Love Lost (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 3)

by Michael Anderle

  John just shook his head and went to the stairs going down. He wondered what he was going to find below. Darryl and Scott called in that they had two security guards tied up on the deck. One fore and one aft. They thought one was missing, a zip-tie was found where they surmised they would have found the third guard.

  Scott called it in, “I think one fell overboard.”

  John just replied, “Probably thrown overboard. Darryl you have port, Scott you have starboard. Stay alert for bad guys and pissed-off vampires.”

  Making sure his mask had a good fit, John continued down through the ship. He found multiple rooms of sleeping crew. Some in their beds, others at stations or watching tv. None were awake. He found one older man in his shower, the water running the blood from a head wound down the drain. He turned off the water. No need to waste it right now.

  Continuing the search he made his way to the owners suite. He knocked on the door and opened it. He was being polite for the vampire he expected to find in here. He was confident there were no humans awake anywhere in the ship.

  He pulled up, he had found Bethany Anne and he was surprised at the scene in front of him. The suite was impressive, of course. Multiple rooms and it’s own small kitchen and dining. He had no time to spare as he could see the owners bedroom through the open doors. He was ready for anything from her draining the Sheikh dry to blood and parts all over the room.

  He wasn’t ready to find Bethany Anne with tears rolling down her face. She was holding a naked woman, her dead eyes looking vacantly at nothing. The Sheikh was pushed off the bed and laying on the side. He let his rifle hang on the quick sling and walked into the room.

  The woman was dead, that was obvious. She had bruises all over her body and it looked like a bump on her head. She also had some blood around her mouth. He looked down at Bethany Annes right wrist and noticed some blood staining it as well.

  Bethany Anne was crying, talking to the woman. She kept repeating herself, “I’m so sorry… so, so sorry…” John walked up to the two of them and used his hand to close her eyes. He grabbed a sheet and placed it over her naked body. When he reached to grab Bethany Anne’s hand that was holding the body, she flared up at him. Eyes red and fangs suddenly appearing. She hissed at him as if he was pulling away something she owned.

  John didn’t react. It wouldn’t be a good thing to act frightened right then. He was pretty sure Bethany Anne wouldn’t do anything to him, but he didn’t want to cause a reaction the both of them would regret later.

  “I’ve got her, Bethany Anne. I’ll make sure she is wrapped and has some dignity.” It took everything he had to look into her face and not change his face of sympathy. Slowly, her eyes changed her color and her fangs disappeared back into her mouth. Her face showed recognition, then anguish.

  She looked down at the body, “I was too late, John. I couldn’t save her, I tried. I promise I tried.” She seemed to be drawing back into herself.

  He barked out, “Hey! Snap out of it.” The sudden noise stopped her withdrawing. Being yelled at brought her attention back to him. “We have an op to finish and without your direction. We can’t do that. We will bury her at sea and notify her family. That is more than this jack-off would have done. We can’t win all of the fights, but we did make a difference.” He softened his voice, “Let me cover her up.”

  Bethany Anne just shook her head and easily lifted the corpse up and between the two of them, they solemnly took the time to properly wrap the ladies lifeless body.

  John looked down at the sleeping sheikh. “It’s not just the forsaken we fight, but wherever the evil is. Down here or up there, we’ll fuck them all up.”

  Bethany Anne stood up off of the bed and walked around to look down at the Sheikh. “And let God sort them out.” Her voice had gone cold, distant and even John shivered a little.

  She reached down and threw the man over her shoulder in a fireman carry. Once he was out of the gassed areas, he would wake up pretty quickly.

  John spent a few minutes looking for any identification for the lady. He found her purse in the bathroom and grabbed her ID. He took the carefully wrapped woman upstairs as well. He heard the screaming Sheikh before he reached the top deck. He had already given the whole team the short version of what was going on. When he made the top of the stairs, Scott was there to gently take the body from John. Scott was a solemn man vibrating in anger at what was found. They would store the body and have a funeral in a short while. Depending on what Bethany Anne decided, the lady might have a funeral guard shortly.

  The men ignored the pleading cries from the Sheikh. Whatever Bethany Anne was doing, was horrifying the Sheikh and his cries were interspersed with screams of pain. It lasted for almost an hour before Bethany Anne silenced the sheikh for the last time and unceremoniously took a picture and then tossed the body into the water. She had cut his head off and laid it six inches from the rest of his body to make sure whoever saw the pictures knew that there was no surgery possible the sheikh could receive to survive this encounter.

  John came up behind her as she watched the waves behind the boat. She didn’t turn around, “How many crew?”

  “Looks like about 26, plus the security team which is ten, not including the three you already took out.” She didn’t correct him on the count, so they were right about one of the security guys already going overboard.

  “The woman?”

  “She was Natalia Berona. I have her ID and other information. Nathan will be able to find whatever we need.”

  “Bring her body up here. She will bear witness to the justice.”

  John just shook his head and comm’ed Pete to bring the body to them. Bobcat had finally trusted Shelly’s full weight on the boat and had shut down the engines. Together, Bobcat and Pete had found ties to tie-down Shelly. It wouldn’t help much in a storm, but it made him feel better doing it.

  Pete had brought the body up to the aft area that Bethany Anne was in. She had found a table and pointed to it. Pete laid the body there. She looked up to John, “Please bring the security men, two at a time. We will zip tie them hands and legs. They will be tried together. Don’t forget the two with darts. Hit them with the antidote. They need to be awake for this trial.”

  Twelve men were on the deck with four of her team. Bobcat was still with Shelly and Eric still on the bridge. Three of the twelve men spoke both Arabic and English and could translate. Personally, Bethany Anne didn’t care what they told the others. She pulled up the picture of the Sheikh’s death, his head separated from his body. The men looked from her to the picture and back. Some of them got belligerent, she let her eyes go red and her fangs descend. All of their eyes shot open in fright. Two on the end started muttering something that sounded like religious prayers to her. None chose to continue their belligerence. They had just been introduced to something that was worse than death.

  She explained what she had found in the cabin below. None of them showed the least bit of surprise. That sealed their fate. She turned to John. “Before I sentence them, do you have anything to say on their behalf, or any request as a fellow security professional?”

  John was momentarily shocked. He had expected just to bring them up here to be tossed overboard. That she would try to mitigate her actions by including any comments in their possible defense caused him pause. Then he thought about it. As a professional protection detail he had responsibility for his primary. However; he knew that if Bethany Anne actively start attacking randomly, he would be honor bound to step between her and the innocent. While he couldn’t conceive of Bethany Anne becoming evil, he and his team would protect the true innocent as these men should have done for Natalia and any other women.

  He nodded to Bethany Anne who stepped back. John grabbed the first man from the line and without much strain lifted him to his feet. John pulled him to the back of the yacht, looking towards the east where the false dawn was starting to show. He held him with his left hand, his massive muscles wanting to just snap this guys
neck. Instead, he started to speak. Allowing the interpreters time to catch up should they want to do it.

  “You twelve were the guard. You were sacredly charged with protecting not only the Sheikh, but also those who could not protect themselves. Given the responsibility of fighting those that would do evil, you failed to protect Natalia Berona from the evil in front of you. You are charged with her death, and others who came before her. You are found guilty by the Queen Bitch’s guard. You are unworthy of this life. Aeternitatem.” With that, he pulled his Glock out and shot the man in the back of the head. Pushing his body over the edge and into the water behind the boat.

  Scott had already grabbed the next in line and gave John the look that told him not to interfere. John stepped over to the right as Scott brought the next in line and held him there. Scott looked at the rest of the men on the desk as the one he held cried quietly. His eyes were dark with anger. He started the same speech. “With the responsibility of fighting against those that would do evil, you failed to protect Natalia Berona. You knew this would happen and yet allowed her to go to her death. We charge you with her death, and the others who came before her. You are found guilty by the Queen Bitch’s guard. Your failure disgusts me, Aeternitatem.” Scott never stopped looking into the eyes of the men on the ground as he pulled his Glock and shot his captive, then pushed the body overboard.

  Surprising John, Pete grabbed the next in line. Gone was the vapid youth and before him stood a man. A man who understood that which was right and the results of doing wrong in this world. If it hadn’t been for Bethany Anne’s grace, he might have eventually ended up killed for his folly. He never wavered when he took Scott’s place. Holding the man with his left hand he spoke the ritual which would happen twelve times. Every team member sought to participate.

  Each one would say the nearly the same thing. Something that was later written down by Frank and became the final words many heard over the next century. Pete started his evocation, “With the responsibility of fighting against those that would do evil, you failed to protect Natalia Berona from evil. You assholes knew this would happen and allowed her to go to her death. We here, the peers who live, eat and breath protection charge you with her death, and for the others who came before her. You are found guilty by the Queen Bitch’s guard. You are unworthy of this life. Aeternitatem.” His shot rang out.

  Natalia Berona was followed in death by the security team of Sheikh Robban Rahid. All but one had been killed by Bethany Anne’s security team. It was a solemn occasion that cemented the role of the Queen Bitch’s Guard. They had a sacred trust that encompassed the protection of Bethany Anne, and the protection of the innocent.

  At the end, All stood as Bethany Anne said a prayer over Natalia’s body and they watched it slide beneath the waves.

  They still had a lot of the crew to review and most of them were found to be guilty of knowledge, but could not leave the boat. Bethany Anne used her ability to require the truth. Seven more were executed for their crimes, this time by Bethany Anne.

  The rest were mind wiped and had implanted suggestions that Bethany Anne was the new owner and the Sheikh had sold the boat to her before disappearing. She would get rid of the crew as soon as possible. There was no way she would be able to man this craft without help so she was stuck with this solution until another one presented itself.

  They needed to deal with the boat and the SEA AXE before taking it into American waters. They turned the huge sea craft towards the Bahamas and sent an order to the SEA AXE to join them. It was helpful that the captain had left the communications console unlocked, Bethany Anne didn’t have to interact with the captain.

  She had kept the captain alive for expediencies sake. She needed a new one, and fast. She called Frank and gave him instructions to go ahead and make the calls to the potential crew he had already profiled.

  Dan had considered what needed to happen on op success and had worked with Frank to pull together a good group of potential crew. They would have to hire a pilot to fly the crew down to the Bahamas on the company jet. Bethany Anne wanted ex Navy, seeking those older with more experience.

  They would hire a few crew for boat upkeep, but this one and the ‘sea taxi’ were going to be renamed and modified eventually. Right now, they needed to continue looking like a yacht for the super rich. Considering that is what it really was, it wasn’t too hard to fake it. However; she wanted crew that would know how to make something look pretty, but have bite.

  She considered her options and realized she was completely out of her league. Hell, Dan was out of his league. None on her team had water experience to speak of. When your yacht is one of the top 100 largest in the world, people pay attention to it.

  Well, she would talk to Ecaterina. She had handled the retrofit for the airplane with Bobcat. Maybe she would have enough experience to try and deal with this as well.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Atlantic Ocean, 3 hours from Nassau

  Bobcat knocked on the door to the captains day cabin. A pretty nicely outfitted room with a table and four chairs. He stepped inside when Bethany Anne told him to come in.

  She had tried to wash the black paint off of her face. He smiled a little, she missed some by her ears. She looked frustrated.

  “You need something?”

  She looked up at him and smiled, “Yeah, you know anything about the so-called ‘White List’ as maintained by the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control?”

  Aw, fuck. She was pulling him into conversations about the flagging of this vessel.

  “Ha! I can see on your face you have a clue.” She grinned like she just got lucky and was about to give him the monkey sitting on her back. She kicked a chair in his direction. That was a plain enough command. He grabbed it and sat down.

  “Looking to see about registration of the boat?”

  “Yup, got it in one. Well, this one and the other, at least. I’ve read enough to know that we will be operating them as pleasure only, not commercial. Well, I can’t see offering charters on these things, can you? Considering I’m planning on putting weapons and military gear on it, I can’t imagine the insurance costs if a charter blew up.” She smiled at that. The insurance on a three hundred million dollar yacht was going to be pretty significant.

  This shit was going to eat into her income like crazy.

  Good thing the veiled threat to the Saudi family went well. The family decided that selling the boat to her was the better decision out of the options which became available upon Robbin’s death.

  Bethany Anne’s group had plans in place in case the Saudi’s had decided to try and blackmail them or renege on the deal.

  Bethany Anne needed to see if there was anything she could do to make some money with this and the other ship. This yacht already had two landing pads and one could handle Shelly, she considered just selling the other.

  “Have you considered if you need to rent time or provide assistance to another one of your companies? Having it flagged as pleasure only would likely open you up for questions, if not the effort to impound the ship until the questions get answered. Better to just go commercial optional from the beginning.”

  She screwed up her face in disgust, he was making sense and threw out the porthole the little she had figured out from research so far.

  He continued. “So, best choice is probably one from the Red Ensign Group. In particular, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar and the Isle of Man. Probably close to 80% of big yachts are flagged and those three are the most often selected. Factors influencing your choice can include in no particular order prestige, tradition, history, international recognition of high standards and adherence to the Large Yacht Commercial Code. They have ready availability of a large number of qualified surveyors, good consular services and navy. They are known for their commercial confidentiality which would be pretty important for us.”

  She started shaking her head in agreement. Bobcat was starting to warm up to the conversation. He kne
w it would be a headache and it only touched on the areas he usually dealt with. “The Red Ensign registry with the largest number of yachts is the Cayman Islands Shipping Registry, the are generally considered the best in service.”

  She looked like she had made a decision. Great! He could be out of here in a few seconds. She looked over at him with that ‘cat just ate the canary look’.

  “You know Bobcat, your just a wealth of information I didn’t know you had. I appreciate you taking over the review and research into this problem. Here, I’ll leave you the captains cabin to use while you track down all of the answers.” She got up quickly and patted him on the shoulder as she left the room and closed the door.

  He looked around, she had left the monkey in the room with him. Fuck.

  Jacksonville, FL - USA

  Captain B. Thomas, always ‘B’ and not Bartholomew, was sitting on his sofa drinking a Bud Light. He didn’t even have the TV turned on. Hell, the sun was over the yardarm somewhere, right? He was frankly bored and ready to go crazy.