Thin Blood Thick Water (Clueless Resolutions Book 2) (11 page)

“That’s great Mag,” Max responded. “If I include your summation of the current financing situation here in Halifax that will erase any question or doubts the Partners may have about investing here.” Maggie nodded in agreement through a sip of her martini.  Max indicated that the next step would be a field audit of the Bickford Lab business operation.

“Tomorrow morning we’ll take Mario and Lamar along, and I’ll take a look at the books to see what the business is worth, if anything,” Max said, rather grimly.

Tuesday morning in Halifax dawned within a dark, rainy ocean storm which had spun rapidly past the U.S Atlantic coast states and was delivering a back-handed slap to the Nova Scotia coastline on its way toward Scandinavia.

Max and Maggie had breakfast delivered to their suite. It arrived while Maggie was in the shower and Max took the wheeled-in delivery trays of poached eggs, Canadian bacon, toast and a coffee urn. He gave a reasonable tip to the bellhop, a middle-aged native Canadian-Indian who seemed appreciative of the amount, although he gave Max a curiously long stare as he backed out of the suite door. Max shrugged off the noticeable scrutiny and went about placing the dining cart between two chamber chairs.

   Maggie soon appeared wrapped in her robe and gave an approving look at the breakfast arrangement.

“What a lousy day,” she commented, “but what a delightful breakfast presentation, and what a delightful presenter,” she quipped.

“Yeah, the weather isn’t doing much for my attitude towards our agenda,” Max stated solemnly. “But I can’t complain about the ‘present company’ either,” he said, following up with a dash of mutual appreciation. Maggie, knowing Max as she did, had picked up on his uncharacteristic negativism toward this task of evaluating the Bickford Laboratory business but, since Max hadn’t broached the subject, she had hesitated to comment.

When Maggie finished dressing she called her office back in East Wayford to check in with, and check up on, Jessie. All was well, and Jessie indicted there were two potential clients, which Maggie had prospected, that had called to arrange an appointment. Maggie told Jessie that she would be back in town late Wednesday or Thursday morning, and to call the prospects to set appointments Thursday afternoon or Friday.

Max was glad to hear that things were going well for Maggie. He kidded her about being such an amazing businesswoman, being able to conduct her business as usual without even being there. Maggie knew that Max was just joshing, but she appreciated his flattery anyway.

An assemblage of the USAP fact-finding delegation took place in the hotel lobby at 9:00 AM and Max briefly outlined the agenda of the day.

Morning - Meet with the company accountant to examine the Bickford Laboratory Company records, accounts and files, both physical and electronic. Then lunch.

Afternoon - Meet the operations managers and staff and interview any of the above, as-necessary.

Following the meeting Mario drove the foursome in the rental sedan, through the wind-driven rain, to the Bickford Lab location. The main entry door to the lab was locked when Max and his entourage arrived. The foursome huddled under a small canopy. A buzzer beside the doorframe was pressed and, with no result, was then pressed again. Finally, the door was opened and a large, dark-complexioned man in soiled clothing opened the door. He stood in the doorway without speaking and blocked any entry to the unlit interior.

“I’m Max Hargrove. I have an appointment with the company accountant. Is he here?” Max asked.  From behind the man who opened the door a male voice asked, “Who is it, Thomas?”

“People to see the ‘ackoon-tan’,” he imitated, with a thick accent. At that, a slender middle-aged man with thick eyeglasses perched on his generous nose, stepped in front to greet the visitors.

“Come in, please, I’m Simon Lagasse.  I keep the records for the Company,” he offered. Max entered with his entourage and followed Lagasse to a small, and somewhat untidy, windowless office. The bookkeeper’s office served as the pay station. With the office door closed on payday, a cashier’s window just to the left was Lagasse’s position, where the workers approached in single file to collect their wages.

While Max and Maggie met with Lagasse, Mario sat in a waiting chair outside of the paymaster’s office. There was no translation needed at that point so he was waiting for the upcoming introductions and brief interviews with the staff. Lamar was roaming through the structure chatting here and there wherever, and with whomever, the opportunity existed. He seemed to be familiar with some of the workers, mostly the locals of Native Canadian Indian lineage.

Max had introduced Maggie as his accounting assistant to Simon Lagasse. Lagasse presented several bound ledgers through which Maggie was scanning while Max browsed through the computerized financial files of the company. Twenty minutes of this took place until, at an interval when Lagasse left the room, Max looked at Maggie with a perplexed demeanor.

“Do you follow the track of the accounting process here Mag?” he asked quietly.

“Not so far,” she replied, with a quizzical look in her eyes. “It seems so disjointed. There seem to be lapses where columns sub-total and then carry over with non-connected sums.”

When Lagasse returned Max questioned him on some accounts payable files. He got a puzzled look accompanied with a wrinkled-brow and a thoughtful and pondering type of murmur. “Hmmm, I… er.. We haven’t been rectifying these files lately,” he stammered. “The accountants stop by once a month and do their thing so I work with the numbers they give me. Mostly I just total the time cards and cut the checks every week.”

“Are the accountants the ones who produce the profit and loss statements?” Max asked. Lagasse nodded to affirm that and, heeding a loud cellphone ring emanating from his pocket, held up his index finger, turned and walked out of the office retrieving the phone from his pocket as he went. Mario had risen from his chair near the door just as Lagasse walked out with his head down, the cell phone pressed on his ear.

“Oof!” Lagasse exclaimed as they collided. Off balance, he fell into a table and his phone went skittering across the floor.

“Oops, I’m sorry,” Mario apologized. “Are you okay?” he asked as he reached out to help Lagasse to his feet.

“My phone! Where’s my phone? Where did my phone go?” Lagasse shouted, seemingly blaming Mario for his loss. He pulled himself to his feet with one hand while he re-hooked his glasses, which were hanging off one ear, with other hand. Mario went to where the phone was and picked it up off the floor. The phone was connected and Mario could hear a man’s voice yelling in a strange dialect which seemed vaguely familiar. As he put it to his ear to determine the language Lagasse jerked it out of his hand. Mario was rather put-off by the rudeness of the person he was trying to help, but, after all, it was poor form for him to listen in on someone else’s phone.

Maggie had jumped up and gone to the office doorway, with Max right behind, at the sounds of the table being bumped and the phone hitting the floor,  At first glance they thought the two men were involved in an altercation. Max was edgy over the whole Bickford Lab scenario, his and Maggie’s last trip to Halifax, and the overall shroud of mystery which constantly hovered over his USAP inclusion. Now, he was trying to suppress a sudden state of angst, caused by a sense of impending danger.

“What’s going on, Mario? Max asked, with a sharp edge evident in his question, as he stepped around Maggie and squared off facing the assisting Partner assigned to his valuation assignment.

“We just bumped into each other, Max,” Mario stated with a hint of belligerence. “What’s the big deal?”  At this point, Simon Lagasse could see that there was ‘conflict in the ranks’ with the inspection team he had been asked to deal with, and he decided to capitalize on it.

“I have an appointment, so we will have to pick up on the audit another time,” he said to Max. “I’ll have Thomas show you out.”

“Where is Lamar?” Max asked of Mario. “We arranged to interview some of the staffers here.” Max then directed his annoyance at Lagasse. “And, we would like to do that now.”  Lagasse declared that he had ‘done what he had been told to do’ and that any further discussion would have to take place with somebody other than him.

At that point Jonathan stepped in front of Lagasse, who scooted out of the building and into the rain. Forming a circle around Max, Maggie and Mario, five or six Native-Canadian types stepped out from various concealments within the entrance area of the building and stood waiting for Jonathan’s command.

With a swishing sound, Mario was the first to collapse and hit the floor. Maggie screamed and Max instinctively crouched into a defensive position facing the majority of the assailants and pushed Maggie behind him. Two of the surrounding group then grabbed Maggie from behind and one of them covered her mouth to stifle her. When Max turned to defend Maggie, he felt a sting to his neck below his left ear. Then, with the entire surrounding area spinning beyond his control, his knees sagged to the floor and he had a blurring vision of Maggie succumbing in the same way. Then everything went black.

At the same time, Maggie’s sense was that of being swirled around, and around in a strong current and being pulled deeper into an abyss. She was fading into unconsciousness as she went.

With the three inspectors heaped on the floor of the Bickford Laboratory ante room, silence took over the building. Jonathan stood looking down at the unmoving victims and his group of cohorts began moving toward the exit. Shortly after they had disappeared Jonathan sensed that the light from open doorway had darkened.  He turned as Lamar’s large dimensions, dripping water on the threshold, filled the doorway opening. Lamar looked down at the three slumped bodies at Jonathan’s feet and then his eyes rose to meet the slow-minded watchman’s blank stare. The two stood looking at each other, fifteen feet apart for thirty quiet seconds. Jonathan was the first to break eye contact as he looked down stupidly with hands turned outward, as if asking what to do next.

Chip Chaplain was on a flight back to Halifax with Brad in the pilot’s seat. Chip was handling the co-piloting duties as, at 3:10 PM, they were flying the Lear 45 at 8000 feet altitude under Instrument Flying Rules. The ocean storm had substantially lowered visibility up to high altitudes, creating the IFR conditions. The flight was one half day earlier than originally planned and the storm was predicted to intensify over the next twenty-four hours. The landing was going to be a challenge and the decision for the more-experienced Brad to fly the plane was based on that prediction. A layover was likely but Chip reasoned that, notwithstanding the lousy weather, an extra day of rest and relaxation as a group would be welcomed by all concerned.

At this same time Max was gaining consciousness as he lay across the carpeted floor of a panel truck, or SUV with darkly tinted windows. As the cobwebs in his vision faded away he realized that he was bound, hands and feet, and could not get to a sitting position. The vehicle was in motion, the ride was noisy, and far from smooth. He started to call out but his mouth was taped over and a grunt was all that he could manage. A sense of extreme anxiety and dread began to flood his thoughts and he frantically tried to free his hands. His arms were held to his sides with tapes surrounding his upper body and his hands were held together behind his back by something stretched over his index and middle fingers. The more he pulled at the restriction, the tighter the binding seemed to get. “
Oriental handcuffs!
” he exclaimed to himself, recalling a lesson from his military combat training. It would be fruitless to extricate himself, so keeping his arms relaxed and preserving his strength was the prudent approach. Max concentrated his senses on those which were not blocked. His mind was clearing and his hearing and sense of smell were not impaired. His sight was hampered by the darkness of the surroundings and his prone position. His mind told him to think and listen. The feeling of motion was lessening and it sounded like the vehicle was slowing. Voices could be heard but what was being said was not understandable. His senses of feel and sound indicated that the vehicle was being driven onto a ramp of some sort. After some subtle movement was felt, the vehicle stopped and the motor shut down. Sounds from outside indicated a waterfront location. Water lapping, wind softly whistling, sea gulls screeching, and buoy bells clanking were the obvious indicators. The unmistakable aroma of salt water and seashore decomposition convinced Max that he was at an oceanfront. After what seemed like an eternity, a sound like the starting of a diesel engine, or engines, reverberated throughout the surrounding area, confirmed shortly by the smell of burned fuel oil.
“We could be on a truck or a boat,”
he thought, but, because of the waterfront sounds and smells, he guessed boat. Being on Nova Scotia, which was, for all extent and purposes an island, he calculated that he was being transported to the Canadian mainland. The length in time would determine if they were on a ferry.

Maggie was adrift on an expanse of something. It was undulating as a water surface would be, but it had the look of sand, as if it were a desert.  As she proceeded to gain true awareness, as if awakening from a dream, she realized that her sense of motion was from beneath the floor on which supported her. The surface was that of a carpeted vehicle and her first focused sight appeared to be some type of seat support. The sense of motion, accented by occasional jolts, was far from an ocean voyage. “This is more like riding in the back of a truck!” she moaned, with her usual tendency for abrupt vocalization. She then realized that vocalization was a problem, she was gagged!  In an attempt to sit up, she realized that she was restrained. Panic rapidly entered and she frantically began to strain her vision left and right, up then down. Her legs were wrapped with duct tape and her wrists were taped together. Her arms were tied against her sides with several wraps of cord which made movement difficult but did allow her to roll onto her back and then to her other side. At an interval when she was able to lie in her back, she drew her knees up, kicked outward and came to a sitting position.  At that very instant the vehicle leaned and swerved. The motion sent Maggie back onto the floor, lying on her right side. While upright she was able, for a brief moment, to glimpse through a small window between the truck body and the driver/passenger cab. There she saw the back of a head, presumably of someone sitting between the driver and another passenger.
“So, there are three of them.”
she thought silently.
“Where in hell are they taking me?”

The vehicle slowed and gradually came to stop. As the truck sat idling, the cab emptied. A sliding side door opened and flashlight beams scanned trough the rain, searching around and over Maggie. Something was between her and the light source, blocking any light from shining directly on her. She froze and prepared for the worst but realized that someone of a police or guarding authority was quizzing the driver as to his destination. Maggie let out a valiant effort of screaming for attention but, alas, her muffled noise was overcome by the rumbling noise of the door being slammed shut, and locked. Lying there in the darkness she became desperate. She began lifting and banging her feet down on the floor surface. Thump! Thump! Thump! she signaled. A ship’s fog horn let out two short blasts and her vehicle motored down an incline and then abruptly up some sort of ramp, and then it leveled as she could feel it stopping. The sound of heavy diesel engines reverberated through her enclosure and some sort of motion ensued. By the distant clanking sound of harbor buoys Maggie realized that the vehicle, she, and the operators, were aboard what was probably some sort of riverboat, or ferryboat.

Some male voices, in a jovial-sounding jargon, could be heard. Maggie could not understand the language, or local slang, that was being used but it sounded like two of her captors went somewhere on the ship to get beers. They would probably bring one back to the third, who was left to watch their captive. This could be her best chance at escape, she thought, although where she could go would have to be dealt with later. It seemed like a better option than facing what was looming in her mind, which was some mysterious ending of life as she knew it. The captors were all male and Maggie knew enough about the male need for female interrelationship to know that the female in distress would always stir the curiosity of a male, especially if no other males were in close vicinity. She began to sob and cry through her gag as loud as she could. She forced it for as long as she could and, when it seemed to be to no avail, she stopped. Just then the sliding door was opened. Maggie sniffed conspicuously and uttered a few muted sobs through her gag. In the dim light a partition was moved aside and she saw a young looking male with long black hair looking down at her. He silently scanned her from head to waist, focusing back to her heaving breasts as she breathed heavily.

“Shhh,” he cautioned. “They will hear you,” he said with a youthful voice. Maggie could make out that he was a Native Canadian Indian boy, probably in his teens. She grunted through her gag and simultaneously pointed to her legs. He looked at her legs and back to her eyes as if to ask “what do you mean?”  In a play to appeal to his youthful sensitivities, Maggie, with a stern, matronly scowl pointed to her leg bindings and motioned with her taped hands to fling the bindings off. She poked her feet to indicate there was no feeling. She poked his arm, and then poked her feet showing him, with sign language, that she did not feel anything in her feet.

“Ah, too tight?” he asked with feigned sophistication. “Mmmm,” Maggie responded, nodding her head with her auburn hair flowing around her face, while simulating total thankfulness and appreciation by batting her long eyelashes. The young captor looked undecidedly around as if to get approval, or not. Then, in a grand, chivalrous moment, he produced a 1960’s style switch-blade knife and snapped out a seven inch blade. He looked at Maggie’s eyes for an indication of her total adoration of his manhood and, thinking he saw it, slipped the blade between her legs and tugged it upward, severing the layers of tape wrapping.

“Mmm...mmm,” Maggie intoned through her nose, signaling relief and appreciation to her ‘hero’ as she spread her legs and arched her back.  Her rescuer cut the cord binding her arms, the better to see her breasts, and closed his blade. Maggie raised her taped hands above her head and arched her back again.  With a triumphant gaze into her eyes, he started to move his face close to hers as he began to straddle her prone body. “Mmmph, Mmph! Maggie grunted, shaking her gagged mouth from side to side. The youth, feeling her soft, undulating body and her opened, although fully clad legs, was becoming totally engaged and stimulated. He reached up to her right ear, gripped an end of the tape anchoring the gag in her mouth and ripped it open. The pain of the tape separating from her face made Maggie jerk back, but the youth, in his fully stimulated sexual state simply closed his lips on hers and instinctively and naively began to reach down to open her pants in an unsophisticated attempt to gain access to her inner parts. Maggie, in a desperate struggle for freedom, bit down on his upper lip as her knee thudded into his groin. Stunned, the youth pulled back in pain. Maggie swung her raised taped hands, fists closed, onto the bridge of the young man’s nose with a smacking sound. He rolled off to the side as spurts of blood came gushing from his nasal passages. Maggie deftly rolled on top, straddling the stunned and wounded youth. She raised her tethered hands and slammed her two clenched fists into his bleeding face again, and then again, and then once more. The final blow left the young man unresponsive. With her taped-together hands Maggie reached into his jeans pocket and retrieved the switchblade. Snapping open the blade, she inverted the knife and was able to sever the tape on her wrists. She sat back, still straddling the young assailant and sighed in relief. Gathering her thoughts quickly, Maggie exited the van truck and closed the sliding door. She looked around the enclosed parking space of the ferryboat.

Parked directly in front of the van was an SUV with tinted windows. She slipped between the SUV and a support beam and, glancing into the tinted second row passenger window, she saw what appeared to be a human body, bound hand to foot, lying on the seat-down rear floor. It was facing the opposite side. She hurried around to the other side of the vehicle and pressed her face and her cupped hands against the lightly tinted driver’s window peering inside. To her dismay it was a man, mouth taped shut, bound with duct tape. He appeared to be wearing the rain jacket Max wore to the Bickford Lab inspection. “Oh my God, Max!” she gasped in a hoarse whisper. Franticly looking around she spotted a length of tow chain, with heavy cast iron hook at the end, lying on the ferry floor partly under another vehicle. After retrieving the chain she pulled it back and swung it into the driver side window. With a loud crack, it crumbled into small bits. Maggie reached in and lifted the door release. Once inside she squirmed between the bucket seats and onto Max. His face was red and he was grunting.

“First things first, Max,” she said. Retrieving the switchblade from her casual jeans, she switched it open, copying the procedure used by her young admirer. And cut the leg tapes, arm bindings and then the hose-type contraptions between Max’s fingers. As Max was flexing his stiffened hands, Maggie pulled away the tape around his mouth as gingerly as she could. “Whoo!” Max breathed.

“Where are they?” he whispered in Maggie’s ear as he hugged her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay, they went upstairs to get beers, I think,” she answered. “Are we on a ferry?”

Max opened the rear side door of the vehicle and they both crawled out feet first. Squatting as they scanned the dimly-lit interior, they located an open stairway four or five car lengths forward. They scrambled laterally and reached the side rail of the vessel. Maggie held out the switchblade knife to Max. “Here, take this,” she said. “It’s a gift from an admirer,” she added, seeing the questioning look on his face. He slipped it down through his waistband, and to answer Maggie’s turn at having the quizzical look, he said, “I’m glad I wore jockey shorts today.”

The ferry began to pitch from side to side as it crossed a substantial wake, probably caused by a freighter or barge. On-shore lights could be seen falling away to the rear. The urge to jump overboard was intense. Maggie told Max about her escape from the young guard and they both agreed that he would come around and be looking for them. He would be in big trouble for letting Maggie escape the Van, and once they found out that she had also released Max, the youngster’s ‘stock would plummet’! The abductors would soon be looking for them if they weren’t already.

If they jumped overboard in the darkness, both Maggie and Max could maintain themselves in the water for a short time.  Also, there could be a problem with which would be the best way to swim, since they really didn’t know where they were. Looking forward into the rain along the side rail Max spotted two lifeboats on winch racks, mounted on the upper deck. Below the life boats, on the vehicle deck where Maggie and Max were, there was a passageway opening with life preservers hanging on the wall. Thinking that their best option for evading the abductors would be to hide out for the duration of the ferry trip, they mutually ruled-out abandoning ship. When they were close to the docking point at the end of the crossing, their chances would be better.

Maggie and Max scurried forward along the side rail walkway to a passageway and ducked into the opening. An aisle to a doorway labeled ‘ENGINE ROOM-NO ADMITTANCE’ was at the end. Along the aisle there was an unmarked doorway. They hurried toward the doorway and tried the latch. To their relief, the door opened into a utility closet of sorts. They opted to use it as the best place to hide. Max darted back to the side walkway and took the two life preservers from their wall hooks.