Read Last Call For Caviar Online
Authors: Melissa Roen
Last Call For Caviar (24 page)
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The insurgent forces were battling for Frejus, their forward thrust slowed as the tide of war surged first one way, then the other, then back again. The French had finally woken up and thrown themselves into the fight. The line had to hold, or there would be little to stop them until the outskirts of Cannes.
The Emiratis and Anjuli made a deal. I wasn’t privy to the details. Anjuli del Solaire would have to stay in Slava’s camp for a while longer, while they milked her for intel.
Lucy Brown had been fearless on the basketball court, but I couldn’t even begin to imagine the courage she called upon to remain by Slava’s side and bear his touch. If he could beat her so brutally for just trying to leave, what would he do if he found out she was aiding the Emiratis? The whipping she’d already endured would feel like a gentle handshake.
The countdown was starting for me as well. All that stretched before me was the uncertainty of a long and dangerous journey to find Leah and a new life among the silent, ancient redwoods. Chaz would be there, as well as Mama, Sloan and the dogs. I tried to hold onto that image: safely reunited with my family. But it wouldn’t come into focus. It felt like someone else’s dream.
My companions on the first stage of this journey would be people I couldn’t entirely trust. Maybe if I had a friend like Giovanni by my side, leaving would be bearable. But Giovanni was staying in Monaco. He was slipping farther and farther away each time I saw him. It was as though a fire consumed him until he was honed like a blade with only one purpose. He wouldn’t abandon his adopted homeland and would oppose Slava till his last breath. Monaco needed people like him: stalwarts who would stand against the coming darkness.
The internet had been off and on for almost a week. Most of the time, cell phone reception was disrupted. I hadn’t been able to get a signal for days. The invisible web of communication that connected the globe—and had magically continued to function all these months—was finally breaking down. I couldn’t get through to Leah. I didn’t know if they’d been forced to flee Coos Bay. I needed to let her know I would be starting my journey soon.
Abdul was gone frequently, on the Sheik’s business or closeted in strategic sessions day and night. Anjuli’s intel was proving invaluable. On the rare evening when Abdul insisted I accompany him out for a night on the town, I noticed that more Emirati security personnel were appearing on the streets of Monaco; more of Slava’s new henchmen, too. Both sides preparing for the inevitable showdown.
Most nights when he was in town, usually sometime between midnight and dawn, Abdul would appear at my door. Some nights, I would feign sleep and not let him in, until the memories and dreams of Julian would become too much to bear and I would open my door and seek forgetfulness once again in his arms.
Then, after he had left, I would slip out of the hidden gate at the bottom of my garden and climb down to the shore. I didn’t care how reckless it was, how vulnerable I could be to anyone who might wish me harm.
I swam for kilometers, knifing through the crystal seas, until my arms were so tired I couldn’t lift them for even one more stroke. Then, I would float on my back in the sea-green grotto hidden inside the granite cliff walls. Rocked on the gentle swell, I would let my mind float free, wishing I could sink beneath the waves. That the saltwater would melt my flesh and bones until I became once again a simple organism, a water thing, living peacefully at the bottom of the sea.
Once a small pod of bottlenose dolphins—a half-a-dozen, two-meter-long, gray individuals—swam into the bay, and circled me as I swam offshore. For a half an hour, they frolicked and leaped through the sparkling waters in front of the grotto, before heading out of the bay towards open sea. One dolphin stayed behind.
He weaved about me, brushing against my side. My heart missed a beat when I saw him open his rostrum. I watched mesmerized as the rows of his conically-shaped teeth loamed closer to my bare arm. For an instant, I thought he was going to bite me, but instead, he took my arm, so gently—the pressure wouldn’t have broken an egg shell—between his wicked-looking teeth. I stroked him on his nose and under his jaw, and like a puppy, he rolled onto his back so I could caress the smooth, rubbery skin on his light-colored belly. I could see the spark of intelligence and humor glowing in his eyes. He released his hold on my arm, and swam in lazy circles, bumping against me, like a cat rubbing against its owner’s legs.
He once more clasped my arm between his teeth, and hesitantly tugged me towards the mouth of the bay. I marvelled at the playfulness and gentleness of this vastly-stronger creature who could have snapped the fragile bones of my arm with one crunch of his jaws. He towed me along for a few meters, before releasing my arm once again.
We stared into each other’s eyes, two very different creatures who didn’t speak the same language. It seemed as though a strange telepathy passed between us. Almost as though he was asking me if I wanted to run away, and join him and his kind—living in freedom—past the horizon’s edge.
As he swam away, I felt a pang of longing and homesickness remembering that once, I, too, had been a creature of the sea. I watched his leaping form dwindle, and then finally disappear into a glimmer of sunlight shimmering at the mouth of the bay…
Most nights, after a long swim, I would fall into bed, muscles exhausted from the hours spent in the sea, and blissfully sink into dreamless oblivion. But some nights, I dreamt of a red comet bleeding across the sky, while the wings of shadows wheeled through the blood-red mist and drums of war beat in the background. Those nights, I awoke with the chill of death deep in my bones and fear hammering at my heart, demanding to be let inside.
I knew the nights Bilal guarded my home when Abdul was away on one of his secretive trips. I smelled the smoke from his Turkish cigarettes drifting on the wind. Anjuli was right; as long as I was under Abdul’s protection, no harm would come from Slava’s thugs. But I chafed under the restrictions of my movements just the same. I hadn’t seen Buddy in more than ten days. I couldn’t risk anyone following me. The Astrarama was still my secret.
Abdul had left this morning for a week. I saw him off, Bilal at the wheel. An hour later, I let myself out of the bottom gate, my backpack loaded with extra supplies, both the Glock and the Judge nestled in my gun bag. I watched my back trail, staying hidden motionless for thirty minutes in the bamboo brake to be sure that no one followed me.
Buddy was waiting for me as I came around the last switchback before reaching the Ecole de Chiens Guides. He stood on his perch above the trail and gave a bark of joy as he recognized me. He leapt from the rock, bounced off the path once, and launched himself into my arms. There I was, flat on my back in the dust, forty kilos of golden retriever and fur pinning me to the ground, tail wagging furiously while he licked my face.
I didn’t know how he sensed that today I would finally appear, or if he’d kept a lonely vigil and watched the trail for days, wondering if I’d abandoned him. I wrestled with him in the dirt, laughing until tears streamed down my face. I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been holding on, the tension and fear squeezed into a hard fist of pain. I felt it ease, and for the first time in weeks I could breathe.
He finally let me up, and I sat there for an hour, my arm around Buddy, watching the ant-sized people crawl over the scraps of flesh on the festering bones of the coast. A lone hawk wheeled overhead through the clear air of the heights, and the Indian summer blazed overhead like a brand searing these hills down to their essence of rock, sky and ancient bones.
I stood and whistled. Buddy followed me up the trail to the Astrarama.
There is no way to hold back the tide. Some things like time, disease, or natural phenomena move forward, relentless, like a tidal wave that can’t be outrun. But you can occasionally raise your head above the raging waters and gasp a last breath of precious air, see the beauty of the sky and land once again before being submerged and buffeted like flotsam, tumbling head over ass towards a distant shore.
No matter where I went in this world, constellations wheeling across the heavens would always be my companions. This was the same night sky that Leah saw shining through the branches of the trees in her woodland glade. That Julian saw while smoking a cigarette on a bench by a lake after surgery. That Buddy saw perched on his rock. These stars would soar across the vault of the desert sky and shine down on the endless waves of dunes in that country by the Arabian Sea.
I would be separated from the ones I loved in the darkness of the nights to come, and starlight would be the only thing to still connect us, lost to each other in the world’s immensity.
I thought of the day at the beginning of the summer when Buddy first appeared in my life like a golden glow. I would always think of him as part of this land. Under the autumn light, the hills had taken on the mantle of his coat, all the colors burnished like a sea of bright golden wheat swaying on the breeze. I couldn’t bear to leave him behind. I would never be ready to say goodbye.
I knew in the back of my mind there might be a reckoning when I returned home. Explanations would probably have to be given to Abdul, about where I had disappeared to these past days.
I really shouldn’t have worried. No explanations would be required. My absence was lost in the tumult of events unfolding, even as I spent my last days on the heights with Buddy.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the reel of my life was speeding up and already fast forwarding out of control. Frejus had fallen. While I slumbered under the metal dome of the Astrarama, there was fighting on the palm-lined streets of the Croisette and on the steps of the Palais de Festival in Cannes.
The Red Star had finally arrived in our night sky, just as the Hopi Prophecies had predicted. Although it remained hidden from sight—for now—by the gaseous trails of swirling nebula.
You can’t hold back the tides, no matter how much you might wish otherwise. They just keep rolling in until the end of time.
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The harvest moon was waxing. October had passed in a blur, as my mood swung between numbing apathy to the heart-wrenching realization that Julian was lost to me forever, and back again to apathy. In ten days it would be Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival that marked the end of the months of light and the beginning of the long darkness, when the ground would lie barren and no seeds would grow. All Hallows’ Eve, when the door between worlds is flung wide open and spirits and ghouls roam unchallenged in the darkness from midnight to dawn.
Tonight, clouds shrouded the moonlight, blanketing everything? in shadow as fingers of fog crept over the waves. West towards Cannes, jagged explosions of light sprang from the earth as though reaching up to lacerate the soft underbelly of the sky.
At this hour, the harbor master’s office in Fontveille was shuttered, everything battened down for the night, the bobbing flashlights of the night watch on the far side of the yacht basin the only sign of life. The sigh of the wind and the creaking of masts muffled our footsteps as we hurried down the quay towards the darkened silhouette of the seventy-five-meter Feadship,
Carpe Diem,
that had just docked near the harbor’s mouth. Bilal carried the heavier bag, and I had a smaller one slung over my shoulders—just the bare necessities; I was traveling light.
The gangplank swayed under my feet as the first mate extended his arm to help me aboard. The deck hands cast off from the dock, and with a low rumble of engines, the yacht stole out of the harbor into the night. With running lights turned off, we set course towards the Cap Ferrat and the Baie de Fourmis.
It was after midnight, and I was the last one to board; Graciella, Madeleine, and the other passengers had already retired to their cabins for the night. I left Bilal with the first mate on the aft deck and followed the steward who, flashlight in hand, led the way down the wood-paneled hallway towards the staircase that led to the lower deck. My bare feet sunk into the luxurious thickness of the carpet underfoot as we crossed the vastness of the darkened living room. I could see the dim outline of couches and low tables scattered about.
My stateroom was spacious, the queen sized bed mounded with fluffy pillows, already turned down for the night. The bathroom was stocked with any toiletry items I might have forgotten; soaps and bath oils perfumed the air. The monogram of the yacht was embossed in gold thread on the towels and thick bathroom robe that hung on the door. I was surprised to find that my two bags were already in the closet atop a luggage rack.
“There’s a mini fridge with water and juice, but please don’t turn on any lights. Since we’re trying to sneak away, it would spoil the surprise. My name is Leo, if you need anything.”
Must be from South Africa, I thought. The accent was too guttural—a hint of Dutch Afrikaner—to be from Australia. I immediately thought of Leonardo DiCaprio in
Blood Diamond
. In fact, this Leo had the same lithe build and thick sandy hair, too. They were hard men, the South Africans, and no strangers to a firefight. I could see Abdul had chosen the right crew for this trip.
“Here’s a flashlight to use. Remember, no other light. I’ll leave you to settle in, but if you need anything, just ask the watch officer or any of the crew.”
The door had barely swung shut, but already the walls of the stateroom felt like they were closing in on me. I could feel the boat slicing through the waves; the deck rocked under my feet down here in the vessel’s bowels. Too much had happened in the last few days, and I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts. I opened the door to call for Leo, but he’d disappeared through a passage known only to the crew. The long hallway was dark and silent; not even a beam of moonlight dispelled the gloom.
I grabbed the flashlight and my bag. Closing the door softly behind me, I set off to explore the ship.
No one was on the aft deck. The crew must have been up on the bridge towards the bow or down in their quarters. I couldn’t smell Bilal’s Turkish cigarettes either, but somehow I knew he wouldn’t be far.
The decanter of whiskey that I found on the living room bar sat on the low table to my right, as I leaned back with my feet up in the lounge chair, cigarette in hand, and watched through the spray of the yacht’s wake the fog-shrouded lights of Monaco recede from sight.
The
Dawn’s Edge
had sailed towards Corsica and Sardinia as a decoy, earlier, from Monaco’s main Port de Hercules. In broad daylight, Graciella and her guests, attired in sunhats and dark glasses, lounged on the sun deck, champagne glasses in hand. Everything had been choreographed. They’d even sat for an hour at the quay before pulling up anchor, peals of laughter and loud music attracting the attention of anyone out for a stroll by their berth.
Five hours after leaving the port, they had rendezvoused with
Carpe Diem
at sea, and Graciella’s party transferred ship. The
Dawn’s Edge
then continued its voyage, with the three female crew members taking their places, in large hats and dark glasses, when they made port at Calvi in the northernmost tip of the island of Corsica. Witnesses would remember the fifty-meter Benedetti yacht arriving, its passengers, all fair skinned, lounging on the top deck.
At the same moment the
Dawn’s Edge
left Monaco, Anjuli had been holding court on the terrace of the Café de Paris, surrounded by an entourage of prominent locals. Her lunch party lasted all afternoon, bottles of expensive wine and champagne piling up, and no one staggered off until the sun was starting to set.
By 10 p.m., Anjuli was back for cocktails with another group of well-known faces at the American Bar in the Hotel de Paris, before heading off for an epicurean dinner in the Louis XV. Her plan was to make the rounds: a little blackjack, maybe some craps, before ending up on the dance floor at Buddha Bar in the wee hours. After such a late night, anyone would believe she was sleeping off a hangover, and not expect her to surface until late in the afternoon the next day.
Anjuli had a narrow window: Slava was out of town on business for thirty-six hours. It was now or never; she had to make a run for it. At some point in the next eight hours, Abdul and his people would whisk her away. When we got the signal that they had Anjuli secured, we would chart course for Italy. They would move her in a small well-armed convoy overland, and if their luck held, tomorrow night we should rendezvous with them at Santa Margarita Ligure.
If Slava’s people discovered that Anjuli had escaped and pursued either of the two yachts known to have recently left the harbor, they wouldn’t find a trace of her. After we reached Santa Margarita Ligure, it would be too late. We would be beyond Slava’s reach.
The
Carpe Diem
was owned by an Israeli arms merchant with ties to Mossad, and sailed under the Israeli flag. Crewed by both South Africans and Israelis, and bristling with guns, it wasn’t known in these waters and would even make a bully like Slava think long and hard before boarding her. The Israelis were fearless and didn’t back down from a fight. On the face of it, no one would suspect the Israelis and the Emiratis to be working hand in hand.
I felt the engines slowing as we cleared the point and entered the wide bay that stretched from Cap Ferrat on its western edge to Cap d’Ail in the east. Five minutes later, I heard the anchor’s chain being lowered. The wind was freshening, and tattered sheets of fog sailed past as the yacht rose and fell on the swells.
Towards the east, the darkened mass of the headland of Cap d’Ail loomed out of the fog. It was too dark to make out the outline of any dwelling. At this hour, no light shone from a chink in any of the shutters. It wasn’t even one o’clock, but we were deep in the witching hours, and everyone was fast asleep.
My eye followed the contours of the dark headland until I found the indent of the small cove nestled in the crook of the bay. The moon was shrouded and the shifting banks of fog obscured it from sight, but in my mind’s eye I saw the white stone walls and the jasmine spilling over the red roof tiles of the Villa Chante de Mer. Fifteen hundred meters of water separated me from the home that was lost to me forever more.
I felt the tears well up and spill slowly down my cheek. I had only been home from the Astrarama for two hours when Bilal appeared at my door with the news that Frejus had fallen and there was fighting in the streets of Cannes. Also, a message from Abdul that the plan was in motion; we’d be leaving in four days’ time.
After Bilal left, I sat for hours on my terrace until long after night had fallen, while the regret and grief tore me apart. I gathered the memories of the years I’d spent here. I took them out and replayed each one in my mind one more time.
Abdul came back the following night, his strength and promises the only thing I had left to cling to as I faced the unknown. That was the moment I would have turned to him in earnest and given my trust, and maybe even my heart, if he’d only opened his and let me inside. But Abdul was too distracted, trying to wring the last bit of information from Anjuli and arranging our escape.
I’d seen the way she looked at him, measuring him for size. Anjuli always gravitated towards power. If she escaped Slava’s vengeance, I imagined she would be making a long stop over in the Emirates. India could wait. And I’d also seen a response, in the speculative gleam in Abdul’s eyes.
I had very little to prepare for the trip. I wouldn’t be bringing steamer trunks brimming with resort wear or cherished mementoes of my life. The last four days, time hung heavy on my hands as I waded through the memories of my life. Everywhere I turned, another one reached out to stab me.
I saw Giovanni for the last time, two nights before we left. We clung to each other for long minutes, and I could feel how lean he’d become, reduced down to sinew and muscle stretched tautly over bone. His face was scored by new lines, but his hazel eyes remained wistful as he kissed me on the forehead.
“I’ll never forget you, cara mia. I hope you find your way to Leah. Abdul will watch over you from now on. Trust him. I know you’re in good hands, my darling.”
And with that final kiss, he was gone. I watched the last link in the chain of my life in France break. He drove off into the night. Now, I was surrounded by strangers and friends of recent vintage, cut off from everything I once knew or loved. Thankfully, the bottle of whiskey at my side was an old friend who would keep me company during the long nights ahead.
This morning when I awoke, I knew I couldn’t leave without seeing Buddy one last time. Bilal wouldn’t be picking me up until 11 p.m., so I had plenty of time to hike up to the training center and descend in time to catch the boat.
Tears coursed down my cheeks as I stared at the silent wall of fog that hemmed the yacht in on all sides. I saw the images that would haunt me for the rest of my life passing before my eyes.
I reached the training center before noon. Buddy wasn’t waiting on his rock perch by the trail. But when I whistled, he came trotting from behind the kennels, tail held aloft, with a tennis ball in his mouth. He’d filled out these last months, and his coat now gleamed white-gold, after all the hours I’d spent picking knots and burrs from the tangles of his hair. He ran and leapt through the sunlight as I threw his ball.
I hauled all the bags of dried dog food down from the shelves in the store room so Buddy would be able to reach them easily. There were about ten bags left, enough for three months, maybe four. I didn’t know what he would do for food after they were gone, whether his instinct for hunting would be strong enough for him to survive. Or would he become one of those feral dogs, all bones, weeping eyes and coat eaten away by mange, slinking around the edges of towns and pawing for food through the castoff waste of mankind?
I went into the vet’s office and treated him for worms, cleaned his ears and eyes. I checked him all over for any new cuts. I decided to bathe him and afterwards treat him for fleas and ticks one last time.
He stood with his eyes half-closed, enjoying the feel of the stream of water sluicing the suds down his coat. The heat of the afternoon sun quickly dried his coat and then I brushed him till the hair fluffed up in tufts and whirls, the highlights glinting in the sun, like a champion ready for the show ring.