Killer Aboard: A John Otter Novel

by Sean Blaise

  The boy quickly counted the eighty thousand dollars and then turned to Abdul expectantly. Abdul realized what he wanted and pulled the extra two grand from his coat which the boy immediately pocketed.

  "Is it full of fuel?"

  The Leader quickly nodded. Too quickly.

  "Wait," Abdul said holding the boy in place. "Faris go check it and make sure everything is good."

  Abdul knew all too well that fuel in Somalia was nearly impossible to come by. You couldn't just drive up to the local yacht club and fill up your boat. And clean fuel? That was a fantasy. Everything in Somalia was corrupt. The fuel distributors had a nasty habit of mixing in water with the fuel to get more bang for their buck. Abdul had brought some high-performance fuel additives to give the gas a little more octane, just in case. The last thing he could afford was to have the motors die on him while in pursuit of his quarry.

  Faris returned from the boat and said everything was as good as could be expected. Abdul nodded to his crew in the Mercedes to get out.

  The Sheikh's men exited the car while the Somali boys got in. It had been prearranged that the Somalis would get the car to head back to whatever dump they had come from.

  Eighty-two thousand dollars for a speedboat with three outboard motors and a top speed of 60 knots wasn't too bad. It was no yacht, but it was fast and exactly what Abdul needed. A speedboat like this wasn't easy to find in Somalia. Eight-two thousand was a steal.

  Faris and the Sheikh’s men stood watch and protected Abdul's back as he walked down the dock to the boat. The Somali leader and his crew got in the Mercedes and stared at Faris for a moment as he sat behind the wheel. The leader thought he saw a hint of a smile on Faris's face as he stepped back away from the car. But it could just as easily be the forty hours straight he had been high on Khat, a Somali drug the local warlords liked to use to keep the boys angry and awake.

  The leader quickly dismissed the thought and focused instead on his cut of the two grand he had just gained by strong-arming these weird buyers. He would spend his lion's share on more drugs and perhaps a new rocket launcher if he could get a good deal. The last of the Somali boys got in the car and closed the door. The leader turned the key.

  BOOM!

  The car exploded in a huge fireball from the engine backward. Roaring flames engulfed the boys in the car burning them alive. Their screams filled the night air like the soundtrack of an obscene horror movie. On the boat, Abdul's face was lit up with the orange, red glow of the fire that was now burning brightly.

  Faris looked at the burning corpses with amusement, then nodded to Ibrahim. Ibrahim, Hamoud, and Jamil, the Sheikh's men, all walked down to the waters’ edge quickly and retrieved the four large fire extinguishers they had hidden there earlier in the night while Faris had rigged the car bomb. They walked up to the burning car and began putting out the roaring flames.

  Abdul started up the speedboat's motors and was pleased to hear them running well. He opened the gas tanks and began emptying the fuel additives into them. Only one additive was recommended per fuel tank, but he wanted maximum performance and cared nothing about the longevity of the engines, so he inserted eight cans. This practically gave the fuel the octane of jet fuel, which was exactly what he wanted.

  Abdul walked up on the front deck and looked at the Sheikh's men putting out the fire. This was taking way too long, he thought. He didn't want to raise any attention with the fire before they got away.

  "Faris put out the fire now! And get the briefcase!"

  The Somali gang's bodies had now become crisped, and the smell of burning human flesh was excruciating. It was not the first time Faris's nose had been assaulted by the aroma of burning skin and hair, but it was something he would never get used to.

  Ibrahim used a large crowbar to hook the handle of the briefcase that was still clutched in the charred hands of one of the Somali boys in the back seat. It took a few powerful tugs before the torched boy finally relinquished his grip on the case. The case was scorched but otherwise unharmed.

  The case was a Haliburton special; one of those brushed aluminum cases that were designed for fire and flood type protection. In the 5 minutes the case had been in the fire, it had heated up substantially, but it was otherwise fine. It had a manufacturer claim of 1 hour in a raging fire, although Faris wondered how accurate that was. After dropping it in the river water to cool it down, he opened it gingerly. There it was. Their bonus. Eighty-two thousand dollars.

  Faris and his crew walked down the dock and jumped on board the speedboat. Abdul quickly pulled the boat away from the pier and turned the boat’s bow towards the sunrise and the open ocean.

  Abdul had never planned on letting the Somali gang live. There could be no trace of where the boat came from or who had owned it. Deception was imperative to their operation and there could be no loose ends.

  Abdul would have normally thought twice about crossing Yusuf Mucktab, the dangerous Somali warlord who owned the boat that he was now driving. But for this particular job, he had no fear of retribution by the warlord. By the time Yusuf figured out Abdul had crossed him, Abdul would be well into international waters and simply not worth the risk to Yusuf. Yusuf would just have to take his loss on the chin.

  Abdul pushed the silver throttles down hard and the boat easily climbed up onto a plane. He pulled out of the harbor and headed for the open sea at a nice clip of 30 knots. He did not need to go any faster as his quarry was still hours away.

  Chapter 2

  John stared intently into Alexi's sapphire blue eyes. He watched, waiting, for a sign. Any sign at all. The final card was dealt onto the green felt and Alexi's blue eyes shifted. John knew his kings were beat.

  "I raise," Alexi said.

  "I know," John responded tiredly. "That ace on the turn was a gross injustice."

  John looked around exasperated.

  "Do you really have the ace, Alexi?"

  Alexi smiled.

  "What do you think my friend?" he said in his heavy Russian accent sitting back and taking a puff of his expensive cigar.

  "I think I'm beat. And I think that you would also make the same raise with nothing. So, I have only one move, I guess."

  "Which is?" Alexi asked expecting John to fold his hand.

  "All in," John said, shoving all the remaining chips in front of him into the already large pile in the middle of the table.

  Alexi suddenly looked confused. He knew that his ace was strong; but, more worrisome, he knew that John knew that he had an ace. He knew John knew, that was the problem.

  John also had everything to lose. On the table was six thousand dollars, half of which had been John’s before this pot had developed. Three thousand was half of John’s monthly wage and Alexi knew it. After all, he paid John's salary. John Otter made a good living for a young man, but it was still a lot of money to him. On the other hand, Alexi had over twenty-three billion behind him at the market close that day.

  Alexi froze for a moment. Every second that passed, he stared harder and harder at that lone ace of diamonds on the table looking for a clue. He wished the card would wink or something, anything to tell him that he was ahead.

  Finally, Alexi looked directly at his opponent, John Otter. Nobody he had ever met had the guts of the twenty-six-year-old kid sitting in front of him. How in the world could a kid, who had been homeless at one point, have gained so much self-confidence always amazed Alexi. Yet you could take John and put him in a room with the richest and most powerful people in the world and they would congregate to him like a moth to a flame. Especially women.

  Alexi had been instantly impressed with John from his first interview. The kid practically bled saltwater. He had grown up on the water, shrimping with his father since he was a child. He then attended the world-famous Maine Maritime Academy and earned a degree in Marine Transportation. There he was trained by the best professional mariners from around the world in all manners of seamanship and also began his Navy training. He soon dropped
out of the Navy program, due to his clash with the rigid structure of the program. John was anything but a follower.

  John’s resume was even more remarkable. Since graduating from Maine Maritime Academy, John had joined a treasure hunting company. For two years as a salvage diver, where he specialized in lifting sunken ships in the Florida Keys.

  John had then gone back to his sailing roots and sailed professionally in numerous high-end sailboat races. He was even considered for an America's Cup team member before having a falling out with the skipper that earned him the boot. John was then Captain of a sail training ship for the Ocean Exploration School, on an around the world voyage. That was when tragedy struck, and he almost gave up the maritime life for good.

  When Alexi had been hiring crew for his new exploration yacht, he knew he needed a strong and young first officer. Alexi knew enough about yachts to know that the chief mate was really the person in charge of running the yacht, while the captain was primarily tasked with the intricacies of managerial paperwork. And Alexi had needed someone who could handle the unique requirements of his yacht, the Ivana, and the yacht's specific mission.

  "Call," Alexi said. A large smile crept across John's face. His ruse had worked.

  "I have three kings,” John said.

  John turned over the 2 kings in his hand and revealed them to Alexi. Alexi was crushed.

  "I knew it," he said. "You played it well, but I knew I was beat.”

  "Then why did you call?"

  "As you know, I needed to give you a little raise anyway, so here it is," Alexi said, pushing the pile towards John.

  John laughed but he collected the cash off the table quickly. The quicker John hid the cash the better it would be for Alexi's pride. Alexi had a habit of slaughtering his opponents in the business world and John thought it better to let him lose as quietly as possible.

  "Are we ready to depart tomorrow morning?" Alexi asked.

  "Captain Brown says the weather should be perfect for our departure."

  "Very well. Inform the captain that Dmitry will be arriving this evening. He will be transiting with us," Alexi said.

  "Oh?" John asked. This was strange. John had not heard of anybody coming on board for the trip to Tahiti, except Alexi himself. And if there was one thing John knew it was who was supposed to be on board the Ivana any time of the day or night.

  "Ingrid failed to mention that we were having additional guests," John said.

  "She did not know. This is very last minute. I'm sure we can prepare a bed for him?" Alexi asked.

  "Absolutely. I will wake Ingrid immediately."

  "No, never mind waking her. He will be fine in the starboard guest cabin and will tend to himself during the trip."

  "Very well," John said quietly.

  It seemed that Alexi wanted to say something further, so John stayed seated. Alexi looked pensive, like something was bothering him.

  "How is our security, John?"

  John hesitated, unsure of how to answer. Alexi and John had disagreed over having guns on board the vessel. John wanted them, and Alexi didn't. Alexi's reason was practical mostly. When yachts clear in and out of foreign ports, there are often local laws against gun ownership onboard. And when a yacht traveled as much as the Ivana, it would be a major inconvenience to have to deal with local authorities regarding the weapons at every new port.

  Nevertheless, in John's mind, there was a fine line between convenience and maintaining tight security. In the Middle East, John wanted the weapons. It was one thing to not be armed in the Caribbean, but that choice was a much greater risk in this part of the world. Alexi's opinion had won out.

  "As well as can be expected, without guns," John said.

  "You know we have reasons for not being armed. It would, how do you say, send the wrong message, if a rich Russian carried Kalashnikovs on board, no?"

  "We should be well off the coast tomorrow. I believe Captain Brown has made it around eighty nautical miles from coastal Somalia; so we should be fine, sir."

  "Very well. Good night, John," Alexi said dismissing the young officer.

  Chapter 3

  Abdul rested on the back deck of the Somali speedboat, smoking as it rolled lazily beneath him. It was ten weeks to the day exactly that he had been offered this job.

  Abdul recalled being invited to an unknown Saudi Sheikh's house. Abdul had no idea who the Sheikh was, just that he was summoned for a possible business transaction. That had been more than enough incentive for Abdul.

  Abdul hadn't been afraid of an ambush or getting killed. One of the advantages of having his reputation was that no one in their right mind would attempt to cross him.

  He had no illusions about a client's loyalty to him, there was none. He was paid to be completely and utterly expendable. Dependable and expendable _ that's what the clients wanted.

  Abdul remembered walking into a large house on the outskirts of a neighborhood in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for that meeting. The house was a large, ornate mansion with massive, green gates, covered in traditional Arabic calligraphy. Abdul recognized some of the passages carved into the gate as having come from the Koran, but he couldn't remember what verse they were from. Abdul was hardly religious.

  Although his business was predominately Middle Eastern, Abdul had little tolerance for religious rhetoric. It wasn't that he minded talking about Islam, it was that he just didn't care. He didn't care why his clients needed what they needed. He just wanted their money.

  In his long history of being a hired gun, Abdul had discovered that his Middle Eastern clients almost always felt the need to justify to him why they were taking the actions they were taking against their enemies. It was as if his clients felt that he was their confessor, as well as their handy man whose job it was to murder their enemies. It was a sham, and both Abdul and the clients knew it. The things he had been asked to do, were because of greed, it was a simple as that. Religion had nothing to do with it.

  That's why Abdul had always preferred working for the Russians. The Russians knew how to party and do business. Money and only money was their God. Just like him.

  As he walked up the steps to the mansion, Abdul had a dreadful feeling that this was going to be a long, drawn-out event. The inside of the house was completely dressed out in traditional Bedouin decorations. The floor was littered with thick rugs and overhead lamps swung from gold chains, mimicking the tents that the Saudis had lived in for thousands of years in the deserts. The owner had ironically spent millions to make his mansion look like a tent. Abdul despised such hypocrites.

  The Pakistani butler led him to a heavy metal door leading to a cellar. A large bodyguard was standing in front of the door. He looked undecided about whether or not he would move and let Abdul pass. Finally, he seemed to make up his mind and he stepped aside and opened the door. Abdul was liking this less and less.

  The stone steps to the basement looked cold and just recently swept. Not that it mattered much, as there was still fine dust everywhere. No matter how nice the house, keeping out desert dust was as futile as pissing in the wind. The dust would always get in.

  At the bottom of the steps yet another door stood fast. Abdul opened it slowly. The room was brilliantly lit. It took a moment for Abdul's eyes to adjust from the dark stairs. There were several men in the room, mostly older, with a particularly young man working a camera. Abdul knew what this was instantly. An execution.

  The prisoner was a young man, possibly in his mid-twenties. He was hog-tied with some kind of traditional twine, that ran from both his ankles to his bent wrists that were wedged unnaturally behind his back. The room reeked of urine and fear. The man's eyes were wild with panic. He knew he was going to die, and most likely he had known it for some time.

  What must that be like? Abdul wondered.

  The young man squirmed on the ground, like a large earthworm, wriggling to escape his fate. But his fate seemed to rest in the fat foot of a large bellied man, who was standing over the boy. The man
wore the typical ghutra, worn by Middle Eastern men which covered what appeared to be a fleshy face.

  In his hand the large man held a nasty Arabic dagger, the same type Abdul always carried, with more jewels. The dagger alone was probably worth more than Abdul's Mercedes back in Egypt. The blade gleamed ominously in the room; its sharp edge hungry for blood.

  The man with the knife was screaming in Arabic, with the same old, tired speech railing against the Western world. His desires and complaints were boring to Abdul. He had heard them all before. Abdul wondered whether or not all Islamic extremists got the same talking points from some big Middle Eastern PR firm.

  The boy's head came off with surprising ease. The knife seemed to open a seam in the boy's neck that gushed hot, red blood onto the cold stone floor. The boy shook violently, twitching and yearning to get free, but he was already dying. Once his windpipe was severed there was a strange wheezing and bubbly sound as the boy’s lungs continued to pump in and out like an accordion, pushing and sucking the air through his severed neck.

  The fat man continued to saw at the boy's neck slowly, seemingly savoring the moment in some sick trance. He finally reached the spine and sliced through it with a crunch that sounded like gravel underneath heavy shoes. The dead man's eyes kept blinking wildly, and he caught Abdul's eyes for a moment. Abdul had seen that look before. He had seen it when he killed men. When he stole their lives away from them.

  The Sheikh finished severing the man's head and placed it proudly on the man’s back between his own shoulder blades. He said a few more words in Arabic about traitors and such, and then he told the cameraman to shut it off. The boy operating the camera turned it off then quickly ran over to the corner of the room and threw up. Clearly, he had never seen a head come off before. Abdul had to admit it was a first for him too.

  The Sheikh wiped his bloody hands on his white robe and walked over to Abdul, a huge smile on his fat face.

  "Welcome, brother, peace be upon you," he said to Abdul sticking out his bloody palm as if it were the most natural thing in the world.