MERCURY'S SECRET

by Tobias Roote

  I made the course correction and then just as I was going to sit and read the letter I saw a red flashing light coming from the dash of the cockpit controls. Underneath it was a small piece of masking tape with the words ‘PLAY ME’ written in Biro, Abbeys writing, I decided.

  Pressing the switch below the flashing light I wasn't surprised to hear John's voice.

  “Hi Dan & Alice

  You are now heading away from the Island and this message has been activated. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the guided tour. Dan, you should find everything you need if you look for it.

  In an ideal world we have already spoken about what has and is occurring and you are following a planned departure.

  If you look to the right of the red flashing light there is a recessed silver button. Press it. When you have done that turn the dial above it to maximum.

  Done that?

  Good! You have a transponder that has just configured itself to a large fishing boat signature and the radar emissions will indicate the same to any search parties. You will probably be able to get away with that when travelling at night. During the day when physical sightings can be made you might want to turn it off. At the very least it will give you time to get clear of trouble.

  A word of advice. Head for Villefranche then sail south until you reach an island monastery just on the Italian side near a village called Albenga. If you need to, you can hide behind that for a while without drawing any attention to yourselves.

  It will give you time to work out your plans and the other side should be looking further afield by then.

  Stay safe and hope to see you again when all this is over.

  We Love You, Alice!” came Abbey’s voice a distance away from the microphone.

  I turned instinctively to see if Alice had heard just as she launched herself into my arms sobbing. She had changed and put on a simple shirt from John's locker. I felt her body cling to me as she finally let go of the grief and fear she had held back all day. I curled her up on my lap as I sat in the captains chair and eventually she fell asleep in my arms. I had nothing else to do for several hours except watch for traffic.

  While I sat there I considered what had gone through already in the last twenty four hours. To say I was in mild shock was too simple an explanation. I had killed a man without giving him a chance to defend himself. Okay, he was seeking to kill me and probably Alice afterwards. I had left two friends behind who, in all likelihood, were already dead. I knew the people they were up against, they didn't take prisoners and when they did it was never pretty. They never let anyone go.

  What I didn't understand was, why they had still come for me and Alice. If they had hit their intended target this should have stopped with John and perhaps Abbey. It didn't, which meant something else was going on and until I knew the rules I needed to stay low. John must have realised that way before it all kicked off otherwise why suggest the Island monastery.

  There was no doubt he was a master strategist. I just hoped it included keeping himself and Abbey alive.

  As we approached the unpopulated Island on the map, I turned off the transponder and the lights, following instructions from the computer’s navigator. As we got in close I woke Alice and she held the helm steady, almost idling, as I went on deck using night vision glasses, to take a closer look. It appeared clear, there was a nice little inlet we might be able to make for which would hide us for the night.

  Returning to the cockpit I guided us into the lea of the island until I reached the position I had seen from further out.

  Dropping the forward anchor letting it run, I braked and tied it off feeling as it bit the sea floor. It held and the boat suddenly swung around to face outwards when it was fully turned I dropped the aft one until it settled.

  With all the electrics switched off and everything quiet we would be hidden from everything except satellite or direct view. I didn’t think satellite was going to be an issue at this stage. I wasn’t expecting to be followed, just being cautious.

  Sat in the cabin with Abbey’s food parcel and a pair of torches I had taken out of the drawer we had our first meal since breakfast. I looked at my watch. It was 1 am. I had been on the go for nearly forty hours. Time to crash out, I decided.

  Setting my watch to wake me in six hours, I put Mercury on Silent patrol which would keep him active around the boat for the night. Alice and I made our way into the bedroom and instead of getting into the bed, I pulled a blanket from the cupboard and slung it over the both of us. Alice soon curled up inside my space and as I went to put the blanket around her she held onto my arm and pulled it to her chest and wiggled backwards into me until she was comfortable. Her warm body against me felt good. We slept.

  CHAPTER 9

  I awoke before the alarm. I never really needed the physical wake up call, it was the action itself that set my internal clock. If I set myself to sleep for one hour or ten, I would normally wake without any external alarm. As I got my bearings I listened for any activity outside. Other than the lapping of the waves against the boats hull there was nothing.

  Gently extricating myself from Alice and leaving the blanket tucked in behind her to take my place, I made my way on deck. There was a low mist around the island that had settled on the water overnight. It would disappear as soon as the strong sun touched it. The eery effect it had on the small inlet gave me goose bumps.

  Mercury was sat in the bow, eyeing up a large herring gull that was swooping around in front of the boat. When he saw me he quietly padded to me and reaching up his front paws on my leg he nuzzled my hand. I went back to the galley and found him some tinned meat and pumped some tap water into his bowl which he had emptied during the night. His tail wagged. I went back on deck.

  In daylight it all looked different. I had accidentally moored in precisely the right position. Rocks on either side looked like they might have scraped the hull if I had gone in any further. Even stood at the bow I couldn’t see much of the lea we were in which also meant we were hidden from the sea.

  Looking up at the island behind me, the rocky cliff was practically barren, at least on this side. The only activity was the native roosting birds. It was well past the nesting season so there were no loud territorial arguments overhead, just the quiet comings and goings as they roused and went off to feed.

  Returning below I just caught as Alice as she was coming out of the head. She looked fabulous, still sleepy in that shirt and a little lost. It bought out all my protective instincts and a few others besides. Now then! I thought, Just stay focused, I admonished myself thinking that for us to get through the coming weeks I would have to deal with a lot of pressing issues.

  “Good morning Sleepyhead!” I hailed jovially to start the day off right. “Breakfast in the galley in five minutes.” Hearing a tortured groan in response, hmmh! not a morning person, I thought.

  We hadn’t had any opportunity to buy supplies before we left so we made do with tinned stuff that neither of us really fancied, but I had found some frozen bacon and lo and behold, a tin with a bag of dried egg in it. The small microwave was a perfect cooking receptacle for both and within 10 minutes we were enjoying a cooked breakfast of scrambled egg and bacon, a mug of hot coffee with whitener washed it all down. Not bad.

  We ate quietly, both I think, contemplating the upcoming day and what we had to do. When you are at sea you feel alone and secure in the fact that there is no-one in sight. The problem these days was the satellites, GPS locators and high flying ‘spy in the sky’ technology, not forgetting good old radar.

  I knew all of this of course, my training had left me with a good grounding in tracking technology, and I knew that if they had the right equipment they wouldn’t have to be close, just over the horizon and out of sight if they wanted, and still know exactly where we were.

  I had to work on the basis we were being tracked and keep a plan B in my head at all times. I knew if they wanted to they could come at us instantly and we would disappear beneath the waves
forever. The fact they didn’t meant they were either looking elsewhere, or had other plans.

  I caught Alice looking at me as my attention refocused back inside the cabin. I smiled at her reassuringly, I hoped. “Up for a short vacation in Italy?” I asked mischievously.

  She snorted, and got to her feet, picked up the plastic plates we had been using and put them into the sink. “You’re going to need one by the time I have finished with you, ‘Old Man’,” she joked and the look I got was enough to send me scooting aft to lift the anchor.

  I retrieved it and stowed it away and then walked down the gangway to the bow and pulled on the front anchor chain to create some slack which set up a forward momentum out of the inlet. I went back to the cockpit, started the engines and put it in neutral while I retrieved the front anchor pulling us further out of the inlet in the process.

  Back in the cockpit and I pushed the throttles forward to give us enough speed to clear the lea without too much noise and wake and then checking the instrumentation to see what weather we could expect, switched on the navigation system.

  All clear for forty miles. We were not in the shipping lanes so could expect to see very little traffic. It was now down to steady speed which I thought would take us about three days to get us there. I thought It was a long time to be out of touch, but I reminded myself that my responsibility was to keep Alice safe. We were as safe here as anywhere and once the initial destination was set into the navigation, we could relax.

  Once we had an opportunity to check out the storage areas of the boat we found plenty of food to keep us going for a week, or so. The lack of fresh stuff was obviously going to be a problem, I thought, but later when I was working on the deck doing some small chores I caught a waft of baking bread. As I kneeled there looking across the sea, I thought about Alice and her ability to absorb everything and still triumph. I chuckled quietly as I considered the possibilities of a relationship with her.

  I would have said if it was up to me, no way, the age difference alone would make it irrational. However, it wasn’t me doing the chasing and I was going to have to see how it went and then when the right time presented itself have a little heart to heart. Regardless of John and Abbey’s warning I intended to have some say in this for myself even if my heart wasn’t in it to refuse her. I knew realistically that I probably wouldn’t get the chance.

  The sea was very calm this morning. We were making good time and my inspection of the boat left me impressed with John’s efforts to update an old boat with new equipment. Much of it was state of the art and in ‘tip top’ condition. The solar panels on the top of the cockpit were linked into half a dozen marine batteries which fed the fridge and freezer as well as trickle feeding other equipment that needed regular running.

  I had tracked a switch to run the navigation computer off the batteries when the power was off which could be useful and found a complete set of boat fishing tackle which I now intended to put to good use.

  The aft of the boat had a couple of built in rod rests and slots for chairs which I pulled out and set up. It would be important if observed from afar either by air, or sea, that we looked like holidaymakers or seasoned mariners. So, I wasn’t really surprised when Alice walked aft with hands full of fresh baked rolls and water bottles in her preferred attire of …....nothing!

  “I hope you don’t object to eating without frills, its freshly baked fried spam rolls with brown sauce,” she said in the sweet mellow voice that I liked.

  “Yes, and served on a bed of naked Alice too, can’t be bad,” I chuckled.

  She curtsied quaintly, which looked decidedly odd with her slim tanned body and I chuckled even more until she gave me a shirty look. Then grinned mischievously. Her sense of humour cheered me. It might have been a difficult job with a normal twenty five year old, or even someone older, but Alice seemed to just take it in her stride. I decided Africa must have been a constant experience of living at the sharp end for her to get this worldly wise and stable.

  I bit into the fried spam roll, the bread still warm from the oven and realised that I had never tasted anything like it before in my life. It was delicious and I said so.

  “Oh Good! You will be pleased to know there are twenty more tins in the larder,” she laughed leaning back into the fishing chair I had set up. I rolled my eyes and drank some water.

  I watched her while she ate, she was focused back on the way we had come. The wake of the boats engines kicking up surf and eddies could mesmerise you with their reflecting facets as the sun bounced off the little waves. She looked thoughtful and I didn’t want to break the spell so just watched.

  Her long straight hair shimmered in the sunlight, her face in partial shadow was tanned and completely free of lines. Her sunglasses hid eyes that I envisioned would be sad at this moment as I thought she would be thinking of where, and who, we had left behind.

  My eyes travelled to her straight nose and down to well formed lips. Her chin not stubborn at all, unlike her nature, was strong and well defined with high cheekbones, a beautiful face. I had never seen her Mother, but she must have been a looker despite the problems she had. I wondered how Alice felt about her.

  I found myself becoming pensive as I thought about the historical baggage we all carry around with us, I didn’t want to dwell on any of mine, for there lay sleeping dragons and I wasn’t inclined to wake them.

  As I continued to study Alice I sensed her attention had changed and her head moved slightly towards me. I felt the focus of her eyes which were still hidden by her glasses. She sighed quietly as if undecided, but said nothing and after a minute resumed looking out to sea leaving me to continue my lazy inspection.

  Her neck was not long and not thin, just the right proportion and the cavity at her neck carried a bead of sweat that had collected there. I noticed others collecting randomly on her breasts and ribs and as I followed them down they led me inevitably towards her flat taut groin which was as evenly tanned as the rest of her body.

  Forcing my attention to her legs to pull myself away from my errant thoughts, I instead admired the athletic build which indicated she was no stranger to either running or hiking. Her ankles were strong and her feet, well, what could I say, they were decidedly cute! I was just thinking about her toes which she had recently painted with a red varnish which looked somehow brazen with her nakedness when I realised she was watching me, one of those enigmatic smiles on her face.

  “Sorry, I was just...” I looked back at her embarrassed.

  She said nothing and smiled at me. Instead turning the seat around so it faced the sun and therefore directly at me and pulled her glasses up into her hairline and lay her head back with her eyes closed. Her legs were now slightly open and inviting and at that point I decided I had to check the navigation gear and monitor our route. It was getting too hot out here for me and my blood was beginning to boil off.

  I half thought I might prefer tackling a couple of Spetsnaz, but the thought of Alice being in danger quickly put that out of my mind. I realised I already had developed strong feelings for her and I was going to have to face them sooner than I would have liked. Damn! A week on a boat with this girl is going screw me up big time. John, what on earth were you thinking?

  CHAPTER 10

  I was much relieved to see Alice dressed for the evening. Her skin looked flushed from the sun and she positively glowed with good health. Life aboard seemed to suit her and she was completely at ease up on deck as well as in cramped conditions of the living area.

  We had a simple dinner, tinned beefsteak stew, powdered mash potato and tinned carrots with Alice’s fresh bread and some butter which had been hiding in tubs in the freezer along with cheddar and goats cheese. We also found John’s wine cellar which was contained in plastic one and a half litre bottles. We had quite a bit of that as a kind of reward for getting through a day on the boat together.

  Washing up proved to be a frolic as we both insisted on sharing the work and it was a very tight space. Mor
e than once I’m certain that we could have avoided falling against each other, but I have to say it was fun and we both lounged about afterwards with the remains of our wine and mellowed. Nothing was said and when it came time for coffee I passed her mug and she took it with both hands, but held onto mine with one while she put her mug on the non-slip table and then put her other hand in mine too.

  I wasn’t sure what she wanted so I sat there waiting for her to speak.

  I could have used that opportunity to broach the subject of us, but something stopped me. Instead, I looked into her eyes and immediately could see she was deeply troubled. She drew in a deep breath.

  “In Maumb’ta where I lived, there were many men who would show no honour to a white woman. There were few you could trust, some you could like, in the end you had to protect yourself to survive. The compound I lived in provided protection when I was in it, but outside I was subjected to harassment by the young and old alike. Under their laws women are chattels and have no rights.

  I quickly learned being a white woman didn't protect me, nor did having a British Passport. Being white made me appear exotic; 'white meat' sought after by many. I refused to believe I was in trouble until the night I was attacked returning to the compound.

  He was drunk on ‘tchaka’ a local root drink which made men horny, but also made them stupid. He had been plaguing me for weeks and I had known it was just a matter of time. I always thought the villagers would keep him in check. Not that night.

  That particular night I was completely alone. It was late, nobody else was around; as if the whole village had planned to be absent at that precise moment.