Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 02 - Peeking Duck (2 page)

-Chapter 1-

“What do you want us to do?” I asked incredulously over the phone to a potential client.  I listened to the explanation intently before hanging up.

“
What do they want?” Jane asked as I flashed her a confused look.

“
They want us to basically steal the thing,” I answered dryly, “another one of Galveston’s great leads.  What kind of business have we turned into?” 

Jane shrugged
her shoulders and continued on with her work, ignoring my grunts of displeasure. 

Icarus Investigatory Services, or
“Ick” as we lovingly referred to it, was beginning to turn into some strange, clandestine, corporate espionage company.  I am co-owner of our investigation company and run the day-to-day operations, the “keeping us solvent” part.  Dan Galveston is my business partner, and right now, I was none too happy with him.  He was in charge of the acquisition of clients.  Lately, however, he had been scraping the bottom of the barrel. 

Our
business had been growing since a national case we were involved in broke a few years ago.  We hit it big with an investigation involving the retrieval of a super efficient battery called “Flapjack”.  We were able to recover the most revolutionary of energy storage devices while subsequently getting a U.S. Senator and a billionaire thrown in jail.  We also kind of caused the implosion of a multinational company in the process.  Suffice it to say, we had a major bump in business after that.

While
publicly we couldn’t acknowledge our role in this event, occasionally a newspaper or magazine reporter would grace our door asking some questions.  Most reporters turned and walked out of our humble office, determining that there was no way in hell that two guys with dilapidated furniture in a rustic 1960’s era office could have pulled off such a coup.  That was just the way we wanted it.  Icarus Investigatory Services was never linked to the scandal, but in closed circles we were the talk of the town.

This success allowed
us a steady growth of new clients, all by word of mouth.  We worked with everything from Fortune 500 companies to secretive government agencies.  If it was information that was needed, and the law could be stretched, then we were the company for them.  Investigation was our key business, but we delved into anything related to “information gathering”, as we liked to refer to it.

M
any times we squeezed or elongated the laws of the land to accomplish what we needed, but we always evaluated if it would benefit the greater good in the long run.  Not to say that we hadn’t been burned a few times, but for the most part we worked hard to do what we thought was right.  We wouldn’t be winning any Nobel Peace Prizes for our efforts, or a Chamber of Commerce community award, but our conscious was as clean as it could get. 

 
We continued to attract a varied crowd of potential clients who beat down our door after hearing of other jobs we had finished successfully.  Even the government hired us at times.  Revenue was rising, things were looking up, and business was good. 

Then, about six months ago,
I noticed a sudden change in the level of our clients.  Wild requests began to roll in.  A casino asked if we could locate a pig that could paint.  A furniture store wanted us to find wood from the late 18th century so they could make “colonial” furniture, and an entrepreneur wanted us to find investors for a car that ran on cow manure.  Our clients were becoming, to put it mildly, a little more insane, and highly unrealistic.

I
had myself partially to blame.  I let my cohort get out of control and lose focus, jeopardizing our future prospects.  Galveston had gone from keen investigator and excellent marketer to a babbling pile of horse turds.  Maybe that was a little strong, but the guy that convinced me to go into this business was not the same guy I knew today.  It wasn’t because of some mid-life crisis or alcohol abuse, or even displeasure for the job.  Those I would have accepted.  Instead it was all because of a former acquaintance, a former friend—a woman.

Galveston
informally split with Elizabeth about nine months ago.  Their relationship was at best, tumultuous, and at worst, strange.  They lived an ocean apart.  Galveston lived here in San Diego, California, while she lived in London, England.  They would spend several days together, doing God knows what, then not talk again for months.

Galveston
met Elizabeth years before.  He was a U.S. Diplomatic Security Officer in England partnering with MI-6, the English equivalent of the CIA, where Elizabeth was a spy.  It was an off again, on again, and then off again relationship.  Neither knew how to make a relationship work, but each of them seemed to enjoy the chase. 

Elizabeth
must have tired of the situation because during a bombshell call she destroyed Galveston’s small world.  She informed him she met another man and had been dating him between the times Galveston and her weren’t seeing each other.  Then again, it was never clear when they were actually together.  Elizabeth had fallen for an investment banker in London and announced to Galveston she was getting married.  She wanted to settle down.

Galveston
, suffice to say, didn’t take the news well.  He shut down entirely.  At first I tolerated it, but then it became ridiculous.  He started to not show up for work at all, or when he did, he would lament over his loss.  Galveston was a mess. 

I
tolerated it for as long as I could, but when our clientele began to become the dudes he had met in Vegas over the weekend, I had to intervene.  Galveston had lost his fire.  He became tougher and tougher to reach, showed up to work in basically his pajamas, and I wasn’t sure the guy had combed his hair in weeks.  He had become a bearded mess, bordering on vagrancy.

It
didn’t help that I was in a normal, loving relationship with someone that had worked for us for the past two years.  Jane joined us in the early days as our office manager, and I had fallen for her immediately.  Her acting career in the theater had taken off right about the time I received my private investigator license (my attempt at legitimacy for the business).  Galveston wasted two years planning meetings with Elizabeth, and the remainder of that time he spent doing a half-assed job of working for our company.

I
knew it wasn’t easy for him to see how happy Jane and I were together, but my patience was growing thin.  Jane and I tried to help him get over this descent into the doldrums and figured time would heal whatever wounds he had.  But boy, were we wrong. 

The time had come to intervene more forcefully. 
Our business was on the line, and I couldn’t make it work without him.

Galveston
was an expert on investigation.  He knew how to assess a situation and how to get the information we needed to keep our clients happy.  He was essential in our success and there was no way I could run the business without him.

“
Jane, can you call Galveston?  Tell him he has to come in today.”

“
What reason should I give him?”

“
Oh, I don’t know.  Tell him I have some depressive music I want to give him, or better yet, tell him we want to talk about Elizabeth.  That ought to get him here in about ten minutes.”

“
You got it boss,” she said sweetly, giving me a sly wink.

“
We have to get this guy back on track, come hell or high water.  Enough is enough.”

“
Just go easy on him,” she said tenderly, sort of scolding me for being insensitive.

“
I promise, I will,” I said nodding my head.  “But if he doesn’t come around, I might have to break his legs.”

Jane laughed and began to dial the phone. 
We needed Galveston back on planet earth.  We would soon need his skills in a desperate way.

-Chapter 2-

Dimitri awakened with one of his fellow crew members bending over him.

“
Sir,” the seaman said to him, shaking his shoulder lightly.

Dimitri
could only make out a blurred figure, but as he woke, he saw that he was in one of the storage rooms near the galley.  He managed a grunt as he strained upward, but was stopped by the excruciating pain coming from his leg.

“
It’s okay, sir,” the man continued as he saw Dimitri open his eyes.  “They put us in here.  Most of us,” he finished slowly.

“
Help me up,” Dimitri ordered.

The men around pulled
him to a sitting position with his back supported by the steel wall.

As Dimitri regained his faculties
, he began to pick out faces in the dark room.  He slowly did a count of the crew that surrounded him.  Out of twenty-three he counted fifteen crewmen.  He had each man give his name and position so he could get a mental count of who was still missing.  Those that weren’t accounted for included two from the engine room, two cooks from the galley, two men who would have been on a safety patrol, Pi the Third Mate, and the captain. 

The time was 8:14 in the morning
, and the men were crammed in a small room lit only by a bulb on the back wall.  Dimitri noticed that everyone was untied and the binding on his hands had been taken off.  The men were clearly frightened.  These were not pirate waters like the approach to the Gulf of Aden near the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean.  Dimitri had been through an encounter in that area.  This was the Pacific, between Hawaii and the Pacific Rim.  He could not recall an intrusion in this ocean in recent memory.  He knew the dangers of a possible boarding by pirates but never thought that it could happen here.

Dimitri tried to calm the men as he fought through the excruciating pain. 
Some of the crew had scrapes and bruises from the roughing up a few hours before, but thankfully none like his.  Olaf, the resident emergency medical technician, tended to Dimitri as best he could by reapplying a fresh tourniquet while attempting to keep the Chief Mate comfortable.  Dimitri realized his wounds were not life threatening and the gunshot had been very precise.  The pirates could have easily killed him in his tracks.

The
hours ticked by slowly and the crew heard no noises outside the door as they awaited their fate.  The men began to tell the story of their capture.  Most were rounded up at gunpoint from their bunks and herded into the room.  A few tried to flee but were smacked down quickly while trying to get out the door.  No one saw faces or heard talking from the intruders.  They agreed that it was a precision operation; these were not run-of-the-mill pirates.  These were highly trained mercenaries or military personnel, and that made Dimitri worry even more.

The men were hungry, tired, thirsty, and many needed to use the bathroom as the hours continued to pass. 
They were being housed in the galley dry storage room, where most things were canned, but there were a few boxes of crackers that Dimitri ordered to be shared among them.  He also ordered another necessity; a latrine that would be set up at the back of the room. 

Just as the men were finishing the final touches on the bucket that would serve as their new bathroom
, they heard a clatter of footsteps near the door.  The men grew quiet as the footsteps stopped.  Suddenly there was a loud rap on the door, steel on steel.

“
Step back from za door or jou vill be shot,” the voice ordered forcefully from the other side.  “Do jou understand?” the male voice asked.

“
Yes.  Yes, we do,” Dimitri called, “We are all back from the door.”  He motioned for the men to move to the back of the room.

The men shuffled
closely together and moved as far back as they could.  Without warning the door swung open and the brightly lit area outside the room flooded into the dimly lit space, causing the men to wince from the change.  As they strained to see past the light, three men came into view, each clad in all black carrying an assault rifle with the gun barrels pointed in their direction.

“
Who iz ze second in command of zhis vessel?”  the first man through the door asked forcefully.

“
I am,” Dimitri answered, looking up at the man from his sitting position, “Dimitri Petsoro, Chief Mate of the
Trusian
.”

“
I hope jou vill be more cooperative zhan jour captain,” the man said directly to Dimitri.  “Jou are now in command of jour men.  I hope jou vill control zhem or zhey vill suffer za same fate as jour captain.”

Dimitri was shocked at the implication of what the man had said.

“What have you done?” he asked with a tremble in his voice.

“
Ve have had to dispose of him.  He iz dead.  He did not comply vith our vishes,” the man answered without emotion.

Dimitri
couldn’t respond.  His mouth ran dry, and he looked at his crew.  They stared blankly at him in a state of shock and dismay. 

The lead man continued.
  “Now here iz the procedure.  Jou vill listen to everything I say.  Ve vill take two men at a time.  Jou vill be allowed to use the facilities and ve vill give you vater.  If anyone tries to try our patience, zhey vill be shot.  Do jou understand?” 

“
Yes.  We will do as you say,” Dimitri answered.  They had no choice but to follow. 

He
knew his men were in no league with these mercenaries.  They simply had to wait out whatever it was their captors had in store for them.

Slowly
the men were taken two by two, just as the lead pirate had said, until the entire group had been able to relieve themselves.  When they had all gathered back in the room, the pirates pushed a few boxes of food and water through the door.  As the men crouched around the boxes and handed out the food parcels, the remaining crew members who had been missing were led in.  Most of them were bruised and bloody but in acceptable shape.  Dimitri finally saw Pi come through the door and he breathed a sigh of relief.  The crew had survived the ordeal so far, but unfortunately the captain had been lost. 

“
His first voyage on a new ship and this happens,” Dimitri thought to himself.

The pirates did not say another word and exited the room.  A steel bolt locked the door with a heavy clank.

“Pi, are you okay?” Dimitri asked quickly as the man sat down with a heavy grunt.

“
I okay.  No good, no good,” Pi repeated, looking Dimitri in the eye.

“
What happened to you?”

“
They tie me up on bridge.  I don’t know what they say.  I don’t know language.  More and more men come.  I count ten, maybe twelve, maybe more.  Then they move me here.”  Pi rubbed his hands and the noticeably red area around his wrists.

The men from the engine room and the other crew on duty had a similar story.  They told Dimitri there was no talking, just a few whispers and more men dressed in black.  The
crew began to talk amongst themselves, the fear palpable in their voices.  Dimitri knew he had to fight through the pain in his leg, which was becoming worse minute-by-minute, in order to support his men.

“
We will get through this,” he told his crew.  “For now we must keep up our strength.  Clear those boxes near the back and try to get some sleep.  There is nothing we can do without more information.  Our company has probably been notified and the military is on their way.” 

Dimitri tried to sound strong and commanding, but he
knew they were in grave trouble.  “What could they be after and where were they taking us?  It was a suicide mission to commit an act of piracy in these waters.  The military will reign down on them,” he thought to himself, the question swirling in his head.  He then came to another ghastly thought, “what if our company or the military didn’t know we had even been hijacked?”