Chapter 55: Another Crossing

We had just exited the harbor at Funchal, headed for the Caribbean, when Archara brought the satellite phone to the bridge. Cynthiana’s instructions were clear.

“The people looking for you have tipped their hand. I want you to head for Fort Lauderdale. I’ll be in touch.”

Today was Monday, the 17^th of May. The distance to Fort Lauderdale was about 3,800 nautical miles. The Cécile’s optimal cruising speed was 12 knots, but the way we were loaded, and considering the distance and timing our estimated cruising speed was closer to 9 knots, which meant we should arrive in Fort Lauderdale in roughly 19 days, or by Sunday, the 6^th of June.

I discovered that the Cécile had an optional sixth fuel cell (tank) to give it even more extended range. So by fueling up in Funchal, we had enough fuel for just over 5,000 nautical miles at cruising speed. And because we had been in Funchal for several days, and many of the merchants there took credit cards, we had ample provisions for 18 people for 19 days. In case anyone’s counting, that’s over 1,000 meals and not a single grocery store in sight now. But the Bering 120 was built exactly for this. Long distance exploration.

When I told the officers (now I was calling them that, too) about what Reggie had suggested about programming the radar for incoming objects such as missiles, drones, and aircraft, they thought it would be a great training exercise for yours truly. And that’s how my first couple of days were spent. I will admit to feeling more confident about the Bering’s advanced electronics after that.

Because we had nineteen days of sailing in front of us, the officers decided they didn’t need to run me ragged with a crowded training schedule. So I was scheduled for six hours a day on the bridge, which I discovered, gave each of them a watch as well. I think they were using a daily watch to fight their own boredom as much as anything.

I discovered that I still enjoyed the early morning watches the best, even though there was less physical activity than on a sailing ship. A surprising side benefit was that my dad, who also liked early mornings, began to spend time with me while I had the early watch and we talked about many things.

When he happened to mention it to my mom, it was she that turned up the next morning. And while she didn’t make a habit of it, and never really got comfortable being alone with me while we were naked, she still bucked up her courage and came up on the bridge every once in a while. Especially if she had something on her mind.

Rachel just took my schedule in stride and I was never sure who I would find in my bed. Or when. But Rachel seemed to keep any problems from developing by the simple expedient of always offering to share me, and often she was there alongside any visitors.

The teenagers had taken on the steward’s duties of keeping the Cécile clean. And every afternoon, if I wasn’t otherwise engaged, I got to watch as nine naked beauties cleaned and scrubbed the exterior of the yacht.

I had taken to pitching in on the days they scrubbed the helipad, as its surface made it more difficult to clean. It was during one of these sessions where I was helping Rachel scrub the helipad when I looked up and then cupped my hands as if I had a golf club in them and made an imaginary stroke, watching as my imaginary ball sailed out to sea.

A few days later, when I arrived to help scrub the helipad, my bag was lying on the big ‘H’ in the center.

“We’ll get you some more golf balls when we get to Florida, but at least you can hit the few you have with you today,” she said with that sexy smile.

Except for an early season low pressure system on day twelve, the weather was marvelously cooperative with light winds, and warm weather.

To me, the entire passage was low-key and relaxing. One of the most enjoyable I have ever had.

That’s not to say it was completely trouble free. We had the occasional mechanical problems such as an icemaker failing, which I quickly repaired, and a freezer in the hold quit working. We simply transferred the remaining foods to one of the other five freezers. It would have to be fixed or replaced once we reached Florida.

We also stopped a couple of times, just to allow everyone to swim in the ocean. The second time, we had to quickly return to the yacht because my mom spotted a fin in the water.

It was on the Friday before we were due to dock on Sunday, which meant we were roughly one hundred miles east-northeast of the northern Bahama islands when the alarm went off on the radar. It was about nine o’clock in the morning and I had just gotten to sleep after my watch and a few pleasurable moments with my older sister Kelly Ann, when Captain Alfred called me to the bridge.

When I finally connected with the unseen object, and studied it for a few minutes, I decided it must be some kind of observation drone. Of course, I made sure it immediately malfunctioned, and crashed in the ocean.

“Why do they keep doing this?” I asked the officers.

They immediately called Reggie who said to sit tight and he would call us back.

Ten minutes later, Cynthiana called on my encrypted iPhone.

“When are you going to arrive in Fort Lauderdale?” she asked immediately.

I told her we should be there Sunday morning.

“Okay. I want you to write this down,” she said and rattled off some coordinates. “That’s to the Bahia Mar Yachting Center. The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show opens next Wednesday. Contact the harbor master for entry details and your berth. You will be showing on behalf of Bering Yachts so you’ll need to prepare the Cécile for visitors. I have her new nameplates scheduled to be installed on Monday morning. And Alexei should be there by Tuesday. Got all that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied.

“Good. Reggie will be there when you get there and decide if it’s safe for the others to leave the boat. However, if you so much as touch your toes to the pier, I’ll have Samantha and Sarah cuff you to the anchor and leave you on the bottom of the harbor until it’s over!” she told me.

I couldn’t tell whether she was kidding or not.

Of course, Cynthiana’s announcement concerning the boat show sent the females into a tizzy as Archara and Mom teamed up to drive everyone crazy as they started a major cleaning project.

The officers, Dad, and I, wisely stayed out of their way. I finally got some sleep on the couch in the pilot house.

“What do you think is going on?” Rachel asked with a yawn early Sunday morning. She had been with me since my watch started at midnight. It had been arranged ahead of time that I was to take the Cécile in this morning. We should arrive at the Bahia Mar Yachting Center just after dawn.

“I’m not sure. But we should find out shortly,” I replied. It was almost time for me to check in with the harbor master. We could see the twinkling lights of Port Everglades in the distance. Another half hour to go at our current speed of four knots.

I got focused on checking out the radar because the area around the harbor was crowded. So I failed to realize that Admiral Craig had joined us. Finally, he spoke.

“Alex?” he started. “Would you be offended if I took Maria back to her parent’s home in Spain, this afternoon. We’ve both had a great time, but the navy has requested my presence at a formal ceremony for the new Commander’s installation in Paris next weekend.”

“I understand,” I told him. “But we’ll all miss you both.”

“Thank you, sailor,” he replied as he offered his hand. “And I’ll stand by what I said earlier. I’d sail with you anytime and anywhere.”

After finally entering the harbor, I headed straight to the gas pumps for a fill-up and to pump out the black water tanks.

Captain Tony was in the pilothouse now and took over docking the Cécile. Dad and Kelly Ann threw the lines to the dock hands as Captain Alfred oversaw the connections to shore power and utilities.

A black Mercedes-Maybach pulled up with a black panel van that said Yacht Services on the side, following him. Reggie spoke to the driver of the van and then hailed the yacht.

“Permission to come aboard?”

“Welcome, stranger. Long time, no see,” Dad told him.

“This is the crew that will showcase the yacht for the boat show. Is it okay for them to get started?” Reggie asked.

“Please,” Archara said. “Laura will just go and make sure everyone is up and dressed.”

“Well, tell them to pack a small bag for two nights. Because I am taking you all for the breakfast buffet at the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort & Spa. And tell them not to forget their swim suits because it’s right on the beach.

Of course, after a month at sea, that got everyone excited.

“You too, hotshot,” Reggie said when he saw my hesitation. “It fine. I cleared it with your boss.”

About then, Rachel came down carrying a small tote and my backpack. Soon, the salon was full of people that were not quite awake, but excited to be going somewhere.

“When everyone is ready, you’ll need to stay together and walk down the pier to the shuttle. Alex, you and Rachel will ride with me.”

“I’ll make this quick,” Reggie said as the Mercedes followed the rest of my family back down the pier to the parking lot. “Two of my security people are overseeing the event services people. The ship should be okay. I need you to plan on coming back to the ship Tuesday morning to do some interviews and some meet and greets. It would be best if Rachel and your family were not visible for this. This is all Foundation stuff.”

Then he got out of the Mercedes and got the rest of my crew loaded on the shuttle that had the Fort Lauderdale Marriott Harbor Beach Resort & Spa logo plastered all over it.

When he returned, we followed the shuttle bus and Reggie resumed his monologue.

“We have discovered who is behind the attacks by the navy and the assassins and possibly the drone. However, we have to move carefully. All I can tell you is that we have the cooperation of the White House on this. Cynthiana will fill you both in shortly.” He said.

Then he looked at Rachel in the rear-view mirror.

“By-the-way, we assumed that you would not have a problem helping Alex in this, since you have a background in law enforcement?”

Rachel didn’t respond and I didn’t know what to say. It was obvious something was going on. I guess we’d have to wait to find out more.

Breakfast was in a private dining room and after four weeks plus at sea, it was a wonderful deviation from our normal diet. For one thing, there were so many fresh choices. For another, there was so much of everything. And probably the best thing ... we didn’t have to prepare it, nor clean up afterwards.

My (our) suite was in the middle of the top floor and contained two bedrooms and a large sitting room and a large dining room. There were a total of five other smaller suites on the top floor, and Cynthiana had booked them all. I think she intended for kids to share with their parents, but the teenaged girls all ended up in one of the suites and the adults in the others.

Sarah and Samantha immediately claimed the bathroom with the spa tub in our suite, until I pointed out that both bathrooms had a spa tub. Since all this had made Rachel horny, we decided that we were going to try out the bed first, then the spa, and then maybe the bed again. You get the idea.

I had just set my pack down and was looking out the large windows at the pristine beach below us when Cynthiana said, “Rachel, my dear. Would you call the others and tell them that we have a meeting, here, in thirty minutes?”

It was close to eleven am when the adults finally convened in my room. Besides Cynthiana and me, the Fourreaus, the Lavignes, the Bouchards, and my folks, along with Samantha, Sarah, Rachel, Isabella, and Reggie, were all there. The big surprise was that Carina was there as well.

“All in good time,” Cynthiana said softly to me when she saw my eyes get big at seeing Carina again unexpectedly. She sat in the back of the group and neither looked at me or said anything.

Cynthiana nodded to Reggie.

“About ten days ago, First Lady Anita Dexter was passing her husband’s personal study, upstairs in the residence, when she overheard someone speaking on the president’s very private line. Later that night, she told her husband what she had seen and heard.

“The President consulted with several colleagues and old friends and then called me. It was decided that a confidential investigation would be opened by the Justice Department, but by the next morning, the White House aide that Anita had overheard had disappeared.

“At the same time, an Admiral who Reggie’s group had been observing from a distance, also did not go in for work that day. Instead, Reggie’s agents tailed him to a farm outside Yellow Spring, West Virginia, where he met with the man that Anita Dexter had overheard. When the White House aide heard that it was Anita who had discovered him, he swore to... “Get that bitch!” and then, after killing the Admiral, he left the farm on foot. Reggie’s agents did not know he had snuck out of the farmhouse and was hiking over back country to escape detection, so they did not follow him.”

“So what does that have to do with us being at a boat show?” Captain Tony asked.

“The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show is the largest boat show in the western hemisphere. It draws a lot of very wealthy individuals who have historically made significant contributions to political parties, so it is not unusual for the opening address to be given by an important political figure. Hence, First Lady Anita Dexter will be giving the opening address on Wednesday morning, then will be taken on a private tour of some of the more expensive yachts. Bering has even offered her a short ride to demonstrate some of its finer points,” Cynthiana explained.

“So the First Lady is going for a cruise on the Cécile, Wednesday? I asked.

“President Dexter has asked us to help her disappear while he flushes out this new danger,” Cynthiana continued.

Everyone began talking at once, and Cynthiana just let them. Finally, everyone began calming down and Admiral Craig spoke up.

“The Navy has asked me to represent them at a ceremony in Paris this weekend and I said I would go. Is that going to be affected by these latest developments?” he asked.

Reggie thought a minute before answering.

“I don’t see that it would have a negative effect on our plans. Do you plan to take Maria with you?” he asked.

“It is expected that she would attend, but would not raise too many eyebrows if she didn’t,” he replied. “I was actually going to take her to her parent’s house in Madrid.”

“Then I’ll leave that to you. Either way, you should make arrangements for your own security,” Reggie told him.

“Where will we go and how long will we have to be gone?” Captain Alfred asked.

“We don’t know how long it will take, and where you go will be up to you. Just make sure you keep on the alert for any naval movements against you. Don’t hesitate to have Alex fry them, as he calls it,” Reggie said. “While you protect yourselves and the First Lady, we will be assisting the President, the Department of Justice, the FBI and who knows how many other alphabet agencies in finding this former White House Aide,” Reggie said.

“Is this why Carina is re-joining us?” I asked.

“Carina is a doctor and the First Lady is still not completely cured of her cancer. It was hoped that you might have time to continue her healing while you are sailing,” Cynthiana replied.

“Are you okay with this?” I asked Carina. She just nodded her head. This was not like the Carina I knew. Something was going on there.

“Okay, what are you not telling us?” Captain Tony asked. He was very leery of incomplete intel before a mission. Too many chances of failure when the authority figures played this game.

Reggie looked at Cynthiana who just nodded. Then he took a deep breath and began.

“The White House has identified the missing aide as William Robert Strawbourn. He’s from Pascagoula, Mississippi. About three years ago, his youngest sister was struck and killed by lightning on their farm in Pascagoula. He took her death hard and has since had an acute interest in lightning strikes on humans. By-the-way, almost 100% of all direct lightning strike victims die immediately. Anyway, when he first heard of your surviving, he became interested in your case. After Alex’s parents and doctor pulled the switch, he was furious. But for some reason, he never quite believed it and spent countless agency dollars trying to disprove Alex’s death.”

“How did he learn the truth?” I asked.

“It was either when you chartered the diving boat or when you went to the casino in Cannes. Or possibly both. It seems that by then he had blanketed Interpol and most of Europe with your picture. But before he could swoop in and grab you, you disappeared again from the marina in Monte Carlo,” Reggie explained. “Monte Carlo is loaded with CCTV camera systems and he must have utilized a lot of manpower, authorized by the White House no doubt, to study the film from those cameras.”

“But how did he know that I was on the Serendipity?” I asked.

“It seems he got a bit lucky and figured if you were, you would probably stop in Funchal. And when he lost the sniper he had sent there, he correctly figured that you were heading back to the US. That’s when he sent the USS Freeman Gosden. It seems that he blackmailed an admiral in the Pentagon to get the Gosden sent after you. And the Hornets from the Eisenhower as well.”

“What about the task force?” I asked.

“After losing the Gosden and both the Hornets from the Eisenhower, he realized that he had to change methods. We don’t think he knew what you had done, or the extent of your powers at this time. And with Cynthiana out-flanking him in Nassau, he just changed tactics and had a senior member of the Committee on Armed Services send an unendorsed communique to the Admiral of the task force causing them to add to the parameters of their operation. Then he somehow got a NATO commander in Brussels to pass on a fake warning about a yacht full of terrorists in the Southern Caribbean. You know how that turned out.”

“Oh, yeah,” I sighed.

“We still don’t know all the details of the drone attack, but I’m sure he was somehow connected,” Reggie added.

“But why?” my mom asked.

“Who knows?” Reggie replied. “Interest becomes obsession, obsession becomes fixation. Pentagon psychiatrists think he has an unreasonable something-or-the-other that makes him think that it’s unfair that you lived and his little sister died.”

“Changing the subject, Darrel, do you feel secure enough to stay behind and fly back to Paris with me?” Cynthiana asked my dad. “I’d like to get you checked out on as many of our other planes as possible.”

While Dad and Mom discussed this, I was busy calculating available space on the yacht. Who knew how big of an entourage the First Lady might bring.