Sook surreptitiously squeezed his hand. "Naww... you old smoothie."
"I'm serious, Sook, you can't come."
"Well I am coming, Master. Just ask Ghaz."
Watson looked around. "Where is he? I want a word with him."
"So what are you gonna say?" Sook rolled her eyes. "You don't want your favourite little ladyboy loose on the island? Your little Ninja? What's up? Don't you trust her?"
"Him! See! You blew it already!"
"Him, her... what's the diff? I'm a ladyboy, remember."
"But you're not. You're a girl."
"For god's sake stop fretting. I'll just go full-metal Mulan."
"Sirs?" a voice said. It was one of the contractors, a man in black, a Westerner, with too-short sleeves and wraparound shades.
Slipping back into character, Watson looked him up and down. "I'm busy." he said, "Come back later."
The goon fingered his curly-chord earpiece. Orders inbound. "I'm sorry sir," he said, standard-issue American, "but the transports are waiting."
"Well let them wait." Watson glared, trying to buy time, desperate to stay, if only for a few more minutes, so close to his girl he could almost taste her.
A second contractor bowled up. "Lord Munt!" he said and Watson picked up the twang of a New Zealander. "We need to get going. We're on a very tight timeline."
"I need a pee." Sook said, then recalibrated her voice downwards. "Can I take a piss first?"
The Kiwi reached for her and Watson raised a hand. "You just keep your hands to yourself."
"Lord Munt," the door-kicker said wearily, "please, sir, we're on a very tight schedule." He looked at Sook. "Bro. If you can just hold on a little while."
Sook sucked a breath. "Bro? Did he just call me 'Bro'?"
"Sir." he said, with a silent 'Jumped-up little fag.' "I mean sir."
The palace security guards stepped aside to let them past, with much bowing and touching of hearts, hopeful to the bitter end of winning the young man's favours. Across the lobby they went, taking long strides to keep up with the up-market thugs in their ill-fitting suits. Piling into the back of the armoured black limo, Watson watched an armoured personnel carrier tear through the middle of a carefully tended garden, ramp going down, the ass-end giving birth to a clutch of troops. Through the screen of palm trees in the distance, he could see the helicopters running, their whirling rotors solid silver discs under the glare of the pad lights. The palace grounds seemed to be swarming. "Must be having a party." Sook said.
"Do you reckon this is normal?" Watson asked, stricken with dread for the girl they were leaving behind.
"For this part of the world?" Sook asked dryly, as their little motorcade roared off, heading for the gates with lights and sirens. "Definitely."
************************************************************************************************************
Each pounding step punched a grunt from her lungs. Draped over a shoulder, Beck found herself borne at a flat-out run down a winding gravel path, combat boots skidding and crunching. Every two hundred steps or so- she tried to count- the runner would slow, then offload the burden onto someone else's shoulder, some of them thin and bony, others broad as an ox. But they never quite stopped, and when the footsteps fell almost silent, she knew they'd hit sand.
Finally, mercifully, her abductors pulled up and she could clearly hear them, coughing and spitting, heaving for breath after what must have been a one- or two-kilometre dash. Even in her bound and captive state, Beck couldn't help but feel a tinge of admiration. These were no average tactical-rabbits. Special Ops, probably, but belonging to whom?
Filtered through layers of heavy black cloth, the sound of wavelets slopping onto a beach reached her ears, followed by the smell of outboard fuel, a scent so familiar, so evocative, it brought tears to her eyes. She felt herself lowered like a sack of purloined royal potatoes, into a nest of firm, angular padding. No prizes for guessing she was in some sort of boat- she felt around with her foot, sensed the firm resilience of an inflatable hull. A RIB she was willing to bet, another cruel stroke of reminiscence. More grunts of exertion, a metal keel scraping over the sand, the vessel rocking as several heavy bodies piled onboard. Followed by the whinny of an outboard starting, then another, settling down at a throaty idle- no little putt-putt yacht-tender engines, but ones that meant business.
Gearboxes clunked into reverse and the RIB chugged backwards, away from the shore, servos whining as the legs came down. Another hefty thump and the RIB idled forward, then surged ahead, rearing up on the plane. Engines howling, they were on their way. Wyvern Cay? She'd wake in the morning and there they'd be, parked off the pristine white sand, iridescent corals under the hull, in a thousand different shapes and hues. They'd nose onto the beach, just her and her old man on their own little island, and she'd throw off her life vest, stark-naked underneath and brown as a berry. Then they'd help themselves to coconuts, filling the RIB, before throwing out a towel and fucking each other to a sweating, panting standstill. Then drift off to the sound of the seabirds, under the shifting shade of the palm fronds, while Aurora rode at anchor in the distance, shimmering in the heat haze. Snuggling down, homesick, starkly afraid but irresistibly excited, Beck drifted off, to the lunge and shudder of a powerful boat speeding over the sea.
She woke up in the old man's arms as he lifted her from her bed. The Universe transformed and Beck found herself being carried up a beach, leaving the sound of the waves and the smell of outboards behind. "Are we there yet?" she groaned, struggling to stretch her limbs, then worked her wrists and flexed her fingers. "You guys are in deep shit you know." she said in reply to the silence. "I'm engaged to the king. I'm, like, his fiancé. But if you let me go, I promise, I won't tell."
Beck heard voices, muttering between themselves, and the sound of a car door opening. One arm around her shoulders, the other under her knees, and she was lowered slowly, with great care, into the firm embrace of a car seat. The engine cranked, and gravel crackled under the tyres, as the vehicle crawled forward onto the blacktop, then accelerated hard to the growl of a hefty V8. Beck yawned. Ho hum... another day in the high-flying life of a corporate jet pilot. None of this had been in the brochure.
Fifteen minutes? A couple of hours? Endless straight roads taken at high speed, 160-plus, Beck figured, from the roar of the engine, the sound of the slipstream, the sort of swaying and buffeting she'd experienced once before, driving with Ally down an autobahn at warp-factor 9, seeing how fast the rental Mercedes could go. She yawned again for the fourth or fifth time in as many minutes, busting to pee. At the rate they were travelling they'd be out of the country soon... she rifled her memory for the lie of the local geography. Gulf to the north, belligerents to the east, trading partner west, wasteland south, all the way to the country's border with one of the most dangerous states on the face of the planet. They were heading west, she convinced herself, towards a border crossing and a-
The wheels locked up with a screech and Beck impacted the seat in front of her. She heard the doors fly open, angry shouts, and a sustained burst of gunfire so close it made her ears ring. Someone grabbed her by the bag and dragged her bodily clear, then threw her over a shoulder for her second abduction tonight. Beck tensed her abdominals against another interminable shoulder-ride, but they'd only gone 20 or 30 running steps when she felt herself unloaded again and carefully placed in an idling vehicle.
Had she been able, she would have seen a good-looking young male, dressed in a tailored military uniform, open the front door and step out. More gunfire tore at the silence, as 2 troopers blasted away at the SUV in which Beck had been riding, tracers arcing heavenwards from ricochets. The vehicle's previous occupants, Beck's initial kidnappers, stood in a huddle nearby, chatting and laughing, 5 special ops types- black fatigues, black vests, black utility webbing, black boots, black gloves, and Night Vision Goggles on black Kevlar helmets. They watched, idly smoking, while their SUV was torn to pieces, ragging each other, reliving the evening's fun. At the approach of the handsome young officer, they threw down their smokes and snapped to attention.
The squad leader threw off a smart salute. "Sir."
"Relax boys," the young man said, his smile shining white in the moonlight, "relax. Great work. On time almost to the minute."
"Thank you, sir."
"Any problems?"
"Major Fahad took some casualties." the squad leader replied, "Three wounded, one KIA."
"So I heard. What about the other side?"
"The household guard put up some resistance. One or two had to be neutralised, and they took a few wounded."
