his contacts in either England or Kenya.  As rumor had it, Levasseur was a rich exporter operating around the Indian Ocean.  He also had a reputation as an international playboy, occasionally featuring in the gossip magazines.  However, no one really had any idea what he had done to become so rich.  Kobi suspiciously wondered why such a man would spend so much effort on the return of these particular objects and how he had been successful in getting them returned to Kenya.  Especially since the ownership of these artifacts was even more contested than the many other African treasures yet to be returned. 
Of course, factions from Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, and Egypt all claimed the artifacts.  The first four felt that they were the true location of the land of Punt, and were prepared to bring legal suit in the World Court to prove their case.  The latter it seemed wanted the artifacts back because they had originated in Egypt.  The fact that it was Kobi’s family from whom the artifacts had been taken had carried little weight against all of these other claims.  
Kobi felt growing misgivings, gazing through the jet’s window as they flew south toward Kenya.  Too many things felt out of place in this entire operation.  England did not give up her prizes easily and yet, due to the efforts of a mysterious stranger, the artifacts were on their way home.
Mombasa was halfway across the country from his home in Central Kenya and Kobi didn’t know if arrangements had been made for his return to Nairobi along with the artifacts, or if both of them would end up stuck in Mombasa.  Thankfully, there were Tiburu people in positions of power all over Kenya, so Kobi could pull some strings of his own, if he had to, in order to get the crate of artifacts and himself back to Nairobi.  It was irritating.  The bureaucrats would all have to make their speeches taking credit for this ‘great historical triumph’ and then there would be more waiting around.  All Kobi desired at that moment was for the artifacts to be safely returned and for himself to be comfortably tucking into a big plate of his wife’s excellent beef and potato stew.

<<>>

He must have fallen asleep as the long flight wore on because he awoke to the change in engine noise that indicated that they were beginning the descent into Mombasa.
The oppressive humidity of the Mombasa afternoon began to penetrate his travel rumpled business suit the moment he stepped off the plane.  Waiting on the tarmac, he saw the two essential elements necessary for a ceremony, a lineup of Kenyan dignitaries, and a covey of journalists.  Apparently, to the dignitaries in charge, receiving the artifacts right off the plane was too good of a photo opportunity to miss.  In the middle of the crowd, a head taller than everyone else stood the elegantly dressed Alexander Levasseur.
“I wonder what he wants from Kenya,” Kobi mused sardonically.  Behind his musings, a thought briefly crossed Kobi’s mind.  There are fewer guards than I would have expected, considering the high rank of the officials waiting on the ground.
The noise of the band and the herd of brightly dressed dignitaries surrounded by the pack of carnivorous journalists made a colorful cacophony in the hazy light of late afternoon.  At the very front of the greeting committee was a rather rotund little man Kobi recognized a distant cousin, Simon Njuguna, an avaricious politician whose sole aspiration was to increase his political power.  Throughout Kenya, Njuguna was known for his vanity as the “Peacock with Two Tails.”
Njuguna was always causing trouble by his efforts to advance his career as a politician.  Kobi’s own grandfather had been the subject of a lengthy lawsuit over the denial of Njuguna’s eligibility for elder status in the tribe.  He was an annoying and very ambitious man who always seemed to be trying to prove his superiority.  If he was here, then Kobi was certain the officious little man would try to claim credit in some way for the retrieval of the treasure.
Once the photos were taken and hands shaken all around, Kobi found himself a place to stand that was out of the way.  It was apparent that he was a very unimportant part of this event.  He felt exhausted and grubby after the long flight.  As the speeches droned on, he turned his back to the ceremony to watch the lightning strikes of a glowering thunderstorm moving across the distant landscape. 
A thundershower will put a stop to all this nonsense, he mused.  Right now in Nakuru, on the other side of that storm, my wife will be cooking the evening meal.  If I’m lucky, maybe tomorrow I will be home in time to watch the setting sun with my boy on my lap.  
Slowly he refocused on his immediate surroundings.  Having nothing better to do, he casually watched the wooden crate, carrying his tribe’s precious artifacts, gently being maneuvered onto a cargo truck.  
Suddenly he felt that something was wrong.
What is it?  He wondered.  He was unable to identify what had alarmed him.  Glancing around at the makeshift dais, Kobi saw Njuguna leave the group of dignitaries and walk casually toward the airport terminal building.  
Why is the Peacock leaving?  He wondered.  
Kobi knew his fatigue-dulled mind was preventing him from understanding the situation.  As he frantically scanned the scene trying to make sense of his unease, he noticed Levasseur give a tiny nod in the direction of the plane.  Then things began to happen very fast. 
Out of the corner of his eye, Kobi saw a bright red Mattatu; the open three-wheeled bush taxi common throughout Africa, drive up next to the cargo truck.  Somewhat behind, a security van was approaching the Mattatu at high speed, and the driver was yelling something Kobi couldn’t hear.  
Whatever it was, it was the last thing that driver ever said, as a firestorm of bullets smashed through the windshield and silenced him forever.  The gunfire was coming from the Mattatu, which disgorged six men armed with AK-47s.  Through a red filter of shock, Kobi watched the security van driver slowly slump forward over his steering wheel.  He saw the Kenyan Ceremonial Honor Guards, the only armed troops in the area, cut down with a second burst.  The guards didn’t have time to do more than raise their rifles.  Bewildered, Kobi watched as the gunmen now turned their attention on the dignitaries, some of whom were from the top echelon of leaders in his government.  They too fell under the relentless gunfire. 
The security van, with its dead driver at the wheel, raced out of control into the mass of wounded and struggling humanity.  Scrambling in all directions, the crowd tried to escape the wayward vehicle, some running each other down in their panic.  Within seconds, the runaway van burst from the crowd, its engine racing wildly, and plowed into the left engine of the airliner, causing an immediate gush of aviation fuel to spill onto the ground.  Seconds later, with a bright ignition, the van burst into flames and the petrol fed fire quickly spread to the giant airliner, causing several large explosions and sending sheets of flaming aviation fuel shooting into the sky.  
One of the gunmen climbed into the driver’s seat of the cargo truck, now loaded with the crate of artifacts, and accelerated away across the tarmac toward the nearest security gate.  A guttural yell from the Mattatu driver spurred the remaining gunmen to pile back into the bush taxi.  In seconds, the Mattatu was speeding toward the gate of the Airport.  The cargo truck slowed down just long enough to let the Mattatu pass in front.  
As quickly as they could, four of the gunmen hanging from the sides of the careening Mattatu opened fire on the two security guards at the Main Gate.  A small firefight raged for several seconds until the gunmen acquired the proper range, where the guard’s rifles became no match for the AK-47s.  With a sudden lurch and a squeal of tires, the Mattatu and the cargo truck were through the security gate and out onto the long narrow road toward Mombasa. 
It was a well-coordinated attack.  It had taken six men less than two minutes to kill as many people as possible, steal the crate of artifacts and make good their escape.  Behind the fleeing gunmen, eighteen people lay dead, six of them important dignitaries, with twenty-two wounded, and a once proud airplane, burning fiercely.

<<>>

MOMBASA HARBOR

“We gotta find a really great beach when we get to the Seychelles,” Tommy raved, “I have a new design for a sand sculpture and I want to try it out before the big competition next year.  I could win with this one.”
Most of the staff had gathered in the airy mess hall for the evening meal.  It wasn’t as crowded as usual because the crew of the ship was busy readying the ship to get under way.  Mrs. Yan had created an excellent meal of fresh seafood and exotic gatherings from the best of Mombasa’s vegetable markets.  The Pelican’s chef had a rare gift.  Instinctively, she knew where to get the best food in any port in the world.
“I believe our Captain has friends in the Seychelles, maybe they can help you find a good beach,” said Butler.
“I don’t understand why you’re so obsessed with sand castles,” Doc Sanders, a tanned, white-haired American in khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt teased him.  “A man with your education...”
“Hey, you Quack, my engineering degrees are very valuable in the making of sand sculptures.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Matthew Butler noticed a sudden indistinct flicker in a far hatchway.
“Did you see that?”  He interrupted.  “Over there, something moved.”  
“Probably just a rat, they always get on board when we’re in port.  You ought to get a dog or something to catch them,” suggested Richard, who was a large, pale, young man with curly brown hair and glasses.
“No animals on board,” sighed Butler, repeating the long-standing rule like a well-rehearsed mantra, “too many complications.”
“Hah!  The rats we get could probably take any dog in a fight,” offered John Trask, the chief security officer of the Pelican.  “Three feet long with teeth like sabers…”  Special Forces veteran Trask was a hard-looking man with a tall, lean body.  One side of his deeply tanned face showed a spatter of tiny white scars, like dots, where he had been too close to a stone wall when a series of machine  gun bullets had raked across it, spraying his face with shards of stone.  The khaki shorts and short-sleeved shirt that were his usual apparel revealed his wiry, muscular build.  He kept his brown hair shaved and his grey eyes usually held an expression of subtle good humor.
“Over there, I saw it!” exclaimed Tommy, standing up suddenly and knocking his chair over, “But I don’t think it’s a rat!”
Everyone at the dinner table looked in time to see a white blur with a jaunty upturned tail disappear around a corner.
A shriek and a stream of Chinese that sounded very much like cursing told them that whatever it was, it was now in the galley with the cook.  Mrs. Yan’s screams were a call to arms.  Every person in the mess hall leapt up and joined the chase.  
When they got into the galley, Mrs. Yan pointed out the back door.  Nobody needed an interpreter to understand what she was saying in machinegun Chinese.
“Split up,” said Butler, “you guys take port and Doc and I’ll take starboard.”  
In a flash, Doc, a borderline literary punster of note, declared; “Quick Watson, the game’s afoot!”
“Whatever it is, it’s fast.”  Tommy said as he and Trask searched around and beneath the many pieces of equipment stored on deck.  A small, mostly white dog suddenly burst out from under a lifeboat cover just above Tommy’s head.  With quick reflexes, Trask leapt and stretched out his arms as if he was catching the winning pass in a football game.  The dog, which wasn’t much larger than a football, landed in his arms and with a mighty kick rocketed away and flew another fifteen feet before landing lightly on the deck.
“Looks like Butler’s got his rat catcher after all,” said Trask wryly.
Unexpectedly, the dog leapt to the top of a storage locker and turned to look at his pursuers.  
The body of the dog was mostly white, with a patch of black on one side of its face and a patch of brown on the other; neatly divided by a small white line running up and over its forehead.  It dropped its jaw in a doggy grin and leapt away just as two of the staff pounced.  
Tommy slammed into the storage locker while Trask, with an athletic somersault, cleared it and landed on the opposite side, straddling the dog.  Even before he could react, the dog again abruptly veered away, causing Trask, with uncharacteristic lack of grace, to try to change directions before he had completely regained his balance.  He landed awkwardly and only avoided pitching over the side of the ship by catching his elbow on the steel railing.  The sound of his very colorful cursing was quickly left behind as the pursued and the pursuers disappeared aft.
Dodging an ambush, the dog ran right through the hands of Salvador, Matthew Butler’s valet onboard.
“I’ll get you my pretty…” the olive-skinned teenager quoted in a heavy Spanish accent as his hands closed on thin air. 
The cursing became multilingual as the ship’s crew, now aware of the intruder, joined in the pursuit.  
Barking joyously, the little dog led the mob across the open deck and directly toward Doc and Butler, who had been searching the opposite side of the ship.  Taken unawares by the rapid approach of the whole circus, Doc was not quick enough to grab the dog as it passed, so he stuck out his foot to stop it.  The dog, of course, hopped easily over this sudden obstacle but, unfortunately, Richard, the first of its pursuers did not.  He went crashing to the floor, taking down the galloping crowd behind him.  
Tommy, who had been in the back of the crowd at this point, was able to avoid the pile of struggling combatants and raced on after the dog.  Doc and Butler were not far behind him, with the survivors of the pileup limping after.  The little dog skittered around a corner then stopped short, waiting for his followers.  Tommy rounded the corner and stopped in surprise, as the creature gave him a big, silly grin, its long tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth.  Doc and Butler, of course, cannoned into Tommy, followed by the remaining members of the chase. 
“Hold on, hold on, I may be able to get him,” cautioned Tommy in a pseudo-whisper.  He crouched low with his arms spread wide and slowly moved toward the dog.
Taking this as a play posture, the little dog bent his front legs, rear end high in a play bow, danced from side to side a bit, and took off running again.
“It thinks it’s a game,” laughed Butler, “it’s not going to do any good to chase it.”  However, his advice fell on absent ears, since by the time he finished saying it, he was alone on the deck with the sounds of pursuit rapidly fading.  Another sound, far off in the distance, attracted Matthew’s attention. 
Damn, that sounds like an explosion!  He thought.
Forward of the science lab, the great dog chase was still going strong.  
“The little mutt is laughing at us,” hollered Tommy, now in the lead of a small but determined group of pursuers.  They followed a torturous rout through portable labs and various tethered storage containers on deck.  Tommy though he saw his chance as the chase neared two massive loading cranes at the ship’s midsection.  The dog had paused in front of a hanging cargo net, seemingly considering its options.  
“I’ve got you now,” Tommy bellowed.  Stretching to full length, he dove onto the panting dog.  Of course, it was no longer there.  The dog, microseconds before, had slipped through a gap in the cargo net.  Tommy realized, too late, where he was going to end up.  Attempting to abort the leap in mid-air, he slammed awkwardly into the hanging net.  The resulting crash left Tommy hanging upside-down in the net with his arms and legs twisted tightly in its nylon straps.  Barking, the little dog took off again, ready for more fun.
At that very moment, two sharp blasts on the ship’s powerful whistle brought the chase to an abrupt halt.  
Matthew Butler was the first to see a huge column of smoke rising in the distance.
Dashing up to the bridge, he found Captain Nikos Zamora, the 60-year-old craggy-faced and white bearded Master of the Pelican standing at the ship’s railing and looking at the smoke through binoculars.  Trask, nursing a bruised lump on his elbow, immediately joined the pair.  
“What do you think it is,” asked Matthew, taking the binoculars Captain Z handed him.  
“Can’t really tell from here,” the Captain replied, “my best guess is that something happened at the airport, maybe a plane crash or something.”  
“I don’t like it,” Trask interjected, “we think of Kenya as a fairly stable country, but there are rival political and military factions here that could blow up, so to speak, at any time.”
“Okay,” said Matthew peering through the binoculars, “I see emergency vehicles on the bridge.  They’re all headed toward the airport.  It must be a plane crash.”
“But if it’s not…”  Captain Z returned, “If Trask is correct that it might be a coup, they could close the port and we’d be trapped here.  We have all the paperwork in with the harbormaster.  I originally planned to weigh anchor in two hours at high tide, but I say we get out now, while we still can.”
“I reckon you’re right, Cap’n, We’d better get out while the getting’s good,” replied Butler.
Immediately the command went out and the ship’s crew set to work leaving port.  Butler gathered his staff, many of them limping and groaning from their injuries.  
“We don’t know what has happened here, but we don’t want to be trapped by something political, so we’re leaving now.”
“What about the dog?” a voice from the crowd asked.
“There’s nothing we can do about it now.  We’re stuck until we hit another port,” said Matthew.  “I’m telling you all right now; no one is to get attached to the pooch.  We’re not keeping it.”
“Yeah, let’s get back to our dinner,” said Tommy, “Mrs. Yan’s Szechuan Chicken doesn’t deserve to get cold.”
“You’re right about that, no rat with a bob-tail should come between us and dinner,” Doc affirmed.
The group made their way back down from the bridge and entered the Mess hall, all the while speculating about the large column of black smoke that continued to rise from Mombasa’s airport. 
Tommy was the first to cry; “You Little Devil!”  
As they entered the dining room, they found the little dog on the table cleaning up the last of the Szechuan Chicken.  Crockery flew as incensed people dived and tumbled across the table and out the door after the happy little dog.
“There’s no point to this Chinese Fire Drill, the dog just thinks it’s a big game,” repeated Butler, but he was talking to himself again as the merry romp resumed.  He shrugged and sat down to a cold cup of coffee, listening to the sounds of chaos, which slowly died away as the pursuers finally tired and gave up the chase.
As night fell, the Pelican made her way across the great Indian Ocean, on her way to the beautiful white beaches of the Seychelles Islands.  
Sensing that the delightful game was over for now, the little dog wandered below decks until he came upon a room he thought smelled right, and there, in Matthew Butler’s cabin, under the bunk on a forgotten t-shirt, the little dog curled up, heaved a great sigh, burped Szechuan Chicken once, and fell into a satisfied sleep.

<<>>
MOMBASA AIRPORT

Within moments of the first gunfire, Kobi had begun to move.  His mind and body were running on automatic.  He knew that if he didn’t do something the artifacts would be lost forever.  He raced on foot toward the Main Gate, hurdled over the bodies of the dead guards, and grabbed a mo-ped leaning against the airport fence.  Pushing the mo-ped to its maximum, he trailed the Rebel’s truck and the following Mattatu out into heavy traffic.  About halfway to the city center a convoy of Mombasa’s aging fleet of emergency vehicles sped by in the opposite direction, obviously heading for the Airport and further snarling traffic. 
Without any idea of what he would do if he caught up, he managed to keep the Mattatu and cargo truck in sight through the long drive from the airport into Mombasa.  His cause was aided somewhat by the mo-ped’s ability to move in and out of traffic while the truck could not.  Unfortunately, the mo-ped’s gas gauge read nearly empty and by the time Mombasa’s outskirts were in sight, the brave little vehicle was running on fumes.  As they passed through the busy city center, the truck carrying the cargo began to pull ahead.  Kobi knew he was not going to be able to keep up with it on the mo-ped, especially if the traffic eased. 
Surely, an alert about the theft had gone out, hadn’t it?  Kobi asked himself.  After all those speeches about what a 'momentous historic occasion' this was, they weren’t going to let someone kill everyone and just drive off with the artifacts, were they?  
Pausing to reconsider, he suspected that the disaster at the airport had overshadowed the theft of mere tribal artifacts.  He wondered how many of his nation’s leaders had been killed.  He knew in his heart that this tragedy could grow into internal chaos and the deaths of possibly thousands of people if the government of Kenya was sufficiently undermined. 
Night fell as pursuer and the pursued made their way into the warehouse district near the docks.  After several minutes, the truck disappeared into a warren of alleys between dilapidated buildings.  Kobi just couldn’t keep up with the truck carrying the artifacts.  Rather than give up, he decided to try to tail the slower moving Mattatu, thinking that he had a better chance of keeping up with it.  With a sinking heart, Kobi let the truck go and stayed with the overloaded bush taxi, trailing along behind on his straining mo-ped.  At least he knew that the group of gunmen in the Mattatu was associated with the vehicle carrying the crate of artifacts, and perhaps in time they would lead him back to them.  
They were within a block of the docks when the bush taxi abruptly turned a corner.  Kobi leaned his mo-ped into the turn at a top speed of ten kilometers per hour, feeling more ridiculous than daring, like a comic version of James Bond.  The Mattatu was no longer ahead of him on the deserted street, but he spotted a large warehouse door slowly closing.  Kobi drove by without glancing at the door.  When he was sure he had passed out of sight, he pulled the poor thing to a stop.  He gave it a small pat; he felt a little affection for it after it had performed such an extraordinary pursuit.  Cautiously, utilizing all his skill as a Park Warden stalking poachers, he crept back to the location of the warehouse and carefully scouted around it to see if there were any other entrances to the building.
Climbing up on a couple of precariously stacked trashcans, he peered cautiously through a window so covered in grime that he might as well have been trying to see through a wall.  
If he lost this group of rebels, any hope of finding the crate was truly lost and he would have to be the one who bore the responsibility for losing it, at least as far as his family was concerned.  
The thought of facing the loss and the humiliation it would bring was too great; he knew he had no choice.  He would have to do everything he could and hope that something would happen to help him recover both the artifacts and his honor. 
Gently, he pushed on the top of the window and was grateful to see that the bottom swung easily outward.  Teetering on the wobbly trashcans, he gradually worked himself under the protruding window and in through the opening.  He followed the sound of voices to an office in the front of the building.  The people inside must have felt secure about any intrusion because they had left the inner door of the office open.  
“We have done as you asked; we have the objects in our possession, now it is time for your people to produce the weapons.  It would not be a wise thing to cross the Lord’s Resistance Army.”  This voice was speaking in English with a heavy Ugandan accent.
Kobi felt his strength leave him. 
The LRA in Kenya!  He had not thought it was possible to be more frightened than he had been when breaking into the warehouse.  Now his fear was not only for himself and for his honor, he was afraid for his country and the entire region of Eastern Africa.  The brutal LRA had conducted a terrorist revolution against the government of Uganda for twenty years.  Their methods of mass murder, mutilation, torture, and kidnapping had created one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent times.  If they were acquiring arms, it meant that they intended to break the 2006 ceasefire, which the world believed was holding.  He felt sickened as he thought of the villages destroyed, the refugees created, and the thousands of children abducted and forced to be soldiers or sex slaves for the LRA.  He could not accept this happening in his own country, or that it would begin again in the ravaged and poverty-stricken Uganda.  Reacquiring the artifacts would make little difference if a well-armed LRA were once again unleashed upon the people of the region.  
“You have no need to threaten me, Commander.  You will tell your people to meet our ship at 4̊ 06’ 04 S, 55 ̊ 47’ 16 E;   roughly twenty nautical miles northwest of Silhouette Island in the Seychelles on the day agreed upon.  There, we will load the weapons and ammunition onto your craft and you will hand over the artifacts.  These are the terms we agreed upon and they will be met.”  This voice had a vaguely Scandinavian accent.  It was a hard voice; a voice that Kobi, for one, felt he would not want to cross.  “I will be there to meet you,” said the voice.
It was apparent to Kobi that the meeting was breaking up and that he had to make a decision.  He knew where the exchange would occur but not when.  If he let these people out of his sight in order to go to the authorities, he would have no chance of finding them again.  Even if he did, the authorities might not believe him or even have resources they could spare.  In the end, he decided to follow the Europeans with whom the LRA had met.  He knew that the Europeans were the source of the guns and, as much as the artifacts were important to him, it was far more important to prevent the LRA from getting the arms.  If he was lucky, he might be able to retrieve the artifacts at the same time.  
Kobi streaked to his window and, as silently as possible, squirmed through the opening.  He jumped to the ground, avoiding the treacherous and possibly noisy trashcans.  It was easy to identify the Europeans as they left the warehouse.  Their white faces and light colored hair stood out in the gloom of the sparse city lighting.  Their path led eastward.  The intricately foul odor on the wind told Kobi that the Europeans were heading toward the docks.  
Moving carefully, Kobi followed them to a sinister looking black yacht, being loaded with supplies even at this late hour.  He had to get on that ship unnoticed.  A dock gang loading the ship worked shirtless and in shorts through the hot Kenya night.  He quickly stripped off his business suit and, giving mental thanks for his morning choice of sturdy British boxer shorts, he slipped barefooted into the line of men carrying boxes onto the dark yacht.

<<>>

On board the strange black yacht, Kobi looked for a place to hide, hoping he hadn’t made a bad decision.  The deck of the ship was devoid of any kind of hiding place, having been designed with a sleek, Spartan elegance that left no cover.  Kobi hoped to sneak below but the hatches were busy with ship’s crew stowing supplies below decks.  Just when he could no longer loiter safely on the yacht, a large hatch in the foredeck began to open, exposing a shallow hold.  As the automatic cover moved silently away, a crane emerged and the operator guided the boom out over the bow of the ship.  Seeing his opportunity when all attention was focused on the activity on the end of the boom, Kobi made a quick leap into the hold. 
He landed on his feet prepared for a fight.  The hold was empty except for a few large containers for petrol.  Squeezing himself quickly behind these, he waited to see what would happen.  The crane boom returned loaded with a deluxe looking Tender craft, a version of the Zodiac, a partly rigid, inflatable boat that fit snugly into the bay below the main deck.  No one came down into the bay once the craft was released from the crane and Kobi breathed again as the hatch doors swung silently closed.  
Taking stock of his situation, he found himself in a small, hot, unventilated hold with the Tender boat and almost nothing else.  At the back of the bay was a small hatch, which Kobi hoped would lead to the interior of the yacht, but he did not dare to try it until all was quiet outside.  
With the realization that he was relatively safe, for now, Kobi relaxed a little.  His mind began to play over the events that had brought him to this hiding place.  Everything had happened so quickly that it was hard to believe that several hours ago all he had been expecting was a long ride home.  Along with time to think came time to feel the demands his body was making.  The standardized meals provided by Emirates Air on the flight from London had been a long time ago and Kobi knew that he would remain hungry until he was able to sneak out of the hold into the interior of the ship.  Even then, he couldn’t be sure of being able to find food undetected.  More than food, he would need water in this hot hideaway.  On board the Tender craft, he found a half-finished soda and a couple of partial bottles of water.  He would try to make them last as long as possible.  As to the other demand his bladder was making, well, it was really best not to dwell on it.
Kobi felt motion as the big yacht pulled away from the docks and got under way.  He quietly rearranged the petrol cans so that he could stretch out behind them, and, cradling his head on a life jacket out of the Tender, listened to the noises of the ship far into the night.  After that, he dreamed of being caught and spent the whole dream in endless attempts to find his trousers.
The streamlined luxury super yacht made its way east from Kilindini Harbor into the open ocean.  There were many jobs to be done and the ship’s crew worked through the night stowing supplies and beginning the everyday tasks that would take them through the nearly thousand-mile journey to the Seychelles. 

<<>>

ABOARD THE PELICAN IN THE INDIAN OCEAN

Early morning light cast long shadows on the deck of the Pelican where a small group of people gathered around Yan Yu Chan, the ship’s martial arts instructor.  The 70-year-old man was also the husband of Mrs. Yan, the ship’s cook.  His loose clothing flapped gently in the light sea breeze.  
“Strangely enough it is a quirk of human nature that if you’re attacked with a knife, without training, you will always grab the knife.”  He handed out some wooden shims carved into crude knife shapes and ordered the group to pair up.  
“First we’re going to use a roll-back, like this…”
He signaled Matthew Butler to attack him with his wooden knife.  As Butler realistically charged him Chan stepped forward into the attack, gently touching Butler’s wrist with the left hand and his upper arm with the right hand, he simply directed his attacker past him and to the side so that the surprised Butler stumbled, abruptly planting his face on the deck.
“Remember, meet force with no resistance.  When your attacker comes toward you, do not try to repel him.  Welcome him and help him on his way.  A small amount of added energy will cause him to be unbalanced, and then you will be able to redirect him easily.”
“What do you do when he gets up and comes at you again?”  Tommy asked innocently, watching Matthew slowly pick himself up off the deck.
“First, don’t be there!  The best defense is always to run away, but if you think he’s the kind of attacker who will come back for more, then you can always break his elbow as he goes by,” said Chan.  This time Chan took Tommy’s wrist in his left hand and placed his right on Tommy’s upper arm just above the elbow.  Gently he demonstrated how he had leverage, which would cause Tommy’s elbow to break as he was thrown to the ground in passing.  “You will see that it takes little pressure to break a joint in this way.”  Tommy nervously pulled back, even though he trusted Chan, the power the defense master exuded was so great he could not help himself.
“Now, everyone will do this with a partner,” said Chan, “Slowly!”  He commanded as he watched EB advance on Tommy with her wooden knife.
Very soon, the deck rang with laughter and groans of frustration as each pair of fighters discovered how very strong their instinct was to grab the knife instead of their attacker’s arm.  
“Keep your focus away from the knife!” directed Chan. “Watch the body, if you watch the knife you have no knowledge of anything but the knife.  If you watch the body, you will know exactly what they are going to do.”  
Slowly, with practice, the crew began to do what Chan directed, keeping their eyes on their opponent’s body, redirecting their attackers with various moves taken from the Tai Chi form they practiced daily.
“You know your little dog is over there watching don’t you?” taunted Tommy.
Matthew stopped defending himself from slow wooden knife attacks by Mike, one of the crewmembers, and wiped his face with his hand.  “Not my dog” he replied, squaring up for another go.
“I think you should name it Bouncer” threw in EB, neatly sending Tommy sliding on the deck.  “It bounces all over the place.”
“No name,” said Butler, shaking his hand after receiving a stinging blow on his palm from Mike’s wooden knife.
“Relax your shoulders,” Chan told him, “tense muscles will make you slow.  If you’re slow, you’re dead.”
“Somebody’s going to be dead if they don’t stop trying to pawn that dog off on me,” muttered Matthew.
He settled his shoulders and his mind and signaled Mike to attack again, and again, and again. 

<<>>

DARK YACHT 

For six long days, Kobi lay in the hot cargo hold listening every moment for sounds of someone opening the big door above or the little door leading into the ship’s galley.  There was very little cover in the hold and he was sure he would be discovered if anyone took any real interest in the Tender craft or its surroundings.  Each night when the sounds of activity ceased outside, he had sneaked out into the galley of the ship to provide himself with a small amount of food and water.  He could not take any real quantity of food for fear that it would be missed.  He had found the solution to his other bodily needs in the partially filled petrol cans in the Zodiac bay.  He supposed his erstwhile hosts would be quite pissed when they found out what he had done in their fuel supply.  Some things cannot be helped.  
He could tell from the depletion of shipboard supplies that they were nearing the end of their journey, or at least were nearing a place to load more provisions.  Knowing he could not sit and wait to be captured, Kobi evolved a desperate plan.  He planned to sneak out of his refuge that night and try to steal a steward’s uniform or some other clothing that might help him avoid detection.  Then he planned to find another spot on the ship where he could hide undetected until they arrived at their destination.  His idea was to find a life jacket locker, most vessels had them, and because of the bulk of the life vests, the lockers were usually large enough for a man.  There was also very little chance that the locker would be opened as life vests are rarely used unless there is an emergency.  He would hide there until he could emerge during the chaos of landing and hope to be in the right place to reacquire his quarry.
A change in the sound of the engines, for the first time in six days, led him to make his first mistake.  He knew he had to get out of his current hiding place before the Tender boat was needed, and the change in the engine noise possibly meant they were nearing shore.  He decided he had to try to get into the life vest locker immediately, or risk discovery.  
Kobi was not prepared for what happened when he crawled out of his hiding place, just after dawn on the sixth day.  There, in the middle of the Galley, stood a large, blonde man holding a heavy meat cleaver.  “So you are the stinking little rat who has been pilfering the food,” he growled.  “I think I’m going to have to teach you not to get into other people’s supplies.”  
Trying not to get trapped, Kobi feinted left and quickly spun to the right, narrowly avoiding a killing blow by a high-speed cleaver.  
The next several minutes turned out to be a nightmare inside a nightmare inside a game of Clue.  In his head, he could still hear the voice of an old American friend from his days at Oxford.  I believe that the murderer is the cook, in the galley, with the cleaver.  
The cook, a man who obviously had never played Clue, took another murderous swipe that would have decapitated Kobi if he hadn’t ducked.  Kobi slapped the killer cook about the ear-hole, causing a screech of pain.  Pushing past, he spun the wailing man around like a revolving door.  Accelerating hard, he ran down the yacht’s central corridor, expecting to feel the bite of the cleaver in his back at any second.  At the end of the corridor, a stairwell led up toward the main deck.  Kobi, running as fast as humanly possible, never saw the extended arm that clotheslined him.  The impact knocked him off his feet and he fell awkwardly onto the decking just 10’ from the aft hatch and daylight.  Retching and gasping for breath, he attempted to regain his feet, only to have a heavy boot press his head hard to the deck.  
“Looky what just crawled out of the scuppers,” a gravel voice ominously declared.  
A sudden grunt of effort lifted him high in the air, quickly followed by a rabbit punch to the back of the neck that pitched Kobi across the lounge.  Loose limbed, he stumbled from port to starboard, through a hazy netherworld of marionettes with broken strings.  After several more steps that mimicked a drunk on roller skates, he collapsed to his knees on the afterdeck of the dark yacht, only to be viciously kneed in the face by another thug.  The blow broke Kobi’s nose causing him to blow a cloud of bright blood over his assailant’s pants.  
“Ah, yer little shite, them’s me very best trousers.”  A guttural voice complained, as he pulled Kobi to his feet, and launched a hard kidney punch that drove electric arcs of pain through the black man.  The blow pushed Kobi into another thug’s grasp, and he flailed at the leering face before him, trying to return as much damage as he could.  This effort only got him beaten harder and his wrists lashed behind his back with a heavy-duty zip tie. 
“Send him over this way, Gunner,” a weasely voice piped.  Gunner, a beefy ape with garlic breath and large hairy knuckles, grabbed Kobi by the throat in one massive hand and pulled him upright.  “All right, my little punching bag, time for round two.”  A powerful shot to the gut drove all the air from Kobi’s lungs, leaving him bent over and gasping.  His stomach convulsed in dry heaves, as he tried to curl into a fetal position.  
What began as a few simple blows rapidly progressed into a systematic beating as more thugs joined the festivities.  At the zenith, six thugs took polite turns, each assailant patiently waiting for Kobi to recover before inflicting their own personal vision of the maximum amount of pain with minimal effort. 
“It’s not so bad,” the voice of the thug named Gunner crooned in Kobi’s ear, “this is just light punishment for stowaways.  You should be grateful Captain Larsen didn’t find you.  He likes to use a cricket bat and break bones.  The last poor bastard that caught the Captain’s ire is a vegetable in a Pretoria hospital, drinking his kippers through a straw.”
“What the hell is this?” a loud voice suddenly demanded.  
A huge man, dressed in dark trousers and a heavy pea jacket and greasy officer’s cap, dominated the afterdeck.  He was easily six foot six inches tall and although he probably weighed over three hundred pounds, none of it was fat.  His face was ruddy and featured a nose that had been broken more than once.  A ragged scar ran up his left cheek and under a black eye patch.  His remaining eye was steely gray and bloodshot.  
As he moved closer, Kobi could see that the man had a concealed pistol under his pea jacket.  A well used large blackjack stuck out of the man’s pocket.  
“We caught a stowaway, Captain, and we were just having a bit of fun.”
“So, I see,” said Larsen, looking at the results of the savage beating lying at his feet.  “Bring him up on deck; I want to get a good look at him.”
“This kaffir must have snuck aboard at Mombasa.  Cookie caught him stealing food from the galley,” explained Gunner, as they dragged the limp Kobi up the stairs.
“What do you want us to do with him, Captain?”  Feral gleams suddenly developed in the eyes of the assembled crew.  All were anticipating one of Captain Larsen’s infamous and highly original tortures designed to reduce humanity to a single agonized nerve ending. 
“So, one man, with nothing but a pair of filthy shorts, sneaks onto my ship and no one notices him for six days?  That really says a lot for the security aboard this ship.”
It slowly dawned on the crew that the stowaway’s punishment was not the first thing on the Captain’s agenda.  Increasing fear broke across the craggy faces of the assembled men.
“We must not have enough discipline aboard.”  The Captain decided.
Things had suddenly changed.  From the tone of the Captain’s speech, the focus was no longer on Kobi.  While the attention was off him, he took a quick look around and was relieved to see a small island within swimming distance.  Hope swelled within and he mustered all the strength remaining in his body. 
“Until further notice, every man aboard will stand watch on watch.”  A quiet groan ran through the crew.  Watch on watch for such a small crew meant 20 hours on duty and only 4 hours rest.  
Only the hulking Gunner had the nerve to ask, “But, Captain, what about the stowaway?”  
The Captain gave the black man a look that one might give to a bit of gum stuck to a shoe.  Kobi knew in his soul that there would be no mercy from this man. 
“Loan him a couple lengths of chain and pitch him overboard.”
Kobi’s reaction to such a casual announcement of his death sentence caused an involuntary cringe, a reaction that the captain immediately noticed.  
“Belay that!  Stand him up.”  
Knowing that he had few options, Kobi cooperated as two burly crewmen hoisted him upright.  
“So, you’re just a bloody kaffir who wants to run away to sea?”  Then with a sudden squint of suspicion.  “Do you speak English?  No!  How about French?  Parley Vu, Frenchie?”  
Kobi kept his battered face as impassive as possible, knowing that the remaining seconds of his life depended upon it.  
“No?  Then you must just be a stupid plonker who can’t understand a word I’m saying.” 
With a rapid change of mood, Larsen barked out orders.  “Turn him around.  Lemme see his hands.”  A brief inspection confirmed some brutish suspicion.  “I thought so.  These aren’t the hands of a laborer!  Hell, his nails have even been trimmed recently.”  
“Boys, I think we’ve got us a police spy.”  Larsen pronounced in tones usually reserved for Magistrates chortling during sentencing.  “Why, I’d wager he even understands English.”
“So, what do you want to do with him?”  Gunner asked, grinning evilly, in anticipation of future fun.  
Captain Larsen gripped Kobi’s jaw in one massive hand, squeezing cruelly. 
“Weasel, go get my cricket bat.  I feel the need for a bit of exercise.”  
“Aw, Captain, it’s not fair, you always have all the fun.”  One voice whined peevishly. 
“One more sound out of you, Ned Coop and I’ll be beating on two.”  Larsen threatened, his eyes never leaving Kobi’s face.
Despite his dire predicament, Kobi couldn’t suppress the revulsion.  His body betrayed him, and he shuddered violently.  At that second, both Larson and he knew that the masquerade was up.  
With an explosive burst of energy, Kobi kicked Larson squarely in the groin; head butted the crewman to the left and spun out of the grip of the crewman to his right.  In an ungainly lurching run, hampered by his bound wrists, he dove off the back of the dark yacht and into the cool welcoming embrace of the sea.  

<<>>

LITTLE CURIEUSE ISLE, SEYCHELLES

Scientists call it ‘Latimeria Chalumnae.’  The Comoros Islanders call it ‘Gombessa, the beast.’  The South Africans call it ‘Ol’ Four Legs.’  The French call it, ‘Poisson Repugnant.’  However, the Seychellois, the Creole natives of the Seychelles, have come up with the best name yet, ‘Oogly Fish.’  Scientifically it is known as the Coelacanth, the four hundred million year-old fish that was thought to have become extinct sixty five million years ago, only to be rediscovered in 1938 off the coast of Madagascar.  The fish’s ancestors, the first Coelacanths, had filled a niche as a basal reef predator with over thirty species, not long after the Indian land mass started a mad dash for Asia.  From the beginning, the instinctual journey north from Madagascar to the granitic Seychelles was a once in a lifetime event for the species. 
The fish in question, a pregnant female, nearly six feet in length, and weighing close to one hundred fifty pounds, was deep blue in color with silver highlights along her dorsal scales.  Ancient urges drew her back to the very sea caves where she had been born nearly forty years before.  Instinctively, she knew that soon she would live-birth twenty Coelacanth pups.  The thousand-mile migration had exhausted her, but, with effort, she had arrived at the sea caves in the reef wall surrounding Little Curieuse Isle.  All she had to do was defend her cave from other predators.  

<<>>

With a quick and nearly silent gurgle of bubbles, the beautiful woman in a red neoprene skin-suit checked her diving gear one last time and then slipped into the clear blue water off Little Curieuse Isle.  
At low tide, the isle was a one half kilometer cluster of palms and mangroves with a wide, shallow sand beach on the southern side, and a reef and lagoon complex on the north side.  At high tide, however, the only thing above water was the circle of trees, which was a convenient resting place for migrating sea birds.  Although numerous birds used the refuge daily, there was insufficient shelter during storms to warrant any nesting pairs wanting to make a home on Little Curieuse.  Most of the Fairy Terns, Noddies, and other birds that migrated through every year passed by the islet and nested on Praslin Island to the south. 
Of course, from the viewpoint of tourism, the wealth of attractions on the bigger islands in the Seychelles Group put Little Curieuse far down on the list of popular places to visit, which made it very appealing to one particular person.  
Katherine Annenberg, a commercial photographer out of Durban, South Africa, was searching for that one great photograph that would pay for her trip.  She had come to the Seychelles to attend SUBIOS, the Seychelles annual underwater photography competition.  She had a couple of images entered in the competition and had hopes of winning an award.  Still, she mused, awards don’t pay hotel bills.
As a moderately skilled diver, she knew she was breaking a cardinal rule by diving alone.  She was running what was euphemistically known as an economic risk.  Everything in the Seychelles was expensive, but the highest costs were accommodations, dive boats and especially dive boat guides.  After she had spent nearly 14,000 Rand for a new waterproof housing for her camera, her budget could only afford two of those three expenses.  The guide who normally would have doubled as her dive buddy had been sacrificed accordingly. 
Katherine swam across the top of the granite reef heading toward the reef wall to the north.  In this lonely location, she hoped to find the one great photograph that would break her out of the commercial photography rut and get her some recognition as an art photographer.  While she explored, she thought about the SUBIOS competition.
If I win, it will launch my future as an artistic photographer.  Of course, if I don’t win anything at the competition, I may be able to recoup some of my expenses by turning the photograph into a poster, and perhaps selling it to the South African Board of Tourism. 
As she skimmed over and around odd bits of granite reef that poked up from the bottom, avoiding the patches of soft corals, sea anemones, and sponges, she stopped often and investigated all the fissures, cracks, and the occasional sea cave looking for that perfect picture, the one she could see in her mind’s eye.  It has to be something unique, maybe even something so radically different that it will make everyone sit up and take notice, she thought.
As she got closer to the reef wall, the current washing in from the open ocean became suddenly cooler, chilling her, not only physically but mentally as well. 
Warm water always seems inviting, she whispered to herself, while cold water always has that chill of danger attached. 
She clicked her tongue in disgust, pushing away the negative thoughts.  
I’m glad I took the time to put on a wet suit over my new bikini.  It is too bad that I chose this thin latex skin suit instead of the thicker neoprene.  This water is colder than I expected.  Well, at least, I have some protection against scrapes and bruises.  
The first time she wore the bikini, she hadn’t failed to notice that she had turned the heads of every male on the beach.  Of course, today, what does it matter?  I could be swimming naked if I wanted.  The nearest human being is on Praslin Island, over twenty kilometers away. 
In truth, the nearest human beings were less than a kilometer away from her and rapidly approaching.
As Katherine swam along the face of the reef wall, variable currents made her progress treacherous and tiring.  She knew if she wasn’t careful, a sudden change in current flow could easily push her back into a nearby branch coral thicket that would leave her cut and bleeding in no time.  However, she put extra effort in every stroke until she was able to drop further down the face into quieter water.  At a depth of seven meters, the current flow turned into a general upwelling from below that made her adjust her buoyancy to accommodate its effect.  She drifted laterally along the reef wall using her dive light to illuminate the holes and sea caves in the reef.  Most were shallow with a variety of creatures living a tentacle-to-mouth existence.  
She drifted down near the bottom of the reef wall, finding a ledge, which jutted out away from the wall.  Beneath it, a large cavern opened before her.  Its tipped-down mouth encrusted with fan coral and a colony of sea urchins that bristled up at her approach.  Only when she dropped below the ledge to peer up inside the entrance with the dive light, did she discover that a small beam of daylight could be seen streaming down from the roof at the back of the cavern.  
This is interesting, she thought, it is quite rare for a sea cave this deep to extend all the way back to the surface.  
The cavern entrance was easily over seven meters across and two meters high and extended at least twenty-five meters back into the reef.  From what she could see, the interior arched up to nearly three meters above the surface of the water before constricting back into a narrow chimney.  This rose in a series of ledges to the open top.
Despite being nine meters below the surface, the entrance had a perceptible current flow.  While she was still deciding to enter the cavern, the current slowly pulled her inside.  
At first, she was startled and fought the current.  However, discovering that she had sufficient power to defeat it, she decided instead to explore.  
Her mind raced as she tried to understand the simple physics in operation in this strange realm.  The entrance to the cavern was surprisingly free of sea growth, 
The current must be strong enough to prevent sea growth from choking off the chamber.  I’ll bet it really flows in here at the peak of high tide. 
As she moved closer to the sunlight, she quickly discovered that an abundance of sea life clung to the walls and floor.  Hundreds of clams with razor sharp shells decorated the walls.  A well-cropped kelp garden grew in the sunny patch and several brittle starfish and crabs fought territorial skirmishes over the shaded portion around it.  
It took her a minute or two to understand. 
It’s a flooded blowhole!  She marveled.
Floating in the patch of sunlight, she made a slow 360-degree circle of the chamber.  For the most part, the recesses of the chamber were barren, all except one.  Katherine caught a flash of blue as the glass of her mask reflected some of the sunlight into one of the darker recesses.  Suddenly fearful, she aimed her dive light into a three-meter deep fracture.  A hideous toothy face stared back at her.  Her heart raced as she immediately thought that the creature was a shark.  Yet, it didn’t look like a shark and it certainly wasn’t showing any signs of aggression.  She slowly moved to the left and again shined her dive light on the creature.  To her immediate relief she saw that it was a large, mottled, chocolate brown fish with irregular scales that had a blue iridescence.  Its large copper-colored eyes reflected back her light, giving them an eerie glow. 
Why, I bet it’s even more afraid of me, than I am of it.  She speculated.
It turned to face her again, its mouth slowly gaping open and closed as if trying to communicate, or at least swallow something previously eaten.  
How big is this thing?  
As if it were reading her mind, the fish turned away from her light, hiding its head, but exposing its body to her view.  It was about one and a half meters long with a particularly unique tri-lobed tail.  It had two pair of thick stubby fins almost like paddles, whose constant motion kept it stationary in the water.  
Revelation suddenly hit Katherine.  Oh my God!  It’s a Coelacanth!  
Katherine was marveling at just how close she could get to a fish that had once been only a legend.  She wanted to reach out and touch it, but knew that it was a predator and could attack her on a whim.  She had been keenly interested in the news reports during the summer of 2000 when three living specimens had been photographed in Sodwana Bay in the St. Lucia Wetlands Park near her home.  She had never visited those deep submarine canyons, those depths were only for very skilled divers.  She knew that one of the three divers who had first photographed the Coelacanth had died on that expedition, when a problem had resulted in an uncontrolled ascent.  
I know coelacanths have never been seen in the Seychelles, and especially never in shallow water.  Why is it here? 
She suddenly remembered the camera in her hand and began clicking off photographs as fast as possible.  The camera shy fish kept turning its head away from Katherine.  Despite all of her efforts, the Coelacanth would not come into the light.  Every flash of her camera strobe only drove the fish further into the dark recesses of the fissure.  Instead of forcing the issue, Katherine backed into another fissure on the opposite side of the main chamber, effectively giving the fish a route past her.  She waited patiently in the hope that if the fish bolted for freedom, it would have to pass through the beam of sunlight and give her a good daylight photograph.  Katherine guessed correctly.  After a few minutes, the great fish slowly moved out of the shadows and into the sunlight.  Katherine found that she was holding her breath, and nearly choked on her regulator mouthpiece.  As the fish approached, she took picture after picture.  
This is my great photo opportunity!  This series of shots will give me international recognition.  
The fish, equally curious, slowly approached the girl, much like a suspicious dog prepared to sniff a stranger’s hand.  The fish edged forward a few inches just by using its front fins, hovered a few seconds, only to back up moments later.  Katherine marveled at the combined beauty and inherent ugliness of the creature. 
I wonder if it thinks the same thing about me.  
Suddenly, the fish’s scales flushed to a gray blue.  At the same time, Katherine heard a deep rumbling sound that was getting louder by the second.  She glanced at the blowhole’s large entrance just as a dark shadow passed over the sea bottom near the reef wall.  The Coelacanth suddenly flipped its tail and flashed out of the entrance.  Curious Katherine followed the fish out to the face of the reef wall.  Several hundred feet off the reef, a large, dark ship hull was silhouetted on the surface.  The ship was long and narrow.  Its engines idled ominously.  Still trying to keep the fish in view, Katherine swam closer to the ship, approaching to a position just above the slope of the reef wall.
Without warning, a man plunged into the water above her.  At first, she thought it was a diver in a dark wet suit, but once the bubbles cleared, she saw that it was a nearly naked black man with his hands bound behind his back.  He sank quickly, thrashing and spinning.  Katherine instantly understood that he would soon be running out of air.  Without hesitation, she wedged her camera in a convenient cleft in a rocky outcrop at the base of the reef wall and began swimming hard toward the rapidly descending man.  Seconds later, bullets began zipping into the water around the man like mad bees, only to slow and fall as an ineffective hard rain as they sank to the bottom.  Instinctively, the man curled into a ball to avoid the bullets.  Katherine judged that, at his rate of descent, she would get to him just about the time he reached the seabed.  As she arrived, the frantic man had one foot through his bound hands, effectively eliminating his ability to use either his hands or his feet.  His eyes were wide open in fear.  All the while, the firestorm of bullets struck the water thirty feet above them.  Katherine pulled the regulator from her own lips and pressed them between the man’s, giving him his first breath of air in over two minutes.  He gulped at the compressed air, his body shuddering to take in more than the regulator could provide.  She could hear him bleat as she wielded her dive knife close to his crotch and sawed through the plastic cable tie binding his hands.  Once free, he calmed down and passed the regulator back to her.  In return, Katherine gave him her pony bottle of reserve air, and not waiting for a response, grabbed his arm, and began pulling him toward the reef wall.  
Silently, she prayed that the gunfire from the dark ship would disturb the normally crystalline water enough that the shooters would have trouble seeing their target, and their target’s savior.  
Katherine knew that if the gunmen stopped shooting, the bubbles from their air tanks would lead the gunmen directly to any place the pair tried to hide.  Her heart was pounding and she had to increase the flow of air through her regulator to accommodate her rapid breathing.  
Don’t panic!  She told herself.  The words of her first diving instructor ran through her head.  More divers die from panic than from sharks.  
She had practiced helping another diver in trouble, but practicing for an emergency is nothing like the real thing.  She hoped that the gunmen on the dark ship didn’t have any divers of their own.  She needed somewhere to hide quickly; somewhere where their bubble trails wouldn’t give them away.  Katherine instinctively knew that the only safe place that she and the man could hope to hide was in the blowhole. 
If we can get into the chimney of the blowhole, no one will be able to see us, and the bubbles will exit out the top and not out the entrance. 
Despite his obvious lack of experience in scuba diving, the black man put his trust in the woman and let Katherine lead him away from certain death.  It was only when they arrived at the reef wall, and she tried to pull him into the blowhole entrance, that he began to thrash around, attempt to break free, and swim up to the surface.  She knew that if he reached the surface, he was dead, and so was she.  She used the haft of her dive knife to thump his head to get his attention.  With urgent hand signals, she got him to follow her inside the blowhole.  Once he saw the daylight at the back of the chamber, his reluctance ceased and he followed her up the chimney.  
Inside the cave, the force of the waves had carved a long series of ledges.  They slanted up from water level toward the blowhole chimney.  She led the man to a ledge large enough for the pair of them to climb onto and sit upright.  As soon as they broke surface and spit out their regulators, he spoke in a British accent.  
“Oh, Thank y…” he groaned weakly, coughing up water.
She quickly put a hand over his mouth, and pointed up at the blowhole exit.  Kobi tried to focus on the woman who had pulled him into this cave.  There was some light coming from the back of the cave and he could just see her pale, yet beautiful face.  
Removing her hand from his mouth, she noticed that his face was badly battered.  One eye was nearly swollen shut and he had cuts and bruises all over his torso.  With every movement of the water in the chamber, the man rocked on his ledge, and with every movement of his body, he groaned softly under his breath.  
I’ll bet he has broken ribs, Katherine thought, and maybe internal injuries, too.  I have to get him some medical help quickly.
Above them, numerous voices argued over the rumble of an idling outboard motor.  Quietly, the pair listened to the dialogue being shouted back and forth above them, and waited in abject terror, knowing that at any moment they might be found. 
A voice from a bullhorn echoed down the blowhole.  
“WHAT DID YOU FIND?” 
A second voice that sounded much closer answered, “Not a thing.”
“WELL, THE SON OF A BITCH HAS TO BE HERE SOMEWHERE.  KEEP LOOKING.  DID YOU FIND ANYTHING IN THE SPEEDBOAT?”
“It looks like a rental from Praslin.  I found paperwork that says the renter was some woman named Katherine Annenberg.” 
Damn, thought Katharine, we’ll be stranded here without that boat. 
Kobi gave Katherine a questioning look from his one good eye.  She sighed and nodded.
He smiled painfully and whispered, “My name is Kobi.  Thank you for my life, Katherine.”
“We aren’t out of this, yet.”  She whispered back.  “You are badly injured.  Do you have the strength for an escape, if we get a chance?”
“I don’t know, I think some of my ribs are broken, but I will try,” he hoarsely whispered, obviously in intense pain.  “It hurts just to speak, let alone breathe.”
The loudspeaker buzzed again and the guttural voice boomed across the shoal.  
“OKAY, FOLKS!  WE’VE PLAYED THIS GAME LONG ENOUGH.  WE KNOW YOU ARE HIDING ON THE ISLAND.  COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR, AND I PROMISE THAT YOU WON’T BE HARMED.”  
The look that Kobi and Katherine exchanged showed that neither believed that bold lie.
Despite the intense pain of his injuries, Kobi steeled himself, and spoke.
 “If you get the chance, you must leave me and go for help.”  He paused as a wave of nausea and dizziness passed over him.  “Tell my father …that I am very sorry …” As Katherine watched, his one good eye rolled back in its socket and he slowly collapsed.  
Katherine caught him before he fell into the water.  She moved back into the water herself and stretched him out full length on the ledge.  She checked his pulse and pulled back the lid of his one good eye.  The man was unconscious, his pupil dilated.  She knew what that meant.  On top of all his other injuries, the man had a concussion.  
She raged at the impossibility of her situation.  They couldn’t stay in the blowhole, or he would die.  She couldn’t go without being discovered by the men outside.  Moreover, she couldn’t do anything to treat Kobi’s injuries.  Soon the inevitability of her situation came home to roost.  She would have to wait until the hunters left, and only God knew how long that might be.
She ducked instinctively the second she heard the bullhorn again echo down the blowhole chimney.
“THEY HAVE TO BE HERE!  KEEP LOOKING.  THERE IS NO PLACE ELSE TO GO.”  
“So, what do you want to do about the dive boat?”  
The loudspeaker voice paused for a moment and then barked a command. 
“TOW IT OUT INTO DEEP WATER AND TOSS A GRENADE IN IT.  WE DON’T WANT TO LEAVE ANY EVIDENCE BEHIND.”
“Not a problem.”  
“What do we do when we find the Kaffir and this Annenberg girl?”  
“PUT THEM IN THE BOAT FIRST, OF COURSE.”
Katherine huddled on the shelf, shivering from the chill in the cave and from fear.  She prayed that their hiding place wouldn’t be discovered.  It was right in the middle of this prayer that she remembered that she had left her camera with the precious Coelacanth photographs on the sea bottom near the reef wall. 
God Dammit!  She silently cursed in frustration, going from prayer to profanity in less than a second.  Damn my miserable luck.
Katharine pulled herself back up onto the ledge next to the unconscious man.  The voices above had moved away from their area and she hoped they were going away.  Time passed slowly.  As the sounds from above got further and further away, Katharine relaxed a little.  Finally, after several minutes without sounds, she decided to climb to the top of the blowhole and see if she could get a glimpse of what was going on.  As she neared the top, she could hear the faint rumble of a boat motor. 
I guess we got lucky that they didn’t find the top of this hole.  It must be well camouflaged.  She discovered that the hole would have been difficult to see from above as it came out under a slight overhang of granite, which shaded a trough shaped pool of still water. 
That’s weird, she thought, when the tide shoots water up here, it must blow sideways.  It was easy to see where the wave action had carved the long, narrow tidal pool.
It was not a deep pool and she was able to clamber out of the hole and sneak across into the heavy growth of palms behind it. 
If the situation was not so terrible this would be quite a romantic little spot, she thought.  Her photographer’s eye was assessing it for possibilities even as she cowered warily in the undergrowth.  
Don’t be silly, she told herself, all you really should be thinking about is getting as far away from here as possible.
From where she crouched, she could see two boats cruising back and forth in front of the island.  One, inside the reef, was a fast zodiac bearing three men.  She could see that two of them were holding guns while the third piloted the boat.  There seemed to be an argument going on, she could hear them shouting and see their adamant gestures.  Apparently, they had been waiting for a diver who, as she watched, emerged from the water next to the boat.  Katharine’s heart pounded when she realized that he was handing her camera to the men in the boat.  
Crap, she thought, as a black wave of despair rolled over her, that camera cost me a bundle and it has the Coelacanth images on it.  I’ll never get it back.
A large yacht idled just beyond the reef wall in deep water.  The yacht appeared to be a dark green, but with an odd reflective iridescence that made the color change from black to silver in the sunlight.  It looked to her as if the entire ship consisted of a narrow, pointed bow.  The bridge slanted back sharply in a way that reminded her of those angular American stealth fighters.  
That’s the most evil-looking thing I’ve ever seen.  She thought.  
After boarding the diver, the zodiac turned abruptly from its path and returned to the yacht.  There it took on another passenger.  Katherine could easily see, by the body language of the zodiac’s crew, that this man was in charge.  His bearing and stance exuded power.  The zodiac then departed from the yacht and headed straight back to the island.  Even knowing that she would have to get back under cover soon, Katherine stayed and watched, fascinated.  As the boat approached, Katharine could see that the man in charge was a big, brawny man with blonde hair and a black patch covering one eye.  With a reaction born in childhood, she thought, Pirates!  Fear crept along her spine.
She remembered the recent horror stories featured so prominently in the news.  Not those comfortable stories like Treasure Island or Pirates of the Caribbean, but the stories of pleasure craft taken by modern day pirates who killed everyone aboard.  She carefully crawled through the shallow pool, and back down the hole.  When she returned to the hidden ledge, she found Kobi groggy but awake.  He seemed surprised to see her.  
“Oh, I thought you had left.”  He said.  “I’m glad you came back.  I wasn’t looking forward to dying down here alone.”  
“You’re not going to die.  We’re going to find a way out of this,” she said, with far more enthusiasm than she felt.  
“Yes,” he mumbled and closed his eyes.  
Above, she could hear sounds of people moving around, but there was no more yelling and shouting.  The sound of voices rumbled into the blowhole occasionally, so distorted that she couldn’t understand any words.
I wonder if we will get out of this, she thought, I might, but I very much doubt if I can save the both of us.  
For a long time, she sat there, listening and trying to think of anything other than starving to death or being found.  Voices ebbed and flowed around the blowhole like the sound of a distant radio.
As time dragged on, she suddenly jolted to the sound of the zodiac’s engines starting up and racing away.  Wild hope surged through her and she scrambled off the ledge and up the hole without caution.  As she began to emerge once more into the small pool, it occurred to her that just because she heard the Zodiac leave didn’t mean that everyone was gone.  
She eased quietly into the shallow water under the overhang and listened carefully.  Not hearing any nearby sounds, she moved slowly into the undergrowth from which she had previously viewed the activity.  The zodiac was going back to the yacht but she could not see how many men were inside.  Another ship had come into view on the near horizon.  This ship was large and white and looked like a working vessel.  As soon as the men from the zodiac were aboard, the yacht started its engines.  
They don’t want to be seen here, Katherine reflected. 
Within minutes, the sinister ship had sped off, throwing a large wake. 
At first, it looked like the big white ship was going to pass by on the south side of the island, but then it slowed and dropped anchor.  Katharine’s heart swung giddily from despair to hope and then to fear again.  
What if the rescue I’m hoping for, is just some new danger?  
Hysteria clutched at her throat and tears of frustration jumped to her eyes.  She rushed back into the pool and down the hole while her mind raced in terrible circles.  They were going to die.  When hunger, thirst, and the tide forced her out of the hole, the man would drown and she would be captured and tortured to death.  Panting and crying she pulled herself back onto the shelf and gathered the limp man into her arms.  His presence focused her thoughts against the terror. 
Kobi, she remembered, his name is Kobi, and we’ll find a way out of this.  The words became a mantra, repeating rhythmically in her mind.
After a while, she couldn’t tell how long it had been, she heard the engines of several small boats.  This was followed by much shouting and laughter and soon was accompanied by what sounded like salsa music.  She assured herself that people waiting to catch her and Kobi, and kill them, wouldn’t announce their presence in this way.  Or would they?  She remained where she was, paralyzed with indecision.  She told herself she must move, but could not make it happen.  It must have been about half an hour that she lay there listening to the sounds from above.  
Finally, it was Kobi who roused her out of panicky paralysis.  He tensed in her arms and she thought he was waking.  Suddenly he flung out an arm and yelled, “NO!”
She jumped and started to roll away from him and then, getting her wits back, rolled back and whispered in his ear “Shhh, it’ll be OK”  God!  She gasped to herself, he really scared me.
The moment was enough to shake her out of her terror-filled daze.  She saw that the tide was threatening the edge of their shelf now and she really had to move.  She climbed cautiously back up the chimney and out to where she had previously viewed events.  She could see nothing from her hideout, but could still hear music and laughter.    
 
<<>>

DARK YACHT

“You let the man escape?”  Alexander Levasseur’s voice crackled in both frustration and disbelief over the marine channel radio.  A very expensive scrambler insured that his conversation with Captain Sven Larsen would be private.
“I assure you sir, there’s no way for him to escape from Little Curieuse,” replied Captain Larsen.  The master of the dark yacht had hesitated to make this call to the boss, but the consequences of not making the call would have been far worse when Levasseur found out about the screw-up.
“It will not go well for you, Captain Larsen, if he does.”
“Yes sir.  We’re searching the area now.”  
“Put a dive team in the water, immediately.”  
“I have already done so.  All they found was an underwater camera lying on the bottom.”
“Search the island.”
“Yes, Sir.  I have men ashore as we speak.  We found a boat with a diver flag posted, floating in the lagoon.  Paperwork aboard indicated that it was from Praslin.  Apparently, a Katherine Annenberg rented it yesterday.” 
“I’ll send a team to Praslin to find out where this Katherine Annenberg is staying and stake out her room.  I want you to insure that the island is contained.  We can’t have anyone rescuing your escaped intruder.  If that boat is part of a regular diving service, there could be dozens of witnesses in the area  
“I don’t believe that’s the case, sir.  It’s a small boat and there is no evidence that more than one person was aboard.”  
“Only a fool dives alone.  There has to be more than one person.”
“We thought of that, too.  But, all we found aboard was a single set of reserve tanks.  The boat also has no facilities to refill tanks, so we estimate they have no more than thirty minutes of air.”
“Get rid of the boat.  Without one, they can’t get off the island, and it’s over twenty kilometers to the nearest land.” 
“Yes Sir.  Rest assured, we will find the intruder and this Katherine Annenberg very soon.”  
“When you find them, have a talk with them.  You know what is at stake, Captain.  I trust that you will handle it appropriately.  I want nothing to interfere with our upcoming transaction.”
“Yes Sir, I will deal with it, personally.” 
Captain Larson smiled to himself.  Although nothing direct had been said, he knew exactly what Xander meant.  Torture the information from the witnesses and then get rid of them.
“Sir, another ship is approaching the area, I think we’re going to have to break off the search for now.”
“What ship is it?”
“It’s called the Pelican, sir.  It’s a large white ship, with a two-tone dark blue and light blue superstructure.  It says Butler Project, on the side of it.”
“Hmmm, I’m familiar with Butler Marine International, a big shipping company, lots of influence, but I’ve never heard of the Butler Project.  Better get out of there for now.”
“Yes sir.” 
“And send that underwater camera to me.  Also, Captain, I trust that you will deal with the crewmen who allowed the intruder to escape in the first place.”  
“Aye, aye, Sir.  I will take care of everything.” 
“See that you do, Captain.  Xander out.”
Larson stared at the radiophone for a few seconds in thoughtful contemplation.  He knew he had lost favor with his boss.  
Now the murderous bastard wants a blood sacrifice.  Xander expects me to punish two of my men whose lapse in security allowed the stowaway to escape in the first place.  
Larson reflected on his problems and then sighed heavily.
Two men sacrificed, leaving two fewer men to do a job that requires three times as many.  At this rate, I won’t have any crew left inside a week.  
Larson grunted and lurched out of his chair.
Very well then, he decided, wiping his hands on his shirt.  There will be two more passengers onboard when the dive boat plunges to the bottom.

<<>>


LITTLE CURIEUSE ISLE, SEYCHELLES

Old timers fondly called it 'Magoo', a nickname that harkened back to a previous generation.  The wet-behind-the-ears young punks called it 'the Rusty Duck', mostly from its appearance.  It didn’t matter much, since it was almost completely unlike any duck in existence.  This particular duck was a vintage DUKW, the strange-looking amphibious truck invented during WWII. 
It was doing just what it was designed to do nearly seventy years before.  After negotiating the long rollers and getting a bite into the sand flats at low tide,  the 6 wheel drive DUKW climbed out of the water and up onto the dry sand of the beach of Little Curieuse.  Stopping near the trees and mangroves at the center of the island, it disgorged a motley band of happy people armed with coolers of beer, hampers of food, and tubes of sun block.  The crew of the Pelican was ready to enjoy their first official shore leave in nearly three months.  
From a distance, the vehicle looked like an aborted attempt to morph a boat into a 6x6 truck, losing any grace and functionality, while retaining all the ugliness and inefficiency. 
Up close, its body was a color wheel of paint.  Against the original sheet steel was primer brown followed by olive drab,  fire-engine red, ambulance white, pea green, taxicab yellow and on top a neutral blue gray, neither sky nor water.  The bow of the beast was painted a bright orange, someone’s idea of a duckbill.  The wrench wizards down in maintenance had long ago given up trying to make the Rusty Duck look pretty, saying it was akin to dressing up a wino in a tutu.  Here and there, the multiple layers of paint were chipped and flaked off by accident or design, revealing hidden layers of color, like a partly sucked jawbreaker.  Of course, every surface was highlighted by random blotches of rust, advancing mercilessly against the thick bastions of paint.  
While cosmetically the wizards weren’t doing much, they had made one significant improvement to the vehicle.  The two hundred seventy cubic inch gasoline engine had been replaced with a heavy-duty diesel that boosted its speed in the water from a lackluster five and a half knots to an impressive eighteen knots.  Of course, these same boffins also had a running pool on when the new engine would tear thru the ancient hull of the DUKW, sending it to the bottom.  
As a tribute to the DUKW’s noble history, the original nose art applied during the war had been carefully copied with every paint job.  Just behind the orange bill, a large red-rimmed bulls-eye with a rather lecherous cartoon duck smoking a cigar and toting a fifty-caliber machine gun was prominently displayed on both the port and starboard sides.  From a distance, the nose art looked a bit like an eyeball, which usually caused any first timers to stop in their tracks and gawk horribly as it passed.  Those still hypnotized by the sight of the Rusty Duck passing, couldn’t fail to notice the faded lettering high on the stern directly over the propeller.  

SCREWGE
WET DUCK, ARKANSAS

The driver, Maurice Lapin, one of the old timers and the purser of the Pelican, and pulled the Rusty Duck into the shade of an overhanging palm tree, killed the engine, and tossed a boarding ladder over the side for the convenience of anyone wanting to climb back aboard.  After dragging a battered lawn chair to the bow, he settled onto his lofty perch, becoming a rather bizarre hood ornament on the nose of the Rusty Duck.  
The crew of the Pelican had spread out.  Several began sunning on the white sand, many romped in the surf, a few were relaxed in the meager shade provided by the overhanging palm trees, but all were drinking beer and having a good time.  The largest group set up a game of volleyball along the surf line. 
Tommy Cooper was working industriously on the creation of his sand sculpture masterpiece.  He was delighted with this particular beach for its quality of sand.  There was just enough lime clay in the sand to make it a perfect sculpting medium.  The sand would support its own weight better than ordinary beach sand.  The tiny shell fragments scattered throughout lent structural stability to the sand mix, which allowed him to experiment with designs that ordinary beach sand could never hope to achieve.  He was also surreptitiously testing his new Special Sand Sculpture Cement; a subtle combination of seaweed, salt, calcium, and sea foam.  He was hoping to produce an ionic binder, reducing evaporation and allowing the sand grains to bind for a longer time.
Close to a mangrove thicket, under the shade of the palm trees, Yan Yu Chan sat in a lawn chair sipping a beer and reading a cheap detective novel.  He wore a garish orange and red Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts, and a liberal coating of zinc oxide on his blunt nose.  Lying nearby was Elizabeth Barrett O’Neil or EB, as she was known aboard ship.  Today was her first opportunity to get off the ship in over four months.  She was bored and feeling very neglected by her boyfriend, Tommy.  She passed the time casually watching a group of scantily clad males playing a very dirty game of volleyball in the shallow surf. 
There was no net for this variation of the game.  Instead, a rope strung between two poles delineated the opposite sides of a makeshift volleyball court.  Low rollers washing onto the beach had a tendency to undermine the poles every five or ten minutes, causing the imaginary net to fall over.  Apparently, depending upon which way the pseudo net fell, the rules of the game dictated that kicking water and sand at the opposing side while they were attempting to reseat the net was a perfectly legal move in the game.  
A small white, black and brown dog sat soberly watching the game, seemingly keeping score and evaluating the players.  Anytime anyone approached him, he would take a few running steps away and then turn around to see if he could con them into a game of chase.  
“You should call him Racer,” one of the volley ball players razzed Butler, “he just wants to be chased.”
“Who brought him to the party anyway; I thought nobody could get their hands on him.”  
“He hitched the ride all by himself, seems he wanted to be here.”
“Maybe he’ll stay on the island,” grumbled Matthew half-heartedly.  As much as he said he didn’t want to, he was beginning to enjoy the dog’s company.
EB moved from her reclined position to sitting cross-legged on a beach towel, her red one-piece swimsuit setting off her creamy white skin and luxurious dark hair.  With harsh little slaps to her pale skin, she began applying an SPF 40-sun block.  She casually looked at her fingers as she spread the blocker around on her thighs.
“The worst thing about my job is that it just plays hell with my nails,” she announced to no one in particular.
This revelation wasn't terribly surprising, considering her job as chief engineer, the fact that she had any nails at all was amazing. 
Finally finished greasing up, she took one last sip from a can of beer sitting next to her, and pitched the empty into a bin.
“That’s the last of the beer,” she said, “somebody’s going to have to get another six-pack from the Duck.”  She hinted quite loudly, hoping that a white knight would arrive and rescue her. 
The Asian man sitting next to her glanced at her, and then at the man working feverishly on the sand sculpture nearby, then gave a shrug and returned to reading.  EB shrugged back and then called over to Tommy, who was waist deep in sand and shoveling furiously.
“Tommy, be a dear, and fetch another six pack, would you?”  
Tommy was head of research and development on the Pelican, and the on again-off again boyfriend of EB O’Neil.  Currently he was in ‘on’ mode.
“Sure thing, Honey!”  Tommy automatically replied, as he continued to sling wet sand onto a pile as big as a pool table.  Nothing happened for several minutes.
EB, becoming impatient, called out again, “Tommy?”
“Just give me another minute, Honey,” he answered, as he returned to the throes of creativity.  Five minutes passed very slowly.
EB sighed heavily, muttered a few appropriate obscenities under her breath, and then got up.  She carefully adjusted her swimsuit to show off all her best attributes.  Taking advantage of the situation and hoping to make Tommy jealous, she intentionally angled her walk past the volleyball game, immediately causing an errant serve and a serious argument over whether the resulting shot had been out-of-bounds or not.  While rummaging in the ice chest on the Rusty Duck, she plotted her next move. 
With exaggerated slowness, she pulled out a cold six-pack from the ice chest, held it delicately out away from her voluptuous body, and sauntered back past the makeshift volleyball court.  On her return, numerous wolf whistles followed her. 
As she strolled past her boss, Matthew Butler gave a courteous bow.
“Why, Miss EB,” he drawled, “You’re so pretty you could make a hound dog smile.”  
She tossed her hair mockingly, and strutted back to her spot in the shade, determined to stir up a little trouble.
“A girl can’t even walk across the beach without drawing attention to herself,” She expounded loudly, “especially from that Matthew Butler!”  She said the last line even louder, hoping that Tommy would overhear her.  “Did you see him grinning at me as I innocently walked past?” 
“Birds of rare plumage should never squawk when their feathers are praised.”  Chan answered philosophically.
Leaning around Chan to peer at Tommy, she said in an undertone, “The silly bastard’s ignoring me.” 
Tommy, still wrapped in the ecstasy of creativity, hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
About then, a muscular fellow named Mike, playing in the volleyball game, dove after a leaping power spike by Matthew Butler.  Attempting a desperation save, Mike inadvertently hit the ball directly toward Chan.  Watching the ball fly toward Chan, the volleyball players held their breath in dismay.
Without looking up from his novel, Chan reached up and snatched the ball out of mid-air one-handed.  Butler immediately started clapping and whistling in appreciation of his martial arts instructor’s astounding trick.
EB, muttered to Chan, “I’ll give you $20 cash, if you can hit the boss from here.”
“Money has little worth.”  Chan waxed eloquently.  “It is only skill that matters.”  Out of the corner of his mouth he growled, “However, if you put up your six-pack, I'll make him taste the sand he’s standing on.”
“You're on!”  EB quickly agreed.
Chan stood, paused for a second, and with almost no effort, booted the volleyball into the sky in a wide sweeping arc that looked, at first, as if it would land out beyond the surf line.  At the last second, the ball hooked sharply and seemingly accelerated back toward the huddled mass of volleyball players who were watching the trajectory with slack-jawed looks on their faces.  Butler, seeing the change of direction as it barreled toward him, suddenly dove for the beach just before the ball whistled past his ear.  He rose with wet sand sticking to his face.  He was still grinning, but the grin was a bit glassy-looking.
“Well done.”  EB conceded, as she graciously passed the six-pack to Chan.

<<>>

Moving cautiously through the tropical growth on the spine of the island, Katharine headed toward the blaring music.  She came to a rise in the terrain and peered timidly over the greenery.  Because of the terrain, she couldn’t see anything on the upper part of the beach, but she could see the partiers playing volleyball out by the surf.  Making her decision, Katharine began to run toward them.  Blundering through the undergrowth, she kept her eyes on her potential rescuers.  
She bulled through the entangled mangrove roots and saw grass.  Suddenly free from the thicket, an exhausted Katherine staggered out, “Help!  Help me, I--- Oh!”  She cried, blundering into a sculpted pile of sand directly in her path.  She staggered as she struck the pile and lost her balance.  
“No, stop!”  Cried a fair-haired young man, who was working on the far side of the sculpture.  
She struggled to get off the pile, obliterating it completely. 
“My sculpture” cried the man in anguish, “my masterpiece!”  It was the heart-rending cry of a wounded bird.  
Tommy was still in shock over his ruined sand sculpture when the crazed woman in the red diving suit gripped his arms and yelled, “You’ve got to help me, help me please!”  
Chan and EB were the first to come running when the woman had burst out of the undergrowth.  They ran up on to Tommy’s ruined mound of sand, destroying anything that might have been left of his work of art.  Butler and the rest of the crew were not far behind. 
The woman had a disheveled look and the fear in her eyes was real.  She was struggling to stand up on the sliding mound of sand; Tommy was trying to defend himself from her frantic thrashing.  Butler stepped forward and held out a hand to assist her off the cowering Tommy.  
“Are you all right?”  He asked her.  “What help do you need?”
Katharine gasped, she had been so intent on making them understand that she needed help that she had not thought about what she would say next.  
“There’s a man in a hole,” she said, pointing behind her, “I can’t get him out, he’s unconscious, and the tide is rising.  Come on, we’ve got to get him out.”  She started to run back into the underbrush.  
Not knowing quite what to make of her jumbled statements, Butler held her back for a second.  “What kind of hole is it?”  He asked, “Will we need ropes?”
“Yes!  Ropes!  I had to crawl out.  It’s a blowhole out beyond the tide pools.  He’s on a ledge and the tide is coming, Hurry!”  She said.
Turning to two crewmembers Butler commanded, “Get the ropes out of the Duck, the first aid kit, some towels, and the two-way radios.” 
Turning then to EB he said, “Alert the Pelican.  Tell them it’s an unknown emergency and to be on standby.”
Finally turning back to Katharine, he said, “Lead on.”  

<<>>

When the rescue party arrived at the blowhole, they saw a shallow trough shaped pool, which disappeared under a five-foot high overhang.  Once they got under the sheltering rock, they were able to see that the overhang had been smoothly scooped out and at the back of it was a hole into the ground.  It was just about big enough to admit a large man.  Katharine disappeared down the hole and Butler squeezed in after her.  He climbed down the narrow chimney using his hands and feet.  It was about ten feet deep and grew darker as they descended.  Butler continued to feel his way down and soon he felt the seawater touch his feet.  
“You can slide this way from here,” he heard Katharine say; “it’s only a couple of feet deep here.”
He moved cautiously toward her voice.  When he felt level ground under his feet, he discovered he was only knee deep in water.  However, when he stood up, he cracked his head brutally on the roof of the cavern.  
“What was that?”  Katharine asked from somewhere to his right.  
“Hit my head,” explained Butler, while the stars swirled in front of his eyes.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I can stand up in here.”  She said.  
“Let’s hold on a second ‘til we can see.”  Butler groaned, holding his head and waiting for the pain to subside.  
Soon their eyes adjusted to the dim light and she led him into a cavern that was now about two thirds full of water.  He could see the waves flowing in and out and guessed that, at high tide, the waves would shoot powerfully out of the top of the hole they had climbed down.  
Katharine waded into the water until she was swimming and led him across the cavern; it was only about two yards across at this spot.  The man lying on the slanted ledge was a small black man and was very hard to see in the gloom.  He appeared to be wearing only what Butler took to be swim trunks.
“Get some flashlights,” he yelled back at the chimney, and then remembered the two-way radio tucked in his belt.  “I mean, bring some flashlights, over.”  He said into the radio.
“Yeah, we heard you the first time,” Tommy shot back, immediately.
“How did he get here?”  Butler asked Katharine.
“I was diving, taking photographs,” she said, indicating her discarded dive equipment farther down on the shelf, “and he fell into the water from a big yacht that was out there.  His hands were tied and I think he’s been tortured.  They were shooting into the water at him, so I pulled him in here through the undersea entrance.”  Katharine said.
“Okay,” said Butler, now understanding most of the situation.  “Let me get another couple of guys down here and then we’ll see what we can do to get your friend out of here.”
He went back up the chimney and Katharine crouched next to Kobi.  “He’s getting some help,” she whispered to the unconscious man, “it’s going to be okay.”
Up on top Matthew took the flashlight and the nylon ropes his men had brought and turned to Tommy’s questioning face.
“Yes, there’s a man down there, he’s unconscious, looks in pretty bad shape.”
“’I’ll go back down with our two strongest crewmen.  We’ll tie the ropes around him.”  Butler explained.  “When I give the signal, pull very slowly.  We’ll try to support him as much as we can, but it’ll get kind of tricky in the chimney.” 
“Near the top you’re going to have to get behind him and support him until we can pull his body over the edge of the hole.”  Tommy calculated.  
EB had just arrived after radioing the ship from the Duck.  “It’s a wounded man,” he explained to her,  “tell the Captain to keep an eye out for that black yacht we saw leaving just as we were getting ready to drop anchor.  They may be dangerous.”  
“Got it,” she said and turned immediately to return to the boat.
Butler went back down the hole, this time juggling ropes and a flashlight.  His two helpers followed behind him.  Butler handed the flashlight to Katharine to hold while he and the two crewmembers started making a cradle out of rope to lift the unconscious man.  Butler used the towels he had asked for to wrap around the ropes, so that they would not cut into the man’s bruised skin.  
“Do you know his name?”  He asked Katharine.
“Kobi,” she said, “that’s what he told me.”
Gently they lifted Kobi and ran the padded ropes under his body.  One loop went under his armpits, and was attached to an improvised belaying harness around his hips.  Then they wrapped his arms in close to his body, so that they would not hit anything on the way out.  
Butler spoke into the radio he was holding.  “Get ready,” he said.  
Tommy signaled the rest of the crew standing there and they all grabbed on to the rope, ready to pull.  “Remember, pull slowly,” instructed Tommy.
“OK, go easy.”  The radio directed.
As the rope slowly tightened, Butler supported Kobi’s head while the other two men lifted his body and moved out into the cavern.  It was not easy to keep him above water as they crossed the narrow passage.  The man groaned and tried to thrash a bit, but he was weak and the ropes held him easily.  
When they got Kobi to the bottom of the chimney Butler could see Chan straddled across the top, ready to take over as soon as Kobi was within reach.  Butler knew that Chan could easily lift Kobi and would be able to guide him through the difficult turn that was required at the top.
“Keep pulling,” Tommy told his helpers.  He stepped up to assist Chan as they pulled the unconscious man slowly out of the hole.  They carried him across the now muddied pool and lay him on the dry sand of the tidal lagoon.
Tommy whistled, “Look at this guy; he’s been through the grinder for sure!”
Chan gave Katharine a hand out of the hole, followed by Butler and his two helpers.  Tommy and five other people gently lifted Kobi and carried him through the greenery and out onto the beach.  Maurice had the Rusty Duck fired up and they laid him on the seats, with Chan stepping in to hold Kobi in place.  Katharine, Tommy and Butler piled in.
Within moments, the DUKW had charged down the beach and into the surf,    racing away toward the white ship anchored half a mile out to sea.  With Maurice at the helm, Butler got on the radio. 
“Pelican, do you copy?” he asked. 
“Go ahead Rusty Duck.” the female voice on the other end of the conversation could barely be heard above the roar of the Duck’s engine at full throttle. 
“Pelican, prepare to board a wounded man, repeat wounded man.  We’ll come in the front door, copy?”  Butler shot back. 
“You’re bringing a wounded man through the front door - affirmative!”  The voice replied. 
“Duck out.”  Butler hung up the microphone.  
EB smiled as she sat down next to Katherine.  “Hang on” she suggested.  The boat slammed the waves as the DUKW sped toward the big ship.  
Katharine could see the name “Butler Project” painted in large pale letters on the sides of the ship as they approached.  Her jaw dropped as she saw the entire front end of the ship opening up.  The two broad steel doors, which made up the prow of the ship, swung wide just above the water line.  She watched as a ramp extended out of the big square opening like a tongue coming out of the dark mouth of a Leviathan. 
She gave a squeak of terror as Maurice expertly ran the Duck at full speed right onto the ramp and up into the belly of the ship.  He drove the craft like a car through a huge space filled with vehicles and odd-looking equipment.  Butler smiled at her startled look.  “Our ship is an LST,” he said, “designed in World War Two for landing tanks onshore.  It makes it easy for us to drive our vehicles in and out.”  They came to a stop in front of a group of waiting crewmembers.  A grey bearded man, who seemed to be a doctor, stepped forward and looked the patient over quickly. 
“Let’s get him to the sickbay,” Doc commanded.  Four crewmembers gently lifted the small man onto a stretcher.  With a nod in their direction, the doctor followed as they hustled the stretcher into a freight elevator. 
“Don’t worry,” Butler advised.  “Doc’s one of the best.” 
Butler stuck out his hand.  “I’m Matthew Butler,” he said. 
Katharine took a good look at Matthew Butler for the first time.  Tall and muscular in a pair of baggy knee-length swim trunks, his wavy, sun-bleached hair hung slightly over his blue eyes.  Even a gold earring her inner thoughts noted.  
Gathering her wits Katherine took his hand, “Katherine Annenberg,” she said, returning his firm handshake.  “Thank you so much for rescuing us.”
“Oh, that’s quite alright.  We were between heroic deeds and your arrival was most fortuitous.  Now, may I have the pleasure of introducing you to these two reprobates?”  
“This Silver-haired gentleman is our esteemed teacher, Yan Yu Chan,” he said.  The old man gave her a nod and grunted.
“And this is my associate and famous sand artist Tommy Cooper.”  He said, indicating the short, muscular man next to her. 
“Hi, howareya,” said Tommy shaking her hand. 
“Sorry I crashed your party,” said Katherine. 
“More like crashed into it,” laughed Butler.  “Tommy may never build another sand sculpture as grand as that one.  Just don’t ask what it was going to be.” 
“It would have won awards,” moaned Tommy. 
“So, what happened?” asked Butler. 
“I really don’t know,” she answered.  “He just dropped into the water in front of me and then they were shooting and I just grabbed him and got out of there.  We’ve been hiding in the blowhole most of the day.  I don’t know why they were shooting at him.”  Her explanation, as brief as it was, all came out in a slightly hysterical rush. 
Understanding that she was having difficulty, Butler nodded and gave the girl an out.  
“Let’s get him taken care of and then we’ll see if we can figure it out,” he said.  Seeing the man’s friendly blue-eyed smile, Katherine discovered the tension she had been holding herself together with ease a little bit.  
The humor in Butler’s eyes changed to concern as he looked down into Katherine’s face.  She had begun to shake, more from the shock than from cold.  Now that the excitement was over, she was rebounding from the hours of stress. 
Salvador came through the doors at that moment with some towels draped over his arm.  “Doc says you can all relax a little.  Your friend is stable and there’s no new bleeding.  We won’t know more until he wakes up.” Turning to Katharine, he offered her a large beach towel.  “Doc said you did a good job of taking care of him,” he commented. 
Enchanted by the young man’s luxurious Spanish accent, Katherine thanked him and gratefully wrapped the towel around her shoulders.  Despite its immediate fleecy warmth, she shivered violently.  Through all of that long day, she had kept her emotions at bay and now she was paying the price.  She fought hard to keep tears out of her eyes. 
“Thank you, Salvador,” Butler said.  “Would you go to my cabin and see if you can find a warm shirt for Miss Annenberg, and then go to Mrs. Yan and sweet talk her out of a cup of that fine soup stock she always has on the stove.  We’ll be in the main galley.”  Salvador set off at a run. 
A fast ascent in the freight elevator brought them up one deck.  With Butler’s strong arms supporting her shaky body, it was only a short walk to the main Mess hall.  
Soon Katherine sat wrapped in a big, comfy denim shirt as well as a soft blanket, which Salvador had brought her.  She cradled the steaming cup of broth and inhaled its tantalizing smell.  Her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since the sweet roll and fruit she had snagged on her way out of the hotel before dawn.  The picnic lunch the hotel had provided was still in her knapsack somewhere on the sea bottom 

<<>>

The airy dining room was filling up with people.  It seemed everyone wanted to hear Katherine's story.  Seeing her look of apprehension at the gathering crowd, Butler murmured, “It's better if they all hear the story from you; it'll cut down on the gossip.  Okay, why don’t you start with who you are?”
“My name is Katherine Annenberg…”she began, then went on to tell them about herself and her hopes at SUBIOS 
The warm clothing and the hot soup were doing their job.  Butler noticed that Katherine had stopped shaking. 
“So while I was here, I wanted to get some good images to help pay for the trip.  That’s why I was diving this morning.  I was looking for the perfect photograph.  And, the most amazing thing happened; I got some shots of a Coelacanth!  This would have been a big discovery if I could have published the photos.  Unfortunately, those bastards took my camera.  I had to leave it on the reef when I rescued Kobi.  I saw one of their divers hand it up into the boat.  Those photographs could have made my career.”
“These people you mentioned, are they the ones who beat up your friend?” 
“Yes, they hung around looking for us for hours.”
“Why don’t you tell us about the man in the infirmary?”  
“I really don’t know anything about him.”  
Over the next few moments, she told them about his sudden descent into the water and of the desperate hours spent hiding in the blowhole. 
“I think it may have been the arrival of your ship that made them finally leave,” she answered, smiling at Butler. 
“Glad we could oblige,” he grinned back.  “Would you recognize any of these bad guys, or their boat if you saw them again?”
“She confirmed Matthew’s suspicion that the dark yacht they had seen leaving the area was the ship Kobi had escaped from.  When she told them of the search and the man with the black eye patch Tommy interrupted.
“Really, a black eye patch?”  Tommy asked, mildly surprised.  “I thought those went out of style with the Pirates of the Spanish Main.”
“I saw the black yacht you’re talking about as we approached Little Curieus,” Captain Z offered.  “It looked like a custom built job.
Just then, the rest of the people who had been at the party on the island arrived, carrying hot grilled seafood and a pot of Creole Gumbo brought by Joe, Captain Z’s’ friend from The Seychelles.  Katherine realized how hungry she was and eagerly joined in with the rest of the crew and their guests in this impromptu meal.
When they had finished eating, Mrs. Yan came up to the table.  The tiny woman put her hands on her hips and said, “Mr. Butler this young lady needs rest.  You make Salvador take her to an empty cabin where she can have some quiet.”
Butler nodded, “You’re right Mrs. Yan,” he said.  Turning to Katherine, he offered her the hospitality of the Pelican.  “You can stay here on the ship tonight.  Get some rest, and we’ll iron everything out in the morning, okay?”
Katharine smiled gratefully.  She willingly followed Salvador toward the accommodations set aside for her. 
“We usually have more scientists on board but we’re between assignments now so you can have one of their staterooms,” said Salvador.  “If you need anything, just find somebody and ask them.  They’ll take care of you.” 
“What do you do on the ship, Salvador, that is, besides taking care of stranded females?” 
The corners of Salvador’s mouth quirked upward, “Now that would be the job of my dreams, dear lady,” he said with a theatrical bow.  “When there are no ladies in distress about, I see to Mr. Butler’s needs.” 
“So you’re Butler’s butler?’  She laughed. 
Salvador shrugged, “It’s a better title than cabin boy.  It was Mr. Cooper’s idea.  You see, when Mr.  Butler gets interested in a project he tends to forget about everything else.  It is my job to see that he eats properly and has clean clothes to wear.  It is also my job to find the things he puts down and can’t find five minutes later.”  
“Mr. Cooper?” she asked. 
“Tommy,” explained Salvador.  “He said someone must do it before the chaos engulfed us all.  He calls me ‘Butler’s Keeper’.  Before that, I was a cook’s helper.  This job is far better,” he grinned.

<<>>

DARK YACHT

Unbeknownst to the Pelican, two crewmen from the dark yacht had been hiding out in the palm and mangrove thicket on Little Curieuse, watching the actions of the Pelican’s crew.  Once everyone on the beach had returned to the ship, these two had come out of hiding and radioed the man with the black patch on the dark yacht.  
“Boss, the black man and the chick were rescued by a group of people from that Butler Project ship that showed up.”
“Is the ship still anchored there?”
“It sure is.  It looks to be settling in for the night.  They dropped both forward anchors and a stern anchor, and the deck lights came on a few minutes ago.” 
“Did any boats head for shore?  Is there a chance that they sent the two we want off to Mahe or Praslin?”
“No.  No one has left the ship.  It looks like our targets are still aboard.”
“Keep an eye on the ship.  If anyone leaves, let me know.  If the ship is still there tomorrow, I want you two to plan a raid on it.  I’ll send over the necessary supplies and reinforcements.  Get on board, find the black man and the girl, and kill them both.”  
“And, if someone should get in our way?”
“Kill them, too!”

<<>>

ABOARD THE PELICAN OFF LITTLE CURIEUSE

After Salvador led Katharine away, a Captain’s council gathered on the foredeck under a cloudless, moonlit sky. 
Opening the discussion Trask said, “If what she says is true then there are some pretty dangerous people out there.  It’s likely they’ll assume that we’ve helped her.”
“Why would she not be telling the truth?”  The Captain asked.  “I can’t see anyone going through all of this effort just to end up on the Pelican.”  
Tommy narrowed his eyes and struck a dramatic pose, “She’s a spy, here to steal all of our precious secrets.”
“She’s a beautiful young spy!”  Butler returned, taking up the game.  “I guess that means someone will have to interrogate her.  It’ll be very dangerous.  I better do it myself!”
“When you two are finished,” said EB dryly, “I’ll remind you that we’re between assignments and don’t have anything particularly secret on board at the moment.”
“Then I’ll have to string her along until we get some more secrets,” grinned Butler playfully. 
“In the Seychelles?”  Captain Z huffed.  “Good luck finding any secrets here!  It’s not exactly a hotbed of intrigue.” 
“There’s at least one intrigue going on here,” said Chan, “there’s an injured man in the infirmary.”
“Yes, intriguing indeed,” said Trask.  “The man was beaten badly, and from the look of it, by professionals.”
“I think it’s likely that that our Miss Katherine Annenberg is telling the truth and has accidentally stumbled onto something pretty dangerous,” Butler responded.
“I gotta agree with you,” said Trask.  “Still, we will have to treat her as a possible threat until we can determine if she is telling the truth.”
“So I believe our next move is to check everything out,” said Butler.  “Let’s see what we can find out about that dark yacht.  Obviously, it’s expensive, and very distinctive.  Even here, in the playground of the very rich, I think a ship like that would stand out.  Someone has to know something.”
“Do you think there’s any danger to the Pelican in the mean time” asked Captain Z. “Like you said; it won’t be too difficult for them to figure out that we helped her.  They might try to come aboard and take her and her friend.”
“You’re right.”  Butler answered.  “But I think they would be safer aboard the Pelican than ashore.  At least we can defend ourselves.”
“This could be a chance for me to try those new non-lethal weapons I’ve been working on,” said Tommy.  
“Waddya mean by non-lethal weapons?”  Trask asked suspiciously, thinking Tommy might be out to thwart his security empire.  “You aren’t planning on foisting more half-assed ideas on us, are you?”
“No, no.  These are passive defensive systems.”  Tommy explained carefully.  “They will make your job easier.  I’ve been working on several prototype systems ever since the Pelican got orders for the seismic project in the Sunda Strait.  I knew we would have to pass near to the Horn of Africa, an area with some of the worst pirating waters in the world, and I figured we needed something new to help prevent pirate attacks on the ship.”
“Uh, Tommy, you’re a little late.  We passed the Horn of Africa more than a month ago.”
“Yeah, well, I kinda of hit a couple of technical snags that threw the timetable off,” Tommy admitted, “but everything is working fine now.” 
“Okay, okay, your perimeter doohickeys work now.  So, what are they?”  Trask growled.  
“Well, I figured we could mount a motion sensitive infra-red camera to the top of the bridge radio mast.  That way the duty staff could see anyone moving around on the main deck at night.”
“Hmmm, yeah!  That’s not a bad idea.”  Captain Z exclaimed, throwing Tommy a thin lifeline of support.  “We’ve all heard the rumors of pirates sneaking aboard ships at night and murdering everyone.”
“Got anything else?”  
“Why don’t you tell them about your ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ idea?”  EB fiendishly suggested.  “You badgered me with it for nearly a week.”  
Butler, mildly surprised, leaned into the conversation.  “Why haven’t I heard about this?”
“It’s something new.”  Tommy admitted, nervously. 
“Okay!”  Matthew sighed, and sat down.  “Let’s hear it.”
“Well, in the Jules Verne classic tale, Captain Nemo electrifies the hull of the Nautilus to drive off a giant squid.  I thought we could do the same thing with all the railings around the main deck, using wireless electrical transmission.”
The sudden silence in the room spoke volumes.
“Isn’t that technology banned by the Geneva Convention?”  Doc finally asked, facetiously.
“If it isn’t, it certainly ought to be.”  EB concurred.  
“If I remember right, Tesla died before he could perfect wireless transmission of electricity.”  Richard commented sardonically, “And, as I understand it, modern scientific thinking now believes the concept to be unworkable.”
“What does modern scientific thinking know?  The man was a genius and his concept was brilliant.”  Tommy snapped back.  “Just imagine, unlimited power flowing freely thru the ether.”  
Vivid mental images flashed around the room, electrifying everyone’s mind to the horrifying possibilities.  
Slowly, everyone’s eyes went to the boss for the obvious decision.  
After just a short infinity of nano-time, Butler made up his mind.  “No.  I’m gonna have to veto that one.  Sure as hell, someone would zap some unsuspecting harbor pilot or customs inspector and the Pelican would be blacklisted in every port from Aden to Zanzibar.” 
Captain Z laughed.  “I have to agree with Mister Butler, not that there aren’t a few customs inspectors that I wouldn’t mind zapping.”
“Okay, okay,” Tommy amiably agreed.  “That one was gonna be tricky anyway, but I do have a couple of ready to go non-lethal devices that will mesh beautifully with your present security systems.”
“Such as,” Trask demanded.
“The first is a mono-directional loud speaker system.  It can project focused high decibel sound waves anywhere within a two-hundred foot line of sight.  The sound waves are so powerful that not only do they hurt the ears, they cause involuntary bladder contractions.”
“Involuntary what,” Richard asked?
“Involuntary bladder contractions,” Doc explained.  “The sound waves make you piss your pants.”
“Okay,” Trask hedged, “so far we got no death-rays!  We can see perps in the dark, and make them piss on command.  What else you got?”
“Well, my personal favorite is non-lethal air cannon with a variable muzzle velocity adjustment that can propel a weighted bean-bag up to two hundred feet at speeds up to sixty miles per hour.”
“Jesus, Tommy, you call that non-lethal!”  Doc bellowed.  “Anyone hit with a bean-bag moving at sixty would be a dead man.” 
“No, no.  You don’t understand.  That’s always been the problem with non-lethal technology.  At close range, even a rubber bullet is lethal, and at long range, it just bounces off.  That’s the beauty of my device.  I’ve fitted it with a laser sighting system that determines the distance and automatically adjusts the air pressure so that the velocity of the projectile always strikes with less than lethal force depending upon the proximity of the target.”  
“That’s not a bad idea, either.”  Captain Z admitted.  “A cannon on the bridge with a two hundred foot range could cover most of the main deck easily.” 
“And, the best part has been left for last.  All three items, the camera, the loud speaker and the air cannon can all be run from the bridge of the Pelican from a laptop.”  Tommy said.
“What do you need to get all three set up?”  Trask asked, finally convinced.
“Just a couple of hours to mount them, and another couple of hours to train your people to use them,” Tommy answered, “and Matthew’s approval, of course.”
Everyone in the room turned to Butler.  Butler looked hard at Tommy for a few seconds and then turned to Captain Z and laughed.  “It’s okay with me, if it’s okay with you.”
“These are all good ideas, well, except for the one about the electrified rails.  If you don’t mind, let’s also assign a couple of guards to the bridge, just to be sure.”  The Captain added. 

<<>>

Katherine was up before dawn the next day.  Someone had thoughtfully left a pair of baggy cotton cargo pants and a small t-shirt outside her door.  The pants were a bit big for her but she had solved the problem by tying a shoelace between two belt loops and pulling them together to tighten the waist.  It was an old trick from when she was a teenager, when super huge pants had been the fashion.  The t-shirt however, was on the tight side, a perfect fit for the current fashion.  Overall, she didn’t think she looked too bad.
The sun had just begun to highlight the surfaces of the Pelican when Katherine found her way to the railing overlooking the main deck.  Early morning light is a valuable commodity in photography and Katherine was used to rising before dawn.  She had come to treasure the freshness of the air and the peaceful few hours she could steal before the rest of humanity began their day.  For this reason, she was surprised to find what appeared to be most of the crew of the Pelican, on deck and involved in a noisy martial arts exercise.  It was easy to pick out Chan in his shorts and another loud Hawaiian shirt, moving from group to group.  At each group, he would stop and demonstrate a move for that particular group to work on.  He seemed completely relaxed as he threw crewmember after crewmember to the deck with no apparent effort.  He would then tyrannically rehearse the group in that move.  Sometimes he would say, “I’ve seen worse” before he moved on.  Those words seemed to be the best praise he would give.  
Some other members of the crew appeared to have been singled out for a special form of torture.  They stood absolutely still in a sort of half crouch; feet apart, legs halfway bent but backs vertical.  Occasionally Chan would walk by and make some minor adjustment to a person’s stance, before moving on.  Their faces were set in concentration.  Among these victims, Katherine quickly picked out the exquisitely muscled torso of Matthew Butler.  The rosy morning light caught in the droplets of sweat standing on his smooth tanned skin.  Her fingers itched to find a camera.  She vowed to herself that she would find an excuse to spend more time among these people once she had retrieved her cameras and the rest of her gear from her hotel room.  
The practice session soon broke up with much limping and good-natured groaning.  Before long, the deck was deserted as everyone headed off to the showers and their various duties.  Matthew walked up to Katherine, wiping his face with a towel.  “Don’t go anywhere,” he grinned, “I’lll be baack,” he said in his best Schwarzenegger growl, and headed off to the showers.  
It was peaceful now and Katherine took a deep breath and drank in the beauty of the sea with its many colors of aqua, each wavelet reflecting echoes of the pink dawn.  
A pale, dark-haired, and slightly pudgy young man in a wide brimmed hat pulled up beside her.  He offered her one of the cups of coffee he was carrying and said; “I don’t know about you, but I’m not even alive before I’ve had coffee.  My name’s Richard.”  He indicated the name ‘Richard the Great’ printed in large letters on the gigantic mug he was holding.  “I’m Computers and Communications.”
“Oh, hello.  I’m Katherine, the damsel in distress.”
“Pleased to meet you,” he grinned, as he shook her hand.  
“You don’t participate in the morning workout?”  She asked.
“No!  It’s not required.  It’s much too early for physical activity, if you ask me.”  Richard blinked sleepily at the sunlight.  The silence began to stretch.  
Katherine cast around for something else to say.  
“What kind of ship is this?”  
“The Pelican is a World War II era ship called an LST.  That’s short for Landing Ship Tank, which means that she is capable of pulling right up to the shore and unloading tanks through the bow doors.  Of course, since she became a Butler ship, she’s had quite a facelift.  All of our ships eventually end up with numerous modifications and experimental features.”
“What do you mean; she’s a Butler ship,” asked Katherine, thinking, you mean there’s more than one of these?
Misinterpreting her intent Richard explained, “The Butler Project provides support and field testing for new technologies, so naturally all Butler vessels are subject to a great deal of modification to fit the job at hand.  The Pelican, for instance, should only be able to make about 12 knots top speed, and with her flat bottom, she should heave about like crazy in foul weather.  But, she’s got a super slick, corrosion resistant, barnacle repellant coating, new gas turbine engines; computer controlled stabilizing fins, and a state-of-the-art navigation system.  As a result, she can cruise upward of 22 knots and is stable in most seas.”
Katherine got the idea, even though she was sure she hadn’t understood much of what he’d said.  She got back to her initial question.  “So there are more Butler ships?” she asked.  
“Oh, Butler Marine International, the parent company, has over 40 ships, but there are only three ships in the Project Fleet; the Tern, the Albatross, and of course, the Pelican.  There are lots of other sea, air, and ground craft of different sorts, like the ‘Bionic Dolphin’ over there.”  He said, gesturing to what truly did look like a fat metal dolphin cradled in a sling next to one of the ship’s big boom cranes.  
“We had a wild time with the guys who invented that, I’ll tell you!  They were the craziest bunch of engineers I’ve ever met!  After we completed the sea trials for that project, Butler was so impressed with the Dolphin’s abilities that he had them build him a custom two-seater.”
“It’s a craft?”  She asked in amazement.  “I can’t believe you can ride in the thing.”
“Yep, they say it’s a pretty wild ride.  Acts just like a dolphin in the water.  It even leaps into the air if you want it to.  You wouldn’t get me in one of those things, at least not with Butler or Tommy at the helm, that’s for sure!”
“I guess there must be a lot of interesting things on board?”
“Yeah, but I’d better not tell you too much.  Matthew will want to show you all the toys himself.  He loves to do the grand tour.”
“Toys, huh?”
“Yeah, that’s what we call them.  Well, I’d better be off; I’m doing a software upgrade to the computers and really should get back.  If you want to see the IT Lab, come on by, it’s just down Broadway next to the infirmary.”  Richard said, pointing toward the superstructure.
“Broadway?”  Katharine asked, just a bit confused.
“That’s what we call the big corridor that runs through the superstructure at the main deck level.  Well, see you later.” 
Looking for cream and sugar for her rapidly cooling coffee, Katherine wandered into the mess hall.  While the Pelican in general had the look of a hard working ship, she had noticed that the mess hall, as well as the stateroom in which she had spent the night, was rather luxurious.  The mess hall was comfortable in a clean and uncluttered way, both stylishly graceful and sophisticated.  The warmth of well-polished wood and brass fittings complemented the open view of the sea through the many windows.  It was obvious to Katherine that the room had been decorated by someone with refined good taste and deep pockets.  
Having doctored her coffee from supplies set out on an oak sidebar, Katherine went back to where she had stood overlooking the deck.  To say that she wanted Matthew Butler to be able to find her easily would have embarrassed her, but it would have been true.  When he did appear, she was relieved to see that Doc Sanders was accompanying him.  
“Good morning, Doctor, how is…” she began, not knowing how to refer to the patient.
“It took all night but we finally got him rehydrated.  He must have been in dire circumstances for quite a long time, because when he arrived he was bad off.  He’s sedated now, but only because of numerous painful, but not life-threatening injuries.  If he doesn’t have any hidden injuries, I believe he’ll be up and around in a few days.  You can come by and check on him this afternoon if you’d like.”
“Oh, thanks,” she said.  “It’s kind of terrible, not knowing anything about him.”  
“Yes, I’m hoping he’ll be able to clear up some of the mystery soon.”
Matthew put his hand gently on her arm and said, “In the mean time, let’s get some breakfast, and then I’ll show you around the ship.”  Together they entered the elegant Mess.

<<>>

After a quick breakfast, Doc went back to the infirmary, and Katherine and Butler walked out into the sunshine.  Butler looked around the expansive deck as if deciding where to start the tour.
“Richard ‘the Great’ told me a little bit about the Pelican this morning,” she volunteered.
“So, you’ve met our computer wizard.” 
“Yes, he brought me coffee.  He also told me about the ‘Bionic Dolphin.’  He didn’t seem to be too keen on riding in it.”
Butler laughed.  “He prefers all his adventures in cyberspace, I’m afraid.  Don’t think he’s not sharp though, he can work his way through technical problems like nobody I’ve ever met.  None of us can beat him at a mental puzzle.”
“For a World War Two ship, the Pelican seems in very good shape.”
Butler’s face took on a glow of pride.  “She was pretty beat up when Captain Z and I found her.  She served in the Turkish Navy for 20 years after the US Navy decommissioned her.  We completely refurbished her from the keel up, adding several new and experimental technologies.  That was the beginning of the Butler Project.  We’ve been upgrading her ever since.”  
“Such as…” she gently teased.
“Such as the Sun Collector up there” he answered, pointing to what looked like an entire row of large transparent drums mounted on the roof of the superstructure.  
“They desalinize water for us.  A single collector can produce 200 gallons of clean water per day.  We’re evaluating it for installation in small seacoast villages, on islands, and in coastal desert areas.  It’s all highly experimental, but the technology could solve a lot of clean water problems around the world, utilizing a very simple concept.”  
“Come look at the ‘Carmine Electra.’  It’s a little something Tommy and I put together, combining a whole slew of experimental technologies.”
He led her past a series of modular buildings dogged to the deck, each with a sign next to the door labeling it Lab A, and so on.  After that, they passed a line of shipping containers and proceeded out onto the vast open deck.  He stopped at a speedboat nestled in a cradle next to the railing.  She was a beautiful pale aqua green color with a hint of iridescence.  An electric blue lightning bolt ran across the long enclosed foredeck and down the length of the sides.  
“Tommy and I fitted her out.  She’s completely electric and very efficient.”
“That’s not possible, is it?”
“Indeed it is.  She carries several electric wheel motors linked in line that give her instantaneous thrust.  We coated her entire surface area above the water line with a flexible solar film, so she even recharges from the sunlight reflected off the water.  She also has capacity to gain electrical charge from wind and wave motion.  There’s a miniature, collapsible multi-axis wind generator hidden in hatches on the deck.  We can stand that up any time we stop the boat and recharge in a breeze.  The wave energy generators are tube shaped rigs that we can drop over the side and tether to the boat while she’s stopped.  There’s a float inside each tube that rises and falls with the waves and generates energy through that motion.”
“That’s amazing.  But, don’t the batteries weigh her down?”
“Nope, no batteries.  My friends at MIT were kind enough to let us test their experimental nanotube ultra-capacitors, completely replacing regular batteries.”
“Is she as fast as she looks?”
“We used a racing boat hull so, yeah, she’s very fast.  We lost two nautical miles per hour in the conversion to electric, from eighty-six to eighty-four, at the top end, but we’re still working on it.  Tommy has a new lubrication compound he wants to try; he’s testing it on a jet ski today.  That should provide some entertainment,” Butler ended grimly.
Katherine decided not to comment, as it sounded like a touchy topic.  
At this point an alarm bell sounded.  Katharine looked around frantically.  
“We‘d better stand over here,” said Matthew, moving casually toward the railings on the side of the ship.  “They’re opening up the ramp.”
To Katharine’s surprise, not far from where they had been standing, the entire center part of the deck began to descend.  It angled down and created a ramp big enough to accommodate a school bus.  When the big ramp stopped moving, the secession of sound made her aware of the rumble of another big engine behind her.  She turned to see what looked like a jacked-up tan armored car all ready to deliver a load of cash to hell.  It was moving slowly in her direction.  Matthew held her in place with a gentle hand as the truck curved away from them and went down the ramp.  This gave Katharine a good look at its battered surface.  
To Katherine, it looked as if the vehicle had survived a severe blast right under the spare wheel mounted on the passenger side.  It was even more apparent when she saw the shredded remains of this tire and the bent and burned metal all around it.  As the vehicle slowly passed by her, she could see more damage.  The crumpled shell of a toolbox, with its twisted doors hanging open, teetered on the ripped up fender above the destroyed tire.  
Scorch marks all over the vehicle indicated that it had in fact been in more than one explosion.  The completely blackened back end of the vehicle had two large doors, hanging loose on bent hinges.  Beyond the apparent blast damage, the entire lower half of the vehicle was coated with a thick, peeling layer of dried, caked mud and algae, as if it had been half submerged for some time.  She was amazed that it could still be driven.
“They’re going to start work on my Cougar,” said Matthew.  “I’m glad; it deserves good care after what we put it through in Mozambique.”
Seeing her questioning look he said, “We went in to test some land mine clearing devices, and we got into a spot of trouble.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Some days more than others.  Come on, I’ll show you our helicopter,” he said, with renewed enthusiasm, and directed her toward another battered vehicle. 
“This is an experimental prototype helicopter, rigged with fly-by-wire technology.”  He said, pointing to a strange-looking helicopter that had burn marks and bullet holes all over the body.  “We also tested it out in Mozambique on our last job.  Notice that it has two sets of rotors on top instead of one.”
She had felt that there was something unusual about it, but hadn’t been able to put her finger on what it was.  Matthew pointed out the second rotor on the top.  “It has amazing lifting abilities, far more than a regular helicopter the same size and is fast and nimble in the air.  It saved our lives out there.”  
“So all of these things are experimental technologies that you are trying out for people; is that a business, or do you just do it for entertainment?”
Butler laughed.  “Well, it is supposed to be a business, but it’s usually pretty entertaining, and sometimes a little dangerous.  Mostly, we are hired to support the researchers doing the experimenting, but occasionally I’ll fund a project, if I think an idea has potential.”

<<>>

Katherine and Butler then joined a small crowd at the railing amidships, which included many of the people she had met earlier that morning.  Captain Z, EB, Chan, and about half of the crew not on duty were leaning on the railing and staring into the water below.
As Katherine reached the railing she asked in a timid voice, “what's going on?”
Before Butler could reply, EB sarcastically explained.
“My about-to-be ex-boyfriend is going to show everyone what an idiot he really is.”
“…I don't understand …”
Butler quickly came to her rescue with a much better explanation.
“Our esteemed genius, Tommy Cooper, has come up with a compound that he thinks is a super lubricant.  He's going to test it on one of our jet skis.”
“Let's see, isn’t Tommy Head of Research and …?”
Before she could finish the question, Chan suggested, “Disaster?”
Salvador chimed in with, “Disregard?”
EB followed with, “Debacle?”
“Development,” growled Butler, ignoring the others.
Katherine looked over the railing.  Tommy was hunched over a Jet Ski holding a bottle.  He was carefully pouring its contents into the crankcase.  Butler leaned nearer to EB and whispered loudly,
“What's the score?”
EB whispered back loud enough that everyone along the railing could hear.  “Three hits, no runs, and one error.”
“One error,” Butler asked, slightly puzzled.
“You remember the incident with the self-flushing toilet, don't you?”
A pained look crossed Butler's face.  “Oh yeah!  I had forgotten all about the Cooper Pooper.”
“You know that the man has four different advanced degrees.”  Butler defended his friend.
“Yeah, Tommy is a screw-up, but he is the smartest screw-up I know.”  An anonymous voice returned. 
Chan leaned over to EB and asked, “What's the risk factor?”
EB responded quickly.  “Physically, I’d say it’s moderate to low, financially, however, counting labor, materials, and the jet-ski of course, I'd have to say …about $20,000.”
Chan whistled softly.
“Ouch!”  Butler groaned.
EB turned to Butler.  “You really should discourage this.  Maybe you could dock his pay.”
“He owes me for three years, already.”  Butler returned, shaking his head. 
Tommy was directing a couple of crewmembers and a crane operator in offloading the Jet Ski.  Once that was done, he turned and looked up at the side of the ship and addressed the crowd along the rail.  
“Well folks, I'll bet you're all wondering…”
“Get on with it!”  A heckler in the crowd bellowed.
“Okay, okay.  Now, I know that the Philistines in this crowd think my inventions never work, but this one can't miss.”
With a flourish, he produced the bottle of yellowish looking crud.  “Ladies, Gentlemen, and skeptics, may I present Cooper’s Magic Elixir, a blend of fragrant oils and emollients that will improve the efficiency of any engine by reducing friction by a factor of four.  This money-saving product is good for small engines like this Jet Ski, as well as engines large enough to propel a ship.” 
With that last comment, he looked directly at EB. 
EB immediately shot him down.  “You're not putting that gunk in my engines!”  
Her comment didn't deter him in the slightest.  
“Now, I will proceed with the demonstration.”  
As Tommy climbed onto the Jet Ski, Butler turned to Captain Z.
“Captain, would you arrange for a rescue boat and a diver, just in case.”  
“That’s a damn good idea,” Captain Z growled, as he reached for the intercom.
Butler then turned to Salvador.  “Run down to Sick Bay and ask Doc to join us.  I have a feeling we’re going to need him.”  
Katherine was a little confused.  “I don't understand,” she said, addressing everyone at the railing, “Isn't Tommy your friend?  Why don't you believe in him?”  
“History,” Chan muttered aloud, “years and years of history!”
Tommy pulled on a neoprene wet suit, a life-vest and a crash helmet with a built-in microphone.  After a sound check that sent the word “testing” booming through the main deck’s loudspeaker, he fired up the Jet Ski and let it idle for only a short time before he signaled to the crowd standing along the railing of the bridge with an upraised hand, and then gave the Jet Ski a little throttle.  The Jet Ski leapt forward as if goosed, throwing a rooster tail high in the air.  In no time, Tommy was speeding across the choppy ocean waves.  Tommy's number one assistant pulled out a radar gun to track him as he made his run.  The assistant began calling out the jet skis’ speed over the intercom.  From a slow start, it accelerated rapidly, 30, 35, 40, and 45 miles per hour.  At 50 miles an hour, the ski was moving faster than it had been designed to.  At 65 miles an hour, Butler became seriously concerned.  He yelled down to the technician, to have Tommy shut it down.  The technician’s radio call went unheeded.  At 75 miles per hour, the Jet Ski suddenly rose up head over tail and began flying upside down in the air. 
Over the intercom, a drawn out “Ohhhhh, shiiiiitttttt,” distinctly echoed.
EB shrieked and Katherine gasped in horror as Tommy flew upside-down across the water still clinging to the handles of the Jet Ski.  Butler immediately raced to the railing and unnecessarily yelled down to the technician to get the rescue boat and diver on their way.  Even before he spoke, the rescue boat was flying across the water toward Tommy.
Wisely, once upside-down, Tommy let go of the handles, letting the Jet Ski fall away from him.  He bounced off the water’s surface hard, spun, and began skipping ass first, much like a stone skipping across a pond.  After five skips, he tumbled several times, lost momentum, and finally disappeared into a wave.  
Butler, watching the cruiser speed out to Tommy, urged the rescue attempt on with, “Go-Go-Go,” as he gripped the railing with white knuckles.  
Next to him, one of the technicians yelled into the microphone.  “Tommy, can you hear me?  Tommy, are you all right?”
In a matter of seconds, the rescue boat arrived at Tommy’s ersatz sitzmark only to find him bobbing in the water with a silly grin on his face.  At the urging of the diver, Tommy waved a hand over his head to let everyone know that he was okay. 
Butler, obviously relieved, joked.  “If that crazy son of a bitch didn't break his neck out there, I’m going to do it myself when he gets back.”
In no time, the rescue boat returned with a mildly bruised Tommy, pretty much in one piece, but rather skinned-up in those places that his life vest hadn't protected.  Butler met Tommy at the railing as he climbed gingerly up to the main deck. 
“Whooie!  That was fun.  I want to do that again!”  
“Why didn't you shut it down when I told you to?”
“Sorry Matthew, I couldn't hear you,” he said, pointing to his ear and shaking his head.  “The motor was too loud… but did you see how fast it was going?  I’m sure the engine was running faster than it ever did before.”  
“Yeah, my concern is …”
Tommy, totally consumed in his own adrenaline-laced mind game, rudely interrupted. 
“Did you recover the jet ski?  It was running just fine and then all of a sudden, it went clunk!”  Tommy babbled.  “You know, we will need to do a full diagnostic of the engine, of course.” 
Butler growled at a couple of crewmembers, “Take this bum down to Sickbay, and break out a workboat and recover that Jet Ski, before it sinks.”  
“You can’t sink a Jet ski!”  Tommy hollered as the crewmembers dragged him below to sickbay.
“You can if the hull has been cracked by hitting the water at an unbelievably stupid rate of speed.”  Butler retorted to the rapidly disappearing Tommy.
After seeing the Jet Ski safely returned to the Pelican, and inspecting what was left of it, Matthew and Katharine went below to see what the prognosis was on Tommy.
Doc had just finished his examination and was wrapping Tommy’s ankle in an elastic bandage.  “Come on in.  I’m done with this reprobate for now,” Doc greeted them.
Butler gave Tommy his hardest stare, good old #6, 'Extreme Disapproval'.  Apparently, it worked quite well, since Tommy immediately started apologizing.  Butler kept the stoic scowl on his face, saying nothing.  
“Come on Matthew; just give me the chewing that I deserve.  I readily admit I screwed up.”  
“No,” Butler answered with restraint, “I think I'll let someone else do that; someone who's much better at it than I am.”  Butler looked over at the door.  As a sickening realization dawned, Tommy slowly followed his gaze.  Standing in the doorway was an extremely pissed off EB.  She immediately stomped into the room with blood in her eyes.  
Without thinking, Tommy volunteered his girlfriend, “Hey, this is perfect!  EB can do the diagnostic on the engine.”  He told Butler.
“So, ten minutes after a near-death experience, you finally remember you have a girlfriend.”  EB growled.  “You silly son-of-a-bitch, you could have been killed!”  
Of course, about then, she noticed that Tommy was nursing a sprained wrist, a bandaged ankle, and still holding a compress to his scalp.  Her anger evaporated and she took the compress from his hand with tears in her eyes. 
Butler turned to the doctor.  “So, how is he, Doc?”  
“I’ve seen worse wounds in a kindergarten.”  Doc growled.  “It's mostly scrapes and bruises.  The strained wrist and twisted knee are minor.  He’ll definitely live to crash another day.”  Subtly referring to the fact that EB had completely taken over as Tommy’s nurse, Doc added, “All in all, he is quite lucky, in more ways than one.”  
“Perhaps, we should let them alone for a while.”  Butler suggested.
Butler knew that EB wasn’t going to be in the mood to look at the Jet Ski and so decided to ask Dr. Wilkinson, the geochemist who had joined them in Mombasa to check it out and, hopefully, determine what caused the accident.  
The analysis of the engine arrived about two hours later.  
“The engine did what?”  Butler asked 
“First, you’ve got to understand that this really is not my field.”  Professor Wilkinson waffled.  “I’m a geochemist, not an organic chemist.” 
“I understand.  Just go ahead and tell me what you can.”
“Well, here goes.  Apparently, while the engine was running, it just decided to seize up.”  The scientist replied. 
Butler raised an eyebrow, “I think we all figured that much out.”
“When we picked up the Jet Ski, the engine was still pretty hot from the trial run.  I opened the crankcase, and found that it was filled with a black, solidified mass; for want of a better word let’s call it a tar.  Yet, as soon as this tar cooled off, it turned back into oil again.”
This was all new to Butler, who found it mildly interesting in a bizarre way.  
“So in other words you’re telling me that Tommy’s Super Slick glued the engine in my Jet Ski.”  Butler said with finality. 
“As near as I can figure, the gunk Tommy put in the crankcase worked fairly well until the oil reached a specific thermal threshold, and then long chains of polymers formed in the slick, causing the oil to set up into a rigid matrix.”
“At what temperature did it happen, do you think?”  
“Well, if I had to guess, it would probably have been somewhere around 600 degrees, Fahrenheit.”
“So, Tommy invented a substance that at low temperature lubricates well, but begins to set up once a certain temperature threshold is reached.”
“That’s my professional opinion.”  
“What good is oil that seizes at high temperature and flows at a low one?” 
“Fortunately, that's not my field either.”

<<>>

As soon as they could get Tommy released from EB’s tender care, Matthew and Katharine collected him for the trip back to her hotel room.  She needed to check in on the SUBIOS activities going on that day, and hoped to pick up some of her gear.  Matthew and Tommy wanted to see if they could determine just how much danger she might be in. 
Tommy was limping as he joined them on the platform. 
“Yes, yes I’m fine, it’s just a few bumps and a headache, I’ll be okay,” declared Tommy as he helped Katharine into the Carmine Electra.  
“Are you sure?” teased Matthew, “don’t be brave on our account; I know you must be in a lot of pain!”
“Cut it out, willya?  I’m fine and you know it,” grumbled Tommy, slumping into one of the rear seats.  “You drive, Big Shot.”  He said, covering his eyes with his hand and obviously dismissing Butler from his sight.
“Should he be coming along?”  Katharine asked, in an undertone.
“Yeah, ignore the histrionics.  He’s just using us as an excuse to escape from EB,” murmured Matthew.
They docked the Carmine at Praslin Island and proceeded to Katharine’s hotel.  It was one of the cheaper hotels, in the center of town, unlike the more luxurious dive resorts located closer to the water.  The ‘Isle de France’ was a drab, five-story affair that took up a quarter of the block.  It’s only claim to French culture was an outdoor café attached to one side and a bar located on the roof.  Without thinking of the potential danger, Katherine rushed through the entrance and headed for the front desk.  
“I’m Katharine Annenberg, I need to check for messages.  And I’m afraid I’ve lost my key.”  She told the desk clerk.
Matthew and Tommy scanned the lobby for possible trouble, but there were no suspicious men hidden behind newspapers or peering through the potted palms.  
“So much for the classic thug in the lobby routine,” said Tommy, “but get a load of those two blondes in the corner.” 
Amid the crowd of tourists in the lobby, the two women stood out; statuesque, blonde Scandinavian Goddesses.  Each was a flawless beauty, identical in everything except dress.  Matthew whistled under his breath. 
“Hey, I think they’re staring at me, too.  I’ll bet they’re models.  I wonder if I could get a date.”  Tommy leered, conveniently forgetting that he already had a girlfriend.
“What, with one or both?” queried Butler.
“Either, or,” Tommy replied.  “Nothing like a matched pair.”
“Might have your hands full there,” murmured Butler, turning back to watch Katharine at the desk. 
Katherine had a couple of messages from the owner of the rental boatyard and one from the group of scuba enthusiasts that she had made plans to dive with today.  She opened a sealed envelope as she walked over to them.  “Oh, look!  One of my shots is a finalist in the SUBIOS competition!”  She said excitedly, waving the letter.
“Congratulations.  When will you know if you’ve won?”  Butler asked.
“The award dinner is tomorrow night.  It’ll be announced then.  As for today, the dive trip has already left and there’s nothing going on with SUBIOS until this evening.  So I guess I’ll just have to hang around for the day.”  
Matthew didn’t hesitate.  “Let’s have lunch then, and maybe we can find something entertaining to do.”
“Could I have some time to shower and get changed?”  She begged.  “An hour would do.”
“Of course,” said Matthew, “Tommy and I will do some errands and meet you back here.”  
“How about if we meet in that little outdoor Café around the corner?” asked Katharine.
“Sounds good,” said Matthew on the way out, “see you there in an hour.  Come on Tommy, stop looking at the ladies.  Let’s get some things done.”
“Killjoy” replied Tommy, as they walked out onto the street.

<<>>

Tommy and Butler made their way to a beachfront bar, the sort that tends to cater to locals more than to tourists.  It was just shabby enough to make strangers leery of entering.  In such places, people are often not as hostile as they seem and Butler knew that it would be a great place to glean information.  The pair ordered a couple of beers and sat down at the bar.  Matthew and Tommy represented themselves as two beleaguered males seeking refuge from their girlfriends’ constant demands.  This warmed up the men hanging around the bar and after a polite amount of small talk and a second round, which included all of the men within earshot, Matthew turned the conversation in the direction he wanted it to go.  
“Yeah we just got in yesterday.  You know, just as we were setting anchor out near Little Curieuse, we saw the weirdest yacht I have ever seen.  It was huge, sleek, and all black, or at least it looked black, it was hard to tell.  That thing must have cost a bundle!”  He speculated, fishing for information about the owner of the yacht.  
“Only one boat like that around here, that’s the ‘Rapier,’ the ship of Levasseur Le Pirate!” said one of the locals at the bar.  “He lives on a compound over on the north point of Mahe.  He thinks he is descended from La Buse.”
“La Buse?”  Asked Tommy, “what’s a Buse?”
“La Buse!” repeated the man jovially.  “The Buzzard!  He was this big pirate who landed here three hundred year ago.  Some say he left treasure at Bel Ombre on Mahe, but no one has ever found it.  This Levasseur, he say he‘s his great, great, great, something or other.”
“Yeah, he got the nose for it,” hollered a guy further down the bar.  “That’s why they called the first Levasseur The Buzzard, cause of that big beak of his.”  
“Does he wear an eye patch?” asked Matthew incredulously.  “My girlfriend said she thought she saw a guy with an eye patch.”  
“Ha, no!  That guy, Sven Larsen, works for him.  He un bastarde for sure!”
“That Levasseur not so great himself,” chimed in another local. 
“My sister, she work over there on his compound.  She say last night Ol’ Levasseur so pissed about sumting, he throw a big fit.  He so bad all them working for him leave post-haste.  He yelling at that Larsen guy and throwing things around.  She say she even hear gunshots.  That’s when everybody run, my sister run three kilometers in the dark.”
“Wonder what he was pissed at?”  Tommy muttered.
Matthew silently mouthed Kobi. 
“Sounds like a dangerous man,” said Matthew, giving Tommy a significant look.
“Mei Oi!” said another local.  “Mon ami Abdulla was working for him…  Levasseur got this collection of old African weapons and he think something gone missing.  He beat Abdulla up so bad he never walk right again and the weapons not even be gone.  The housekeeper just move them when she clean.”
“What a joke, no?”
“Yeah, that’s real funny.”  Tommy growled. 
“My friend Abdulla went to the gendarmes, but he got no justice.  The gendarmes just say it was an accident.  That Levasseur, he got too much money and he knows too many people.” 
“Well, we had better get back to the women,” said Butler with a big stretch.  “We’ll get an earful if we’re gone too long.”  
They left to the catcalls and cheerful goodbyes of the locals.  
“We’d better get on back to Katharine ‘post-haste’,” said Matthew when they got outside.  “The situation may be more dangerous than we thought”  
“I’m thinking the same thing,” said Tommy and they headed off for the hotel at top speed.

<<>>

A quick scan of the outdoor café showed no sign of Katharine.
“Let’s get up to her room, if we’re lucky, they haven’t found her yet,” said Matthew, punching the third floor button in the elevator.
“They could be up there, now,” said Tommy, “We’d better be ready.” 
The elevator doors opened slowly.  Tommy and Butler hid on the sides of the doorway like actors in a bad action movie.  There were sounds of heavy breathing and grunting coming from the corridor.  After a second, they realized that one of them was going to have to stick his head around the corner and take a look.  In accord with long held tradition, they settled the dispute with a fast game of rock- paper-scissors. 
“It figures,” murmured Tommy, looking at his losing scissors.  “You always win when it’s a dire situation.” 
As Tommy peeked into the hallway, a man hollered, “Going down?  Hold the elevator!”
Tommy and Matthew stepped out into the hallway to find a rotund man dressed in shorts and sandals with black socks, wrestling three big suitcases toward them.  He gave them a rather odd look but was grateful when they each grabbed a suitcase and hustled him into the elevator. 
When Matthew knocked on the door of Katharine’s room, his heart sank.  The voice that answered did not belong to Katharine.
Butler and Tommy immediately leapt into action.  Butler grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and Tommy grabbed a nearby potted fern.
“How are we going to get out of here if this goes sideways?”  Tommy whispered.
“That elevator’s too slow to be any use, check the door to the stairs,” Butler whispered back.  
“It’s okay, we’ve got a clear path down,” said Tommy from the stairwell.
“Okay, if we have to, we’ll make a run for it that way,” Butler whispered.
Butler called out in a petulant, whiney, husbandy voice through the door to Katharine’s room, “Honey, my arms are full and I can't grab my keys, you're going to have to open the door for me.”
After a small amount of fumbling, the door began to open.  Butler yelled and fired the extinguisher through the opening gap, and then threw it into the room.  Tommy immediately followed with the potted fern.  The extinguisher fortuitously bounced off the head of a thug holding a silenced automatic.  In the brief glance available, Butler could see another thug crouching behind the bed.  Two silenced shots crashed into the far wall of the corridor.  By mutual agreement, Tommy and Butler bolted for the stairs.  
“These guys mean business!”  
“I didn’t see Katharine in the room, did you?”
“No, I don’t think she was there.  Do you think we did any damage?”
“Not enough!  We are going to have to think of something else!”
Just as Tommy and Butler started down the stairwell at a rapid clip, two more thugs started up the stairwell from below, both packing silenced automatics.
“Whoops!  We can’t go down!” 
“Then we’ll have to go up!” 
The pair pounded up the stairwell, climbing two more flights before suddenly exiting onto the roof.  

<<>>

At the same time, in the quiet little bar on the roof of the hotel, Charles and Henrietta Smythe-Stuttler were sitting in the shade of a potted palm, their backs to the gorgeous view of the harbor.  On the table, between two brightly colored umbrella drinks, a large map of the Seychelles lay before them as seductively as a five-course dinner. 
“I don’t want to spend the day on Bird Island,” said Henrietta, in an overly commanding voice.  “I want to go to Victoria and shop.  I simply must get a Coco de Mer for our front room.  And I need presents for Virgie, Lorraine, and all the other girls in my knitting club.  Oh, won’t Agnes go simply green when I bring everyone gifts from the Seychelles.”
“But Hen,” whined Charles, “Bird Island has colonies of Fairy Terns and Common Noddies nesting there.  Unfortunately, we’re too early to see the Sooty Tern Migration; they won’t arrive until next month.” 
“Charles, I know what you get with colonies of birds and I know what it smells like.  We’re not going to waste our day on bird watching.”  
Charles rolled his eyes. 
At the bar, under a bamboo and nylon canopy, a woman in tight polka-dotted Capri pants and rhinestone studded cat’s-eye sunglasses was talking loudly at the barman.  
“…and he had the effrontery to claim that my foot was a 9D when it has always been a 4C.”
Her American accent was as sharp as the flaming pink fingernails she tapped on the bar.  Behind the bar, Jean, the bartender, displayed polite indifference to the gratingly high-pitched voice, while contemplating the hours of torture remaining before his shift ended.  His head nodded to her rants much like a bobble doll, and just to show that he was worth tipping, he threw in an occasional sympathetic syllable.  On the woman’s lap, a pink-dyed miniature poodle laid his head on his paws, giving in to doggy boredom.  The voices of the people behind her were getting louder, disturbing her story about the horribly rude clerks in her favorite Italian shoe store. 
Distracted from her monologue by the couple’s disagreement, the woman eased off her barstool.  With her big hairdo, large bust, and ample behind, she bore a remarkable resemblance to her poodle.  With a cigarette in one hand, drink in the other, and the tiny pink poodle carefully wedged under her arm, she tottered on skinny legs over to their table.  Jean, the bartender, knowing just how many Slow Gin Fizzes she had consumed, was not at all surprised to see that she was exhibiting an amazing amount of yaw in her walk. 
“Oh, Sweetie”, she breathed, leaning down over the table and giving Charles a good look at her artificially enhanced cleavage; “You just gotta go to the boutique at the Hilton in Victoria.  They have the most wonderful jewelry there.”  She gave a lipstick-lined smile to Hen, who did not return it.  Charles mumbled something about his desire to see the world’s oldest tortoise. 
“Baby loves to shop as much as I do, don’t you my itsy pooh-pooh?” she trilled, kissing the little dog full on the lips before letting it down under their table.  Hen and Charles seemed to be trying to gather their thoughts in the face of this brightly painted intrusion.  Unbeknownst to Charles, the dog trotted over to his leg, sniffed carefully at his shoes, and, with no remorse whatsoever, immediately raised a leg on his white linen pant cuff. 
Suddenly two men slammed open the metal stair doors, shattering this touristy interlude.  
Tommy and Butler burst through the door yelling instructions at each other.
“Look for cover,” yelled Tommy, “I’ll see if there’s a way down.
At the same time, Butler yelled, “I’ll look for cover; you look for a way down.”  They said the last three words in unison.
The little dog started barking, the effort causing it to jump in the air with every bark.  
“Oh my Gawd,” shrieked the Poodle woman.
Both Smythe-Stuttlers sat frozen in astonishment.
Even in the rush to find safety, Tommy’s hindbrain reacted to the edifice of bad taste standing next to the Smythe - Stuttler’s table.  He thought, a cross between Anna Nicole Smith, Zha-Zha Gabor, and the Wicked Witch of the West laboring as a female drag queen.  All together, it was an odd tableau of tourists and tits.
Butler’s scan for cover revealed a canopied tent on bamboo poles between the tourist’s table and the elevator.  Beneath the tent was a complete bar with shelves of high-end booze and a shell-shocked looking bartender.
Tommy raced to the nearest side of the building where he saw, five stories beneath him, a fenced patio with several dozen-glass tables and numerous wrought-iron chairs scattered about.
“No chance on this side, buddy.  No fire escape.”  Tommy yelled out loudly.
Butler reached the other side of the building and looked down on to another patio cafe lined with pointed wrought-iron fencing.  “This side is no good either, unless you want to be a pincushion.”  
“It looks like we’re going to have to find some other way off this roof.  Try the side behind the bar,” Butler hollered.
Tommy, anticipating Butler, was already there.  His reply came back immediately.  “It’s just a narrow alley on this side.”
“We need something brilliant.”
“I'm thinking!”
“Well, think smarter.”
By the sound of pounding footsteps on the stairwell, the thugs were getting closer.  Tommy summarized their situation brilliantly.  “We’re stuck on a roof.  As far as I can see, the only way down is by parachute.”  
They both began looking around as if the rooftop bar would be fully stocked with handy parachutes.  Butler focused on the bar.  He pointed at the nylon canopy over the bar and asked, “How about Leonardo's parachute?  Do we have the technology for that?”
Tommy grinned wide and replied, “Yes, we have the technology for that.”
“You put it together,” Butler returned, “and I'll slow down the opposition.”
Tommy rushed to the bar and immediately began wrestling with one of the bamboo poles, trying to get it out of its seat.  
The bartender blurted out, “Mon Dieu, What are you doing?”
“Ask him.”  Tommy grunted, as he pulled at the canopy supports.
At the same time, Butler strode over to the trio of bewildered tourists, flashed his most brilliant smile and asked, “Is this chair taken?”  Without waiting for a response, he slung the chair at the doorway to the stairwell.  By either fortuitous aim or blind luck, the chair glided through the doorway and crashed down the stairs.  He began throwing every chair within reach at the stairwell.  Many of them went down the stairs but many more ricocheted off the entrance and began creating a tangled mass of metal in front of both the stairwell and the elevator.  
The bewildered bartender leaned over the bar and yelled, “Hey, you can’t do that!” 
Butler strode over, pulled out a wad of cash from his wallet, and slapped it down on the bar.  “This ought to cover just about anything!” he said.
Just then the elevator dinged, Butler jumped over the bar, and at the same time shouted to both the bartender and patrons, “Y’all might want to duck about now.”  
The Smythe-Stuttlers, suddenly awakened to the danger, fell to the floor and began crawling toward the shelter of a heavy metal planter box.  The pink intruder screamed and tried to gather up her poodle.  The dog, frantic with excitement, was bouncing about uncontrollably on the end of its leash.  
Butler looked around and immediately began grabbing liquor bottles from the back of the bar and slinging them at the opening elevator doors.  Two thugs armed with silenced automatics leaped out, only to encounter four or five liquor bottles moving at a high rate of speed and shattering all around them.
“Tommy, how we doing?” shouted Butler over the bedlam.
Gunfire from the open elevator door interrupted Tommy's response.  Almost simultaneously, more gunfire came from the stairwell door opposite.  Butler threw more bottles of high-grade liquor, alternating between the stairwell and the elevator.  In the middle of all the chaos, the bartender’s hand snaked over the bar top, searching for the wad of cash Butler had left behind.  Just as quickly, it disappeared into the bartender’s jacket pocket.
Butler yelled out again to Tommy.  “I hope you’re making progress because I'm running out of booze, here.”
“Two more minutes!”  Tommy yelled back.
When Butler grabbed a particularly fine bottle of Armagnac, the bartender suddenly came out of hiding. 
“No, no.  Not that one!”  He screeched and handed Butler an off-brand bottle of gin instead.  Now involved in the process, the bartender began handing bottles from the far reaches of the bar over to Butler.  Stopping for a second, Butler grabbed the bartender and asked, “Does this place have a fire sprinkler system?”
“Yes it does!  Why do you ask?” 
Ignoring the question Butler began patting his pockets; he turned and asked, “Does anyone have a match?”
This time the bartender was faster on the uptake.  “No, no you can't!” he pleaded, knowing his pleading was futile.  
Butler followed the eyes of the bartender to a large brandy snifter full of book matches engraved in the Bar’s logo.  He pulled out a book, lit the whole thing, and tossed it back into the glass.  As the matches began to flare brightly, he threw the snifter at the elevator doors.  The spilled liquor ignited with a gentle whoosh, followed by several high-pitched screams.  The elevator doors slowly closed on two thugs beating at their clothing.  A quavering fire alarm bell began to ring.  The thugs in the stairwell, seeing Butler’s firebomb attack and hearing the alarm, realized that they too were completely doused in liquor.  Expecting immediate immolation, they quickly fled back down the stairwell.   
That should give us a breather for a bit, thought Mathew.  Once the alcohol evaporates, they’ll get over their fear.  Butler glanced over at Tommy to see him wrestling with the canopy near the edge of the roof. 
How's it going Tommy?
Tommy's answer was cryptic at best.  “I need your pants!”
“Mine?  No way!”
“It won't work without some pants!  Dammit, I need pants.”
Butler looked at Jean the bartender questioningly.  The bartender emphatically shook his head no.
“No luck here.  I guess you're going to have to use your own.”
Turning to the bartender, Butler apologized for the destruction, telling him to put all the damages on Katherine Annenberg’s hotel room bill, and that everything would be taken care of.  
“I think it would be a good idea for you and the old folks to stay hidden for a bit after we leave.  Those guys will be back.”
There was a sound of chairs being moved in the stairwell and Tommy stuck his head around the bar, yelling…  “It’s time to go.”
At Tommy’s instruction, he and Butler grabbed hold of the canopy whose bamboo support legs had been hastily tied together at the bottom with Tommy’s pair of khaki cargo pants.  Lifting the canopy above their heads like a large, square umbrella, they climbed onto the ledge of the building.
Peering over the edge and realizing how far up they really were, Tommy blurted out, “I've changed my mind.  I’m not jumping!”  
As gunfire erupted from the stairwell, Butler leapt off the building, dragging his reluctant partner with him.  
While it’s possible that the canopy may have slowed their fall a bit, it sure didn’t seem that way as the pair watched the alley floor rush toward them.  
A fire escape on the building next door caused the alley to narrow just as they began to scream in terror.  The narrowed space pinched their erstwhile parachute against the walls of the building and with a great ripping, grinding crunch it wedged between the fire escape and the wall of the hotel.  They were stuck, the two of them hanging with their feet a little further above the pavement than they would have liked.  Tommy’s pants had begun to disintegrate on the way down and the sudden halt had been the final blow to the abused garment.  The pants gave in, ripping into two pieces at the crotch.  Both Tommy and Butler fell to the street in a clumsy heap.  Tommy came up limping and rubbing his butt, he had hit the same spots he had injured that very morning on the Jet Ski.  Butler fared better but had ripped one knee of his own pants and was bleeding a bit.
At their most nonchalant, the two rapidly sauntered out of the alley into the patio that Tommy had seen from above.  It turned out to be the outdoor café where they found Katharine waiting for them, seated at a table at the front.  “Where did you two come from?”  She asked.
Tommy and Butler each grabbed her by an elbow and began to hustle her out of the café.  She broke from them long enough to grab her handbag and a camera bag from the table as she continued; “I hope you didn’t look for me at the other café around the corner.  I forgot it was there until I had been sitting here for a while, waiting for you.”
She stopped to look at the two of them, Tommy limping along in boxer shorts and Butler bleeding through the torn knee of his jeans.  “What’s going on?”  She asked.  And to Tommy, “weren’t you wearing pants, earlier?”
“We need to get out of here, right now,” Butler said, leading the way to the Carmine.  “Try not to attract attention.”
“Right,” muttered Tommy.
“Do you think Leonardo knew that his parachute didn’t work?”
“Nah, his design was flawless; the problem has to be pilot error.”  
Tommy gave Butler a nasty look. 
As they pushed off, Butler said, “Thank God you wore boxers today” 
Tommy responded, “Next time, we’re using your pants.”

<<>>

Back on the Carmine Electra, Tommy and Butler explained what had happened and what they had learned.
“Men in my hotel room?” asked Katharine incredulously.
“Yeah, big guys with guns!”  Tommy answered.
“But I didn’t see anyone; I got dressed and went down to that café and everything was fine!”
“You were lucky then.  I bet they just missed you.  I imagine they were watching for you to leave the hotel, but you didn’t come out because the café you were in was part of the hotel.  They got tired of waiting and went up to your room, just in time to meet us,” said Matthew.
“And you really jumped off the roof?”
“There just weren’t any other options.  Too bad the parachute didn’t work.” 
“Most likely co-pilot error,” Tommy defended.
“What should I do then, go to the police?”  Katharine asked.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, at least not until we figure out if this Levasseur guy has the cops in his pocket.  The locals we talked to made it sound like he can do anything he damn well pleases.”
“You’ll be safe aboard the Pelican, at least until we can figure out what’s going on.”
“You two have been so brave risking your lives for me, and I’ve put both of you in danger.”  
Tommy and Butler looked at each other to see who was going to say the obligatory macho response.  We’re always in danger, or Danger’s our middle name, or even We do this all the time.  
“Don’t worry about it” mumbled Tommy.
“It’ll be okay.”  Butler said at the same time.

<<>>

Kobi awoke slowly, taking several minutes to get around to opening his eyes.  He tried to piece together the events that had brought him to these unfamiliar surroundings.  
Questions swam through his mind, but not with much urgency.  Where am I?  Where is the girl in the red wetsuit?  How did I get here?  All passed through his consciousness and flew away in a lazy, dreamlike way.  The one that stuck with him and brought him fully awake was, Am I in trouble?
His eyes flew open and he quickly located the only other occupant of the room, a tanned, gray-bearded man in a white lab coat.
“Hello,” said the man, “I’m Doc Sanders.  You are aboard the Pelican, and I’m responsible for treating all your wounds.  I bet you’re wondering why you’re here.”
As Doc conducted a brief examination of Kobi’s pupils and reflexes, he brought the injured man up-to-date on his situation.
“You’re safe now, and it looks like you’ll recover from the beating you took.  Do you have any idea who beat you up?”
Kobi looked at the man, trying to think where to start in telling his story.  
“Not really, but I know what they and their boat look like.”  He paused and thought some more.  “I’d like to speak to the Captain,” he said.  “There is something very important that I need to tell him.”
Captain Z met Matthew, Katharine, and Tommy just as they were boarding the ship on their return from Praslin.  He took one look at their condition and said, “You can tell me about it later.  Doc wants us all down in sickbay; his patient is awake and wants to talk to us.  Trask is already on his way.”
Matthew, Katharine, Trask, Tommy, and Captain Z crowded into the tiny sickbay and introduced themselves to Kobi.  
Sitting up on the examination table, Kobi began to tell his story.
“Do you know what the Lord’s Resistance Army is?”  Kobi asked.
Butler looked around at his companion, “It sounds familiar but I can’t place it,” he said.
“Uganda,” said Trask abruptly.  “Some of the nastiest rebels ever.”
“I remember,” said Doc, “weren’t they the ones with all of the child soldiers?”
“Actually most rebel armies end up using child soldiers, but the LRA got the most press,” said Trask.
“I thought those problems were over,” said Tommy, “we haven’t heard anything about them in a long time.”
“I am afraid Westerners do not understand the ways of Africa.  Your news gives you a very small glimpse of what is really going on.  Problems like this one do not go away, they are a part of the culture here, and they are a result of many tribal nations trying to live together.  There was a ceasefire signed with the LRA in 1996, but I think it is about to be broken.”
“A week ago I witnessed a meeting where LRA soldiers arranged to buy a shipload of guns.  I was a stowaway on the gunrunner’s boat.  They were the ones who were going to kill me.  I must find this shipload of guns and stop them from getting to the LRA.”
“Whoa, hold on now.  Maybe you had better start from the beginning and tell us what happened and how you got involved in this.”  
“Kobi told them his story, beginning with the ceremony in Mombasa and ending with his escape from the Rapier.  “Now I must find a way to stop the guns from getting to the LRA.  They caused so much harm in Uganda before and they cannot be allowed to do so again.”
“You’re right about that,” exclaimed Doc.
“Also, I am very worried about my country.  I think they killed many of our leaders at the ceremony.”
“That was in Mombasa, right?  That’s probably the smoke we saw coming from the airport, just as we left.”
“You are correct.  I personally am responsible for bringing home the artifacts.  I followed the thieves until they met with the white men who were selling the guns.  I followed the white men to their ship and hid on their ship.  I thought that way I might be able to do something to save my country’s treasures and to stop the LRA from getting the guns.  They are going to meet at sea and exchange the stolen artifacts for the guns.  I do not know when it is going to happen but I do know where.  I have the coordinates; I pricked them into my skin to make scars on my body while I was a stowaway on their ship.”
“It’s true,” said Doc.  “I wondered why anyone would have a bunch of numbers carved into their thigh.”
“It was so that they could not be lost, no matter what happened to me,” said Kobi.
“What are these artifacts you keep talking about?”  Doc asked. 
Kobi explained about the treasure of Hatshepsut and the lengths to which the thieves had gone to steal it.
“They are very valuable artifacts; I have no doubt that there are collectors who would pay a great deal of money to have them.  It is a terrible blow to our country and especially to my family, to lose them.  I am certain that these thieves must have had help from someone inside my government for this to happen.  It is a very dishonorable thing.”
Butler turned to an intercom on the wall.  “Bridge, ask Richard to dial up BBC World and see if there’s any news on Kenya.”  He said.
“Don’t need to,” came the reply, “it’s all over the place.  There’s been rioting and murders.  Somebody killed some government officials and the tribal factions are all accusing each other.  It sounds pretty bad.”
“Oh dear,” moaned Kobi.  “Please, will you help me?  I must go to the authorities and stop all of this from happening.”
“We will help you, Kobi,” said Butler, “but it may not be a good idea to go to the authorities here.  We spoke with some locals about the owner of that yacht you were on, they led us to believe that he might have the local authorities in his pocket,” said Butler.
“Levasseur the Pirate becomes Levasseur the gun runner,” said Tommy.
“So it would seem.”  

<<>>

The location pinpointed for the gun deal was about 20 nautical miles northwest of the island of Mahe in the Seychelles.  Captain Z immediately ordered the Pelican’s radar crew to keep an eye out for activity in that area.  
“How should we do this?”  Butler asked his assembled team.  
“We need to be there when the artifacts are exchanged for the guns.  Where do you think the guns are now?”
“Probably en route from wherever they are manufactured.  There must be a cargo ship out there somewhere that belongs to Levasseur.  Richard, have you had any luck researching this guy?”
“Well, he’s got an export business that sort of moves around the Indian Ocean.  He has a couple of ships but they’re pretty old, and don’t have much capacity.  I can’t really tell where he makes his money.  None of the deals I could find were anywhere near big enough.”  
“Can you find anything on where those ships are now?”  
“I’ll look into it,” Richard returned to his computer screen.
“So, what do we do if we find the ship, blow it up?”
“We’re not going to blow anything up until we find out for sure that there are guns aboard and that they’re headed for the LRA.”
“We can’t let them get into the hands of those children.”
“Or into the hands of the bastards who made those children soldiers.”
“So we’ll have to board this arms ship when we find it.”
“Well, we do know where it’s going to be.”
“I guess we’ll just have to be ready then.”
“First of all, how are we going to get close to that ship?  They’ll be watching their own radar for intruders.”  
Tommy and Butler exchanged a glance.  “We can do it in the VASH.  That’s the Dolphin I showed you,” he explained in reply to Katharine’s inquiring look.
“Yeah, it would work,” agreed Trask, “they won’t be able to pick it up on radar.”
“We’ll have to be careful not to run out of battery life,” said Tommy.
“We’ll run on top for as long as we can,” returned Butler.
“What about when you get there?  What will you do if you find the guns?”
“Thermite,” blurted Tommy, “I’ve got everything we need in the Lab.  Give me an hour or so, and I can rig up a thermite grenade that will put a hole in just about anything.”  
“Do it,” said Butler, “but we’re not going to use it unless we’re sure.”

<<>>

After an amazing dinner of Crab Cakes drizzled with Volcano sauce, accompanied by Mrs. Yan’s Five Treasure Rice, and a controversial side dish of Bitter Melon with Pork; Matthew and Katharine wandered out to lean on the port side railing of the Pelican. 
“No moon tonight, so the stars ought to be good,” observed Matthew.  Most of the staff and crew had been given shore leave for the night.  Strangely, those who remained on board all made excuses about things to do, leaving Katharine and Matthew alone on deck enjoying a peaceful after dinner glow.  
“I asked the deck crew to prep the Carmine.  Let me take you away from the Pelican’s lights, so that we can really see the stars.”  Extending his hand to her with a flamboyant bow, he led her down the steps to the boarding platform and onto the gently rocking Carmine Electra.  She felt both hesitant and intrigued; she definitely wanted to know more about this warmly charming man.
Silently, the electric motor propelled the sleek craft away from the big ship and out into the dark waters.  The ocean was calm and the night so dark that the stars reflected on the water like jewels scattered on the black velvet swells.  It was hard to tell where the sky and water met; it felt like they were sliding silently through a starlit sky.  They cruised away from the ship until the deck lights were just another glittering part of the night.  Disengaging the engine, Matthew slowed the boat to an almost motionless drift.
Matthew and Katherine climbed onto the long foredeck of the racing boat and lay looking up at the night sky with their heads close together.  
“I’ve never seen a night like this before,” sighed Katharine.  “You must see a lot of things like this, living on the Pelican.”
“We see a lot of beautiful days and nights, of course, not quite like this though; this time you’re here,” he answered.
Katharine laughed at the corny line, but thought it was cute anyway.  Even on this beautiful night, in this romantic setting, she was unable to get her mind off the events of the day.  She rolled over onto her stomach and reached down to trail circles in the water with her fingers.
“You and Tommy had quite an adventure today…” she began.
“Yeah, somehow situations like that seem to find us.”  He laughed. 
“Do you think I’ll be able to go back to my room?”  She asked, “I didn’t get all my stuff, I only changed clothes and grabbed my spare camera.  I need the rest of my equipment and my clothes.”
“I don’t think it’ll be safe until we get this situation sorted out.  Maybe tomorrow I can send a couple of guys over there to get your stuff.” 
“Don’t do that.  It doesn’t make any sense to put someone in danger just for a few possessions.”  
“What about your awards dinner?”  Butler asked.  
“Yes, well actually I was rather looking forward to that,” she admitted. 
“I think we could probably arrange for you to go,” said Matthew,  “but I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with me as an escort, and we’ll have to bring along a couple of armed Redshirts.  Maybe the people who are after you won’t know about SUBIOS,” he said.  In his mind he added, and if they do it’ll be a way to flush the bad guys out.  
“Redshirts?”  Katharine asked, completely puzzled.
“The Pelican’s Security team,” explained Matthew, “we call them that because of the Star Trek reference, one of the crew called them that once and it sort of stuck.”
Katherine’s face lit up in an animated smile.  “I bet I’ll be the only photographer there with bodyguards.  One thing though…  I’ll need clothes; I can’t go in what I have on…”
“How about if I take you over to Victoria tomorrow and buy you something appropriate.  We can have lunch and do some shopping.”
“I don’t know what to say,” exclaimed Katharine, at Matthew’s offer.
He rolled over to look her in the face.  “Say you’d love to, and take a chance that you might have some fun along the way” he replied, grinning.
“I’d love to.”  She grinned back.  The two of them talked into the night, letting the light of the stars heal their souls.  The water gently rocked the boat, its lapping a part of the hush of the night.
They drifted until the moon arose and the stars dimmed.  Finally, he brought the boat back to the diving platform.  A goodnight kiss was inevitable.  Neither of them seemed to question it.  The kiss didn’t last long, but it was intimate. 
Blushing, Katharine broke the embrace.  “I, er…well, good night,” she said, turning away.
“Good night.”  He replied, regretfully letting her go.

<<>>

In the small hours of the morning two slight, wiry men, naked except for ragged shorts, crept out of the darkened underbrush of Little Curieuse Islet.  In the light of a fingernail moon slowly waning, the small waterproof packs that rode high on their shoulders gave their silhouettes a slightly Quasimodo quality.  Crossing the narrow sand beach, they eased into the water and quietly swam in a slow dog paddle across the lagoon toward the LST anchored several hundred yards offshore.  Neither man uttered a word.  With their heads barely out of the water, the fading moonlight illuminated only their eyes as they swam slowly toward the anchor chain of the Pelican.  Each man, like a South Sea Islander harvesting coconuts, climbed it nimbly with only hands and feet, pausing as the chain slacked with the swells and continuing only when it became taut again.  Carefully, with the delicate balance of well-practiced acrobats, they stepped over the gunwale and eased into the shadow of the Pelican’s port anchor windlass.  Only then did either take a deep breath.  With an efficiency of motion, each man pulled a silenced automatic pistol from his pack and charged the chamber.  
The leader of the pair, Mister Lim, was a Malayan by birth and a diamond-hard killer at heart.  He pulled a 12” parang, the Malaysian machete, from his pack and eased it from its scabbard.  The blade, razor sharp, had been carefully blackened over a dung fire earlier in the day.  Only its deadly edge reflected in the moonlight.  Using the parang as a pointer, he directed the second man to the starboard side of the ship while he advanced along the port side. 
The other man, an ex-Khmer Rouge enforcer known only as Pok, pulled out an antique USMC Ka-bar knife from his pack, an heirloom passed loving down through three generations of Poks.  He grinned toothily at his companion, one gold fang shining dully in the weak light, and then silently slipped between the rows of cargo containers lining the foredeck of the Pelican.  Each man, an emeritus of the defunct Brotherhood of Pirates, Thieves, Rapists, and Murderers, blooded in a hundred gory encounters, had their orders.  To their delight, the hunt had just begun and with luck, killing would soon follow. 
The night, still quite warm for the season, quickly dried the seawater on their skin into intricate salt rimes.  Their exertions climbing the anchor chain along with the adrenaline rush preceding a killing frenzy left both men sweating profusely in the sea air.  Along with the butyric stench of sweat came another complex odor.  It was a product of a diet of mostly rice cooked in dirty water, sprinkled with unnamed fish parts, curry, cumin, onions, garlic, and seasoned with peppers hot enough to etch steel.  It generated a uniquely piquant scent often associated with the pits of Calcutta and other such black holes.  Along with this odor drifted several other distinctive smells.  Leading the array was the sickly sweet scent of bhang, followed up by the fug of black shag tobacco, the organic corruption of dung, and surprisingly, Old Spice aftershave, all of which contributed to the miasma. 
This distinctive odor, eye watering to most, was a potpourri of delight to the little black, brown, and white dog that got the first whiff as it dozed at the foot of Matthew Butler’s bed.  
Over the last several days, the dog had roamed every part of the Pelican, met everyone aboard, identified each by their unique smell, and categorized each as to sex, ethnic origin, health, hygiene, vices and habits, daily tasks, temperament, and of course, the willingness to give treats without hesitation.  The cloying stench was new to the dog, however, and instinct told it that there were intruders aboard.  It was time to tell ‘the Man.’  
The dog’s barking pulled Butler from an intense dream involving a rope swing, a bottomless pit, and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.
“Bog doggit.”  Butler mumbled as he rolled from his bunk.  
“Wha’s all tha ragget?”  
The dog was frantically clawing at the flimsy cabin door, whining piteously. 
“So, you want out,” he said to the dog’s butt.  “Well, I want to sleep.  So, who’s going to win?”  The butt didn’t answer directly; although the tail whipping back and forth gave such a stinging rebuke that Butler had to give in.  Sighing heavily, he opened the cabin door and watched as the little dog took off like a low-flying Scud, accelerating down the corridor and bounding up the stairs leading to the wheelhouse. 
About then, a forty-watt refrigerator bulb lit up the interior of Butler’s skull, quickly followed by a mildly paranoid inner voice.  Uh-oh, something’s wrong!
“Damn, it might be pirates!”  Butler mumbled to himself.  
The only other time his ship had encountered pirates, had been during a night passage of the Java Strait the year before.  Like the Horn of Africa, Java was another part of the world with high potential for piracy.  In that incident, Captain Z had increased the ship’s speed and Trask’s men had utilized a knock-together flamethrower designed by Tommy to keep a heavily armed band of pirates from boarding the Pelican.  
In the last few years, pirates based out of Somalia had become more and more desperate.  Consequently, their territory had expanded.  Recently several groups of pirates had made the dangerous crossing of nearly a thousand miles in their flimsy boats to take up operations within several hundred nautical miles of the Seychelles.  
Damn, damn.  Butler cursed to himself.  I should have known better.  Someone noticed us and figured out that the Pelican might be an easy target with potential for ransom.  
The dog returned to stand in the doorway, whining and prancing back and forth, always glancing toward the stairs.  
Charged with increasing waves of adrenalin, Butler dashed to his headboard and pulled away the Velcro attached pads, revealing a hidden compartment behind.  Neatly wrapped inside, a double shoulder harness with two Colt automatics lay in wait for the appropriate emergency.  It took only a clumsy minute or two to strap on the harness, load and chamber the automatics.  A quick glance in the wardrobe mirror produced a sudden freeze in the frantic activity.  A nicely sun-tanned, well-armed, naked man with a shocked look on his face stared back at Butler.  Cursing horribly to himself, he rummaged through a dresser, found a faded pair of swim trunks and hastily pulled them on.  
“You, stay out of trouble,” he said, quickly nudging the dog into the room with his foot and shutting the door on it.  Silently he slipped out into the corridor.  
Butler hadn’t gone twenty feet down the corridor when a familiar voice sounded in his ear.  
“Bad dream?”  Chan quietly asked as he exited the darkened suite he and his wife shared.  Chan was dressed in dark gray silk pajamas that reflected no light. 
Butler was mildly startled, but refused to admit it.  
That Chan, He groused to himself wryly, when he wants to, He can sneak up on his own shadow and steal its pants.  
“More of a nightmare, actually; the dog heard something and wants me to investigate.”  Butler explained.
“Do you always do what the dog wants?”  Chan asked smiling.
“Only tonight, apparently.  Besides, my guts are telling me that something is wrong.”
“First dogs, and now intestines,” Chan returned.  “Well, if it’s any consolation, it was my nose that woke me up.”
“Your nose has insomnia?”  Butler asked.  
“Don’t you smell it?”
“Smell what?”  Butler demanded.  
“That faint rotten fish, tobacco, and tainted sweat scent.  It wafted down the ventilators about the time your pup started barking.  I’m certain the smell is what got the dog all worked up.  I’m also certain that it is what got your intestines churning.” 
Once the odor had been defined, Butler suddenly discovered that he could also smell it.  The faint odor was distinctly foreign to anything he had ever experienced.  
“Since my staff and crew are relatively good about their hygiene, I’d say we definitely have intruders.”
“What would you like to do?”
“Let’s notify the bridge first, get them to wake security just in case.  If we’re right, we’re heroes.  If we’re wrong, then it’s just another middle of the night security drill.”
“A little recon couldn’t hurt, either.  It’s always better to know your enemy.” 
“Do you want a weapon?”  Butler asked, offering Chan one of his automatics. 
“It’s not necessary.  I am a weapon.”  Chan replied.  
Chan and Butler carefully climbed the wheelhouse stairs and in tandem leaped through the narrow bridge hatchway to find the duty officer, Mr. Bristow, Quartermaster Ernie Pollan, Richard the Great, Doc Brown, and Professor Wilkinson playing poker on the bridge, along with the two guards Trask had stationed on the bridge.  All were startled at the pair’s fierce appearance, doubly reinforced by Butler’s drawn automatics.  
“How long since you sent someone on rounds?”  Butler asked quietly.  
“They got back less than a half hour ago.”  Ernie immediately answered.  “What’s up?” 
“The dog thinks we have intruders.”
“Does it now?”  Professor Wilkinson asked with the faintest smile. 
“We wondered what it was up to.”  Richard said, “It came tearing through here woofing and growling, demanding to be let out on to the port wing.”  
“I can send the guards out for another round right now, Mister Butler.”  Ernie offered, rising from his seat at the table.
“Not a wise idea.  If the dog is right, your guards could end up with their throats slit.”  Chan replied.
That little statement killed any fermenting witticisms.  
“I’ve got a better idea.”  Butler suggested.  “Turn the infrared camera on the main deck.  If anyone is hiding out there, we should be able to light them up.”  
It took less than a minute for Richard to activate the infrared camera.  As he panned downward, the screen on the bridge flickered and what had been a darkened area near the first row of cargo containers suddenly showed two bright human-like shapes moving toward the forward end of the science lab.  One of the shapes extended an arm toward the science lab.  Just as suddenly, a bright flare extended from the arm and a dull red glow in the shape of a gun began to develop on the screen as the camera read the heat discharge.  As they watched, the bright spot on the screen indicating the overhead lamp on the corner of the science lab flickered and slowly began cooling off.  “They must have shot the light out.”  Chan exclaimed.  
Speculation ran rampant through the small group on the bridge.  
“Why are they here?”
“What do they want?”
“Who sent them?”
Chan asked the question that silenced all the others…  “Why are there only two men?”
“Matthew, they’re on the move again.”  Richard announced.
“Where to?”  Bristow asked.
“They’re on the starboard side, behind the parts bin for that submersible we picked up in Mombasa.” 
“Sure enough, these guys are professionals, notice how they stay in the shadows.”
“There goes the door light on Science Lab Number Two.”
“How many lights do we have left?”
“Three …one at the near end of the labs and two lights at the entrance to Broadway,” Richard replied. 
“So, we’ve got just two men with silenced pistols and no backup.”  Butler mused.  “This isn’t a hijacking; it has to be a hit!”
“They have to be after you, boss.”  Richard exclaimed.
“No, it’s not me.  I haven’t been here long enough to make enemies.  They must be after Katherine or Kobi.”
“We’re going to have to hurry if you want to set up an ambush.  They just took out the last light on the Science Labs.”
“Report, Mr. Bristow.”  
“All the hatches to the interior of the ship have been electronically locked down, Sir.  I’ve sent Quartermaster Pollan around to roust the crew and herd the non-combatants into Engineering.”  
“How many men can we muster?”
“Nearly everyone’s ashore, sir.  It’s the first night of shore leave, you know…” said Bristow, subtly making the point that he himself had drawn the short straw, and was stuck on duty tonight.
“We have twelve ratings, two security redshirts, the Quartermaster, Mrs. Yan of course, Doc, Richard the Great, and myself aboard.”  Bristow replied quickly.  “The supercargo personnel aboard comprise Mr. Chan, Professor Wilkinson, Miss Katherine, Mr. Kobi and yourself.”
Butler pondered the situation.  “Well, we do have the advantage of surprise, and there appear to be only two of them, so I guess we’ve got them right where we want them.” 
About then, Doc spoke up.  “Let’s not provoke a gun battle, I hate treating casualties.”
“Yes, I was thinking the same thing.  We’re going to have to try and take them alive.”  Butler stated emphatically.  “We need to know who is behind this.”
“If you truly want it bloodless, then leave it to me.”  Chan volunteered. 
Butler looked from Chan to the Pelican’s third Officer.
“Mr. Bristow, while you are the ranking officer aboard, and it is your decision as to the defense of the ship, I would ask that you consider Chan’s skills, and trust him as much as I do.  If he believes he can take our intruders without casualties, I’d say let him try.” 
The pause was brief as Bristow weighed his options and then made his first command decision. 
“Okay!  Take your best shot.”  Bristow answered, obviously relieved.  “What do you need from us?” he asked Chan.
“First, I’ll need a decoy moving around inside sickbay to draw their attention.”
“I can do that.”  Butler volunteered, slapping his holstered .45 automatics.
Doc piped up immediately after, “I’ll go with you.  My patient will need supervision, and it’s always a good to have a doctor nearby.”
“Second, open up the hatch leading to Broadway from the main deck.”
“That one is easy.  I can do that from the bridge console.”
“Third, station your two security men in the Mess hall near Broadway to contain the situation, if my idea doesn’t work.”
“Lastly, leave all the lights on in the Sickbay, but kill all the lights on Broadway.” 
“That’s a bit more difficult, but it can be done from an electrical panel down in Engineering.”
Richard the Great responded with, “I can do that!  I know right where the switches are.”  
“Do it fast, Richard, and come right back to the Bridge.  We’re going to need you.”
“Oh, and Mr. Bristow,” said Butler, “call up the captain ashore and tell him he’s needed back aboard.”
As people scrambled to comply, Chan drew Butler aside.  “The injured man sleeps in the sickbay.  You will be his only defense.  If the intruders get as far as the sickbay door, it means I failed.  You must shoot to kill.”
“Yeah, but we need them alive.”  Butler objected.
“Matthew, I understand these men.  They have no respect for life.  They will kill you without hesitation.  Do not give them the chance.”  
“Okay, got it.  Kill them!  Words to live by,” Butler answered with unintentional black humor. 
Within minutes, the trap was set.  Butler grabbed a walkie-talkie to coordinate with the bridge before slipping down the stairs to the Sickbay with Doc in tow. 
After arriving in Sickbay, Matthew and Doc woke Kobi, who was groggy with painkillers but able with their help to move to the small room that housed the Pharmacy.  
“This is a steel reinforced door, Doc.”  Butler emphasized this by tapping it with the barrel of one of his automatics.  “You and your patient should be safe in here.”  
“Be careful.”  Doc cautioned before the door closed.  “Don’t make me have to stitch you up, I don’t need the practice.”
Alone in the Sickbay, Butler turned on every light.  Even the high intensity lamp on the Dentist’s chair, and shined it directly at the Sickbay’s main door.
Butler then tipped an examining table onto its side, and piled up several mattresses in front of it into a makeshift barricade.  With a few more minutes of effort, he carefully adjusted it to provide the best protection possible. 
“Ah, my own personal little Alamo,” he muttered aloud, before pulling both .45 automatics from his shoulder holsters.  Clicking the walkie-talkie to establish communication with the Bridge, Butler settled down to wait for either the two intruders or Santa Ana’s Army, whichever came through the doorway first.  
Up on the Bridge, Mr. Bristow had left a single video camera in operation, the only one with a fixed view down the length of Broadway.  Richard the Great had returned from engineering and dropped into a chair in front of the console that monitored all the cameras on the ship.  With deft fingers, he brought up a view of Broadway on the main monitor.  Both he and Bristow could see a rectangle of light spilling from the open door of the sickbay, which modestly illuminated the corridor.  
“There they are!”  Richard spoke tersely, pointing at some nebulous blobs on the screen.  He worked feverishly over a keyboard to increase the gain on the audio feed from the camera. 
Creeping out of the darkness, the two intruders cautiously advanced down Broadway, stopping at every doorway to listen before moving on to the next.  Just as they reached the halfway point and were only twenty feet from the Sickbay door, as if by magic, a third blob detached itself from a darkened corner and glided silently up behind the stalking pair.  
Bristow turned to Richard with a curious look.  “Don’t ask me how Chan does it.”  Richard replied, guessing the unspoken question.  “He says it has to do with total body control.”  
“Here he goes.”  Bristow announced.  As the third blob began to merge with the first two, the witnesses on the Bridge subconsciously held their breath, awaiting the unknown.  Over the audio feed came a dull ‘thwock’ sound, as if someone had hit a beanbag chair with a baseball bat. 
Slowly, the large amorphous blob on the screen metamorphosed back into three entities.  One was still standing, while the other two slumped slowly to the decking. 
Chan’s voice came over the audio feed.  “Both targets are down.  You can turn up the lights now.”  
Not wanting to leave his console, Richard triggered the emergency lighting system that lit up Broadway with a yellowish glow.  On the monitor, Bristow and Richard could see Chan rummaging through the fallen men’s pockets.  
“Two pistols with silencers, and two knives” He called out the inventory as he discovered it.  “No identification on either man, but one looks to be Malaysian or Indonesian, and the other could be Viet, or Laotian, or possibly Cambodian.” 
Chan flipped each man on to one side to search further.  
“No wallets, watches, or jewelry, either” as he rolled both men over.  
Hearing the good news, Butler and the two security redshirts came out from their ambush points.  While Butler joined Chan in the body search, the redshirts took over trussing up the intruders. 
“Not much here.”  Butler declared.  “This one has a pack of Turkish cigarettes and a crude map of an LST on him.  It’s certainly not a copy of the Pelican’s blueprints.  It looks like something generic printed off the Internet, and the Sickbay has been circled with a red marker.” 
“This one has a box of anise seeds, two unused condoms, and a pack of pornographic playing cards.”
“Emergency supplies in case he got bored?”  Butler speculated. 
About then Doc unlocked the Pharmacy and, being a conscientious medical man, decided to check on the downed intruders.  He gave each thug a quick medical check up; correctly concluding that Chan had really put them into dreamland.  Noting the constriction of their pupils, Doc asked, “Damn, how hard did you hit them?” 
“Precisely, the correct amount,” Chan answered.  
“So Doc, what’s your prognosis?”  Butler asked.
“They’ll be out for the next hour, minimum.  What do you plan to do with them?” 
“As soon as they come to, we’ll question them.  After that we will haul them in to the Victoria Police and file formal charges.”
“You know that trespassing and shooting out a couple of light bulbs won’t keep them in jail for more than a minute.”  
“We can’t prove attempted murder, either.” 
Butler and Chan looked at each other.  Both nodded in unison.  It was the only rational course of action available.
“So, do you want them sidelined or locker-roomed?”  Chan casually asked.
“I think sidelined will do it this time.  I certainly don’t want them to acquire more guns and decide to return.  Besides, the police might want them mobile enough to tail them after they’re released.”
“Okay then, sidelined it is.”  With efficient skill, Chan bent to the two unconscious men and broke each man’s left and right arms at the humerus. 
“That should keep them from picking their noses for 3 to 4 months.”  Butler announced. 
“Christ all mighty!”  Doc yelled, crouching down to the trussed pair.  “This isn’t the Spanish Inquisition.” 
Doc huffed for a second or two trying to burn off the angry adrenalin racing through his system.  “You know, I have to fix everything you two decide to break.”  He paused looking at Chan, his face becoming suspicious.  “What in God’s name would you have done, if Matthew had said locker-room?” 
“They would never have walked again.”  Chan calmly replied.

<<>>

Captain Z slid a cup of coffee across the table to Matthew Butler.  Through the windows, the grey light of pre-dawn was beginning to define the shape of Little Curieuse Islet 200 yards off their bow.  
Matthew and Captain Nikos Zamora had been friends for as long as the Butler Project had been in existence.  In his mid sixties, Captain Z was a lean and grizzled Greek with the permanent tan of a lifetime seafarer.  He had captained Butler Marine ships for Matthew’s father for twenty years before Matthew had asked him to be part of his new company.  Captain Z had been contemplating retirement, but his wife had died the previous year and he found that life on land held no attraction for him.  Together he and Matthew had sought out a ship that would suit the need of the project. 
The pair chose a former US Navy LST that had been decommissioned and sold to the Turkish Navy, where she served as transport, until they too had decommissioned her.  She had then served as a ferry between Corsica and Sardinia.  When Butler and Captain Z found her, she was waiting to be scrapped in a breaker yard in Tangiers.  They spent the next year gutting, refurbishing, and fitting her with the latest technology and navigation systems.  On a fine spring day, Captain Z christened her The Pelican, first ship in the Butler Project fleet.  The two men worked well together, Matthew took care of the Project’s mission and Captain Z took care of the ship.  Each respected the other’s territory.  
“We need to find out just what kind of a threat we’re under,” the Captain said, without preamble, “Whoever sent the assassins must not have expected us to have any defenses.”
“Yeah, or they would have sent a lot more men,” Matthew replied.  “If they come back, and I think they will, we’d better be ready with everything we’ve got.  In fact, I’d like to get a little more firepower for Trask and his team.  We don’t want to be outgunned.”
“You remember my friend, Joe, who came to our beach party?  I think he can supply everything your heart desires.”
“He’s a weapons dealer?  You’re kidding!”
“Yeah, but he didn’t start out that way, when I met him he was a tour guide.  Times change and people do what they have to.”
“See if you can arrange for me to meet with him around noon today, I’d like to get this taken care of as soon as possible.”
“Right, in the mean time we’ll need the security crew back on board ASAP.”  Captain Z shook his head.  “They aren’t going to like having their shore leave cancelled.”  
“We’ll have to make it up to them once this is over with.”

<<>>

Later in the morning Matthew, Katharine, and Tommy boarded the Carmine Electra for the one and a half hour cruise to Victoria, the capitol city on the Island of Mahe.  
During the cruise, Tommy and Butler asked Katharine about her home in South Africa and her job as a photographer.  “It’s not as glamorous as you might think,” she said, “I spend a lot of time waiting for the right conditions, or working the image on the computer to bring the shot up to today’s standards.  It’s not anywhere near as exciting as what you do.  You get to go to exotic places and try out all of these new gadgets.  Your life sounds like fun to me.”
“Well, I gotta admit, some parts are fun.  Actually, it can be quite boring too.  What’s that quote about war?  It’s defined as long periods of boredom punctuated by brief moments of sheer terror.”
“It might be a little less boring if some people didn’t have to do things the hard way.”  Tommy vocalized.  “Take for instance, this boat ride…”
“Oh, not again,” Butler muttered. 
“Yeah, you know, this trip could have been a fifteen-minute flight by helicopter,” Tommy complained, but he had a mischievous look in his eye.
“Don’t start,” said Matthew.
“But then, it’s a nice day.  I don’t know why we shouldn’t relax and enjoy AN HOUR AND A HALF in a speed boat on the high seas!”
Katharine looked from one man to the other.  Obviously, there was something going on.  “Ok, I’ll bite, what are you talking about?”  She asked.  
“Our friend Matthew here’s not a very good flyer; in fact you could say he’s a bit green about the whole thing.”
“You didn’t really have to bring that up, you know,” growled Matthew.  
“Speaking of bringing things up, I’ve seen this guy lose his lunch in an airliner before it even got off the ground.  Small planes and helicopters are even more fun.”
Matthew looked a bit pale, as if the very thought was causing him a wave of biliousness.  “You are a man without an ounce of mercy,”  Matthew accused Tommy.
Katharine laughed, “Seems like you two have been through a lot of things together,” she said, “how did you meet?”
Both men began to speak simultaneously.
“This jerk,” they both started, pointing to the other man.
“One at a time, please.”  Katherine begged.
“Age before beauty,” Tommy started.  
“Pearls before swine,” Butler countered.
“I before E except after C,” was Tommy’s riposte.
Butler laughed.  “Okay, okay.  I give up.  You have the stage.”
Tommy puffed up, and began eloquently.  “Once upon a time several years ago,  I swallowed my pride, and  drove my beat-up 76 Pontiac to Mobile, Alabama to interview for a job as a mechanical engineer at Butler Marine International, only to find out  that the job being offered wasn’t quite what I had hoped.  Broke and feeling sorry for myself, I decided to drown my sorrow in alcohol.  So I headed for the ocean, which meant driving down to Dauphin Island, where I found a bar with a deck overlooking the Gulf.  That was where I noticed this jerk,” he gestured at Butler, “trying to hoist an 1800 pound Cummins marine diesel engine out of a boat without the proper tackle.  While it was fun to watch, I figured that if I didn’t help him quickly, he was going to drop that engine right thru the bottom of the boat.  So I called out.  ‘For a beer, I’ll help you get that out of there.’”
Butler suddenly interrupted.  “And I answered, ‘for a beer, I’ll let you.’”  
Ignoring the interruption, Tommy continued.  “Several barked knuckles, two hours of sweaty effort and about a dozen beers between us got the engine safely on dry land.  All the while we labored; this bastard was picking my brains.”
“Actually, after I milked him for his story, I was trying to find out why he didn’t take the job offered to him.”
Katharine looked at Tommy, “didn’t you know who he was?”
“No, this sly bastard didn’t bother to tell me he was the heir-apparent to Butler Marine for another two hours.”
“I was just trying to figure out what this crackpot was good for,” said Matthew.
“Well he must have found out something, because just as we finished, Matthew says to me, ‘if you got a few minutes, I’d like you to see Nancy.’  It’s just a short walk down the road.”  
“As I remember it, I had to tempt you with more beer,” Butler laughed.
“Nancy?”  Katharine had to ask.
“As in NO VACANCY with the O and VAC burned out.  Laughing boy here lives in a 1950’s pink stucco motel on Dauphin Island at the mouth of Mobile Bay.”
“You live in a motel room?”  She asked incredulously.
“I live in the entire motel,” explained Matthew.  “I bought it just before it was going to be torn down.  I gutted it out, and made it into my home.  I kept the NANCY sign to fend off the tourists.”
“Just don’t ask what’s on the bottom of the swimming pool,” interrupted Tommy.
By now, Katherine had learned the rules of the game.  “Okay, what’s on the bottom of the swimming pool?”
“Oh, it’s just a ten-foot long, photographically accurate, scale model of the wreck of the Titanic.”  Butler modestly admitted, with a huge grin on his face.
“He won’t let anyone bring it up, either,” Tommy chimed in.  “It’s surprising to me that Bob Ballard hasn’t tried to dive on it.”
Matthew, refusing to defend himself any further, concentrated on piloting the boat into Victoria Harbor.

<<>>

Soon Tommy, Matthew, and Katharine were happily walking down Market Street in Victoria searching for a dress shop.  At midmorning, the fresh tropical sunshine reflected off the windows where shop after shop of handicrafts and trinkets lined the street.  Finally, they came across a little place next door to a grocery that carried a collection of breezy summer dresses in bright colors. 
As Katherine and Butler entered, Tommy suddenly begged off with a weak excuse.  “I’ll keep an eye out for trouble,” he said, staying on the street.
Katharine gave Matthew a questioning look.  “Are you expecting trouble?”
“No, that’s just Tommy’s excuse not to hang out in a women’s clothing shop.” 
In no time, a cool simple shift of dark blue and green caught Katharine’s eye.  Matthew appreciated the way it hugged her curves, the long skirt split at the thigh to show one shapely leg.  On a whim, Matthew also picked out a little sundress for her to try because she was still wearing the same clothes she had put on at her hotel the day before.  A pair of strappy sandals completed their purchases and they headed down the stairs into the bright sunlight.
“Hey, you know, I saw those twins again while you were inside,” Tommy said, falling into step with the pair.  “You know, the blondes we saw at the hotel yesterday?  Who’d a thought they’d be here today, too?” 
“That is weird.”  Butler casually commented, thinking little of the coincidence.
“You know, I thought they were staring at me yesterday, but today I know they were.  I wonder if…”  Tommy speculated.
“I think you’re obsessing over inaccessible women,” Butler laughed.  “Let’s go to the Sir Selwyn Market and see if we can get some lunch,” he suggested.  “Then I’m going to have to leave you two for a little while to run an errand.” 
“Great!  In lieu of love, I’ll settle for lunch and a beer,” said Tommy.
“Really, I thought you said you were only going to drink tea from now on…”
“You know I only said that because of the hangover.  You can’t hold me to anything I say in those circumstances.”
Katharine was barely listening to their verbal jousting.  A black pearl necklace in a shop window had caught her eye, and she was calculating whether she could afford to purchase it.  
“Ack, what did I just step in?”  Matthew asked, bending over to look at his shoe.  
“Hah, Pink Poodle Poop!” exclaimed Tommy, pointing ahead.  The same woman who had been at the hotel bar the day before was now tottering down the street in front of them, towed by her little pink poodle.
“What are the chances we’d see her again, too?”
Katharine turned to look once more at the jewelry store window, but this time she saw the reflection instead of the merchandise.  In the glass, she saw the two tall, spiky-haired blonde women looking directly at the three of them.  One was talking urgently on a cell phone.  
“Look at this,” she said quietly, tugging on Matthew’s sleeve.
“Nice pearls,” Matthew commented.
“No, look in the reflection.  Aren’t those the twins we saw in the hotel?  I think they’re watching us.”
“Uh-oh, I think you’re right,” said Tommy, also pretending to look at the merchandise in the window.  “You think they had something to do with the bar brawl on the roof of Katharine’s hotel yesterday?”
“Could be,” Butler replied.  “It’s always better to be safe than sorry.  Let’s see if they follow us into the market.”
The Sir Selwyn-Clarke Market’s ornate gate; painted in bright colors of red, yellow, and turquoise, led them into an enormous shelter over a busy open-air courtyard. 
The aisles were crowded with locals and tourists wandering among the many tables of brightly colored vegetables and tray after tray of gleaming fresh fish.  Next to them, stalls sold the sundry items needed for living or vacationing on a tropical island.  Voices in spirited debate over the price of today’s catch filled the vast space with a friendly roar.  
Tommy began to laugh, pointing to a large Coco De Mer on display.  “I’m sorry,” he gasped, “but that’s just plain indecent.”  The Seychelles’ iconic souvenir was a large double coconut, which looked very much like a woman’s bottom. 
“Stop acting like a hick and keep your eyes peeled for those twins,” hissed Butler. 
Tommy raised his eyes to scan the crowd and stumbled over an elegant white cattle heron.  The birds were recognized by locals and tourists alike as the market’s unofficial cleaning crew. 
“Bold little bastards,” Tommy complained, as one nipped at his ankle. 
Katharine, Tommy, and Butler dove into the chaos, mixing with the crowd.  
Matthew handed Katharine a pair of sunglasses to try on.  “Look in the mirror.  Do you see anyone following us?”  He asked her.  
“Yes, your Ice Maidens are standing next to the octopi.”
“Do you see the Poodle woman?”
“Nope, I think we lost her.”
“Ice Maidens is a good description of those two,” Matthew mused.  “They didn’t just appear out of the blue.  The only way they could have found us is if they have eyes on the Pelican.”  
“Do you think they’re dangerous?”  Katherine asked, suddenly concerned.
“Yes, I do.”  Both men answered simultaneously.
“So, what are we going to do?”  Katherine asked the pair. 
“Follow me, I have a plan.”  Butler commanded.
Then, in the worst escape ever attempted, Matthew suddenly ducked under the nearest vendor’s table and, crawling on hands and knees, led Katherine and Tommy toward a loading dock. 
Frantically following Butler’s butt, Katherine made two important discoveries.  First, she couldn’t crawl in a dress, and second she was kneeling in unidentifiable fish parts. 
Tommy, bumping his head, and skinning his knees, muttered to himself.  “This is a plan?”  
Shouts of curious and outraged vendors followed the trio’s progress.
A cattle heron who didn’t want to give up its place under a fish vendor’s table flapped its wings in Matthew’s face.  He swept it out of his way, whereupon it took flight, croaking complaints.  With all the ruckus the three were generating, things definitely weren’t going well.
“This isn’t working,” Tommy said, noting the escalating commotion.  “Those two blondes are headed this way.  I’ll create a diversion while you two slip away.  Call me, and we’ll meet back up later.”  
Tommy abruptly stood.  Taking a large fish from the table in front of him, he handed the vendor a wad of bills and said, “Mother, I’ll take this one.”
Not waiting for a reply, he turned and advanced on the twins.  “Let’s see if a frontal attack will work,” he muttered.
Intentionally, Tommy plowed head-on into one of the statuesque blondes and unexpectedly rebounded.  It was like hitting a well-padded pillar full force, the woman barely moved.  
“Oh, excuse me!” he bellowed, rubbing his shoulder.  “Are you guys, twins?  Any chance I can get a date?”  He brayed, improvising madly.
Katharine and Butler, nearing the loading dock, stopped and turned to see Tommy making a complete ass of himself.  
“Maybe we could do a …” Tommy started.
With a “pah” of disgust, the strikingly beautiful woman turned to her doppelganger.
“Elke,” she said, gesturing toward Katherine and Matthew in the distance, “Don’t lose them.” 
As she and her twin both advanced, Tommy whipped around in a great arc and slapped Eva full in the face with his cold fish.  Eva went down faster than an oyster on the half shell.  He immediately followed through and backhanded her sister with the deadly haddock.  Elke catapulted into the adjacent table, tossing its contents into the air.  Like an accomplished matador, Tommy flourished his fish, watching as a rain of squid covered the pair.
“That worked like a charm,” gloated Tommy.  With his customary bravado, he handed his slimy weapon to the nearest vendor.  Pointing at the squid-soaked women floundering on the floor, he said,   “The ladies will take everything to go.”

<<>>

When Butler told Katharine that they were meeting with an illegal arms dealer, Katherine expected find herself in a dingy office or in a dark back alley.  As it turned out, the meeting place was at a sunny beachside bar where bikini-clad servers smiled and swayed for tips.  Joseph, the friendly neighborhood arms dealer and close friend of Captain Z, favored this bar for all of his business dealings.  The servers all knew his standard order.  Even before he sat down, a dirty martini was on its way to the table. 
For nearly ten years, Joseph had operated a tour guide company in the Seychelles.  He had run boat tours to the outer islands, building the business up into a fleet of five boats.  Then tragedy struck.  Four years ago, Somali pirates captured one of his tour boats and killed everyone aboard.  Devastated, Joseph had decided to go into a less dangerous line of work; arms dealing.  
Katherine and Matthew found him at the bar, looking every bit the pleasant tour guide he no longer was.
“Mr. Butler, it is so nice to see you again.  And, I see you brought company with you.”
“Call me Matthew,” Butler returned.  “Joseph may I present Miss Katherine Annenberg, a dear friend.  Katherine, this is Joseph Labonville, a good friend of Captain Zamora.”  
“Aren’t you the young lady that invaded the beach party?”  Joseph asked, teasingly.
“Yes, I am.”  Katherine admitted, blushing furiously.  
“And she is also the reason I’m here to see you today.”  Butler added.
“Did you discover what it was all about?”  Joseph politely asked, waving his hands toward Katherine.
“I think we’re in the process of doing just that.”  Matthew replied.  “Odd as it sounds; I think it has to do with someone named Levasseur.  For the last two days, we’ve been watched by a couple of women; twins, very tall, statuesque, and blonde.”
“Elke and Eva,” supplied Joseph instantly.  “It’s a small community,” he said, shrugging.  “Look, Matthew, this is bad.  If Elke and Eva are on your tail, it means that Mr. Levasseur is interested in you.  He’s a very dangerous man.  Those two women are La Busse’s bodyguards…with benefits, according to the rumor.”
“I suspected as much.  Last night we caught a couple of assassins sneaking onto the Pelican.  It looks like they were after this man, Kobi, the one we rescued from Little Curieuse.  He told us that he escaped from Levasseur’s yacht after being nearly beaten to death.  He also claims to be following the trail of some Egyptian antiquities that belong to Kenya.”
“That doesn’t sound like Levasseur to me.  He’s more into guns.  I’ve never known him to have more than a passing interest in antiquities, although I hear he does have a fine collection of African tribal weapons at his compound on the north shore of Mahe.”
“When you say guns, do you mean selling guns?”  Butler asked, becoming alarmed.  “Do you deal with him?”
“I approached him about it once earlier in my career, but he wouldn’t talk with me.  He doesn’t do small deals.  He’s really more interested in large transactions, as in enough guns for an army.”  
“That confirms what Kobi said he overheard.  Apparently, the Egyptian antiquities are somehow part of an upcoming deal.  Who is this Levasseur anyway?”
“No one really knows.  He took over the gunrunning business from an old German back in 1979.  He says he’s a businessman, but he keeps up the image of a playboy for the European tabloids.  He donates to charities when it suits his purposes.  He spends much of his time here, but I know he also has a residence in Dubai.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to take him on, so Captain Z and I were hoping you could help us out.”
“I think I’ve got a few things you’ll appreciate,” said Joseph smiling.
After an hour of fierce negotiations that culminated in the maxing out of a couple of credit cards, Butler became the owner of enough firepower and ammunition to foment a small insurrection.  His final task was to arrange to have his purchases delivered to the Pelican later that afternoon.  That is, all except for a couple of neat little Berettas, which Butler picked up for Tommy and himself, just in case.  Ten minutes later, Matthew and Katherine were in a cab on their way to meet Tommy, who had arranged for Trask to pick them up with the helicopter.  
It will be Christmas in March for Trask when he opens the presents I bought him today.  Butler thought to himself. 

<<>>

“You know she’s watching.  She won’t let you be until you drink it,” Tommy laughed.
“I don’t know what’s worse, the sickness or the cure.”  Matthew made a face as he sipped the bitter tea Mrs. Yan had forced on him after he staggered off the helicopter, shaky and nauseated.  “I really am feeling better; all I needed was to get off that damn helicopter.  Besides, I don’t have time to worry about a little case of airsickness.”
“Good, because I have something new for you to worry about,” interrupted Trask.
Butler settled back in his chair, sighing.  “Lay it on me,” he ordered.
“I think it is a bad idea to go to the SUBIOS dinner tonight, taking into account the attacks, and that we know we’re being watched.” 
“I’ve got to agree with Trask on this one, Matthew,” Tommy added, “after the Hotel attack and the incident in the market earlier today, they have to be pretty pissed off.  It’s just too risky.” 
Butler leaned back and considered both men’s objections.  “As much as I’m not in the mood for a food analogy right now, I have to say this situation is like a pot of gumbo; you can’t really tell what’s in it until you give it a good stir.  We need to get some solid proof that Levasseur is behind the attacks.  To do that, we’re going to have to get Katharine out in public view.  I’ve talked with her and she has agreed that she and I are going to SUBIOS tonight to stir the pot.  While we both understand we’re taking a risk, we aren’t fools.  We’ll take some company.”  Turning to Trask, he continued,   “Give me two big guys who look like bodyguards, to give their surveillance something to look at.  Then I’d like Joe and Jawid to come separately for backup.  Have them stay on the perimeter so that the baddies won’t know they’re with us.”
“Just to be on the safe side,” Captain Z decided, “After dark, I’ll reposition the Pelican closer to where you’ll be, we’ll drop anchor two miles south of the main shipping lane, halfway between Mahe and Praslin.”  

<<>>

Mrs. Yan’s bitter potion must have done some good.  Matthew survived the helicopter flight to Victoria that afternoon without upheaval.
The cool breeze played with wisps of Katharine’s shoulder length hair as she and Matthew Butler mingled with the SUBIOS crowd.  Everyone was enjoying cocktails on the beach, adjacent to the tent where a much anticipated seafood feast was to be served.  After the banquet, the awards would be announced.  Katharine’s eyes kept straying to the multicolored trophies lined up on the presentation dais like a little army of oversized jewels.  Katharine’s photo was up for Best Image - People’s Choice.  Despite being recognized as one of the nominees and receiving congratulations from many of her compatriots, she was having trouble keeping her mind on the small talk going on around her.
The gathering of photographers buzzed with speculation about the nominated photos, videos and documentaries that had been screened throughout the week.  For those in the business, SUBIOS was an international event.  Many of the great underwater photographers from around the world were in attendance.  It was also an important local event for the Seychellois, with photography seminars, diving instruction, and exhibitions for local schoolchildren.  The ‘little islands,’ as the locals referred to them, with their clear water and unusual granite geography, attracted a widely varied group of artists.  Tonight everyone seemed to be ready to have a good time.  Diving, photography and hedonism reigned.
Katharine was grateful that Matthew was keeping the group around him entertained with tales of the some of the more interesting places he had dived, so that she, in her distracted state, did not have to make conversation.  Even though Matthew knew little about underwater photography, he could hold his own in any conversation on the subject of diving.  He had begun diving at a young age near his home town of Mobile, Alabama.  The Gulf of Mexico was rich with dive sites, including many wrecked ships, which called to a young man looking for adventure.  Later, his job had allowed him to dive some of the fabled sites from around the world.  Katharine noticed how his blue eyes flashed when he grinned as he told of a dive he had taken in his teens.  She realized his boyish charm and confidence was what made him so appealing.  His entertaining tale of woe, told in a smooth, slightly southern accent, drew in women like kittens to catnip.
“So I had to call my Dad to come bail me out for night-diving naked in a National Park, two hundred miles from home,” he said, finishing his story with a flourish and drawing appreciative laughter from his mostly female audience.  He gave a little bow and drew Katharine away from the group.  
“Don’t look now,” he whispered, “but the Ice Maidens are back.” 
“Dammit!  I don’t want to leave,” Katharine angrily reacted.  “This is why I came to the Seychelles.” 
Immediately she regretted her outburst, “Sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it came out,” she apologized.
“I understand,” returned Matthew sympathetically.  “I don’t think we need to leave just yet.  This is why we brought bodyguards.  They’ll watch our backs.  For now, I want to hang around and see what develops.”  
Unlike the two bulky, military types in ill-fitting suits who had come along to play the role of the visible bodyguards, the invisible bodyguards, Joe and Jawid, easily melded into the crowd of SUBIOS revelers.  Joe was thin and short statured with straight brown hair that lay flat against his head, giving him a nondescript look.  “I look like an ordinary Joe,” he would say, laughing.  
Jawid’s dark features stood out against his pale skin and he had the thin, wiry build of his Afghan heritage.  Wearing tourist garb of polo shirts and blue jeans they looked like a couple of slightly nerdy, ill at ease geeks.  Their deceptive air of social incompetence made it easy for them to remain on the fringe of the group.  As far as the partygoers were concerned, both men were wallflowers.  In truth, they were top members of Trask’s security team who just happened to excel at both armed and unarmed combat.  
Using his cell phone, Matthew signaled all four bodyguards, warning them of the presence of the two women.  Dinner chimes got the crowd moving toward the tent.  Low square tables, only six inches off the ground, were surrounded by beach blankets and piles of cushions, so that the diners could sit or recline next to them like Romans at a feast.  The centerpiece of each table was a huge metal bowl filled with the distinctive spiny lobster of the Seychelles, grilled and drenched in butter.  Everyone eagerly filled their plates from these central bowls, while servers ran a marathon circuit, offering delicacies from the barbecue grills set up just beyond one end of the tent.  As Katharine closed her eyes to savor a fork full of silky ‘Crab Cari’ that Matthew offered her, he found himself sharing her sensual enjoyment of the wonderful feast.  It was hard to keep his mind on any potential danger.  
Matthew had positioned himself carefully so that he could see where the ubiquitous twins were seated.  They had joined a tall, strongly built man with a dominant buzzard beak of a nose and casually elegant attire.  He reminded Matthew of a gleaming bird of prey. 
I bet that’s Levasseur, he thought, I wonder what he’s doing here.  
Levasseur had a prominent table right in front of the stage and, as the banquet progressed, Matthew noted how many people from the SUBIOS organization came by to speak with him.  He must have made a substantial donation, thought Butler; having been with his father on many philanthropic occasions himself.  They’re all coming by to make their ‘thank you' to the important sponsor.
He stood, taking a moment to smile at Katharine, elegantly reclining in her nest of pillows on the beach blanket.  “Please excuse me for a moment my dear.  Its time to stir the gumbo.”  He kissed her hand and turned toward Levasseur’s table.
He was impressed that Levasseur never glanced in his direction as he approached.  The two Ice Maidens tensed, both fully prepared to leap from their cushions and kill Butler on site.  Matthew flashed a brilliant smile and held his hands out away from his body.  Levasseur noticed all the gesturing, and in a surprise move waved his bodyguards away.  
“Mr. Levasseur, I presume?”  Butler asked, leaning down over the man’s table, but not offer his hand.  “I’m sorry to inform you that the envoys you sent to my ship last night won’t be able to do any ‘diplomatic work’ in the near future.”   
“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr…?”  Levasseur replied, easing backwards so that Butler no longer loomed over him.
“My name is Matthew Butler, and you know very well what I’m talking about.  Your two assassins made it very clear whose errand boys they were.”  In truth, the two mercenaries had not said a word, but Matthew wanted to see Levasseur’s reaction.  Levasseur didn’t rise to the bait although he did look like he wanted to rip out Butler’s heart and roast it over the open grill.
“What favor did you buy with your little donation here tonight?”  Butler pushed.  “Or, perhaps it was just a blind eye turned toward a certain gun deal?”  The expression on Levasseur’s face never changed, but Matthew caught the quick dart of his eyes, checking to see who might have overheard the comment. 
“Oh my, those are such incendiary remarks, coming from someone whose ship lies nearby.”  Levasseur returned, his voice as smooth as oil.  “What is your ship’s name?  Oh, yes.  It’s the ‘Sitting Duck,’ isn’t it?”  Titters of laughter circled the table.  “It seems to me that your little ship is a tempting target for pirates in these dangerous times.”
“No pirates around here, except the one I’m looking at,” Butler rejoined.
“Pirates have ways of dealing with people who stick their noses where they don’t belong.  It is one of the mysteries of the Sea; people suddenly disappear.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.  I have a most irritating way of hanging around where and when I’m not wanted.”  Butler laughed.  “I’m afraid you’ll just have to put up with me.”
“Take care, you might find yourself just hanging…”  Levasseur suggested.
“Speaking of hanging,” Butler replied, “Wasn’t the first ‘La Buse’ hanged?  Be careful.  You don’t want to follow in his footsteps.”  
“I’m so glad to have made your acquaintance,” Levasseur suddenly announced, ending the conversation.  
“Maybe we’ll see each other again, real soon.”  Butler replied, nodding to the twins.  As he turned away from Levasseur’s table, he could feel the heat of their glares knifing into his back.
Matthew returned to his place beside Katharine just in time for dessert, a cool coconut sorbet. 
“What was that all about?”  She asked, having witnessed the cutting looks coming from Levasseur’s table.
Before he could answer, an electronic thump and the prerequisite squeal of the microphone directed their attention to the dais.
“Good evening everyone, I hope you are enjoying this fabulous feast.  We’d like to thank Mr. Alexander Levasseur for his great generosity in sponsoring this evening’s dinner,” began the man at the microphone, opening the evening’s ceremony.  He clapped his hands high in front him in a grand gesture designed to tell the audience ‘you need to clap now.’  
Katherine began pulling at Matthew’s shirtsleeve and hissing like a tormented cat.
“Mr. Levasseur has also made a very generous contribution to our Reef Rehabilitation project.”  Levasseur waved his hand like a King accepting the accolades from a crowd of serfs.  
“No lack of ego there,” thought Butler, as Katherine tugged even more insistently.  “What’s the matter?”  He asked.
Katharine turned astonished eyes on him, “That was Levasseur?”  She squeaked, swallowing hard.  “Why did you talk to him?”
“Just stirring the pot to see what kind of scum floats to the top,” Matthew answered.
The MC went on to thank the ‘Save Our Seas Foundation’ and several other sponsors who had contributed to the week of events, which made up the SUBIOS festival.  Matthew looked over at Katherine, her nervous anticipation of the awards announcement expressed itself in her delicately flushed face and parted lips.
The evening darkened around them while the awards were handed out.  Later there would be a bonfire on the beach and a demonstration of Moutia, the traditional dance of the Seychelles, followed by an invitation to dance for those brave enough or drunk enough to participate.  
The tent lay in near darkness, illuminated only by candles on the tables and brightly flaming torches placed around the perimeter.  Clips of the nominated videos were being shown against a screen on the stage before the awarding of the prize.  The general gloom made it difficult for Matthew to watch the activity at Levasseur’s table.  After what seemed to Katharine like hours, the category in which she was nominated; the People’s Choice category, rolled around.  For a few seconds her image lit up the screen; the vertical wall of a wrecked ship covered in a mass of brilliantly colored coral, with a loggerhead turtle silhouetted against a marine blue halo of the sun shining through the water in the background.  When they announced, “Second place goes to Katharine Annenberg of Durban, South Africa” Matthew heard her sigh, a sound not quite like that of a collapsed soufflé, but he was not taking his eyes off Levasseur.  The haughty pirate gave no sign of recognition at the name but the ice maidens whipped around to stare at Katharine. 
Confident that Joe and Jawid were vigilantly watching, Matthew tore his attention away from Levasseur for a moment.  Turning to Katharine, he took her hand and smiled regretfully.  
“It was a beautiful image,” he said, knowing there was nothing better he could say.  
She smiled back, “Its okay,” she muttered, suddenly blushing.
In the sudden glow of a bright reflection from the video screen, Butler saw the two women get up, leave the tent, and then return almost immediately.  This gets more interesting, he thought.  What are you two up to?  
When the evening finally broke up, Matthew watched Levasseur leave in a black stretch limo with the two Ice Maidens at his side.  
Well, we seem to have gotten away with it, at least for now, he thought, finally turning his full attention to Katharine.  They strolled away from the bonfire and the urgent beat of the dance music, leaving their two looming bodyguards watching from a distance.  
Letting the waves lap at their bare feet, they walked slowly.  Katharine sighed, “I knew it was an outside chance that I’d win, but even so it’s hard not to be disappointed.”  
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, “still; second place isn’t too bad, really.”  
She smiled, “I appreciate the thought, but you don’t have to make it better.  I’m disappointed, but also strangely relieved.  Success would have meant I’d have to work harder to do even better next time.  Which is what I’ll do anyway, of course.”  
Butler turned away from the water, wrapping his arm around Katharine’s bare shoulders.  He looked up the beach just in time to see the two blonde Ice Maidens moving toward them, and noted that the two visible bodyguards were moving to intercept them, and that Joe and Jawid further away were also on an interception course.  
Uh-oh, I thought those two left already.  Butler’s full attention was on the women, so he didn’t notice the slight splash of water that signaled the arrival of four black clad frogmen from the waves behind him.  He and Katharine were quickly grabbed and hauled into the water before either one of them had time to react.  
Matthew struggled, fighting the diver whose hand covered his nose and mouth.  He twisted and shoved with all his strength at the man whose grip was like steel but to no avail.  A second diver approached and he felt something bind his legs and arms so that he could do nothing but thrash like a beached Orca.  A quick look told him that the same thing was being done to Katharine.  
The Ice Maidens were decoys, Butler silently cursed.  Damn!  We fell for it.
Terror and fury rose up in him as the trussed couple was dragged away into deeper water.  His blue eyes met Katherine’s terrified brown ones just as dark water closed over their heads.  The hand over his mouth and nose never relented, filling his panicked mind with a claustrophobic dread.  Powerful kicks from the diver’s flippers pulled Matthew and Katharine helplessly against the pressure of the waves.  Blue and white lights flashed before Matthew’s eyes as he used up the last of his oxygen, thrashing his body wildly to get free of the diver’s grip. 

<<>>

Joe and Jawid, along with the two burly bodyguards piled into the Butler Project helicopter.  They had contacted the Pelican the moment they discovered Matthew and Katharine had disappeared.  Butler’s two bodyguards had watched as Matthew and Katharine were dragged into the water, but by the time they had run to the spot, all sign of them was gone.  They dove repeatedly into the water, but could find nothing in the darkness.  Their frantic search gave the Ice Maidens time to withdraw while all of the attention was on the shoreline.  
Trask’s voice came over their headsets; “Search the area for boats anchored offshore, I’m sending over a team of divers.  In the meantime, we’ll try to determine where this Levasseur might have taken them.” 
Kobi, who was up and around for the first time since being brought on board the Pelican, had joined Tommy in the machine shop where he was tinkering with the engine of the ill-fated Jet Ski.  When word came in about the capture of Matthew and Katharine, both men felt the urge for immediate action.  
“We’ll take out the dolphin,” Tommy notified Trask, as he and Kobi suited up.  “The two of us can quickly cover the area north of the SUBIOS beach, if you’ll cover the south.  With our fuel reserve, I figure we can search for a couple of hours or so.” 

<<>>

The sopping wet end of a bath towel came out of the darkness with considerable force and struck Matthew Butler full in the face.  The pain was excruciating for a brief moment before becoming just another one of a dozen new pains that were queuing up along the tormented synapses of his brain.  He blinked at a bright light in his eyes, unable to focus beyond it.  Smooth, distinctly soft hands lifted him off the floor and pushed him into an amazingly comfortable couch.  He tried to inventory his body.  His hands were bound behind his back with what felt like a nylon zip tie.  It was painfully tight and he knew by the sensation that it would soon cause his hands to swell.  Fortunately, his feet were unfettered.  Things were looking, if not up, at least horizontal. 
“Welcome back, Mister Butler.”  A refined voice with a clipped British accent offered the greeting.  “I hope you and Miss Annenberg have had a pleasant rest, because it’s time to pay the plumber.”
“Its piper, asshole,” Butler muttered, not quite under his breath.  He risked a quick glance over to a nearby chair where Katherine sat.  Her body posture indicated that she was alive, hurting, and frightened.  
A buzz of conversation nearby generated a correction.  “I do hate tawdry colloquialisms.  They have ruined a once elegant language.  Very well, I stand corrected.  It’s time to pay the piper.”  
“Okay, you stand corrected.  Now, who the hell are you, and where are we?”
Stereo sniggering echoed in the background.
The voice returned.  “My name is Simon Njuguna.  As of four days ago I was the Charge-de-Affairs for the President of Kenya,” the voice boasted.  “Today, I am, by default, the Acting Minister of Protocol.  In a few months, according to my plan, I will be the President-Elect of Kenya.”
Butler blinked, squinting at the shapes standing before him.  Slowly a vision of malevolence came into focus; an elegantly dressed black man flanked by the two Ice Maidens, Else and Eva. 
Butler glanced around.  They were in a large, expensively decorated room.  In front of him, a wall of windows showed a stunning view of a small bay and the dark expanse of ocean beyond.  On the opposite wall was an enormous fish tank, decorated with various kinds of coral and dominated by two large Moray Eels, winding their way back and forth in a leisurely dance.  
“You are in the home of my good friend, Alexander Levasseur.”  Simon continued.  “Mr. Levasseur has been temporarily detained, but asked me to entertain the two of you in his absence.”
“And, your idea of entertainment is to kidnap us from a public beach?”  Katherine erupted with volcanic fury.  
“No, my dear, my idea of entertainment is to eliminate any little difficulties that prevent me from achieving my goal.”  Simon snapped back.  “You two have become a difficulty, and Mr. Levasseur and I have decided that you need to be eliminated.”
“So, what you’re telling me,” Butler translated, “is that you three lackeys are just waiting for the boss to show.”
Simon took a deep breath, ran a hand through his tight curly hair, and changed tactics.
“I think it’s time to give the both of you a little history lesson.”  With that foreboding statement, Simon removed a leather bag from the drawer of an ornate teak desk.  
“Do you know what this is?”  He grinned with Cheshire ferocity, as he opened the bag and removed a dark object. 
Sudden inhales of breath, followed by delighted cackling erupted from the two evil women.  Coiled in Simon’s fist was a short black whip. 
“That’s a bullwhip!”  Katherine gasped in horror. 
“Not quite.  Bullwhips are made of braided leather.  As you can see, this one is very smooth,” the man cooed, as he slid the whip across Katherine’s hand.  
Katherine, in panic, jerked backward in her seat only to be pushed back toward a leering Simon.  
“This is a Sambok – a hellish instrument of pain, once quite popular with Belgian Army Officers in the Congo.  It is made from the penis of a rhino, lovingly dried, trimmed, oiled and stretched until it is about three feet long and about as big around as your finger.”  Simon arose from his chair and leaned carelessly on the corner of the desk, all the while slowly caressing the Sambok.  
“It has been used for more than two centuries to punish the deserving.  As you might know, the Chinese have a torture called the death of 10,000 cuts.  Well, death by Sambok is the African version of that torture.  A good cut with a Sambok usually requires stitches to seal the wound.  One strong blow across a bare back will easily cut flesh to the bone.”  
Simon raised the Sambok over his head, and with all his might brought it down on the padded leather arm of the overstuffed chair in which Katharine sat.  The leather tore instantly, tossing shredded stuffing into the air.  Butler could see the lust arise in the eyes of the two bodyguards as the blow struck.  
“I have witnessed men crippled for life after just a single session.  Years ago, I watched Idi Amin personally execute a would-be assassin with a Sambok in front of several hundred witnesses.  Of course, back then he wasn’t the fat slob he eventually became.  He was very strong and he put all the power he could into each blow.  The first ten strokes cut the man’s back to ribbons.  After 30 strokes, he was unconscious, and Amin stopped the execution to revive the unfortunate.  In due course, his punishment continued.  In the end the would-be assassin received 100 strokes, but he died long before the last stroke was laid.”  
Simon was now striking his palm with the Sambok harder and harder.  
“Those who have received the caress of the Sambok, say that a single stroke is at first bitter cold and then instantly hot.  The cuts are ragged and tend to scar horribly.  Disfigurement is a certainty.”  Simon smiled wickedly at Katherine.  Instead of striking his palm, he now went back to caressing the Sambok.  
Butler understood Simon’s psychological manipulation of Katherine.  It was obvious that he was trying to draw out every bit of terror from her soul.  He knew if he warned Katherine not to succumb to Simon’s mental torture, both of them would suffer physically for spoiling his fun.  
“Over the years, I, too, have had to use it to straighten out a wayward servant or two.  You would be amazed how obedient one becomes after just a short session with the Sambok.”
“You sick bastard!”  Butler growled.
Simon ignored the insult and continued.
“It’s always been one of my secret fantasies to see this used on a woman, but I’ve never had the opportunity, so your arrival at SUBIOS was a gift from the gods.  They say that a rank amateur can kill a victim in just a few strokes, but it takes an expert to keep them alive.”  
“Mr. Levasseur, bless his black soul, is a true sadist whose favorite victims are women.”  Simon began flicking the whip back and forth with his wrist, emphasizing his words.  Katherine had become mesmerized by the tip of the whip.  With each flick, her eyes followed the movement.  “You know, I’ve always suspected that the pain from the Sambok is even more excruciating for a woman, because their nerve endings are closer to the surface than a man’s.”  He stroked the oiled leather whip and smiled.  “Yet, women are said to have a greater tolerance for pain than men.”  Simon turned to Katherine, “I will take great delight watching him use the Sambok on you, my dear.”  
Simon reached out and caressed Catherine’s cheek with his free hand as he slid the length of Sambok over her shoulder, letting it smoothly slide down her back like the deadly mamba.  
Katherine gasped and visibly shuddered at his touch.  
Butler couldn’t stand it any more.  In a burst of profanity that would have shocked a sailor, he verbally attacked Simon in the hope of drawing the bastard’s attention away from Katherine.
Simon laughed, “Oh, save your curses, Mr. Butler.  I’m certain Levasseur will want to do you first.”  He thought for a moment, as if the fate of his two victims were something weighing on his mind, before speaking again.  
“You know, Mr. Butler, I believe it could be a fine evening’s entertainment to watch Alexander cut you into dog food.  Until then, if you will excuse me, I have other tasks to complete.”  With that, he threw the Sambok onto the teak desk, and turned to the bodyguards with instructions. 
“Lock these two up until your Master returns.  I suspect that they’d like some time to reflect on what little remains of their lives.”  
With unsubtle pokes and pointed kicks, the two Ice Maidens bustled Butler and Katherine down a narrow corridor to a small pantry closet, and unceremoniously locked them inside. 

<<>>

It was just dark enough in the pantry that Katherine couldn’t make out what Butler was doing, but in her mind his gyrations were bordering on the obscene. 
“Damn, I can’t get a good enough grip.  Here, can you turn around and hold this?”  Butler requested. 
She carefully maneuvered herself in the tiny space to give him access to her bound hands.  
“Just what are you doing?”  She asked hopefully, trying to get a grip on the roughly rectangular object he pushed toward her.
“Working to get us out of these nylon ties before our hands go numb.”
“Do you have an escape plan?” 
With a mighty heave, the square container parted suddenly and a greasy object flew past Katherine’s head, ricocheted off a shelf and landed at her feet in a soggy splat.  A slightly tainted nitrate-loaded odor rose from the juices that dribbled from the can down the back of her beautiful blue dress.  
“No, but I do have the next best thing, a can of Spam.  One of the nicest things about Spam is that even in the dark one can recognize the product by the distinctive shape of the container.  We were lucky.  The rest of the cans in here are all steel and require an opener.  Fortunately, Spam has a pull-tab lid with what I hope will be just the right kind of edge to cut through a zip tie.  Hold still and I’ll cut you free.”
In less than a minute, he cut through her ties and passed over the greasy lid so she could return the favor.
“But, now what do we do?”  Katherine asked as she industriously sawed at Butler’s restraints.  
“The door is locked from the outside; however, its hinges are on this side.  With a little bit of luck, I can pry up the pins on the hinges and we’ll be able to waltz out of here.” 
It took only a couple of minutes to saw through Butler’s zip ties.  Once free, Matthew turned to the door and began working on the hinges using the Spam lid and a #10 can of pork and beans as a hammer. 
Katherine, having little to do but encourage Butler, idly played with the empty can. 
“Ugh, who eats this stuff?”
“Hawaiians mostly, but back in the early 60’s, it was a mainstay luncheon meal for an entire generation of school children.”  Butler answered tartly, and then shuddered violently at the memory.  
“You’re not old enough to have been one of those.”
“Nope, I missed that era by a decade or two, but Momma didn’t.”
“I’m guessing that your mother must have served it regularly.”
“No, Momma only made it once; I distinctly remember those strangely curled slabs swimming in a fluorescent tomato sauce.”  
“Let me guess, everyone gagged…” 
“…and, we all went out for pizza.”
Just then, the last hinge pin came free.  “Rule #46,” Butler proclaimed, as he pulled the door off the hinges and carefully escorted Katherine out of the pantry, “never get kidnapped without a handy can of Spam.”  
Matthew quickly led the way to the kitchen door, which opened invitingly to the back of the sprawling steel and glass mansion.  An alarm began to wail the moment they opened it.  “Well, they know we’re out now,” he said, “let’s go.”  The pair headed down a path that led around the side of the house and joined with another one leading toward the dock.  A sixth sense told Matthew to get off the path just as a guard came running around the house behind them.  Grabbing Katharine around the waist, he dived into the underbrush of ferns and palms lining the sides of the path.  He heard something tear as he continued to roll, dragging her away, just as a burst of machine gun fire kicked up the soil where they had been a moment before. 
“You okay?” he whispered.  Not really waiting for her answer, he got her up and moving again as quickly as possible. 
“It’s my dress,” she explained, as she stumbled along behind him.  “It’s a lot shorter than it used to be.”  
Abruptly, he dropped to the ground again, so quickly that she blundered over his feet and landed on top of him.  “Look who’s coming,” he whispered and pointed.
The twin Ice Maiden bodyguards were jogging up the path.  As they passed, Butler noticed that both carried automatic weapons.  
“Come on.”  Matthew whispered, taking the girl’s hand.  Butler and Katherine eased from their hiding place, and hurried as quietly as possible down to the dock.  
Katharine immediately headed to one of  the Zodiacs tied halfway down the dock, but Matthew slowed at the sight of the Rapier.  Levasseur’s sinister black yacht loomed menacingly in the darkness against the starlit sky. 
“Forget the Zodiacs,” he said.  “We’ll take this.”
“We what?” she squeaked, as he grabbed her hand and ran toward the rear boarding deck.  
“If we took a zodiac, they’d catch us with this boat in no time.”
Seeing someone moving around inside the salon, Matthew pushed Katherine behind a bollard.  He put a finger to his lips, and then crept onto the boat.  Katherine barely had time to duck down behind the bollard as two panels of black glass at the rear of the Rapier slid aside and Levasseur emerged.
Having no reason to suspect trouble, the arms dealer stepped imperiously from the well-lit interior into the gloom of the main deck, expecting to see his two sinuous bodyguards.  Matthew crouched and leapt from the rear deck.  Spreading his arms wide he caught Levasseur around the torso.  The tackle carried both men to the deck in a loud crash.  Levasseur struggled, trying to go for the gun in his shoulder holster.  A couple of seasons of high-school wrestling gave Butler the skills he needed now.  Getting his feet under him, he hauled the big man into the air and unceremoniously threw him over the boat’s railings, into the dark water.  
Katherine hurriedly scrambled aboard just as Matthew slapped the control to fold in the stern loading deck.  
“Gotta go now,” he bellowed, racing for the cockpit.  
Thanking his stars that the keys were in their slot as he had hoped they would be, Matthew started the gas turbines of the powerful black yacht.
“Should I cast off the ropes or something?”  Katharine asked, looking around in amazement at the minimalist elegance of the ship.  
“No time,” Matthew replied, “besides, with the power this baby’s got, she’ll break free, no any trouble at all.”  
At the sound of the Rapier’s diesel engines and Xander’s spluttered screams of rage, the Ice Maidens and the two guards from the house raced down the path and onto the dock.  
“This’ll give them nightmares,” Butler said, gunning the ship’s powerful engines.  “Time to say good night,” he crowed, as the yacht churned a frothy torrent of seawater and effortlessly tore the dock from its pilings, dumping the twins, the guards, and their useless machine guns into the bay.
Katharine’s mouth dropped open, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
Spinning the wheel so that the yacht pulled away from the dock in a graceful arc, Matthew pushed the throttles to the max.  .
With a roar, the newly liberated Rapier made its escape, still dragging the remnants of the dock like a xylophone waterskiing in its wake.  The zodiacs, ironically still tied to the remains of the dock, flapped along for the ride.
Bracing against the Captain’s chair, Butler pulled the girl close to him.  “I hope you’re enjoying yourself,” he joked
Katherine stared at him in disbelief.  “Well, what do we do now?”  She asked.
“How about you go below and see if there’s any food on this tub,” said Mathew.  “There’s nothing like a daring escape and the smell of spam to make a man hungry.”  
“Are you kidding?  How can you think of food when they could be coming after us at any moment?”
“I suppose they will, but until then we might as well enjoy the ride.  She’s a sweet ship, that’s for sure,” said Matthew, still riding on an adrenalin high.  Katharine turned to go below, wondering about the sanity of the man.  Stopping abruptly, she backed into Matthew standing at the helm.  
Matthew turned to see a terrified youth emerge from below, carrying a full trash bag.  Even though Matthew was not armed, the young man dropped the trash bag and threw his hands in the air, his eyes wide with surprise and fear.
“Please don’t hurt me,” he burbled, nearly in tears.  “I’m not one of them.  I’m just the steward.” 
“Well, as I see it, you’ve got two choices,” growled Butler in his best West Texas accent.  “You jump overboard and swim for it, or…” 
The steward’s eyes opened even wider, as he realized that the shoreline was receding rapidly and nothing had been mentioned about floatation devices.  “Or?” he asked, fervently hoping for an option that offered any improvement on his situation.  
“Or, you could rustle us up a snack, and I’ll see that you get safely to Victoria.”
The young man nodded enthusiastically and fled back down the galley steps.  
Now that they were well away from Xander’s compound and headed out into open water, Matthew turned the radio to channel sixteen and keyed the mike. 
“Hello Pelican, anybody out there?”  He called, “Didja miss me?”
Captain Z’s welcome voice came over the radio, “Glad to hear your voice, my friend.  It seems our redshirts misplaced you.”
“It’s a good story.  I’ll tell you when we get back onboard, but right now, we need someone to pick us up.  Have you got anybody on the water?”
“Trask and his team are out in the Rusty Duck, looking for Xander’s compound, and Tommy’s out with Kobi in the Dolphin searching the area where you disappeared.”
“Call everyone off, and have the Duck rendezvous with us at ‘Little Curieuse’ as soon as possible.  We picked up a ride, but we’re going to have to dump it.  It’s a little hot.  Oh, and tell them not to shoot at us; we’re on Levasseur’s yacht.”
“Wilco.  There’ll be a crowd waiting to hear this story…  Pelican out.”

<<>>

Back at Levasseur’s compound things were not going well.
“Tell that bastard Larson to get back here with my helicopter and go after them,” screamed Xander, throwing his ruined silk shirt into Elke’s face.  “I’ll have his balls for leaving me with such a festering pile of incompetent slime!”  Stripping out of his soggy clothing, he stepped into the shower still ranting.  
Elke wisely retreated.  She knew from previous experience not to speak when the boss was in a rage, and she had never seen one quite as bad as this.  She met Eva’s eyes.  Both women nodded imperceptibly.  Neither of them would ever acknowledge that La Buse had not only been dumped in the bay but that he had been done in by, of all things, an amateur.  The American had made fools of them all; humiliated the boss, and stolen his 30 million dollar yacht, leaving them stranded until Larson got back with the helicopter.  With Xander’s ire raised, anyone foolish enough to mention the name Butler would die screaming.  

<<>>

Matthew piloted the big yacht around to the cove on Little Curieuse where Katharine had first crashed their party.  He cut the engines while they waited for the Rusty Duck to arrive.  Rummaging through the cabinets in the main cabin, he found a blanket with which to cover Katharine, who sat shivering with shock on one of the benches that lined the salon.  Munching on a surprisingly good omelet, he sat studying the control consoles of the Rapier.  There were two, one on either side of a smoked glass door in the center of the bridge.  One appeared to be navigation, the other, propulsion and steering.  He had figured out the three throttles and a joystick, and of course, the steering wheel, but a vast number of buttons, sliders, indicator lights, and numerous readout screens took some investigation.  He opened the door between the consoles; it was a gull wing door, opening upward like the doors on some Ferraris and Lamborghinis.  
When the Rusty Duck finally arrived, he transferred Katharine and the frightened steward into their care, turned the yacht and gunned the engines, driving the enormous black hull as far up into the soft beach sand as possible.  
It’ll take a bit of effort to get her free from that, he thought, as Trask drew the Duck up alongside the stern.  “One less tool for Levasseur to bring against us,” he said, handing Katharine over and then leaping lightly into the Duck.  The steward timidly followed. 

<<>>

It was well past midnight when Trask brought the Rusty Duck up the ramp into the cavernous belly of the Pelican.  Second Officer Martin and two crewmembers were holding down the first watch.  Eventually Butler finished his story of the capture, and the audacious escape.  After only two retellings, he finally persuaded everyone to get some sleep.  With everyone tucked in their bunks sawing sea logs, the ship was as quiet as mass snoring would allow.
At 0200 hours, the duty radar operator picked up a mysterious blip.  The Pelican’s thirty-mile radar initially bounced back an indistinct outline.  The image was poor enough for an inexperienced operator to ignore the blip as a trick of the weather.  Fortunately, the duty operator, a man of fifteen years experience, noted that the blip was moving at a rapid rate of speed directly toward the Pelican.  The operator, no fool, immediately notified second officer Martin.  Warned to look out for anything suspicious, Martin decided to keep an eye on it.  When it got within five miles without a change of bearing, he sent a crewmember down to wake up the Captain.
At three miles out, the blip suddenly stopped.  Eight distinct shapes moving in a V-formation separated from it, moving toward the Pelican.  The blips were just over two miles away when the Captain hurried onto the bridge.  With one glance at the radar screen, he activated the ship’s security alarm and ordered the Pelican to DefCon One, a full mobilization of the crew to batten down all the exterior hatches and raise the starboard and port boarding ladders.
“Attention!  Attention!  This is the Captain.  Battle stations, I repeat, battle stations.”  
To every crewmember, the Captain’s orders galvanized their nerves and supercharged their adrenaline.  The DefCon one alarm meant repel boarders with lethal force if necessary.
The captain continued bellowing out orders over the intercom.
“Seal and dog all watertight hatches.  Security Team Alpha, assemble at the bow turret.  Security Team Bravo, assemble at the stern turret.  All civilians please assemble in the main lounge for instructions.”  
Butler and Tommy both arrived at the bridge within minutes.  Butler carried something special he had acquired earlier from Joseph, Captain Z’s arms dealer friend, a SAW machine gun.
Tommy immediately went to the Security console and fired it up.  His first task was to activate the infrared camera installed on the mainmast.  
“Salvador, take a headset and climb up to the top of the mast.  I want you spotting for me.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Salvador smartly replied, with a huge grin on his face. 
At two miles out, the V-formation broke into two separate wings, each approaching the Pelican from a slightly different vector.
“It looks like they plan to board from both sides simultaneously,” Captain Z’s commented, as he slipped on a vest of kevlar body armor.
“Captain, how do you want to handle this?”  Butler asked.
“The safety of the passengers and crew are primary, of course.  Even so, I don’t intend to give up the ship to brigands, either.”
“We still have time to haul anchor and scoot.”  Butler offered.  “A moving target might be harder to board.”
“True, but we would have fewer people to fight with, and by the speed of the blips, their boats are faster that the Pelican.  Standing still, we can bring more firepower to bear against them.  They can’t afford to sink us, at least until they’ve stolen everything aboard.  Of course, that assumes that they’re pirates, but we don’t really believe that do we?”
“No of course not, I’d lay any odds you care to name that this has to do with Kobi and that this guy Levasseur is behind it.  If they’re just out to kill us, sinking the ship might be a fast way to take everyone out.”
“If that were their intent they could have done it without sending out this many boats.  No, I think we’re going to be boarded.  We do have one huge advantage, they have no idea that we know they’re out there and are ready for them.  Besides, I really want to see what some of Tommy’s toys can do.”  Captain Z answered bluntly.
“You know Captain, so do I.”  Butler agreed.
“That takes care of defense.  What about offense?”  Tommy piped up.
“Chief Engineer O’Neal and Chan will go with Security Team Alpha to the forward AA turret.  Mr. Trask is with Security Team Bravo at the aft AA turret.  Mr. Butler I would appreciate it if you and your weapon would join Security Team Bravo there.”
Butler smiled grimly and slapped the stock of his SAW.  “I would be delighted.”
Eight zodiac boats appeared out of the gloom.  They had shut down their gasoline motors, and now electric trolling motors were bringing them silently to their prey.  Everyone at the command center could see four men in each of the zodiacs, all armed with AK-47s.
“Ah, yes, the favorite weapon of terrorists, insurgents and pirates,” Tommy muttered sourly.
“Mr. Cooper, please inform our security teams that they will be facing approximately thirty-two men armed with automatic weapons.  They have my authorization to use lethal force in defense of the ship,” Captain Z commanded.
Butler met his five-man security team in the aft corridor just below the empty stern AA turret.  Unfortunately, when Captain Z and Butler bought the Pelican, the heavy weapons had been long removed, leaving a half dozen empty gun turrets strategically placed around the ship.  In the past, the stern turret had been used for nothing more serious than sunbathing.  As Butler approached, Trask was positioning his men to make the optimum use of their limited weapons.  Each man was armed with a M-16 and two bandoleers of magazines.
Trask noticed Butler’s SAW and a ditty bag full of two-hundred round magazines and smiled.  “Wish you’d bought me one of those,” he grunted.
Butler grinned, “He only had one, but I promise, if we get out of this, I’ll give you this one.”
Butler listened intently as Trask outlined the team’s strategy.  Trask's plan was to put himself and Butler in the elevated AA turret and put a two-man ambush on either side of the superstructure beneath the workboat cranes.
Tommy’s voice crackled in their radio headsets.  “Attention, two dozen intruders are boarding the ship, both port and starboard, just aft of the forward cargo container row.”
Captain Z cut in on the headsets.  “We are activating the defense systems forward of the superstructure.  The infrared lamps are lit, but once the shooting starts, I will turn on the main deck lights.  Do your duty, and good luck.”
As the Captain concluded his instructions, Tommy activated two beanbag cannons, mounted on the forward bridge railing.  A savage bag of beans moving at nearly ninety miles per hour whooshed out of the darkness and struck the first intruder in the chest.  The bag lifted the marauder off his feet and threw the man against a packing crate tied down to the deck.  The last man up the grapnel line to starboard was just climbing over the railing when he caught a supersonic beanbag in the head, snapping his spine and tumbling the body back over the railing where it struck a zodiac floating below and tore thru the flooring.
The remaining intruders, most of which were unaware of the infrared directed beanbag attack, broke into four teams.  One team immediately began sweeping toward the stern to starboard with a second team doing the same to port.  A third team moved stealthily through the laboratory skids arranged in neat rows along the deck near the superstructure.  The last team was providing support.  They had taken up positions in the gaps between the cargo containers and were aiming at the darkened bridge windows.
Captain Z’s voice came back over the radio headsets.  “Heads up!  These people aren’t amateurs.  They’re using the classic advance and cover tactics taught to infantry units.  For all our younger crewmembers with combat experience, you might know it as ‘bound over watch’.  Offhand, I’d say we’re dealing with well trained mercenaries.”
The Captain turned to Tommy.  “Activate our second line of defense, and then signal Security Team A to open fire at their first convenience.”
On signal, Tommy remotely aimed the sonic laser at the port starboard ladder well, and cranked up the volume to a staggering one hundred fifty-five decibels.  The highly directed barrage of sound, only lightly heard through the armored glass of the bridge, was the classic Deep Purple hit, Smoke on the Water.
The first man up the ladder, a towering hulk, shrieked piteously as the focused sound waves struck him like a hammer blow.  He immediately dropped his weapon and put both hands over his ears.  His mates behind him fell back to the main deck, milling and trying to escape the sound waves by beating on dogged and locked hatches.  As Tommy turned the laser to follow the confused group, the invaders on the port side rushed into a second cone of intense sound.  Initially, this group stopped and milled for a second or two but they had more guts and charged up the ladder well firing wildly in all directions.
EB, Chan and Security Team Alpha, concealed in the bow AA turret, suddenly opened fire on the first group of pirates retreating from the sonic laser attack.  Within minutes, the two sides had established defensive positions and a lethal firefight was blazing.  Several of the invaders, hoping to get out of range of the deadly fire, skirted the ladder well and bolted along the port side of the superstructure.  They hadn’t gone ten paces when a burst of M-16 fire from Security Team Bravo, hiding under the landing barge cranes, roared.  Those not cut down in the opening blast retreated to the nooks and crannies of the cargo container row.
Suddenly, an angry horde of steel hornets slammed into the armored bridge windows as one enterprising pirate figured out that the entire defense of the ship was being choreographed from the bridge.
Despite being behind heavily armored glass, everyone on the bridge ducked.  Mrs. Yan, a recent arrival with a fresh pot of hot coffee moved faster than everyone, dropping the pot and rolling beneath the steering console.  Once everyone realized that the three-inch thick armored glass had stopped the bullets, the tension of the moment dissolved as quickly as it began.  Mrs. Yan angrily rose from under the console and began cleaning up the spilled coffee, muttering all the while about bad men who waste food.  
As the gunfire slacked to merely sporadic bursts, Tommy bitched, “If we don't end this soon, we are going to run out of ammo.  As it is now, I’m nearly out of beanbags.  Whoever is directing this attack is smart.  They've already set up defensive positions out of range of my cannons.”
“So, you’re telling me you can't bean them hard enough to be effective at this range.”  Captain Z concluded.
“I can’t even bean them at all!”  Tommy replied with obvious frustration in his voice.  “At this range my bean bags get aerodynamically unstable and tend to sail in any old direction.  I need something with more striking power.”
“You need something harder and heavier?”  Mrs. Yan asked politely.  “I know what you need.”  She smiled to herself and shuffled down a stairwell toward the galley, humming all the while.
Tommy, mildly flustered at Mrs. Yan’s response, shook his head and focused back on the battle.
To prevent any further incursions toward the bridge Tommy aimed his two sonic lasers at a gap between the rows of cargo containers amidships, and cranked up the volume to the maximum.  A palpable fist of sound struck the gap, causing more screams, and resulting in considerably more gunfire directed at the sound source.  Tommy also activated high-intensity strobe lights and four green light lasers popularly known as dazzlers, both guaranteed to cause temporary blindness and disorientation.
Over the intercom, Salvador, their man in the mainmast, suddenly announced, “I see six men to starboard, Captain.  They appear to be getting a re-supply of ammunition from a zodiac.”
“Damn!”  Captain Z exclaimed.  “I can see at least four of the bastards firing at the bow from some crates near the end of the second row of cargo containers, too.”
With a sudden dawning, the Captain cursed and grabbed at the intercom microphone.
“Security Team Alpha report your status!”
EB’s voice came over the intercom in a sobering announcement.  “Captain, we're running pretty low on ammunition, maybe forty or fifty rounds left between us.  I have two men with minor wounds.  I don’t think these intruders are about to give up anytime soon.  We’ve already fired over two-thousand rounds and aren’t doing much good.  We’ve also begun to take fire from the zodiacs circling near us.  Right now, we have rounds coming from three different directions.  Our real problem is that we can't shoot at the men on the main deck without exposing ourselves to a murderous crossfire from the zodiacs off the bow.”  
“Keep your heads down and conserve ammunition.  I will send help.”
In the stern both Butler and Trask felt left out of the action.  Hearing EB’s plea for help, Butler called the bridge over his two-way headset. 
“Trask and I have nothing better to do right now.  There's no activity around the stern since we shot up two of the zodiacs.  Trask has split Security Team Bravo into two groups; each has set an ambush on either side of the superstructure.  If any invaders attempt to storm the bridge from the port or starboard stairwells, they will get a hot reception, but Trask and I are not doing any good back here.  I was thinking that maybe we could slip through the ship and come up close enough to take some heat off our team at the bow turret.  With your permission, we will load up on spare ammunition and head toward the bow to help Security Team Alpha.”
“You have my approval, Mister Butler.”  The Captain growled.  “Just remember, you sign the paychecks.  The crew would greatly appreciate it if you didn’t get your fool head shot off.”
Loading up all the spare ammunition they could carry, Butler and Trask hustled below through the crew’s quarters and exited onto the darkened vehicle deck.  They were jogging neck and neck until they began to approach the bow section.  Butler suddenly slowed down and came to a stop.  
“You know, I think I have a better idea.”  Butler said, pointing with his SAW.
Trask gave him a strange look and then an even stranger look at the vehicle Butler was pointing at.  The vehicle was the Force Protection Cougar Matthew had shown to Katharine. 
Was it only a couple of days ago?  Butler thought.  
The heavy-duty armored truck was designed to travel in those parts of the world where roadside bombs and land mines were common. 
Butler smiled.  It was a thoroughly evil smile. 
“Why not?”  Butler asked Trask.  “We need some armor protection to flush the intruders from the main deck.  Why shouldn’t we use our own personal armored car?” 
“Are you serious?  You want to drive a 12 ton armored truck up onto the main deck and attack a bunch of mercenaries.”
“Just imagine what the mercenaries are going to think when a honking big truck rumbles up the ramp and charges them.”
“It is going to scare them shitless!”  Trask laughed. 
Butler grinned, patting his SAW.  “I’ll tell you what; I’ll even let you drive while I ride shotgun.”  
Trask looked at the resolve on Butler’s face, and muttered, “Oh, what the hell!  This might turn out to be fun after all.”
While Trask warmed up the truck, Butler engaged the ramp controls that allowed access from the vehicle deck to the main deck.  Then Butler leaped into the back of the vehicle.  Slapping a fresh magazine in his SAW, Butler eased up into the gun turret on the roof.  
“Hang on for a second; I have another idea that might help.”
Butler got on the headset.  He quickly outlined his idea to the Captain, Tommy, and EB.  Captain Z suggested that a few volunteers from the rest of the crew could certainly help spring Butler’s surprise on the raiders in the zodiacs off the bow.  
“EB, when we charge up the ramp, you and Chan slip down to the bow and meet the volunteers at the bow doors.”  
In the meantime, the six remaining zodiacs were circling the ship and shooting at the bow, as well as at the bridge.  Security team B advanced carefully around the superstructure and began a selective firefight with about half of the remaining mercenaries trapped on the main deck.
Tommy asked the Captain, “Sir, I’m getting a radio message from the harbor patrol at Mahe; they heard reports of shooting and are curious.  Should we squeal for help?”
“The harbor patrol on Mahe has one repossessed speed boat and two volunteer cops with revolvers.”  Captain Z replied.  “They can’t help and will only hinder.  Tell them that we’re shooting skeet.”
Tommy snorted.  “That is the first time I’ve heard mercenaries called skeet.”
About then, Mrs. Yan returned with a net bag full of cans of frozen concentrated orange juice.  Her face, normally locked in a scowl of disapproval, was now grinning from ear to ear.  “Can you shoot these in your bean guns?”  She asked eagerly.
Tommy looked completely baffled for a second, but then cracked a smile.  
“You know, I believe I can!”  He grabbed her, kissed her, and then raced out on to the bridge deck to the nearest cannon, recklessly exposing himself to sporadic gunfire.  Within seconds, the first can of frozen concentrated orange juice rocketed from the cannon at one hundred-twenty miles per hour.  The frozen citrus delight slammed into a cargo container directly above the head of one of the mercenaries.  Trickles of orange juice slush ran down his face, leading him to believe that he had been wounded.
Tommy snickered heavily.  “That guy will never look at a glass of orange juice the same way again.”
Having loaded the cannons with the remaining juice cans, Tommy returned to the bridge just in time to hear Matthew’s voice over his headset.
“Tommy?”
“Right here, buddy…”
“Play something appropriate on the loudspeakers when we make our entrance.”
“I’ve got just the thing!”  Tommy cooed.
After Butler stacked his SAW magazines on a ledge just below the roof hatch, he yelled down to Trask.  “Ready when you are, Raoul!”
Trask threw the heavily armored truck into gear and gunned it.  Butler had the SAW loaded with a two-hundred round magazine and braced himself against the rim of the hatch.  As Trask revved the engine, Butler muttered the famous old soldier’s prayer; “Oh Lord, thank you for what we are about to receive.”
With an impatient growl, the Cougar leapt onto the ramp and roared up onto the well-lit main deck.
At the same moment, Tommy cranked the loudspeakers to the max.  George Thorogood and the Destroyers boomed out ‘Bad to the Bone’.  It was Tommy’s appropriate tune. 
Moments later, the intruders remaining on the Main deck saw a horrendous apparition.  It rose rapidly up from what, moments before, was level decking.  With guns blazing, horn honking and engine racing, a massive beast of a vehicle rushed up the ramp from the enclosed deck.  Ripping and snorting like a bull with a bee up its butt, the huge 6x6 armored truck leapt off the ramp, catching air where the ramp met the main deck.  Even before the Cougar was halfway off the ramp, several intruders, who had been advancing toward the bow turret, were caught frozen in open-mouthed surprise at the first appearance of the monster truck.  Trask spun the steering wheel suddenly hard left and then right, swiping two of the invaders out of existence.  Not to be out done, Butler fired a half a magazine at a cluster of invaders taking cover behind several large crates.  
Many were out of ammo and those still resisting had forgotten about the rest of Security Team Bravo, who were selectively shooting at anything upright.  Two enterprising mercenaries attempted to climb on board the Cougar at the start of the second circle.  The first fell under the right side tire.  The second, getting a foothold on the spare tire and attempting to climb on top of the vehicle, peeked over the roof, only to discover the muzzle of the SAW aimed at his forehead.  In a futile effort, he tried to bring his AK-47 to bear, too late, to his eternal regret.
Another group of marauders, firing from behind a heavy crate that held counterweights for the massive forward cranes, forced Butler to duck back inside the Cougar.  It was effective cover for the intruders.  They had three thousand pounds of steel in front of them and a row of cargo containers behind.  Their combined fire suddenly focused on the driver’s side windshield.  Dozens of rounds punched into the armored glass in sequence, attempting to tunnel through the three and a half inch thick glass by sheer force.
While Butler was reloading the SAW with a fresh magazine, Trask spun the Cougar around again, facing the superstructure.  
Trask yelled up to Butler, “I’m getting heavy fire from the group near the crane.  See what you can do!”
Butler responded by concentrating fresh fire on the crane area.  Trask spun the Cougar in another three hundred-sixty-degree spin on the main deck before suddenly charging directly toward the counterweight crates that were protecting several of the intruders.  The Cougar plowed into the crate, snapping its restraints like strands of spaghetti and pushing the heavy crate into the row of cargo containers.  Just for good measure, Butler made sure that there were no further attacks from that quarter by spraying the area with the last of his magazine.  
Yelling at the top of his lungs, Tommy fired his orange juice cans at any of the intruders retreating from the homicidal maniacs in the monster truck.  Those cans of orange juice that missed their mark slammed into the sides of the cargo containers with explosive force.  Those that didn’t, dented skulls and broke bones. 
With the concerted attack on their rear by Security Team B, intense sounds bombarding their senses, frozen cans of orange juice zipping all around,  and two maniacs in the armored car from Hell terrorizing them, it only took one man to lose his nerve.  With a loud scream, the leader of the mercenaries suddenly made a running dive over the side of the ship.  In a mass panic, the rest ran to the sides of the LST and leaped into the water.  
One hundred feet off the bow of the ship,  six remaining zodiacs were firing at the bow turret, unaware that in the mêlée occurring on the main deck.  EB and her team had escaped and reformed at the ramp behind the bow doors.  With one press of a button, the bow doors slowly began to open.  The men in the zodiacs stared in awe as the giant mouth of the Pelican opened before them.  A rain of lethal fire poured out on them when a mass of guns suddenly opened up from behind the perforated steel landing ramp.  EB’s team, along with Chan and a cadre of volunteers, fired every bit of ammunition they had in less than sixty seconds.  When all the ammo was expended, they fired all of the flare guns aboard.  Two of the zodiacs ignited, converting into flaming balls of fire in an instant.  The remaining zodiacs sped off toward safer environs.  The battle for the LST was over.
Out of the thirty-two attackers, twelve were dead.  An unknown number were swimming toward Praslin Island at last sighting, and a few had escaped in the surviving zodiacs.  Trask’s crew captured one man who was mildly concussed, having been the first man hit with Tommy’s beanbag cannon.
Security Team Alpha had two wounded men.  Neither was in serious condition but Butler sent them to the hospital at Mahe, and arranged for transport to get them back to the States as quickly as possible.  The rest of the injuries were superficial.  One volunteer had a burned thigh from a misfired flare, and Trask had a couple of glass splinters in his jaw.  
Captain Z arrived on the main deck to inspect the damage to his ship.  
“I’ve notified the authorities in Mahe about the zodiacs and the swimmers.”
“And what did they say?”
“When the Seychellois Self-Defense Force Patrol boat returns from the Outer Islands, they will send someone to investigate.  They suggested we take any captives to the Chief of Police in Victoria.  The SSDF said that they would drop by next week and conduct an investigation.”  
The firefight had destroyed two workboats and four cargo containers.  Two of the labs were completely shot up, trashing everything inside.
During their inspection of the damage, Butler and the Captain discovered Doc treating Trask just outside the armored car.  The Cougar had more bullet holes to add to its already battered appearance.  
“You were behind bulletproof glass.  What happened?”  Butler asked Trask as Doc was bandaging him up.  
“No glass is truly bulletproof, especially after twenty or thirty rounds.  I ducked right after I felt glass shards hit my face.”  Trask pointed at the driver’s seat.  The headrest of the Cougar was badly shredded.  “Thank God, I decided not to wear my seat belts, otherwise that would be my head.”
Once Doc was finished patching him up, Trask and Butler climbed up to the chart room behind the bridge for a conference with Captain Z and Tommy.   
Tommy jumpstarted the conversation eagerly.  “We’re going after Levasseur, right?”  The adrenalin and testosterone overload radiating off the four men was palpable. 
From Butler’s point of view, his ship had been attacked, and his people threatened.  Hell yes!  I want to get back at that bastard, Levasseur.  He thought.  
Anger told him that nothing would feel better than to charge in and blast the man responsible.  Matthew forced himself to take a deep breath and considered the consequences.  “As much as I would like to, I can’t.”  He answered, sighing.  “What we really need to do is stop that gun deal.”
“If we assume that we’re still being watched, I propose a ruse,” Trask suggested.  “I recommend that we up anchor and depart the Seychelles.”  Trask continued.  “Then we sail east until we’re out of sight of land, swing north, and sneak back to a spot northeast of Levasseur’s exchange site.”
“Hey, just like the Japanese at Pearl Harbor.  They hid their entire fleet northeast of Hawaii.”  Tommy said, offering a useless bit of trivia.  
The three rational men in the chart room looked at the fourth as if he were a four-year old.  
“Well, they did!”  Tommy muttered in defense of four-year olds everywhere.
“You know, Mr. Trask, your ruse isn’t a bad idea,” Captain Z returned, dismissing both Tommy and the entire Japanese Navy.  “The move might make Levasseur feel more secure about going through with the gun deal, especially if he thinks we’re running away.” 
“Anyway, after that raid this morning, I’m sure everyone would rather be moving than sitting around waiting for whatever comes next,” Matthew added.  “With the Pelican’s Loran rig, we can still monitor the rendezvous location from a safe distance.”
Captain Z slipped a map of the area onto the chart table.  “A three hour circle would get the Pelican far enough north to sail south past the rendezvous site so that if they did see us on their radar, they would think we are just some steamer heading for Mahe.”
“How close?”  Butler asked, suddenly very serious.  “The Dolphin has a range of only 10 miles.”  
“If we launch the Dolphin while under way, I think we could get as close as two miles.”  Captain Z concluded.  “Any closer might make them suspicious.”  
“Now, what do we do about weapons?”  Butler asked, directing the conversation onto another topic.  “Tommy, do you have a plan for that thermite grenade you and I talked about the other day?”
“Buddy, I have a fantastic plan.”  

<<>>

Morning dragged into late afternoon as the Pelican made the ‘great circle’ as the crew called it.  Tommy and Matthew went over the Dolphin, making adjustments and minor repairs, until there was nothing else they could find to do.  After hanging around the bridge for a while, Matthew wandered down to the mess hall for an early dinner with Katharine.  
“It looks like you’re going to stay aboard for a while,” he said.  “I promise we’ll get you back to Victoria as soon as this is over.  Until then I just don’t think you’re safe anywhere but here.”
“I’d rather be here than anywhere else,” She answered affectionately, but a fleeting look crossed her face, “but I am worried.” 
Butler completely misread the question on her mind.  
“You’ll be safe aboard, I promise.”
“No,” she countered, “I’m worried about you, you big dummy.”
“Oh, don’t you worry ‘bout me.”  He laughed.  “I’ve always led a charmed life.  A voodoo woman in New Orleans once told me that I would die at the hands of a jealous woman on my 98th birthday.  So, you can see that I’ve got a whole lot of time left.”  

<<>>

The rest of the crew was also trying to find a way to deal with the waiting. 
“We should have a movie day,” suggested Salvador.  Movies were his second love, after women that he was too young to chase.
“Good idea!”  Butler said.  “Katharine, as guest of honor, you choose the first one.”  
Katharine was astonished as he opened a panel on the wall, revealing a huge collection of DVDs.  After some perusing, she picked the first one that she had not yet seen, ‘Miss Congeniality,’ with Sandra Bullock.  Hoping that it was not too much of a chick flick for the guys, she passed it over to Salvador to load into the machine.  Matthew slid aside another panel on the wall, revealing a huge flat screen television.  
As they watched the film, she was astonished to find everyone chiming in on the best lines, and throwing popcorn at the screen when the villains appeared.  There also seemed to be an unofficial contest for the best William Shatner impersonation.  As soon as Sandra Bullock’s portion of the talent contest came on the screen, most of the room stood and shouted with her, “SING!  Solar Plexus!  Instep!  Nose!  Groin!”  This irreverent participatory way of watching a movie was new to Katharine.  Much to her surprise, it turned out to be a lot of fun, and took some of the tension out of the waiting.  
In the late afternoon, the call everyone was waiting for finally came through. 
 “Captain, I have two strong contacts on the radar.”
Tommy and Butler hustled to the bridge to check it out.  As everyone on the bridge watched, the two blips slowly merged into one.  
“The chickens are in the coop,” Tommy quipped.  “Its time for the foxes.”
The Captain pulled the pair aside and explained his plans regarding the drop off and subsequent pick up. 
“Your target is about five nautical miles southwest of us.”  He pointed at the horizon to a cluster of bright lights.  “On this heading, we will get within two nautical miles at the closest approach.  The Pelican will pass them on the starboard side, so you will exit the Pelican from the port boarding ladder.  We will continue steaming along until we are in the shadow of North Island.  At that time, we will drop anchor and go dark.”  
“When we’re all done,” Butler continued, “we’ll contact you, and you can come get us.”  
“Before you go, I want you to take a look at that,” Captain Z said, as he pointed at a dark horizon to the east.  “That’s a tropical storm and it’s headed this way.  It’s going to be here in about five hours.  I would suggest that you be back aboard before it arrives.”

<<>>

The modified two-man Dolphin danced across the choppy waves heading north toward the rendezvous site.  Over the last hour, the weather had deteriorated into a sickly green halo that hung menacingly over the Eastern horizon.  Tommy leaned forward and nudged Butler’s back to get his attention over the Dolphin’s noisy engine.  
“If we were home in Mobile,” he yelled, “I’d say we’re definitely seeing a hurricane developing off to the East.”  Tommy bellowed in Butler’s ear.  “But since we’re on the opposite side of the world I’d guess it’s a typhoon.”
“Nope!”  Butler returned, “It’s a tropical cyclone!” 
“What’s the difference?”
“Hurricanes, typhoons and tropical cyclones are just different names for the same thing.  What we know as a hurricane is called a typhoon in the Orient, and a cyclone in the Indian Ocean.”  Butler yelled back.  “I listened to the marine weather radio just before we left.  We can expect to see Force Eight winds before midmorning tomorrow with five to eight foot waves.”
“Are we rated for eight foot waves?” 
“We can always dive if it gets too rough.”  
“And cut our effective range in half.”  Tommy groused. 
It wasn’t hard to see that the wave height had doubled in the last half hour.  Already the chop was over two foot tall.  With every trough, the horizon disappeared, giving them the impression of being caught deep in a bowl with nothing but waves all around.  At every crest, however, they could only see to the next crest, which, to them, appeared to be even higher. 
“Get on the radio and ask the Pelican to get me a bearing on our target.”  Butler yelled.  “I don’t want to take the chance of missing them in these seas.”  
Tommy quickly complied.  
Butler was concerned.  It would have been far easier to sneak up on the arms ship, plant a few limpet mines on the hull and scoot, but his streak of fair play was causing him trouble.  Despite the fact that men associated with the owner of this ship had tried to physically harm his crew, colleagues, and friends at least three times already, Butler just couldn’t sink a ship without proof that it actually had arms aboard.  
Tommy’s plan, like Tommy, was simplicity itself.  The plan required boarding the arms ship, which was a thousand fold riskier than anything Butler had done in the past and certainly anything he intended to do in the future.  If the ship proved to be carrying arms, the pair would ignite an oversized thermite charge either inside the ship or on its main deck.  Once ignited, the homemade charge, nearly the size of a scuba tank, would melt through everything in its path until it exited out the bottom of the ship.  Almost nothing would put out a thermite charge until it had consumed itself.  Tommy’s little stepchild from Hell, once lit, would exceed five thousand degrees.  
Butler steered the Dolphin erratically through the troughs, trying to keep the stealth front of the craft aimed at the arms ship, thus keeping the radar cross-section to a minimum.  
All Butler could hope was that the craft could withstand the force of the waves long enough to get them close to the ship.  Once within sight, they would dive, making the final approach from below.  
The sun was just beginning to set as the Dolphin got within a half-mile of the ship.  Butler cut back on his throttle.  “Time to dive,” he announced and pulled the plug.  The Dolphin silently disappeared into a wave.  
Just before they dove beneath the waves, Tommy sent the Pelican a final coded message, informing them that the operation was on.  
Running underwater on battery power, the Dolphin’s streamlined shape flew through the water much like the dolphins that it had been designed to resemble.  Every few minutes Butler rose from the depths to take a bearing on the arms ship.  With only the top foot of the canopy exposed above the waves there was very little for anyone from the freighter to see under such deteriorating conditions.  The Dolphin’s unique air exchange bladder renewed their air automatically every time the valve on the dolphin’s blowhole rose above the waves, thus saving stored oxygen for their final approach.  As the Dolphin got closer, Butler could see that a second, smaller ship was tied head to tail alongside the freighter, aft of the superstructure.  He noted that the second ship was a bunged-up fishing trawler, easily seventy or eighty years old.  It had a wide beam, and a low stern, which made it useful for loading and unloading trawling nets.  For this reason, it was also capable of carrying a large number of crates.  Butler noted that the trawler was built of wood, making it even older than his original estimate. 
It probably is pre-World War I.  He thought.  Not my idea of an ideal vessel to have on the open ocean.  Of course, while it is technically a seagoing vessel, with its wide beam and shallow draft, it was also ideally suited to sail up rivers.
In the brief glance between waves, Butler also noticed that the trawler was loaded with armed men, overloaded even!  
There must be fifty or sixty men on that old hulk, Butler groaned mentally, and every one of them armed to the teeth.
As the Dolphin approached to within 1000 feet of the two ships, they took their last look at the situation and then dove beneath the waves.  Ten minutes later, the Dolphin broke surface directly under the stern of the freighter, coming up within five feet of the freighter’s propeller.  The ship's name, AMBIGU, towered above them in faded, rusty letters high across the stern.
Tommy, unusually quiet over the previous minutes, piped up.  “It's an appropriate name for such a rust bucket.”
“Yeah!”  Butler returned.  “But, sometimes looks are deceiving.”  
“What do you mean?”  Tommy asked.
“If you look at the main mast, you’ll note that your rust bucket has the latest version of Loran, if that radar dish is any indication.”
“By golly, you're right!”  Tommy exclaimed.
“And, unlike other freighters her age that have a standard three blade screw, the screw on this ship is a state-of-the-art anti-cavitation type, which would make her capable of thirty knots, easily.  I'd say that the Ambigu is just what her name implies.  She's a very modern ship hiding behind a layer of makeup designed to give you the impression that she is a near-derelict.”
“Wow!  You're right.  What perfect cover.”  Tommy said, admiringly.  “I guess if you want to smuggle arms, you need good camouflage, and this ship sure has that.”

<<>>

Butler guided the Dolphin at low speed along the port side of the freighter until they were nearly amidships.  Popping the canopy, Butler and Tommy quickly stood on their seats.  Reaching as high up as they could, they attached two powerful magnets to the freighter’s hull.  Rigging two quick release pulleys to tough nylon straps, they carefully winched the Dolphin out of the waves.  The two magnets held the little craft suspended against the freighter’s side but at the mercy of the freighter’s ponderous roll.  Tommy added a third magnet, also with a quick release on its strap, to hold the Dolphin fast to the freighter’s hull and keep it from bouncing around.  
Butler pulled out a narrow tube about eighteen inches long.  It was a low-tech device normally used for throwing a line between ships.  Originally, a small explosive charge propelled a hook and line about one hundred-fifty feet horizontally.  In this case, Tommy had modified this one to shoot the hook and line just high enough to carry a rubber coated graphite hook over the freighter’s railing above them.  Butler fired the device and luckily snagged the railing first try.  Tommy’s other gadget, known as a Zip-Zip, was Tommy’s crude version of the Atlas Power Ascender used by the US military.  A small battery operated mechanism could rapidly lift three hundred pounds up a line to a height of twenty-five feet in about three seconds.  Butler quickly attached the Zip-Zip to the line and squeezed the device’s dead man switch.  A high pitch whirring began as the Zip-Zip began racing up the rope.  Butler hung on for dear life as the device lifted him out of the cockpit of the Dolphin.  He barely had time to prepare himself as the sides of the ship flashed past his nose. 
Butler rose so rapidly that he literally vaulted over the railing and landed in a crouch on the deck.  He pulled out his Beretta and eased back into the shadows near a lifeboat davit.  He spent the next minute or so confirming that the coast was clear.  Finally convinced that no one had seen him arrive, he then leaned over the railing, released the Zip-Zip and let it zoom down the line to Tommy.  Immediately the rapid whirring began again.  Five seconds later Tommy vaulted at least three feet above the railing and nearly landed in Butler's lap.
“Whoops!  Sorry about that.  That little mother sure has some power, don't it?  I can see that I’m going to have to choke it down a tad.”  
Butler ignored Tommy's commentary and cut to the chase.  “Did you bring the heat?”
“Its right here,” Tommy replied, patting his backpack gingerly.
“Good!  I'll scout aft and see what the opposition is doing.  You scout forward.  If we find proof that these guys are running guns, then we’ll plant it and scoot.”  
Butler put a hand on Tommy’s shoulder.  “From now on, it’s Commando rules, Tommy.  If things go bad, it’s every man for himself.”
“Roger that.”  Tommy whispered before casting around to get his bearings.  As silently as oiled velvet, he slipped into the shadows.
Butler eased forward cautiously, until he was crouched beneath a ladder that apparently gave access to the bridge.  Butler could easily see that the aft cargo hatch had been cleared away and a gang of men labored in the bottom of the hold, loading crates into a cargo net. 
Observing the movement of the Ugandan trawler tied to the starboard side of the Ambigu, it was evident to Butler that the sea was getting rougher.  
Thank God, we raised the Dolphin out of the water, Butler reflected, otherwise she would have beaten herself to death against the ship’s side.
As Matthew slowly advanced, a hatch accessing the bridge appeared directly ahead.  Butler climbed the ladder heading toward the well-lit bridge of the freighter.  By the sounds emanating through the hatch, it was apparent that several people were inside.  As Butler approached, he could see that a state-of-the-art navigation console dominated the bridge.  A huge man with a black patch over one eye lounged in the helmsman's chair smoking a cigar.  His boots were up on the lip of the console and he was blowing smoke rings toward a ventilator fan.  A high tech radar console pulsed with a regular burst of green light with every sweep of the radar dish.  The light bounced up from below into the cigar smoker’s face, lighting the swirls of smoke a pale green, and giving the man’s face an unnatural, macabre look.  On the opposite side of the bridge, two more men were leaning over the starboard bridge railing, watching the preparations down in the tethered trawler.  A mob of LRA soldiers milled around on the Ugandan trawler, apparently preparing to receive the crates being winched out of the freighter’s hold.  
Suddenly, a voice from the radio room behind the smoker bellowed out, “The boss is on his way, ETA two minutes.”  
“Good.  The sooner he gets here, the sooner we’re done,” Black Patch growled.  “Tell the crane operator not to send any crates over until I tell him.  I don't trust these Ugandans.  Pass the word to the rest of the crew to stay alert.  This bunch of bastards are psychotic.”  
Within moments, a dozen heavily armed crewmen began to line up along the starboard side.  Their weapons were predominantly AK-47s but a few carried Uzi submachine guns.  Their movements were casual, smoking and joking, but none had taken their eyes off the Ugandans in the trawler below.  
Butler decided to move away from the bridge.  He returned to the shadows under the gangway on the port side.  From where he stood, he could see two of the crewmen, lounging on the main deck next to a tarpaulin-covered lump that could only be a .50 caliber machine gun.  While everything outwardly appeared to be pleasant, Butler could see the underlying tension in the Ambigu’s crewmen working on the main deck.  Rising up, Butler could just see the wheelhouse of the Ugandan trawler.  The strained nerves on the Ambigu were nothing compared to the jittery, adrenaline-laced mood on the trawler.  Every man within sight had his weapon in hand and regarded the bigger ship with terrified, wide-open eyes.  It was obvious to Butler that neither side trusted the other.  
Moments later, Butler watched Black Patch leave the bridge and stand near the starboard ladder, shouting across the gap between vessels.  Despite being dressed in the same camouflage fatigues as the rest of the soldiers, the two men he addressed were obviously the leaders of the Ugandans.  The whine of the crane, as it lifted a large cargo net from the hold, drowned out the sound of Black Patch’s voice, but the gestures he made indicated that he was attempting to reduce the tension.  
Soon, the additional sound of a helicopter approaching gave Butler a momentary worry.  The Dolphin was attached to the hull on the port side, in the growing darkness, but if the helicopter pilot circled the ship before landing on the stern, he couldn't fail to see the little submersible.  
Fortunately, the helicopter circled the bow, and swept along the side of the Ugandan ship before settling on the brightly lit helipad at the stern of the Ambigu.  Even from a distance, Butler knew the man who stepped out.  Alexander Levasseur, neatly dressed in a white tropical suit, climbed down from the helicopter and walked toward the delegation of Ugandans crowded near the starboard ladder.  The white suit contrasted with the soldiers in their army fatigues, making Xander standout like an angel in a pigsty.  Butler watched as Levasseur gave each of the LRA leaders a hearty handshake.  Butler strained his ears to hear the conversation, but to no avail.  The noise of the wind and the sea were drowning out all but snatches of conversation.  The cargo net settled on the deck next to the delegation.  At Xander’s command, Black Patch waved to several of his crewmen to break open one of the crates in the cargo net.  With a great flourish, the man in the white suit pulled a gun from the crate and passed it over to one of the Ugandan leaders.
The Ugandan expertly loaded a magazine into it.  Seconds later the sound of the weapon echoed around the ship.  Butler immediately recognized the weapon by its sound.  It was an AK-47, a weapon whose unforgettable sound had been etched into Butler’s soul once in the long dead past.  The Ugandan had fired it straight up into the air, which caused a moment of increased tension in all the crewmen lining the Ambigu’s deck.  Multiple sets of teeth gritted, and fingers automatically tightened on triggers.  The soldiers on the trawler also tensed up, but a quick command by the LRA leader caused them to ease off.  Even from a distance, Butler could see the white-toothed grin on the LRA leader’s face.  
It was obvious that he was pleased with the weapons he was receiving.  Within seconds, he barked another command across to the trawler.  Immediately, two soldiers standing around the wheelhouse of the trawler dragged a small chest from within and manhandled it up the starboard ladder on to the Ambigu’s deck.  Xander spent some time crouched over the chest, inspecting it carefully.  After several minutes, he stood, again shook hands with the LRA leader, and passed a command over to Black Patch.  As two of the Ambigu’s crewmen picked up the chest and carried it to the helicopter, the cargo net with the load of crated guns swung over to the trawler deck.  By the time the first crate had touched down on the trawler's deck, Xander and the Ugandan had left the freighter’s deck; the Ugandan headed back to his trawler and Levasseur headed toward his helicopter.  
If I'm correct, Butler thought to himself, that crate holds Kobi's tribal artifacts.  Butler thought some more.  Why would Xander trade a shipload of weapons and ammunition for a crate of obscure artifacts?  Man, this whole deal stinks like a skunk in a sewage plant.

<<>>

Silently Tommy returned from the forward deck of the Ambigu.  Butler saw him creeping along the passageway and hissed at him, directing him into the shadows beneath the gangway ladder.  
“Did you plant the package?”
“Yep.  I put it inside the forward cargo hold ventilator.”  Tommy grinned.  “It was cooking along merrily the last time I saw it.”  
Butler suddenly became alarmed.  “You set it off?”
“Yeah, I sure did.  When I heard that machine gun go off, I thought you'd been discovered, and I pulled the pin.  In about twenty minutes, it will be on the bottom of the sea.”  
“My God, Tommy, if the guns are all crated up in the aft cargo hold, then the forward hold could only contain the ammunition and explosives.  Tommy, tell me that you didn't put a forty pound thermite charge in the ventilator over the ammo hold?”  
“I guess I did.  Sorry man, when I heard the gunfire, I got nervous.”  Butler and Tommy looked at each other in horrified awareness of the magnitude of their actions.  
“I've seen enough to ease any guilt I might have about sinking this ship.  That thermite is going to ignite the ammunition any time now.  I think it would be a real good idea for us to get the hell out of here.”  
Even as he spoke, a dull explosion shook the ship and fire alarms began wailing.  A second, much larger explosion tore the forward hatch cover off, sending it spiraling high into the air.  The LRA rebels, thinking the noise coming from the ammunition hold was gunfire aimed at them, concluded that they had been double-crossed.  Immediately, they opened up with every weapon they had.  
Within seconds, the Ambigu lurched to starboard.  A cargo net full of gun crates swung over the stern of the Rebel trawler at the same moment that the forward hatch cover crashed down upon the crane operator, crushing him instantly.  The cargo net full of heavy crates dropped from a height of fifty feet onto the stern of the trawler, snapping it off as if guillotined.  Immediately, the trawler began to sink.
Two Ambigu crewmen, who had wrestled out a fire hose to douse the flames coming from the forward hold, fell under the fire of a crazed LRA soldier who cut both of them down with a burst of automatic fire.  Seconds later that soldier fell as the Ambigu’s .50 caliber machine gun began firing from the stern of the freighter.  After killing the soldier, the murderous stream of copper and steel traversed the deck to the LRA leader standing near the wheelhouse of the trawler.  
Amid the confusion, Alexander Levasseur jumped aboard his helicopter.  The helicopter immediately leapt off the canting deck as another mighty explosion rocked the ship, sending piano-sized hunks of steel flying across the deck.  The helicopter lurched as the blast wave lifted it off the stern.  Only Levasseur’s skill as pilot prevented an aerial disaster.  As it was, the helicopter came dangerously close to the waves before recovering and heading toward Mahe at top speed.

<<>>

Near continuous explosions shook the Ambigu and her hull groaned another death rattle.  The surviving crewmen, fearful for their own lives, forgot about the battle with the remainder of the LRA and scrambled to get away from the ammo hold.  Larson’s shouted orders were drowned out as muffled explosions ripped more gaping holes in the stricken ship.  The Ambigu very slowly began to roll onto her starboard side as compartment after compartment flooded.
Giving up on his ship and its doomed crew, Larson raced to the bridge, hoping to radio Levasseur's helicopter to return for him, only to discover that a heated chunk of metal had ripped through the bulkhead and impaled the radio.
The deck continued to cant to the starboard side until it became impossible to get a footing.  Going for the port railing to keep from sliding down the deck, Larson spotted Matthew Butler stabilizing the grappling hook on the railing as Tommy slipped over and began the treacherous descent to the Dolphin.  Rage suddenly blotted out Larson’s desire for personal safety as he realized that here were the men responsible for the death of his ship.  
Gripping the railing tightly with one hand Larson pulled a gun from his shoulder holster and took aim.  Butler looked up just in time to see the muzzle flash.  The bullet spanged off a stanchion near his head and Butler knew that only the combination of a rough sea and a listing ship had prevented Larson from killing him.  Butler reached for his Beretta but just as he pulled it from his holster, the Ambigu rolled back to port, throwing Butler to his knees against the bridge hatchway.  The Beretta slid along the decking, slithered under the railing and disappeared into the night.  The lurch that had knocked Butler down had done the same to Larson, who was struggling to get back to his feet.  Butler realized that if he didn't stop Larson, the man's next bullet would kill him.
A particularly heavy wave struck the Ambigu broadside at that moment.  The deck suddenly became a wall, with the railing now nearly above Butler's head.  Using the railing uprights like a gymnast working the horizontal bars, Butler swung himself toward Larson and drove both feet hard into the big man’s chest just as Larson was getting a bead on Butler.  The gun flew from Larson's hand, ricocheted off a bulkhead and fell overboard.  
Tommy, completely unaware of the danger above him, was struggling as he tried to climb down the side of the ship to the Dolphin.  His plan for using the Zip-Zip to lower himself quickly became impossible.  As the ship rolled to starboard, he could almost walk down the side of the ship, but as she rolled back to port, he would find himself swinging like a pendulum just above the angry waves.  Of course, on the roll back to starboard, if he could not get his feet beneath him, he would slam hard into the side of the hull.  Barnacles tore at his arms and back, ripping through his clothing, and leaving long, bleeding scrapes.  
Now I know what a yoyo in a blender feels like.  He grimaced as he slammed into the hull for the third time.  
Before Larson could recover from the two-footed blow, Matthew scrambled to get over the railing, hoping to follow Tommy down to safety.  He was standing, straddling the mostly horizontal railing when Larson’s huge hand closed on his right ankle.  With his other hand, Larson drew a flensing knife from his belt.  Red fire belching from the holds of the Ambigu winked on the surface of the ten inch curved blade turning it into a glittering, evil eye.  Matthew wrenched his ankle away from Larson’s hold and balanced on the railing, preparing for the attack.
You’re an arrogant Bastard, aren’t you, thought Butler, taking in Larsen’s confident stance, and the way he held his knife, loosely, like a delicate bird.
Chan’s voice echoed in Matthew’s mind; Remember, relax, or your opponent will defeat you.  Perhaps it was the hours of training, or the absolute necessity of the situation, but he felt the tension flow away from him as he assumed his defensive stance.  The little smile that came to Butler’s face seemed to both disconcert and enrage Larson as the big man pulled himself up to balance on the railing opposite Butler.  
The knife glowed dully, weaving between Larson and Butler as the ship continued to heave and sway.  Butler never took his eyes off Larson’s torso and he was ready when the lunging attack came.  He dodged the blow, grabbing Larson’s wrist with his left hand and turned so that the knife passed between them.  Immediately, Butler drove his body into the back of Larson’s extended elbow.  Something between a shriek and a bellow burst from the man’s lips as his elbow broke.  The knife clattered away down the canting deck.
That ought to stop him, thought Matthew, using the moment to leap to the port side hull, the one place on the ship where, for the moment, he could keep his footing.  Abruptly, the rope on which Tommy dangled, struggling to reach the tethered Dolphin, scythed Matthew’s feet out from under him.  Falling, he grabbed desperately for the railing.  Larson rebounded, brutally landing a crushing blow to Matthew’s ribcage.  
“Take that, you bastard,” Larson growled, and swung another sledgehammer blow toward Matthew’s head.
The returning roll of the ship prevented Larsen from landing the second blow and forced both men to cling to the railing to avoid being washed overboard.  
Gasping at the pain in his ribs, Matthew marveled that the man was still attacking, even after having his elbow broken.  He breathed out, letting his mind clear, and faced his opponent, waiting for the next attack.  The ship rolled again, bringing the side up under their feet.  Immediately taking advantage of the situation, Larson grabbed Butler in a bear hug, crushing the breath out of him as he gasped at the agony in his ribs.  Matthew struck with stiffened fingers, twice quickly under the rib cage, causing Larson to scream in pain.  Larson backed away, panting.  Again, back in a stalemate situation, both men balanced uneasily on the side of the rolling ship, each looking for an advantage.  
Just when Tommy had made up his mind to give up the yoyo forever and take his chances in the waves, a ponderous roll to starboard lay the Ambigu over on its side, crushing the wreck of the rebel trawler.  Tommy now found himself standing upright on the hull of the Ambigu not thirty feet from the Dolphin.  Holding the rope, he began running sideways along the hull, trying to get back to where the submersible lay tethered on the side of the dying Ambigu.  Butler saw the taut rope swinging back toward Larson.  Feinting toward the man a moment before the rope made contact; he leapt away as the rope caught Larson on the ankles, knocking his feet out from under him.  Matthew took the opportunity to run a few steps toward the Dolphin, but Larson rolled and was up before Matthew could get away, coming at him with a double-fisted blow to the head.  Letting his training carry him, Matthew softened his stance, deflected the punch, and let the momentum carry Larson past him.  If Matthew had resisted, it would have been a killing blow, but his technique took all of the power out of it and left Larson with nothing to hit.  The two began to tumble down the side of the ship as it began to roll back upward, becoming once again a wall instead of a floor.  
With a yell of frustration, Tommy went swinging back away from the Dolphin.  Matthew caught the rope as it passed.  Larson wrapped his good arm around Butler’s legs and cursed as the swing of the rope dragged him across razor sharp barnacles.  Matthew twisted his legs, using one to wipe Larson’s grip off the other.  
An eerie, echoing scream of metal accompanied the ship’s final roll as she came over, completely on her side, exposing a gaping dark hole in the hull near the keel, hellishly lit by sporadic explosions and pockets of fire in the ship’s depths.  
Tommy regained his feet and looked up the line to see what was making it behave so strangely.  He saw Matthew Butler heave himself free of the grip of the much larger Larson and begin scrambling away.  Roaring, Larson raised himself up and grabbed Butler by the back of his neck.  Butler let his legs go out from under him and twisted in Larson’s grip, grabbing the fingers of the hand that held him and bending them painfully backward.  Looking Larson in the eye, he slowly increased the pressure.  
“Quit now,” he said, quietly.
An incoherent below of rage was Larson’s answer; pushing against Butler’s grip, he broke his own fingers as he tried to attack once again.  With a convulsive reflex of pain, the big man pulled away.  Taking advantage, Butler instantly brought up his other hand in a blow to the chest, using the momentum of Larson’s withdrawal to send the man flying backward, away from Butler and down the side of the ship.  Tommy watched in amazement as the man stumbled and slid past him, falling inevitably into the glowing gap in Ambigu’s hull.  Larson’s mouth was a dark hole in his white face as he fell screaming into the inferno below.  
Matthew slid down the rope to where Tommy waited for him, half standing and half hanging on the rolling side of the ship. 
“We’d better get out of here fast,” said Matthew, “this ship is in free-fall to Hell.”
Fighting an increasing wind and the movement of the ship, they reached the Dolphin, now resting on the upturned side of the ship.  They lowered the little craft as far as the ropes would allow.  This left them swinging and banging against the side of the Ambigu about twenty feet above the water.
“We can’t close the hatch until we release the ropes and as soon as we release the ropes we’re going to be falling,”  Tommy warned.
“It’ll be okay as long as we stay with the Dolphin, you know she won’t sink, even filled with water and with two men standing in the cockpit,” said Matthew.
Each of them put one hand on the canopy to pull it shut as quickly as possible, and with the other hand, they released the ropes, abandoning the magnetic devices now left behind high on the side of the Ambigu.
The pair fell into their seats and slammed the canopy shut as the little craft rolled and tumbled past the gaping hole into which they had just seen Larson fall.
They splashed into the water and Tommy immediately hit the power to carry them into the waves and away from the Ambigu.  The tiny craft’s engines whined, fighting against the suction created by the sinking ship.  The Dolphin shot into the air as it came free of the drag of the doomed freighter.  Tommy dove under the brutal eight-foot waves and into the peaceful depths.  
“Fifty feet should be deep enough,” Tommy said after a couple of minutes at maximum battery speed.  He turned the Dolphin so they could see the sinking hulk as it fell into the depths.  They could hear the vast ship groan as the deep finally claimed her, explosions still flashing in her interior. 
“Well, we didn’t mess around, did we?”  Tommy breathed.
Butler knew Tommy was having regrets about all the lives lost.  “Yeah, but how many lives did we save by sending those guns to the bottom?”
“Well that takes care of that, huh?  No more guns, no more Black Patch.”
“Not really,” Matthew sighed, “those were just the loose ends of this deal.  There’s one more little mystery I’d like to solve, and it means going after the real villain, the one who put the gun deal together,” said Butler.  “Take her up to the surface and put her on a heading for the north end of Mahe; we’ll report the wreck so that anyone nearby can pick up survivors.  Then I’d like to get Captain Z and Trask in on a plan to go after Levasseur.  And,” he said, sniffing at his shirt, “we could use the fresh air.”

<<>>

No one on the Pelican was sleeping tonight as they waited for the report on Tommy and Butler’s mission.  Leaning on the bridge railing with a cup of coffee, Kobi resolved to confront Butler at the first opportunity and demand to be involved in what he considered his own operation. 
Kobi was frustrated and angry, more with himself than with others.  While the people on the Pelican were friendly and supportive, he felt that they just didn’t understand what the theft of the artifacts meant to Kenya, or to him.  He felt left out of everything, when it was his job to recover the artifacts and bring these thieves and murderers to justice.  Somehow, over the short time it took to recover from his injuries, Butler’s bunch had taken control of his problem.  As a result, he was stuck on the Pelican while operations happened without him.
“You look like a man lost in the ozone,” a familiar voice announced.  “The rumor mill said you were down in the dumps.”
Kobi turned to see Richard the Great approaching.  The Pelican’s communication tech was wearing a dark blue t-shirt with ‘BLUE VELVEETA’ printed in bold yellow letters.  
“I’m realizing how useless I’ve become, while others do my job.  I feel as if I’ve been left behind.”  Kobi bitterly summarized.  
“Well, perhaps I can help.  On the Pelican, I’m the best source for information.”  Richard leaned his elbows on the railing and started speaking in an informer’s whisper.  “Just moments ago, Matthew radioed in the details on the sinking of the ship with the guns on it.  By the way, he also mentioned that Levasseur has your missing artifacts.”  
“That’s great!”  Kobi yelled, suddenly elated.  “Where are they?”
“Matthew thinks that Levasseur took them to his compound on Mahi.”  Smiling Richard threw in an offhand remark.  “Oh, and you might also be interested to know that Trask and his security red shirts are forming a raiding party down on the cargo deck right now.  Butler plans to raid Levasseur’s compound just as quick as he can work out the logistics.”
Kobi snapped upright with a start.  He dropped his coffee cup and suddenly rushed off toward the bow.  “Thanks for the information, Richard,” he yelled behind him.  

<<>>

“I understand you intend to raid Levasseur’s compound.”  Kobi said as he pushed his way through the assembled redshirts loading the Rusty Duck.  “I must go with you, the artifacts are my responsibility.” 
Trask stepped between Kobi and the boat, blocking the smaller man’s way.
“Well, I know Doc said you’re good to go, but I don’t want any amateurs endangering my team.  Can you handle yourself in a fight?”  
“Mr. Trask, I have been fighting heavily armed poachers for the last ten years.  I’ve seen plenty of combat,” said Kobi as he reached out and pulled Trask’s automatic from its holster.  He immediately checked the load, jacked a cartridge into the chamber, took the weapon off safety and fired at a clump of floating seaweed highlighted by the light shining through the open bow doors.  A spout of water marked its annihilation.  Kobi re-set the safety and returned the weapon to Trask.  
“Sighted seaweed.  Sank same,” Trask quipped, as he turned to one of his security staff.  “Get this man a weapon.  He’s going to need it.” 

<<>>

Katharine waited with the rest of the crew, hoping every minute to hear that Tommy and Butler were safe.  She heard the report about the fate of the Ambigu as soon as it came through, as well as Trask’s orders.  Scant minutes later she was on the cargo deck watching Trask organize his raiding party.
Katherine knew she could never persuade Trask to allow her to come on this mission, but she was determined to go, one way or another.  The man who had Kobi’s treasure also had her underwater camera with the pictures of the Coelacanth.  She had to get aboard.
Taking advantage of the crew’s preoccupation with loading the Duck, she climbed up a boarding ladder hanging off the stern, crawled just forward of the cockpit, and rolled under a bench.  Grabbing a tarpaulin, she pulled it over herself. 
If I can avoid discovery until we are on our way, Trask will have to let me come.  She rationalized.  
Ten heavily armed men clambered onto the Rusty Duck, and quietly seated themselves as best as they could on the overcrowded craft.  
The pilot gunned the throttle.  Enveloped in a blue haze of diesel exhaust, the Duck drove off the loading ramp into the choppy waves.
“Listen up,” Trask announced, “our objective is to find, secure, and return with one Alexander Levasseur.  Mr. Butler has designated a beach a quarter mile down the coast from Levasseur’s compound as our landing site.  We will rendezvous with him for a sit-rep.  After that, he and Tommy will guide us to our quarry.”  
“About two hours ago we sent a camera drone over our target and took a few images,” he said passing out a handful of printed photographs to his crew.  “As you can see in the photographs...”  Trask began.  The assault team, anticipating a lengthy briefing, settled in.  Katherine stifled a grunt as the man sitting above her unexpectedly kicked at the tarp; striking Katherine in the process.  Her breathless gasp escaped the notice of all, except one.
Chan’s head immediately swiveled toward the sound, and his eyes stared into the shadow under the bench, pinpointing Katherine as she peered from behind the tarp.  He casually touched his index finger to his lips, conveying in one conspiratorial gesture, I know you are there, and I’m not going to give you away. 
“…about two hundred feet west of the gate is a guard barrack,”   Trask rattled on.  “We know that there will probably be from ten to fifteen guards in the compound.  With luck, half of them will be asleep, drunk, or in town.  Remember, all of them are well-trained mercenaries.  Also, remember that Levasseur has two women as his personal bodyguards.  Both are stone-cold killers.  Assume that everyone you meet is as skilled as you are.  They will kill you without hesitation, so don’t give them a chance.”

<<>>

Within an hour, the pilot quietly beached the Rusty Duck next to the Dolphin on a moonlit beach west of Levasseur’s compound.  Trask and his team gathered on the beach looking for Tommy and Butler.  
From out of the nearby underbrush came the highly recognizable warble of Tommy Cooper.
“HOOT, HOOT” 
“YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.  THAT IS THE WORST BARN OWL I’VE EVER HEARD.”  
“FOR YOUR INFORMATION, IT WASN’T A BARN OWL, IT WAS A LOON.” 
“IT SURE WAS.” 
Matthew Butler and Tommy emerged from the underbrush, still arguing over fowl birdcalls.
“Ready for a little party?”  Butler asked, falling into step with Trask and his team.  “Follow me,” he directed, leading the assault team through the dark underbrush toward the compound’s perimeter wall.  
In a sheltered clearing near the wall, Butler knelt in the dirt and drew a detailed map of the compound.  “This is a path winding up from the dock to the house.”  He explained, as he pointed to locations on the map.  
“The house has three entrances.  The east side entrance leads to a large garage.  The main entrance opens on a circular drive that heads south toward the gate.  The west entrance to the house leads to a swimming pool, and beyond the pool, the helicopter pad.”
“There are two guards on the gate, and I figure a half dozen off duty in the guard barracks about one hundred yards beyond.  We spotted four more guards on what looks like two-man roving patrols.  It takes them about twenty minutes to make a full circuit of the compound.”
Trask thought for a moment and then said, “Squad A will take care of the gate and barracks, and I will lead squad B against the roving patrols and the garage.”  Turning to Butler, Trask said, “Since you know what Levasseur looks like, you, Chan, Tommy and Kobi will assault the house.”  
“What about the chopper?”
Tommy stepped forward.  “I’ve got it…” seeing the question in Butler’s expression, Tommy said, “Trust me, I’ve got it.”
With military efficiency, the team proceeded to scale the compound wall and drop silently to the other side, before separating into the three designated groups.  
Hearing the men move off into the distance, Katherine crawled from beneath the bench.  She could easily see that the men’s trail lead away into the underbrush.
Katherine thought to herself, if I follow them into the underbrush, I’ll get lost for sure, but if I follow the beach, I’ll eventually get to the dock and the path to the house.  Taking off her boat shoes, she briskly set off along the tide line.  

<<>>

As soon as they arrived at the house, Butler quietly led the way through the kitchen door and along the hallway toward the living room.  They could hear several voices in animated conversation.  
Chan whispered in Matthew’s ear.  “Give me two minutes to flank them.”  In seconds, he had disappeared down a hall.  
Peering through a gap in the door, Matthew could just see Levasseur and his companion, Simon Njuguna, in the front room, along with Elke and Eva.  Levasseur and Njuguna appeared to be admiring a small golden statue.  Both men were talking at the same time, and Njuguna was waving his arms in bold gestures.  
“On the count of three,” Butler whispered to Kobi.
Butler and Kobi burst through the door with their pistols drawn.  Elke and Eva’s reactions were inhumanly fast.  In milliseconds, the twins went from casual interest in the conversation to full defensive mode.  Two Glock automatics held Butler and Kobi in their sights.  
For a brief eternity, no one spoke, no one moved, no one breathed.  
“Well, this is awkward.”  Butler declared, analyzing the situation.  “I think what we have here is a Mexican Standoff.” 
As each waited for the other to make a move, Katherine suddenly stumbled into the room and stopped directly between Butler and Levasseur, commandeering the attention of everyone.  
Pointing at Levasseur, she demanded, “Give me my camera, you son-of-a-bitch!”
“Do you mean this, my dear?”  Levasseur purred, pointing to Katharine’s camera sitting in the middle of his desk.  Despite their training, everyone in the room followed Levasseur’s finger instead of covering everyone else.  It was classic magician’s misdirection, and it worked beautifully for nearly three seconds.  
Butler yelled a warning, but it was too late.  Levasseur leapt toward Katherine and spun her around, pinning her arm up behind her back.  Using her as a shield, he backed toward his desk and grabbed a letter opener, which he held against her jugular. 
He turned to Butler, “Drop your weapons or I’ll cut her throat.” 
Just then, the sharp echoing sound of gunfire erupted in the compound; the unmistakable sound of an AK-47.  
“That would be my guards removing your backup,” Levasseur gloated.
Immediately afterwards, the more muted, but faster cycling sound of several M-16s drowned out the AK-47.  
“And that is my backup kicking your guards’ butts,” returned Butler.  Keeping their pistols aimed at Elke and Eva, Matthew and Kobi began to edge toward Levasseur.  In the distance, the sounds of gunfire continued sporadically.
“This doesn’t change anything.  Drop your weapons now or I will kill her!”  Levasseur threatened.
Thinking quickly, Matthew took Kobi’s pistol from him, added his own and tossed both weapons into the nearby tank of Moray Eels. 
This way they can’t use them against us, he thought.  It was the second instance of magician’s misdirection and it worked for about the same amount of time, just long enough for a silent attack. 
From the darkness behind Elke and Eva, Chan suddenly materialized.  Leaping into the air, the Pelican’s martial arts master slammed one foot into the nearest twin; knocking her into her sister.  The two women fell, one on top of the other, with such force that their weapons spun out of their hands.  Pushing themselves off each other, the pair eagerly assumed a martial stance.  Chan’s eyes lit up with glee as he squared off against the two blonde women, each of them nearly a foot taller than himself.  
Xander, livid at the sudden disarming of his bodyguards, reeled as he tried to adapt to the changing situation.  His hand shook, causing a tiny nick on the delicate skin of Katherine’s throat.  
Seeing a trickle of blood seep down Katharine’s neckline, Butler decided to gamble on a strategy.  
“Don’t worry, Katharine, it’s only a little scratch, you’ll still be able to sing.”  
Sing?  Thought Katharine, I’ve a lunatic at my throat and he’s making jokes about singing?
Even Xander looked puzzled.  Suspicious, he pulled harder on her arm, forcing Katherine up onto her toes.
Suddenly hope and understanding washed over Katherine.
Sing!  She thought.  Hell yes, I can sing.  Enthusiastically following the routine she had learned from Sandra Bullock’s movie, Katharine swung her free elbow into Xander’s solar plexus, as hard as she could.  
S is for Solar Plexus.  She thought.  I is for instep.  She brought her heel down hard on his foot.  N is for nose, and he’s got a big one, she slammed the back of her head into his face, crushing the cartilage.  The letter opener fell from Xander’s hand as he screamed in pain.  Dropping to her knees, Katharine spun around, yelling; “And G is for Groin!”  She punched with all her strength directly into his jewels.

<<>>

Kobi’s focus was on Simon Njuguna from the moment he and Butler had rushed through the door.  The instant Simon saw Kobi emerge from the shadows, his jaw dropped and his face went gray.  He began visibly shaking, his panicked look accompanied by eyes that darted left and right.
He’s going to run, thought Kobi. 
Just as Katherine started her ‘SING’ attack, Simon showed his cowardice by grabbing the golden statue and bolting into the dining room behind him.  Kobi ignored everything else and gave chase. 
Simon skirted a large dining-room table and raced through a set of double doors into a well-equipped professional kitchen.  Kobi nearly caught him, but Simon, hearing Kobi’s footsteps, spun around once he was through the doors and slammed them back at Kobi as he entered.  Kobi was able to block much of the force of the blow, but one door clipped him on the side of the head hard enough to knock him down and stun him for several seconds.  That left Simon just enough time to run to the far end of a long steam table and cast about for a weapon.  A ladle caught his eye as a grimacing Kobi burst into the kitchen holding his ear.  Setting the statue on the countertop, Simon quickly grabbed the ladle and threw it as hard as he could.  Having poor aerodynamics, the ladle curved to the left and clatter ineffectively on the floor.  
“Hello cousin.”  Kobi said through clenched teeth. 
“Kobi, this is not as it seems.”  Simon quickly explained, as he held out his hands in a pleading gesture.  “I have been in delicate negotiations with Alexander Levasseur to reacquire Queen Hatshepsut’s gifts and return them to Kenya.”  All the while Simon edged along the steam table toward another potential weapon.  “Why, I arrived just this evening to take possession of the antiquities.”  
“Strange, that’s not what Matthew Butler and Katherine Annenberg said.”  Kobi returned.  “According to them, you spoke quite eloquently about the history of the Sambok.”  Kobi advanced to the near side of the steam table.  
“Lies, all lies!  I wasn’t even here yesterday evening.”  Simon denied vehemently. 
“I don’t remember mentioning when, Simon.”
A long silence carried through the room as Simon realized his mistake.  The politician’s tone quickly changed from denial to anger.  
“You were always so clever.  Even as a child, you were the smart one, the favored one.  Is it any wonder that I hate you?  You are an elder’s son and a man of destiny, yet you refused to use your gifts to improve your power and prestige.  You squandered your legacy the day you became a lowly game warden.”  
“And you perverted yours by becoming a vain, petty politician with delusions of grandeur.”  Kobi returned.  “Simon, you’re so blind that you can’t even see what you’ve become.  You are a charlatan, one who constantly schemes and wheedles in a futile effort to steal power.  It’s no wonder everyone calls you the ‘Peacock with two tails’.  You and Levasseur are the masterminds behind all of this, aren’t you?” 
With a completely insincere sigh, Simon shrugged.  “Yes, I arranged to steal the artifacts.  Levasseur’s influence got it released from the British Museum.” 
Simon’s surprising confession astonished Kobi, but not as much as when Simon’s manner suddenly donned a robe of egomania.  
“In a matter of days I will return this treasure to a grateful nation.  A smart politician must wield power effectively.  The return of the antiquities will elevate me to the status of a national hero.  That and the healthy campaign chest provided by Mr. Levasseur will insure a favorable result in the upcoming election.  Six months from now I will be the new President of Kenya.” 
Kobi blanched inside at the prospect of the Peacock becoming both the President of Kenya and his boss at the same time.  
“And, what does Levasseur get in return?  Certainly, his money and influence will buy much.  I suppose that your corrupt government will protect his arms shipments and allow him to launder currency.  But, most of all, he will get a strong base from which he can run guns throughout Africa.”
“What does it matter?  No one cares, and no one can stop us.”  
“That’s where you’re wrong.”  Kobi said, his voice rising, “Simon Njuguna, I arrest you for crimes against Kenya.  Will you come quietly?”
“Ah Cousin, I think not.”  With that remark, Simon grabbed a pan of pea soup warming on the steam table and flung it at Kobi.  The pan and its contents barely missed Kobi before exploding between the stove and the prep table opposite.  
“Now, now,” Kobi remonstrated, flicking some green slime from his shirt.  “Don’t make me angry.”  
“Yes.  Assaulting an officer is a serious offence,” Simon mocked.
“But not as serious as mass murder and treason,” Kobi retorted.  “Both of those are hanging offenses.  And if it takes a lifetime, I swear that I will see you hang for your crimes.” 
Warily, the two men circled the steam table, always keeping it between them.  Simon reached a pan of roast beef, suddenly grabbing the meat fork and quickly flinging it at Kobi’s head.  Again, the younger man ducked under the streaking missile.  As Simon reached for a conveniently abandoned butcher knife, Kobi picked up one of the lids from the steam table. 
This seems familiar, he thought.  This lid is no bigger than the practice shields of my youth, and it’s strong enough to deflect most anything Simon might throw. 
Another idea suddenly occurred to him.  Perhaps, I can goad Simon into making a mistake.  Kobi picked up a serving spoon from a pan of macaroni and cheese and threw it with considerable force at Simon.  The sticky, cheesy spoon hit Simon squarely in the chest.  
“Ow!”  He gasped, as the spoon splatted on the floor.  “This is my best silk suit, you bastard.”
Once a peacock, always a peacock, Kobi reflected, as he cast about for a better weapon.  He settled on a twelve-inch long metal skewer.  Good for stabbing, but poor for hacking, he thought, as he dodged a short shower of forks.  
Simon had also acquired a large pot lid for a shield and was searching furiously for a better weapon.  
In the escalating arms race, each man acquired and rejected utensil after utensil, flinging each rejection at the other person with speed and power.  
As they scrounged for better weapons, both men closed in on the kitchen’s ultimate armory, the stove area, where several large pots and frying pans hung from an overhead rack.  Simon arrived first but had trouble getting a long handled pot off the hook because he had tracked through the spilled pea soup, which had made the floor treacherously slippery.  
Watching Simon struggle to maintain his balance, Kobi saw his opportunity.  Grabbing a nearby ten-inch frying pan, he attacked.  Simon had only a second to deflect the blow with his pot-lid shield.  Kobi flung his own shield at Simon, and wielding the frying pan with two hands, rained a series of blows as fast and as hard as he could.  Yelling at the top of his voice, he beat down Simon’s shield, and quickly caught Simon on the side of the head with a resounding ‘thwack.’  The politician uttered a surprised ‘ook’ and collapsed as if pole-axed.  
Panting from the effort and the aftereffects of excessive adrenaline racing through his system, Kobi cast around for something to restrain his captive.  Seeing nothing useful, he hoisted the unconscious man on top of a butcher’s block.  Using all the knives he could find, he pinned Simon face down over the block by beating a multitude of knives through Simon’s best silk suit into the block with his frying pan.  After several minutes of effort, Kobi stood back to admire his solution.  Simon was well pinned, with knives through the suit’s shoulders, elbows, wrists, and waist.  For good measure, Kobi took the two largest knives and beat them crosswise into the block with the sharp edge just touching the back of Simon’s neck.  
“That should hold you for a bit,” he muttered.

<<>>

In the living room, Elke threw a punch at Chan’s face while Eva directed a kick at his groin.  With a graceful spiral, Chan slipped past the punch, giving Elke a nudge that sent her sprawling across the hardwood floor.  At the same time, he caught Eva’s kick, lifted her foot high in the air and dumped her on her ass.  Without turning around, he brought his heel down viciously on Eva’s hand as she reached for her automatic weapon.  The howl of pain the blow produced rattled a chandelier.  Chan kicked the automatic under a grand piano.
Elke quickly leapt to her feet again, lining up for another attack.  
Chan gave her a little smile, “Remember rule number one.” He said, in a reference to his favorite Terry Pratchett quote, ‘Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man,’ from the novel Thief of Time.
“I’ll show you the rules, old man,” Elke screamed, swinging her leg in a roundhouse kick, trying to sweep him off his feet.  He caught her leg with his left hand, spinning with her momentum.  Unprepared for Chan’s defense, Elke suddenly found herself cart wheeling backward, again landing heavily on top of her sister.  The two women quickly scrambled to their feet but did not attack.  Instead, they paused, sizing up the smaller Chinaman with a bit more caution.

<<>>

On the other side of the room, Katharine stared at the gasping, red-faced Levasseur in astonishment.  “It worked!  Look!  It actually worked,” she yelled.  
Matthew rushed to her side, “Listen, you’ve got to get out of here!”  He grabbed her camera off the desk, pushed it into her arms and hustled her to the door.  “Go back to the Rusty Duck and wait for us there.  We don’t know how many guards are still out there.”
“Matthew, he’s getting away,” shouted Chan, caught in the middle of a simultaneous attack by the Ice Maidens. 
Bent over in pain, Levasseur was making a slow break for a nearby doorway.  More roughly than he intended, Matthew shoved Katharine out of the house.  “Stay out of sight,” he commanded, turning back to pursue Levasseur.  

<<>>

Taking advantage of Chan’s apparent distraction, Elke threw herself at him, attempting to get him in a strangle hold.  Chan, placing one hand on her collarbone, and adjusting her trajectory and speed considerably, sent her headfirst into a corner.  Eva, a skilled and dirty fighter, tried a feint to the left and then a punch to Chan’s solar plexus.  Effortlessly, Chan slipped past her strike, leaving Eva overbalanced as her punch met with empty air.  Chan’s index finger gave her a tiny push as she flew past him.  That push got her spinning and she belly-flopped onto Elke.  Both women, bruised in body and ego alike, rose cautiously to their respective defensive positions to confront their opponent.  With just a few simple movements, both had been made painfully aware that Chan wasn’t going to be a pushover.  The little man stood before them, beckoning the two battered women to continue the fight.  His well-practiced radiant smile, a devastating weapon in itself, just urged his infuriated opponents into making a rash and perhaps even fatal move. 

<<>>

In hot pursuit of Levasseur, Matthew raced down a long hallway into what appeared to be a study, where he saw Levasseur standing in front of an open floor safe.  As Matthew got close enough, he saw Levasseur reach for a pistol on the shelf inside.  Thinking quickly, Butler kicked the safe door, which slammed on Levasseur’s wrist, forcing him drop the pistol back on the shelf.  As Levasseur retreated, blood still running from his nose and now holding a bruised hand, Matthew swung the safe shut and spun the dial. 
“You won’t need that,” he said.
Instead of attacking, Levasseur raced to a wall that held a collection of African Tribal weapons, with several vicious-looking spears among them. 
“You’re right, I don’t need the gun.”  Levasseur said, as he pulled a short Assegai spear from the wall.  “I have many ways to kill you,” he laughed as he threw the spear.
Butler easily dodged the badly thrown spear, which clipped a marble urn, then bounced off the couch and fell to the floor.  He grabbed up the first portable thing that came to hand, a large crystal ashtray.  He threw this at Levasseur, who also easily dodged the missile.  The ashtray did find a target however, when it shattered the glass front of a weapons case, showering Levasseur with broken fragments.
Shaking glass out of his face and hair, Levasseur reached into the case blindly and came out holding a bronze tipped Ethiopian war axe.  Taking two leaping steps, he closed the distance to Butler, swinging the axe madly.  Butler stepped inside the arc of the axe, diverting the blow, but miscalculated Levasseur’s momentum, which carried both men onto a nearby couch.  Levasseur’s flailing axe blade hit a lamp and sent its shattered remains across the room to explode on the wall opposite.  As Matthew scrambled to climb over the back of the couch, Levasseur snarled and leapt after him, taking both men and the couch over backwards.  Matthew turned his head, barely dodging the brutal blow that drove the axe an inch into the teak flooring. 
Butler rolled onto his feet as Levasseur tried to extract the axe.  Unable to free it from the hard teak floor, Levasseur abandoned it and began looking for a new weapon.  With Levasseur distracted, Butler cast about for a weapon of his own, saw the Assegai spear lying on the floor and pounced upon it.  Just at that moment, one of the twins came flying backward through the study door.  Stumbling, she tripped over the crouching Butler, lost the remains of her balance and fell onto an ornate, inlaid side-table, whose legs gave out immediately.  The stunned woman awkwardly crashed to the floor between the two men.  Butler, reacting to this new threat, paused, giving Levasseur just enough time to make a run for it.  Matthew scooped up the spear from the floor where it lay and threw it at the retreating Levasseur.  Missing its mark, the spear struck the doorframe with a ringing ‘thung’ sound, just inches from Levasseur’s retreating head.

<<>>

As she ran down the dark path to the dock, Katharine’s heart soared.  She just couldn’t believe that she had retrieved her camera, especially when it took something as dumb as leaping into a standoff to do it.  The elation quickly passed however, as several dark questions rose up in the recesses of her mind.  What about the photographs of the Coelacanth?  Were they still in the camera?
She stopped at a wide spot in the path and fumbled with the controls, scanning rapidly through all the digital images in the camera, looking for one picture in particular.  Sweat beaded on her brow, as she held her breath in both fear and anticipation.
“Oh, thank God!”  She exclaimed aloud, as the image of the fish in the sunbeam of the sea cave appeared on the tiny screen.  
“Looky what we got here!”  A gruff voice from the darkness exclaimed, as one of Xander’s thugs suddenly loomed on the path ahead of her.  
Katherine’s reaction was automatic.  Instinctively, she swung her camera up and triggered the flash full in the man’s face.  In the near total darkness, the flash destroyed the guard’s night vision, leaving behind a slowly fading red glare.  
“Son of a bitch.”  The man cried out and grabbed blindly at Katherine.
Screaming at the top of her lungs, the frightened girl ducked under his outstretched arms, turned and ran back the way she had come.  A second guard, coming up the path behind the first, started chasing Katherine, his pursuit only held up because the girl continued to trigger the flash behind her as fast as it could recycle. 
As Katherine neared the house once again, another form loomed up in front of her from the underbrush.  She swung her fist with all her might at the man in front of her.
“Watch it!”  Tommy Cooper’s voice yelped, as he ducked and blocked the blow.  “Remember me?  I’m one of the good guys.”  He whispered, pulling Katharine into the underbrush.  After the two guards thundered past, Tommy continued,   “I heard you scream.  What are you doing here?” 
“I came to get my camera,” she panted, showing him the precious object.
Tommy didn’t seem to care much about her camera.  “Where’s Matthew?” he asked. 
“I don’t know.  The last time I saw him was when he pushed me out of the house.”
“I’ll see if I can find him.  Go wait back at the Duck,” Tommy commanded, echoing Matthew’s words.
Reluctantly, Katherine turned around and started back down to the beach.  After traveling less than fifty feet, she discovered that the two guards were still searching for her.  Circling the house to avoid them, she had just passed the swimming pool when one of them spotted her.
“Over there,” he called to his companion.  
Katharine screamed in terror again, as the running footsteps behind her pounded louder.  She began sprinting down toward the helipad in an adrenalin-filled rush.  
At that moment, Matthew Butler was also on the same path, but ahead of Katherine, chasing after Alexander Levasseur.  Hearing Katharine’s scream behind him, he gave up the chase and eased into the underbrush as he heard rapid footsteps approaching.  
Matthew carefully crouched in the shoulder high brush that grew everywhere on the island.  He watched as Katherine raced past in a state of panic, running at top speed with one of the guards close behind.  Butler quickly stepped out of the brush and clotheslined the man with a forearm to the neck.  The guard’s feet flew out in front of him and he landed heavily on his back, out cold.  The trailing guard, seeing his compatriot crumple into the dust, stumbled as he attempted to bring an automatic weapon to bear.  Matthew quickly reached down and picked up a coconut from the side of the path, and sent it in a perfect spiral, clocking the guard in the forehead.  The guard’s eyes rolled up into his head, and he slowly sank face first to the ground with a perplexed look on his face.  
“Touchdown!”  Matthew gloated, raising his arms in victory. 
“Was that Katharine screaming?  Where is she?”  Tommy asked, from right behind Butler’s left shoulder.
Matthew jumped as if goosed by a cattle prod, “Damn, how many times have I asked you not to do that?” 

<<>>

Katharine, still galloping at top speed, was unaware of her rescue from the guards.  She reached the end of the path and suddenly burst out of the brushy canopy into the large open space of the helicopter pad.  She and Levasseur spotted each other at the same second.
Levasseur quickly retrieved a pistol from the helicopter and fired at her through the open cockpit door.  The shot clipped a metal signpost next to the girl and augured into a palm tree.  Katherine, in mid stride, leapt into the air, reversed her direction and raced back up the path, away from the helicopter and the armed maniac in it.  Levasseur, unwilling to waste another shot on the girl, settled in his seat and began firing up the helicopter’s engines.  

<<>>

Nearly 50 yards away, Matthew and Tommy both heard the shot and the helicopter engine revving up. 
“Katharine’s up there, let’s go!”  Butler yelled, running toward the sounds. 
Abruptly Katharine rounded a bend, galloping toward them at full speed.  Matthew stopped, but Tommy ran into him from behind and knocked him into the stumbling Katharine.  Wrapping his arms around Katharine, Matthew absorbed her momentum and managed to keep the both of them standing.  
“Are you okay?”  He asked brushing her hair away from her face. 
“Yeah, I think so,” she panted, as she subsided in his arms, trying to catch her breath.  “I’m just not used to all that running.”
Matthew looked up just in time to see Levasseur in the cockpit of the helicopter as it slowly rose above the trees.  
“He’s going to get away, Dammit,” yelled Butler. 
“It’s cool,” said Tommy.  
“What?” shouted Matthew, rounding on Tommy, “I thought you were supposed to take care of the helicopter?”
“I did.  Be patient.”
“But he’s getting away,” Butler protested, pointing at the chopper climbing into the sky.  
“Don’t worry about it.  Like I said, wait and see.”
Recognizing that she was finally safe, Katherine gasped painfully.  “I, I … think I’d like to sit down now.”  Abruptly, she collapsed in the dust of the path at the feet of the arguing pair. 
Tommy and Butler barely noticed, since the attention of both was fixed on the helicopter silhouetted against the rising sun. 
“Tommy, nothing is happening.”  
“Just be patient,” Tommy answered with the utmost confidence.  “It will happen real soon.”  
“You were supposed to wreck the chopper.  It doesn’t look wrecked to me.”  
“Hold on…” 

<<>>

Levasseur had climbed to two thousand feet and was turning south toward Mahi’s airport, when a barrage of cockpit alarms suddenly began to clamor.  Moments later, the entire machine shuddered violently.  
“MERDE!” bellowed Levasseur.  A look of absolute terror etched his face as he desperately tried to control the bucking craft.  
There was a loud grinding clunk as the engine seized, followed by the scream of metal as the rotors sheared off and fell away.  In the subsequent silence, Levasseur sat in shocked disbelief before the force of gravity had its inevitable way.  As the bladeless helicopter slewed around, he saw three people on the ground watching in horror as the stricken craft plummeted toward the sea.  Alexander Levasseur, a man corrupted by great wealth and power, had just a scant few seconds to scream before the helicopter struck the sea with a mighty splash.  
“My God Tommy, what did you do?”
“Oh, nothing much really.  I just poured a little Super Slick in the lubrication port of the helicopter.  I guess it really should be called Super Friction, because it causes any moving part to seize after a few minutes of operation.”
The pair took one last look at a fading plume of smoke floating over Levasseur’s watery grave.
“Well, I guess Super Slick was good for something after all,” observed Matthew.  
With that final comment, he helped Katharine up from the dirt, and together the three of them limped slowly toward the house.  There they found Trask helping Kobi handcuff Simon Njuguna.  Across the room, Chan sat comfortably in a leather chair.  Casually smoking a cigarette, he kept a watchful eye on the fuming Ice Maidens, who lay bound and gagged on the hardwood floor.
“So, this is what it was all about, then,” said Matthew, picking up the small golden statue of a serpent.
“That, and the guns, and this slime bucket thinking he could steal his way into power,” said Kobi, nudging Njuguna with the toe of his boot.

<<>>

Running back and forth across the sand, barking happily, the dog followed the Pelican crew as they unloaded the Rusty Duck on Little Curieuse.  
“This time I’m going to make the sculpture really work,” Tommy boasted, holding up a little vial of clear liquid.  “Just a few drops of this in a bucket of sea water and with a little imagination, you will see sand sculptures that will astound the world.” 
“That’s cheating, you know,” Matthew razzed him, “One of these days you’re going to get caught.”
Tommy put on his offended face, “It’s a completely natural product.  There are no artificial ingredients whatsoever.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”  Matthew laughed.  “The rules clearly state that all you can use is sand and seawater.  No additives, binders, or structural enhancements may be used that are not found on the beach at the time of the contest.” 
“You seem to be unusually well informed.”  Tommy muttered, sourly.
“Yeah, I had Richard the Great look the rules up on the web.”
“Well, that’s where I have the rules beat.  My formula is made from seaweed, something found on beaches everywhere.”  
“And, if you use the gook to build a three-story replica of the Colossus of Rhodes, don’t you think the judges are going to get a little suspicious?”  Butler asked.  
More boats were arriving in the cove on Little Curieuse.  “Where are all these people coming from?” wondered Tommy.
“The crew’s had shore leave while we’ve been running all over the islands getting shot at.  Obviously they’ve made some friends.”
“Isn’t that Philippe du Garre in that boat with all those women?”  Katharine pointed to a sleek cruiser idling up to the beach.  “He’s France’s hottest fashion photographer, I read about him in Photog Magazine last month.”
“And look at those women!”  Tommy whistled.
Katharine huffed, “Models,” she spat, “I did that for a while.  Always half starved and crazed with competition, don’t expect them to be nice.”
“Just nice to look at,” muttered Tommy, casting a nervous eye in EB’s direction.
Soon the beach was full of happy people, dancing, playing volleyball, and eating.  Everyone who had encountered the Pelican crew over the last few days had been invited, and apparently, all had brought food.  A couple of crewmembers tended a grill, on which sizzled a huge array of fresh seafood.  Succulent fruits and vegetables from all over the islands made a colorful display on the tables. 
Matthew and Katharine each collected a plate and went to sit next to Captain Z.  The dog sat at Matthew’s feet, giving him that alert ‘what are you going to feed me next’ look. 
“What are you going to do about that dog,” asked Captain Z. 
“He stays,” said Matthew bluntly.  “He earned his bunk when those intruders came aboard.  Besides, Mrs. Chan would kill me if I didn’t keep him.” 
“Yeah, I’ve seen her feeding him on the sly.  All in all, he’s got a pretty sweet deal going here.”  
Butler laughed.  “As they say down South, he’s livin’ in high Chow Mein!”
“So, I guess you’re going to have to give him a decent name, hopefully something other than Stinky or Dang-you.”  Katherine hinted.
Matthew set his plate aside.  “Yeah, everyone on the ship has given you a different name,” he said, leaning down and scratching the dog’s ears.  “And you haven’t responded to any of them, now have you?”
The dog cocked his head and listened intently.
“That is because a dog only answers to his master.”
A quick whine and licking of the chops confirmed Butler’s hypothesis.
“Well, after today you won’t be Roscoe, or Muttley, or Fleabag, or Speedy …or even Fauntleroy for dog’s sake!  You need a simple direct name that a dog can be proud of.”
A sharp little bark of agreement echoed from the dog.  
“Come here, Jack.”  Butler said, holding out his arms.  
Thoroughly pleased, the little dog named Jack leapt into Butler’s arms and tried his damnedest to lick his master’s face.  

<<>>

Captain Z’s friend Joe arrived with his wife, their two children, and their new baby.  The two kids promptly set off to explore the island, while a crowd of admiring women surrounded mother and baby. 
Joe joined Matthew and Captain Z.  “So all that action at Levasseur’s was you guys, huh?”  He shook his head.  “Everyone’s talking about it; how easily Levasseur disappeared.  The police found ten guards and two women hogtied in the living room, but you guys knew all about that, of course.  The police are unhappy because no one is talking.  Speculation has it that Levasseur has gone into hiding.”
A knowing look passed from Butler to Katherine to Captain Z.  Joe noticed, and deduced the truth; Levasseur was never coming back.  
“They all got released, you know, even those two bodyguards.” 
“Do you think the Ice Maidens are going to come after us?”  Asked Matthew, handing Joe a plate of oysters.  
“I doubt it.  You probably made it easy for them.  Last I heard, odds favor them taking over Levasseur’s empire.”
“They’re certainly tough enough,” concluded Matthew.

<<>>

Under the shade of the palm trees, Chan once again sat in his rickety beach chair, smearing zinc oxide on his nose.  Arrayed around him were all his supplies; smokes, beer, food, and the pulp novel he hadn’t finished.  An old, tinny, transistor radio played music and local news.  Next to him in the sunshine, EB lay on her blanket, trying for that illusive golden tan. 
Chan wasn’t reading, however, nor ogling any of the models on the beach.  He was watching his wife of 30 years play volleyball with determination.  Mrs. Chan, the Pelican’s gourmet cook, and a woman barely 5’ tall, aggressively held her own against younger and taller crewmembers.  Chan, rarely surprised by anything, was pleasantly blown away by some of his wife’s moves.  
“Isn’t she amazing?”  He marveled.  
Over the radio, the news announcer started on a story about a typhoon in the northern Indian Ocean producing some storm surges that would be washing onto shore over the next 8 hours.  “Residents and tourists living and playing along the north shores should be prepared for wave crests from one to two meters above the high tide line.”
“Will that be a problem?”  EB asked from her blanket in the sun, effectively breaking Chan’s concentration on the volleyball game. 
“Shouldn’t be.  We’re anchored on the south side of Little Curieuse.  The island shelters us.  We won’t get any big waves, but we might see heavier surf if the waves curl around the island.” 
Idly, EB gazed at the sleek black yacht anchored in the lee of the Pelican.  “I don’t normally think things like this, but to me that yacht seems evil, like it’s a predator hiding in the darkness, ready to pounce on an unwitting victim.  Do you think Butler will get away with keeping it?”  She asked.
“There is no good or evil,” intoned Chan.  “There is only ‘is or is not,’ and right now that boat ‘is’ Matthew’s.  We found it derelict.  There’s no owner of record, and no insurance.  The Libyan registration filed with the Seychelles harbormaster was a forgery.  As far as the authorities are concerned, that yacht doesn’t exist.”
“So Butler will be keeping it with the Pelican, huh?” 
“No, he has put a prize crew aboard, all the lucky people due for rotation.  Tomorrow they will depart for Kenya to deliver Kobi and that slimy politician to Mombasa, and then they’ll head thru the Suez toward Monaco.  Eventually, your lurking black yacht will end up being transshipped across the Atlantic to Butler’s Dad in Mobile.” 
EB sighed, “That’s a pretty rich prize.  Some people just have all the luck.”  She took a swig of her drink and glanced over at Tommy down by the tide line, once again digging away at a giant mound of sand.
“Watch this,” she said and chuckled.  “TOMMY, LOOK OUT!” 
Tommy spun around and spread-eagled himself in front of his sculpture, looking around for another woman to come barreling out of the underbrush.  It only took a moment before it dawned on him that he was being laughed at.  
“You’ll get yours,” he yelled, shaking a fist in EB’s direction.
“Promises, promises,” she shouted back, laughing.

<<>>

Matthew and Katharine wandered away from the others.  Matthew reached into a cooler set in the shade of the Rusty Duck and fetched out two beers.  He opened one and handed it to Katharine before opening his own.  
“How long before you have to go back to Durban?” he asked her.
“My flight goes out tomorrow morning,” she replied with a wistful smile.  “I wish I had more time.”
“We’ll just have to make the most of the time we have, then,” he said, taking her hand.  “By the way, I know this sheltered little cove down the beach with a lagoon that’s just perfect for two.”  
“I can’t wait to see it.”  Katherine answered smiling.  

<<>>

Tommy worked feverishly, sculpting a huge mound of sand on the waterline between low and high tide.  In the background, local news reported the tragic sinking of a freighter north of Mahi.  According to the announcer, unnamed Government Officials suspected it was the work of pirates.  In an unrelated story, the police were actively seeking the whereabouts of a well-known entrepreneur, Alexander Levasseur, for undisclosed crimes. 
As work progressed on the new World’s Greatest Sand Castle, Tommy moved sand like a fiend.  He carefully carved long curves into the contours of his mound of sand.  As the afternoon heated up, the crew slowly migrated to the meager shade of the palms high on the beach, watching soft white clouds scudding across the sky above the clear blue waves.  By late afternoon, only one lone figure was in the sun down near the tide line, still sculpting sand.
Tossing down his tools, Tommy grunted with satisfaction.  “Ta-Da!” he sang, announcing to the beach, “My masterpiece is done.  Everyone come take a look.” 
“I can see it fine from here.”  EB responded aloud.  To everyone within earshot she muttered, “See one pile of sand and you’ve seen them all.”
Several of the less lethargic members of the crew wandered slowly down to the tide line. 
Tommy sat in a rather good likeness of a 1965 Corvette convertible made completely from sand.  Leaning back in his seat and smiling, he lit up a fat cigar.  “This is my greatest creation ever.” 
A few halfhearted hurrahs sounded from the witnesses.  From her blanket, EB raised an unidentified umbrella drink to toast his handiwork.
Amid all the accolades, the people on the beach suddenly began shouting and pointing.  Tommy, reveling in their appreciation, failed to notice.  He took a great big puff on his cigar, savoring his victory.  It was at that moment that a huge rogue wave suddenly rushed up the beach, engulfing the entire sand castle, wiping it out, and leaving Tommy buried face down in the sand.
Matthew Butler would really have enjoyed this dousing of his friend, but he missed it.  
A line of footprints traveled down the beach.  Two people walked with their heads together, arms around each other's bodies.  Behind them, a small dog happily trotted along.

###


About the Authors:


Sally and Keith Pomeroy live in the wilds of North America, in a place pretty much at the opposite end of the globe from the Seychelles.  Both are hard at work on Matthew Butler’s next adventure due out in the near future.  When not writing, both enjoy dining at the Moon on oysters on the half shell, Chile Rellenos, and Alaskan Amber Ale.  

TO
Bailey Elise
One perfect daughter
<<>>
August 22, 1982
One perfect day
<<>>
John’s Restaurant
One perfect place
<<>>
Matthew McConaughey
and
Steve Zahn
One perfect Pair
<<>>

<<>>
TO
Terry Pratchett

<<>>

Acknowledgements
Thanks to the people at Wikipedia and Google and Gizmag and all of the other wonderful folks who have taken the time to share information on the web.  The world is a diverse and fascinating place and now it’s all here in our living room to be explored.
For early contributions, the name, and long relaxing days on the houseboat, as well as the generous willingness to read our early attempts, thank you to Carol and Randy Bremmer.
For all of the great Marshal Arts stories that helped to form our fight scenes we thank Mark Posy of Colorado Tai Chi, with apologies for all the things we probably got wrong.
Thank you to our great First Reader Erin Mundt for all of your enthusiasm. 

We would like to ask forgiveness from the people of the Seychelles, Kenya, and Mombasa, as well as all sailors and adventure heroes everywhere for taking license with things we don’t know much about.  This story is for fun, it ain’t literature.
Cover illustration:  http://www.istockphoto.com/diane555


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