Sheik Defense

by Ryshia Kennie

  When Faisal hung up, a frown creased between his brows. Only yesterday evening, shortly after dark on Paradise Island, a local had reported an incident regarding a strange man hiring a fisherman to take him to a yacht that had anchored a mile from shore. The incident had been unremarkable until the news of the missing yacht had been leaked. They now knew that the yacht had belonged to Dan Adams. There had been two people on board. Dan Adams and his daughter, Ava Adams. The description of the mystery man indicated only that he was of average height, forty to sixty years old and Caucasian. A twenty-year age gap left a lot of room for guessing.

  Two knowns and an unknown on board who, except for Ava, had since disappeared. She had been rescued and the other two had vanished along with the yacht. It was like something out of The Twilight Zone. He strode back to the helipad where Jer and Sam were waiting by the helicopter.

  “What now?” Jer asked.

  “You have to ask?” The question was redundant. The thought that they wouldn’t take at least one more run wasn’t even a consideration.

  “I’m in,” Sam said in that quiet, steady tone of his.

  Thirty minutes later they were heading back out to sea, where they searched until just after dark. But there was nothing to be found. By mutual agreement and before exhaustion set in, they called it a day. Faisal sent an alert to the volunteer team coordinator to let him know the area they’d been assigned on their second pass was searched and empty.

  “I can’t believe Dan’s still out there,” Faisal said. “That we didn’t find him.”

  “Not just him. There’s the man with no name, as well,” Jer said. “Guy shows up and a few hours later the yacht and its occupants go missing. Is there some kind of link between the two events? Seems rather coincidental otherwise.”

  Faisal shook his head. He’d filled Jer in on the basics of the case, the search aspect anyway. “I don’t know what that was about. Hopefully, Ava will be able to tell me something soon.”

  The lights of Miami’s skyline lit the horizon. It was just short of nine o’clock in the evening. Faisal felt torn. He didn’t want to end the search with Dan still out there but his heart was already back at Mercy Hospital afraid for Ava. Dan had an army of people looking for him; Ava had only him, or at least that’s how it felt.

  He pulled out his phone and placed a call. A minute later, he said, “Drop me at the hospital. The helipad is clear and there aren’t any emergencies coming in.” He’d just checked with the hospital authorities and, considering the circumstances, they were okay with a quick drop and leave. “You get home to your wife.”

  “She’s not too happy with you,” Jer said with a smile. He’d called earlier to let his wife know what was up.

  “Doesn’t matter what she thinks of me,” Faisal said with a laugh. “She loves you, man. That’s why you get away with murder. But you’ve made her wait long enough.”

  They’d already discussed the fact that Jer had commitments at home in Tampa. He had a wife and kids waiting for him and while his plans could and would be broken if Faisal asked—that wouldn’t happen. Jer was a contract worker that he’d used often. He was also one of the best heli-pilots he knew. When this had all come down, he’d taken advantage of the resources he’d had in the moment. He’d contacted Jer only because they’d worked rescue before and Florida was his home state.

  Sam, like Jer, had worked with him before on other cases and they were both based out of Miami. The rest of it, the fact that Craig was heading to the east coast anyway, had been a stroke of good luck. He’d known that if anyone could find out where that phone signal had come from and get to it in time, he could. He’d been right in thinking that and in doing what he had. He’d cobbled together the powerhouse team in minutes after hearing the news. They’d done what they’d set out to do. Now, there were search-and-rescue teams combing the area from both countries. But there was still no sign of the yacht or Dan Adams. He could only hope that he was still onboard, for then he stood a chance.

  It was because of everything Dan had done for him and everything he’d been that Faisal had left Ava’s side for the length of time he had. But if her father’s life depended on it, he couldn’t do otherwise.

  “What’s next?” Jer asked. The helicopter had just landed.

  “I’m having a check run on the phone we found with Ava,” Faisal replied.

  “We’re not heading back out?” Despite their earlier agreement, Jer sounded oddly disappointed. “I’ve got the rest of the night, man, if you need me.”

  “And Rene,” he said, referring to Jer’s wife, “will blame me when you don’t come home at all tonight.” He was fully capable of flying one of the company planes or helicopters if it came to that. “I’m going to wait. We’ve been out twice—had success once. Now I want to make sure Ava’s alright.”

  “There’s nothing you can do if she isn’t,” Jer said.

  “True. But I don’t like leaving her alone.”

  They were silent as a Jeep pulled into the adjoining parking lot.

  “That’s my ride,” Sam said and a minute later he was departing with a nod.

  “You knew her in college, didn’t you?” Jer asked after Sam left, raising the subject with a worried look at Faisal.

  “Yeah, we were friends. Her father and she were always considered family friends, no matter that I lost touch with Ava.” The thought of how close they’d been and how easily it all came back at the sight of her was disquieting. “I’m hoping that Ava knows something. They’ve all the manpower they can muster on the search,” he said, looking toward the Atlantic. “We’ve given it our all. Time for a rest. You might as well go home. You’re supposed to be on vacation.”

  “Yeah, right.” Jer grinned. “Rene has a list of odd jobs for me to do. More than I could get done in three weeks never mind six days.” He shrugged. “Some vacation. In the meantime, I better get this bird home,” he said, referring to the helicopter.

  After Jer had left, Faisal received a call from Barb in their Marrakech office.

  “I don’t have a lot,” she said. “But I thought you might want what I do have, for now anyway.”

  If the situation hadn’t been so dire Faisal might have smiled. Barb often qualified her research as less than what she actually had. He waited for her to prove him right. “Let me have what you know,” he said.

  “As you know, the phone belonged to Dan Adams. That particular phone was on a pay-as-you-go plan. There wasn’t anything unusual about any of it. What was intriguing though were the number of calls received from Vancouver. Over half dozen within three days.”

  “Vancouver, Washington?”

  “British Columbia, Canada,” she said. “I used some tech to unmask the private phone numbers and, as always, it worked like a dream. Interesting fact...a few actually—I don’t have a name to go with the number, but I managed to get a location. Those calls were made from a Vancouver number in an area that, well, let’s just say it’s very wealthy. Many who live there are first-generation immigrants from China.” She paused as if considering this seriously important. “So far that’s all I have. I’m still working on the name of the caller.”

  He thanked her and ended the call shortly after that. As he hung up, he thought of everything that had transpired in recent days. Only three hours ago, in Fort Lauderdale, he was to have met with Dan. That hadn’t happened. Now it might never happen. Fate had intervened in a particularly grim way. She had a harsh sense of humor, one he’d never much appreciated. He pushed that thought aside.

  For now, they had nothing but tragedy on their hands.

  Faisal clenched his fist. He’d lost too many people he cared about. He refused to let anything further happen to Ava and he prayed they found Dan.

  But the facts weren’t encouraging. And until either the yacht or Dan Adams was found, the only witness he had was an unc
onscious woman. His instinct told him that the answer to all this lay on that yacht. But the Atlantic was a big place to get lost in.

  Chapter Eight

  Miami

  Saturday, June 11—9:00 p.m.

  “Log the case as a code orange,” Faisal said as he reported in for the second time to the home office in Jackson, Wyoming. Nassar coded all its cases in four categories from white to red. White was no threat to the investigator. Red was the most dangerous to client and investigator. Orange was the second highest rating. It meant that there was the possibility of danger to the investigator and an obvious threat to the client.

  The whole case stunk. He didn’t like the sound of the man who had arrived uninvited on the yacht just hours before tragedy struck. It was all too convenient, even easy, and that always spelled trouble. If it smelled like trouble—it was trouble.

  He thought of their research team already working overtime and thought of how he’d be dead in the water without them. On both sides of the Atlantic, Marrakech and Jackson, Wyoming, their research and admin teams were the best. In fact, in the past, they’d had other companies try to lure some of their researchers away. The attempts had been unsuccessful. The benefits that Nassar offered its employees were unmatched, but then money had never been an issue for his family. He and his three brothers and sister had been born into wealth. Despite generous donations to charity, they became wealthier with each passing year.

  At twenty-seven, Faisal was a wealthy man. It wasn’t something he gave much consideration to, it just was. He had an accountant and an investing team who handled such things. He made sure his employees were well compensated. That was Nassar company policy. Their employees worked hard and without them, he knew his success wouldn’t have come as easily or as quickly. That aside, with trusted employees in place, Faisal could stick to what he was good at and what he loved. He loved what he did—at work and at play. He played hard and he worked hard. Now, despite plans earlier in the week to learn to surf in Florida after his meeting with Dan followed by a snowboarding trip, he was back at work. It was clear that this case, wherever it was going to take him, was going to take some time.

  His phone buzzed. He picked up before it had a chance to alert him twice.

  “What’s going on, Fai?” his brother Talib asked.

  “Ava’s been in and out of consciousness. But at least she’s safe and being taken care of. She’ll make it,” Faisal said. After the almost six months that Talib had been in Wyoming, Faisal now wondered how he had functioned without him. Zafir had always shared his time between Marrakech and Wyoming. “There’s no sign of the yacht. There are search teams out there now. Jer, Sam and I just got in from searching, although we brought Ava in early this afternoon.” While he’d given a formal account to the office, he always liked to speak personally to his brother, if he happened to be in the office.

  “Any word yet on Dan Adams?” Talib asked with concern in his voice.

  “Nothing,” Faisal said. “Nothing’s adding up on this, T,” he said. His middle brother, Talib had only recently relocated to Wyoming to raise his son, Everett, with his new wife, Sara. Talib was now his backup and had taken the helm as cohead. For Faisal, it had been a relief to have the pressure of being in charge eased. Unlike his other brothers, he would rather have more free time than more power and the responsibility that came with it. He and Talib were similar in that way. He believed that was because his mother had placed less restrictions on them as children and had insisted that a day was lost without a bit of fun. It was a concept he’d carried into adulthood. A jolt of sadness ran through him at the thought of her. He’d lost both his parents years ago in a tragic accident that only recently had been found to have a murderous twist. A case his eldest brother, Emir, had taken on had been the one that revealed the new information, which had threatened to destroy the family. But they’d made it through and their family had grown and become stronger. Now it was up to him to make someone else’s family whole again.

  “Dan Adams wasn’t alone. Another passenger, an unidentified middle-aged male, as well as the yacht they were on, seem to have disappeared. There’s no more information than that. Ava is our only witness and according to her attending physician, she’s suffering traumatic memory loss. She was in bad shape when she came in. They did a preliminary assessment before I left. When I called a few minutes ago, I was told that physically she’s coming around quickly but her memory is still not there. The Bahama Search and Rescue confirms the presence of another man—he was sighted by a local but they have no name.”

  “Wait a minute,” Talib interrupted. “Zafir wants to speak to you.”

  A minute later his second eldest brother, and Emir’s twin, was on the line. Zafir was vice president of the company and floated between the two offices.

  “Do you need me there?” he asked. “I’m at loose ends before I fly home. I’ll be back in Marrakech at the end of the week. Unless, of course, you’re in desperate need of a hand.”

  “Not now. I’ll let you know if this thing catches fire. Otherwise, I’ll keep at it on my own. The United States Coast Guard and the Bahamas Air Sea Rescue and a bevy of other volunteers are out there. More volunteers than I’ve ever seen on a sea rescue.”

  “Alright,” Zafir agreed. “The other agents are all working on cases and, as you know, Talib was just assigned one. But I’m all yours if you need me. For now.”

  For now.

  They were words that they lived by, for circumstances in their business could change in an instant. And something in his gut told him that this one was about to do just that.

  Five minutes later Faisal shook his head as he disconnected from his contact within the Coast Guard. There was no information since they’d last spoken. It seemed the only thing they’d been able to prove was what they already knew. The Adamses’ yacht had disappeared without a trace. It was as if only Ava and the life raft they’d found her in remained as evidence that the yacht had ever existed.

  It was just after ten o’clock in the evening when Faisal returned to the hospital. In his earlier phone call to check on Ava’s status, he’d learned that she was going for a CAT scan. He was advised to wait a few hours until that and a variety of other tests were completed. Despite the leads he’d followed in the interim, he’d chaffed at not being able to see Ava sooner. But the physician he’d spoken to had encouraged him to give her some time. She’d been “through a trauma” were the physician’s exact words and she needed a few hours of quiet and rest.

  Anxious to see her, he took the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. Even when he wasn’t on a case and in a rush, he preferred stairs since he found elevators closed-in and claustrophobic. Besides that, the whole process, even with the latest and most swift of elevators, was still slowed down by the time it took humans to load and unload. He had no patience for that and so, as he usually did, took the stairs. He ran the six flights and arrived just as the elevator doors opened and a trio of medical personnel entered the floor.

  At the desk, he stopped and waited as a pretty brunette finished a phone call before looking at him with a question in her eyes.

  “I’m here to see Ava Adams,” he said.

  “Room 610,” she said as if he needed that information.

  “Is the attending physician available?” he asked. “I have a few questions.” The physician he’d spoken to earlier had not been her attending.

  Five minutes later he was striding down the hall, his expression grim. What he’d heard hadn’t boded well. She was fragile, awake and alert, if you could call still having no memory alert. She was on a secure floor in a private room, as he’d insisted. He’d thought that her youth and the vibrancy that he remembered would have her healing faster than what the physician said was normal progress. Nothing about Ava was normal. Despite what he was told, he had high hopes that she’d be able to fill in the many blanks
.

  “Ava,” Faisal said as he leaned over the standard hospital bed’s security railing. An intravenous machine beeped as it filtered medication into a line in her left hand.

  She looked at him at first with puzzlement as if she didn’t know where she was or who he might be. Disappointment coursed through him. If she didn’t remember him, then what were the chances she was able to remember anything about what had happened aboard that yacht? Yet it was the former that bothered him. He’d never forgotten her and now it appeared she’d completely forgotten not only him but everything else in her life. The case slipped momentarily to the background.

  “It’s me... Faisal,” he said as if maybe he’d read the expression on her face wrong, as if maybe there was still hope.

  She didn’t say anything and the hope slipped from his heart.

  She didn’t know him. He could see that there was no recognition in her eyes. He hadn’t expected that. Somehow, he had hoped that under medical care she would have bounced back. Despite what he knew and what the physician had told him, he’d held to that belief.

  “Faisal Al-Nassar,” he said as if he were approaching a stranger. And despite his formality all he wanted to do was comfort her, hold her and tell her that she was safe.

  “Faisal,” she murmured but there was no recognition in her eyes.

  “We were friends,” he said hating the past tense. He sucked back disappointment. They were friends now, at least he wanted them to be. Disappointment coursed through him. He’d imagined that she’d greet him with that lazy smile of hers and offer him a second chance, that he’d again be her everything. He mentally stepped back at the thought. Where had that come from? The thought had been as unexpected as the desire behind it. He’d never been her everything. Given a second chance with Ava, he’d take it. But they’d danced so far from that to where they were now, and back then they’d been only friends. She didn’t remember him, the intimacy they’d shared, the intuitive knowing—all of that was gone. They’d both went their separate ways. But the truth was he’d never forgotten her. And now that she was back in his life, he wasn’t planning to lose her again.