Cameron did not take Demetrius’ statements as an offer to lower his weapon, nor did Alastair or Pepe. The tone in which the Greek spoke was not at all convincing. The three knew better.
To confirm Cameron’s foreshadowing, Demetrius turned to him, and then slipped his hand under the bottom of his linen shirt. Cameron extended his neck and slightly raised his Ruger.
“Relax,” said Demetrius. From the waist of his linen pants Demetrius retrieved an item familiar to Cameron. He held the piece of metal harmlessly across his open palm. Cameron’s eyes went wide as did Pepe’s. “Back in Gstaad you were admiring my collection,” said Demetrius. “I know you know what this is.”
Alastair craned his neck. “What do you have?” he asked. “A knife?”
“A dagger,” said Pepe.
Cameron frowned, “A Rex Mundi dagger to be more specific.”
“What is a Rex Mundi dagger?” asked Alastair. “May I have a look?”
Cameron glanced at Alastair, then back into the eyes of Demetrius. “Rex Mundi, King of the World,” said Cameron.
“King of the what?” asked Alastair.
Cameron’s brow furrowed. “A terrorist group Pepe and I stumbled upon up in Canada.”
Pepe added, “More like a secret cult. They carry these daggers. Cameron and I have quite a collection.”
Cameron stepped back from the Greek. “The Rex Mundi operatives we encountered were soldiers. The person that told us about the Rex Mundi implied the people running the show were quite well off.”
Demetrius smiled and nodded. “Your friend was quite correct,” he said. “Then again, she is well versed in our ways.”
Cameron noted the word ‘is’ and that meant that the Rex Mundi had never tracked down Nicole, and that they were unaware of what had happened to Marie. They were unaware that Marie had died in the cabin on Lake Ontario, a victim of the Rex Mundi’s pursuit. To realize that Demetrius Stratos was part of the twisted clandestine organization that had relentlessly pursued him and the two innocent women of faith he had escorted from New York to Canada, wretched his stomach.
As if looking into Cameron’s mind, Demetrius said, “The cell put into action was very sloppy.” Demetrius shifted his body back toward the center of the cabin and at the same time, he twirled the dagger from his palm, toward his other hand, so that an index finger was on each end, and then he began to playfully roll the knife in concentric circles, appearing to amuse himself while he spoke. “Ironic that I now owe you a total of three counts of gratitude, Mister Kincaid.”
“Yes, ironic,” said Cameron.
“You saved my son.” Demetrius flashed his eyes at Nikos, then back to his dagger. “Well, you and I both thought you saved him. Just the same. And you alerted me to this, shall we say, situation. The greatest thanks I bear is for the extermination of that cockroach Dada.” He locked his eyes onto Pepe. “More accordingly, I should thank you.”
In a challenge to himself, Demetrius began to spin the dagger more rapidly.
“Dada, you see, was not long for power anyway, a mere pawn. Worse, Dada resisted the true powers that be, colluding with my own son.” Demetrius shook his head, “tsk, tsk, tsk.”
Demetrius simultaneously straightened his neck and stopped the rotation of the dagger. “Things are in place for a reason.” Reduced to a toy, he clutched the dagger by the hilt, yet held the knife away from himself, inspecting the ornament and design. The object appeared foreign to him. “You know my family, during and before World War II, were Nazi collaborators.” He met eyes with Cameron and nodded his head. “Really, we were.” He then turned to Alastair. “Immediately after the war, we allied with the British. Before all of that, we collaborated with the Turks, and the Brits again before that, always a grander plan spinning the wheel.” He moved the hand holding the dagger in a broad circle to illustrate.
Demetrius stopped for an elaborate pause, the attention of the four other men in the room drawn to the hovering metal blade, drawn to him.
“Look, we need these people, people like Dada and Abbo, to serve a purpose. We create them by employing them to service a need. To transfer commodities under the guise of a hijacking, to fulfill insurance contracts that finance new fleets, mercenaries to eliminate non-players. Hell, the Chinese need a place to send the floating fish factory ships that feed their masses. Food, after all, means power. All these and other tasks need to be performed.”
“Like dumping toxic waste in the open sea,” said Pepe.
Demetrius absently nodded at Pepe. “Those men like Dada and Abbo are minions of a market, men that people like myself created. One might say—” Demetrius paused again. He glared into the shine of the metal blade he held out before him. “One might say, as the Texans are the Arabs, we are the real Somali pirates.”
* * * * *
Chapter 72
Talamanca Bay, Ibiza
Demetrius was certainly convinced of everything he told those aboard the Azulejo. Demetrius held a Rex Mundi dagger, yet nothing that he said sounded anything like the fervor Cameron had heard from the Rex Mundi operative in Quebec. The way Cameron heard Demetrius, maintaining power and rank was justified by any means. Then again, Cameron was well aware that leaders are motivated by a different agenda than the many parts of an organization. Cameron himself had been a cog in a wheel when he was a super commando, never questioning, never daring to question. That same sense of honor had been used against him these last days, once again making him a cog in a wheel.
Cameron found himself angry. An anger he decided was justified. Nikos was the twisted arrogant son of a billionaire. But Cameron figured Nikos had done too much ecstasy and cocaine, or plainly was never rooted in reality. The audacity of this pretty boy to say outright that he took Christine to teach her a lesson, that he could own her.
Cameron’s disdain for Nikos was great, yet it was no measure to Pepe’s. Cameron could read Pepe easily from where he stood across the cabin. Pepe’s own sanity had been drawn and tested by this ordeal, and there was not much left keeping Pepe’s finger from squeezing the trigger of the Berretta angled less than a muzzle flash from Nikos’ skull.
Cameron shot his eyes to Alastair. Alastair was a fun loving man, easygoing by nature, a natural calm. To befriend Alastair was to gain a lifelong unquestioned loyalty. The back of Cameron’s throat went acidic. The man that had saved his life more times than he knew—literally more times than he knew—had eyes fixed on Nikos no differently than a predator. That is what the betrayal meant.
Yet the playboy’s father appeared far more furious with Nikos than the three former Legionnaires. His grandstanding finished, Demetrius gave the hilt of the raised dagger a tighter squeeze. Whether he was punctuating his the end of his speech, or beginning another, Cameron was unsure. Demetrius dropped the hand holding the dagger by his side and then turned to Nikos. He shook his head in short scolding turns. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. You are a naughty one, Nikos.”
Cameron tilted his head to the side in disbelief. The father spoke to his grown son as to a three year old. No wonder Nikos was a mess.
Demetrius raised the dagger and began shaking the pointy end to Nikos face. “What would your mother say? You would break her heart. You break my heart. You try to negotiate around me, you deceive your friend Alastair, you double-cross Abbo, Feizel, and then you killed Feizel.” Demetrius slipped the dagger into the pocket of his linen pants and then shoved Nikos back. Nikos cowered from his father. “You should know better, Nikos.”
Demetrius stepped back from Nikos. He raised his hands in the air. Then Demetrius violently shoved his free hand under Nikos’ shirt, into his waist. Nikos pushed at his father’s hands. Demetrius slapped him across the face.
Demetrius held his index finger up to Nikos, glared at him sternly, and then he defiantly reached back to Nikos’ waist and retrieved a small Ruger. He tossed the gun back and forth in his hands. “What is this?” he asked. “You carry a gun now, too.”
Demetrius turned away from Nikos t
o address all the three Legionnaires. His head floated back and forth across all three as he spoke, “I am sure you are wondering why I so openly shared with you my involvement, my family’s involvement, with the Rex Mundi, our relationship clandestine all of these years. They want me to apologize for my son.” Demetrius shrugged. “What is a father to do? I have to apologize for my son, and there is only one way to make amends for the damage he has done. There is only one set of terms the Rex Mundi accepts for what he has done. They want me to kill him, of course, and if he were anyone else—” he twirled the barrel of the Ruger toward the ceiling. “Well, I have to spare my son.”
Then Demetrius abruptly lowered the Ruger toward Alastair and fired.
Cameron released two rounds into Demetrius’ side while Alastair simultaneously fired into his forehead, implanting fragments of the Greek’s skull into the hull, killing him instantly.
What may have been a war cry began to escape from Nikos throat as he threw his body forward to charge Cameron. The cry became a gurgle as Pepe’s blade clotheslined Nikos, slicing halfway through his neck. Cameron had seen Pepe do this before. The Berretta against Nikos skull had been a prop, the obvious weapon. Pepe had wanted to take Nikos’ life with his hands.
Alastair sent a shot from the PPK into Nikos as well, though the partial decapitation was what killed him.
Alastair inspected his shoulders and then the hull around him. “Bloody hell, he missed me.”
“He didn’t miss,” said Cameron. “He was in a corner. He said himself he had to spare his son. He knew we wouldn’t. I think his heart was broken. He didn’t want to see Nikos die.”
“And what was with all of that rambling,” said Alastair.
“Demetrius knew he wasn’t leaving.” Cameron knelt down and took the Rex Mundi dagger from Demetrius’ pocket, far more ornamented than the others he had seen, this one had a crimson ruby set in the hilt. Cameron inspected the familiar ruby closely and then lifted Demetrius’ hand. The ruby set into his ring was the same cut and size and was encircled with the exact design as the dagger.
“And what about that thing?” asked Alastair. He shifted to allow Pepe to exam Christine’s pupils.
“Same thing,” said Cameron. “He felt the need to let me know. They know who I am.”
“They?” asked Alastair. “Who the bloody hell are they?”
“The Rex Mundi.”
“Right.”
“I’ll fill you in after we get out of here.” Cameron nodded toward Christine, her hair mussed, gaze dazed. “She’s waited long enough for us.” His face froze for a second, “And there is another woman waiting for us to rescue her from the trunk of the Aston Martin.”
Alastair peered at Cameron, “We don’t have to—,”
Cameron shook his head. “No, she won’t talk.” He glanced down at Nikos. “Besides, there has been enough unnecessary carnage.” Cameron rested his hands, one with a Ruger, the other with the dagger, on his knees and sighed. “Listen, I’m gonna do a wipe down. Let’s get her out of here.”
Alastair eased Christine upright. “Christine, we need to go.”
“Let me help you,” said Pepe, slipping his arm beneath his sister. “The anesthetic effect of the drugs will wear off eventually, for now I don’t believe she knows what has happened.”
* * * * *
The End
Cameron Kincaid returns in
Templar Force
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Author’s Note
Thank you for reading The Somali Deception. This story is the second in the Cameron Kincaid series and a favorite of my lovely wife. The original draft of the manuscript, shorter and much different than the final release, was written during November of 2010 for NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. I had planned a different project, and then came an intriguing discussion concerning the misconception of piracy with my friend Margot Kiser, an American reporting from Kenya. Coincidentally, I have other friends that had already stirred my curiosity for the region, particularly my good friend Alastair Boyd, who at the time was an eco-lodge director in Laikipia. That was 2010, what happened? In January 2011, I was asked to oversee a multinational tech surge, in a hired gun manner if you will, and The Somali Deception was shelved. After the consulting engagement, I returned to writing full time and did not return to The Somali Deception. Then in April of 2013, The Cathari Treasure connected with an audience and began to climb the bestseller list, sparking encouragement from my wife to dust off the next in the series. Around the same time, an editor from a New York publishing house inquired as to whether the story could be told as an episodic serial. Up for the challenge, I rescaled the project and the result was a four episode serial with twice the action as the first story in the series.
There are numerous contributors that bring a project to completion, my family first and foremost, a myriad of fellow authors and friends on Twitter, and countless others.
Individually, I want to thank Chad Ness, Lon Grover, Alastair Boyd, and Margot Kiser, all of whom supported the project either through shared research or the diligent reading of first drafts. I would also like to thank the readers that signed up as First Readers for this manuscript as their contributions have helped me to create a better release edition.
If you enjoyed The Somali Deception, I would appreciate if you would share your thoughts in a review. Reviews help other readers that may have similar interest as you decide whether this is a story they would like to read.
And again, thank you.
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Contents
About the Author
Excerpts from The Cathari Treasure and Agroland
EPISODE I
EPISODE II
EPISODE III
EPISODE IV
Author's Note
Excerpt from The Cathari Treasure
Excerpt from Agroland
* * * * *
Also Written by Daniel Arthur Smith
The Cameron Kincaid Adventures
The Cathari Treasure
UK Kindle US Kindle
The Somali Deception EPISODE I
UK Kindle US Kindle
The Somali Deception EPISODE II
UK Kindle US Kindle
The Somali Deception EPISODE III
UK Kindle US Kindle
The Somali Deception EPISODE IV
UK Kindle US Kindle
The Somali Deception THE COMPLETE EDITION
UK Kindle US Kindle
Literary Fiction
The Potter’s Daughter
UK Kindle US Kindle
Opening Day: A Short Story
UK Kindle US Kindle
Horror Fiction
Agroland
UK Kindle US Kindle
* * * * *
About the Author
Daniel Arthur Smith is the author of the international bestsellers THE CATHARI TREASURE, THE SOMALI DECEPTION, and a few other novels and short stories.
He was raised in Michigan and graduated from Western Michigan University where he studied philosophy, with focus on cognitive science, meta-physics, and comparative religion. He began his career as a bartender, barista, poetry house proprietor, teacher, and then became a technologist and futurist for the Fortune 100 across the Americas and Europe.
Daniel has traveled to over 300 cities in 22 countries, residing in Los Angeles, Kalamazoo, Prague, Crete, and now writes in Manhattan where he lives with his wife and young sons.
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Excerpts from The Cathari Treasure and Agroland
The Cathari Treasure
Before Cameron Kincaid was a New York Chef, he was an elite covert Légionnaire.
Skills good to have. Because a coveted prize has surfaced in New York and drawn Cameron into an 800-year-old war.
In 1208 the clandestine Rex Mundi began the Albigensian crusade in an effort to gain control of the treasure held by the Cathar. For thirty-six years, the Languedoc region south of France was washed in blood. By 1244 the last of the Cathari were eradicated when the Château de Montségur finally fell. Though the Rex Mundi searched everywhere, the Cathari Treasure remained elusive.
The Somali Deception (Cameron Kincaid Book 2) Page 27
