Time Ship (Book One): A Time Travel Romantic Adventure: The ideal Beach Book for reading on Holiday!
Page 20
"A blushing pirate?" Sally teased him.
"I was caught, and I am guilty. But I shall not apologize for admiring beauty," the bandit leader replied.
"In here," Sally mentioned, stepping aside to let the bandit leader walk in front. He overtook her, and walked up to the door and straight into it, banging his face against the glass panel.
"Sorry," Sally laughed. "This one is not automatic. You have to push it...," and she lent in front of him and pushed the door open.
They passed through the doorway, walked down the corridor on the other side, and then emerged into a grandiose hallway, with a sweeping marble staircase disappearing upwards on either side of a large, cream colored marble table, behind which two women stood.
"This is the hotel reception. I will send out a message to all the guards on their pagers."
The bandit leader nodded and smiled then said, "Please do. Although, in truth, I know not of which you speak."
As soon as the women behind the desk saw Sally, they rushed up to her excitedly across the reception area. One was crying, and the other was obviously visibly shaken.
"Miss Davis! Thank God you are okay? Have you heard...did you see..." and then they both noticed Captain Rob.
Sally embraced the women one by one, and whispered something into each of their ears.
Then she turned to the bandit and ushered him to follow her.
She walked to a door in the hallway to the right of the reception desk, took a key out of her pocket and opened the door to a large, impressive room.
"This is my office," she said. "Please come in and sit down."
Walking behind her desk, she opened one of the drawers and pulled out a large black block which she held in one hand, while she tapped on it with the fingers of the other.
A moment later she turned to the bandit leader and said, "There that part is done. I have sent a message instructing the remaining guards to surrender to your men in the main restaurant hall in the next few minutes. I trust you will keep your word. And if you would care to look out of that window, you can already see two of the guards walking away from their posts and towards the restaurant."
The bandit leader stood up and walked towards the window as suggested.
As soon as his back was turned, Sally reached under the desk and pressed a black button: five miles away in the local police station a loud alarm began to ring.
"And now," Sally said. "You shall keep your bargain, and I will call for a doctor for my guard."
"You will call for one? From so far away? You must have a very loud voice. But you have my permission to try!" the bandit replied, and then laughed to himself.
Sally picked up the phone on her desk, pressed the three digit short-code, and waited for the voice at the other end.
"Hello, yes...this is Sally Davis, the General Manager at the Blue Emerald ..." she said, but before she could continue the bandit leader darted across the room from the window and grabbed the handset out of her hand and dropped it onto the top of Sally's desk.
He lent forward and said to her quietly..."I do not know by what devilry it is that you are speaking to someone, but I accept that you are...there is so much strangeness in this world of yours, that I fear that nothing will surprise me now…but I caution you woman, say NOTHING of the hostages or our presence here. Say ONLY that there has been an accident. A man is injured and that they should send the hospital to help him!"
"I understand," she whispered back. "But it is the other way around. We must send him to the hospital. But they should first send the ambulance to pick him up."
"Ambulance? Is he to walk? I don't understand..."
"Trust me. Please. And let me make the call?"
The bandit leader stood back, and nodded.
He could hear a voice talking to Miss Sally from within the little box that she held in her hand. Sally answered.
"Sorry, I dropped the phone...it got all tangled up. As I was about to say, there has been a bad accident at the Blue Emerald. One of our guards was accidentally stabbed. Dr Mitchell has stabilized him, but he will need emergency medication and a blood transfusion. Can you send an air ambulance to pick him up from the beach?"
Five minutes later, Sally, the bandit leader, Dr Mitchell and two of the bandits, -or privateers-, as the bandit leader kept insisting she should call them, carried the wounded guard down to the beach, to await the air ambulance.
As they emerged through the tree-line onto the beach, Sally and the doctor stopped in their tracks and stared at the bay: two hundred yards offshore, a large sailing ship was anchored, its sails furled, and its boats being rowed towards the shore.
"She is beautiful is she not?" the bandit leader said. "That is our ship, the Sea Dancer..., the fastest..."
"....pirate ship on the high seas?" Sally-Anne Davis completed the sentence for him.
She turned and stared at the bandit leader.
"Aha, at last you begin to understand, Miss Sally. Pirate ship? Perhaps, but as I have mentioned before, I would prefer the term 'privateer.' There is a big difference after all."
"...So..., if that is your ship," Sally replied, a strange realization dawning on her. "Then, if you are the leader of these men,...then you must be the Captain?"
"...And never was a truer word said, Miss Sally. That is I. Their Captain. Apologies for not introducing myself sooner..."
"And your name, Mr Captain? What is your name?"
"I am Captain Rob McGregor, master of the Sea Dancer,...and leader of the most feared band of buccaneers in the Caribbean," at which point he smiled, winked, and swept his tri-cornered hat from his head and across his chest as he performed a mock-bow in front of her.
Sally found the introduction both charming and confusing. Did this man sincerely believe he was a Captain of a band of pirates, or was he mocking himself in some way?
Sally looked from the Captain to the ship and back to the Captain, and was just about to open her mouth to say something else, when the air ambulance swept out from over the tree tops, deafening them all.
Chapter 22
Police Headquarters
601 Franklin D. Roosevelt Avenue
San Juan
Puerto Rico
7:40 a.m.
Sergeant Trevor Bolt had watched in disbelief as the MD 500 police helicopter flew over the beach. He had been viewing the live video feed coming back from the helicopter as it flew over the Blue Emerald Bay resort. His initial impression had been that it seemed to be strangely quiet, with few guests or personnel moving around the resort. Then he had seen the first of the men in fancy dress. At first he had dismissed them as revelers from a party that the Blue Emerald must have staged, but then he saw a couple of them emerge from a building leading a number of guests forward in front of them, marshaling them forward with what appeared to be old fashioned cutlasses and pistols.
When the helicopter had circled back over the front entrance, he had seen that the gates were locked tightly shut, and that several men were positioned at the top of the gates looking out over the approaching roads. At least one of them seemed to be carrying a long rifle.
The local police car from the nearest police station had still not made its drive-by, and when Trevor Bolt tried to raise them on the radio, he couldn't. He called the Captain at their station, and told them to contact him immediately the car arrived and called back into the station with a report.
As the helicopter flew over the trees and swept over the beach, Sergeant Bolt was both stunned and alarmed by the sight of more men on the beach, dressed up as what could best be described as 'pirates'. They were loading barrels and boxes into a boat.
As the helicopter tried to film the beach activity in more detail, one of the men looked up at the helicopter and fired at it.
The cameraman was badly hit, and the helicopter immediately withdrew and flew to the nearest hospital. As it headed out to sea across the bay, the camera caught sight of a large, old-fashioned sailing ship. Men were clambering up and do
wn nets and lines which had been lowered over the ship's side, and a pulley was busy pulling up boxes and barrels from a boat which was tied up alongside to the ship.
The men on the ship looked up as the helicopter flew overhead.
If it had not been for the fact that one of the 'pirates' had just fired upon and wounded one of his men, Sergeant Trevor Bolt may have wondered if the hotel was actually being used as the setting for a film, however the moment a weapon had been discharged, the situation took on an entirely new dimension.
Even before he had managed to place a call to his superior, a policeman came into the room with several new pieces of news: firstly, someone at the resort, presumably the resort manager, had pressed the alarm button that was linked directly from the resort to the local police-station. Secondly, several guests and staff members at the resort had dialed emergency numbers and called both the local police station, and the police headquarters in San Juan: there had been two reports of the sound of gunfire, and one had called claiming she had been taken hostage and was now sitting with hundreds of other guests on the floor of the main restaurant, being watched over and threatened by armed terrorists.
Without further hesitation, Sergeant Trevor Bolt picked up the phone and dialed the number of the Police Superintendent, the highest ranking police officer on the island.
Within thirty minutes, a task force had been assembled and its first meeting was underway. The police in Puerto Rico had been training for the possibility of a Mumbai style terrorist attack on a hotel for several years, and once the Police Superintendent had given the order, the rather aptly named Operation Cutlass had been put into action.
The room was full of senior police officers, a couple of politicians, the Associate Superintendent, the Auxiliary Superintendent of Field Operations, and the Police Superintendent himself.
As all the selected police officers and resources throughout Puerto Rico were being assembled and put on alert, Sergeant Trevor Bolt addressed the task force, first briefing them on the chain of events so far, and then replaying and showing them all a video of what the helicopter had seen on its flight over the resort.
As soon as the video had been viewed, the Superintendent stepped into a private office and called his superior in the US.
Within minutes of explaining that the hotel under attack was the Blue Emerald Bay, sections of the FBI and the Puerto Rican National Guard and the U.S. Army had been alerted.
Ten minutes later, the President of the United States of America called the Superintendent of Puerto Rico personally.
Ever since he had seen a copy of the guest list from the hotel, the Superintendent had been expecting the call: one of the guests staying at the Blue Emerald was the President's nephew.
As the air-ambulance flew towards the beach of the Blue Emerald Bay, all eyes in the Operation Cutlass incident room were on the large video screen: both the pilots and one of the medical staff on the air ambulance helicopter had been swapped for experienced policemen, trained and skilled for operations such as these. Their job was to learn as much as possible about the situation in the Blue Emerald and to brief the task force with as much local intelligence as possible, before the army or police response unit was sent in.
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The Blue Emerald Bay Resort
The Beach
Puerto Rico
As the air ambulance lowered itself gently onto the sand, the pirates on the beach ran in panic to the shelter of the trees. On the boat being rowed towards the shore, two of the pirates dived into the water and started swimming back to the Sea Dancer. Both the pirates who were helping carry the stretcher with the wounded guard on it, hurriedly lowered their charge to the ground, and were about to run away too, when Captain McGregor reached out and grabbed them.
"If this woman is not scared of the Sky Monster, then we must not be either. Stand your ground, or answer to me!"
The two men looked hurriedly up at the 'Sky Monster' now touching down on the sand, back at their Captain and then dived to the ground where they stood, burying their heads underneath their arms and their faces in the sand.
In spite of the fear that Captain Rob felt himself, he managed to pluck up the courage to stand his ground, albeit minus his hat which had once again been blown off his head and across the sand.
Sally stared at the pirates, amazed by their reaction.
"Have you never seen a helicopter before?" she asked the self-declared Captain of the most feared pirates in the Caribbean.
"A ‘heli-kopter’?" he asked, looking back at the sky monster. "So that is what you call the Sky Monster? …The Sky Monster will transport this man to your hospital? It will not eat him or kill him?"
"Eat him?" In spite of everything, Sally could not help but laugh.
In front of them, a door to the side of the helicopter slid open and three men jumped down onto the sand.
Two of the men rushed toward the guard on the stretcher, while the other walked across to Sally and tried to speak with her.
Captain Rob stepped forward, introducing his cutlass between the man and Miss Sally, and pushing him gently back
Instinctively Captain Rob recognised something different in the demeanor of the man wishing to speak with Sally. The man looked at him, showing no signs of fear, but when Captain Rob held his gaze, he stepped slowly backwards, turning instead to survey the beach. After glancing around, he bent down to speak with the doctor who was helping to get the wounded man into the belly of the Sky Monster 'heli-kopter'.
Once again Captain Rob stepped forward and pushed the man backwards with the cutlass. McGregor then stepped up beside Sally's doctor, now standing, and put a firm hand on his wrist, saying loudly: "Doctor, you will stay here. I need you to come aboard my ship and attend to my men!"
They pushed the stretcher with the wounded man firmly into the helicopter, and stepped back.
The man standing at the point of Captain McGregor's cutlass shouted, "How many more men are wounded or in need of assistance?"
Captain McGregor replied, "None that you need concern yourself with. You may depart now. Away with you! And don't come back unless ye want us to shoot your bird down out of the sky!"
The man hesitated, and then turned around and climbed back into the Sky Monster with the others. As the Sky Monster began to roar louder and louder, the wind around those left on the beach started to swirl the sand around in circles in the air. Dr Mitchell pulled Captain McGregor away from the downdraft, and they stood under the trees watching the helicopter rise into the air and fly out of the bay, getting smaller and smaller until eventually it disappeared from sight.
"Come now, Doctor. And please bring your magic bag of tricks that I have seen you carry. I wish that you now practice your magic on my men, and save their lives too. I will give you a gold doubloon for every man that you cure! And to prove that I am a man of my word, here is one for you to consider as down payment for the first life!"
The Captain unfastened a small leather bag which was attached to his breeches, reached inside and pulled out a single, bright colored coin. He tossed it through the air to the doctor, and smiled.
"Don't worry," the Captain laughed. "There is plenty more where that came from!"
As they sat in the pinnace, being rowed out to the Sea Dancer by two men, surrounded by several barrels and boxes full of food, the Doctor studied the coin in his hand, marveling at its weight and luster.
"Is this real?" he asked the pirate leader.
"Are you calling me a liar and cheat? I am a man of my word! That doubloon is almost as new as a babies rear-end! See how it shines..."
"But the date on the coin says '1698'!"
"Exactly, it's less than a year old!"
"Where did you get it from?"
"A friend who wanted to share his fortune with others less fortunate than himself. I was merely happy to oblige him in his philanthropic desires..." the Captain replied, and then laughed.
The Doctor tossed the coin across to
the resort manager, and watched as she too studied the coin.
"If, as you say, Captain McGregor," Sally began to ask. "…you have a number of these gold coins, why did you not seek to buy food and water, like normal people – instead of stealing it? These are very valuable!"
"Buy? Food and water from the Spanish, with Spanish coinage that we took from Spaniards? A novel idea, I grant you that, but not one that we considered too seriously. For obvious reasons."
"What obvious reasons? We are not Spanish. We are Americans. This is Puerto Rico not Spain!"
"A-mericans? Who? You jest, and you mock me, do you not? Think ye that I am not a learned man? I know well who owns Puerto Rico, and it is not these A-mericans you speak of, or the British. Do not take me for a fool."
Sally sat silently for a moment, studying the pirate leader's face and features.
"Captain McGregor, Puerto Rico has belonged to America since it was successfully invaded and captured during the Spanish-American war in 1898. And since 1917, all Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens, thanks to the Jones Act of that year. This is very much American soil now, and has nothing more to do with the Spanish."
The Captain's face became serious.
"1917? You jest again. I tire of your jokes, and I do not understand that of which you now speak. This is not 1917, this is but 1699!"
"1917? Sorry, that was almost a hundred years ago...the year is now 2014..."
"STOP! Enough! I have heard enough. The year is 1699, and I wish you now to remain quiet."
Sitting beside Sally and facing the Captain, Dr Mitchell reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin, tossing it across to the Captain.
"You gave me one, and now I return the favor. That is a dime, one of the coins we use in Puerto Rico. Turn it over, and look at the date, just underneath the bottom of the head."
Captain McGregor raised the coin up and stared at it, looking for the date as suggested. Sally and the doctor both watched the expression on his face, easily noticing the moment when the Captain found the date, and his jaw dropped open, his eyes looking up and staring first at Sally and then the doctor.