Jessica All at Sea
Copyright© 2026 by alan14
Chapter 1
Jessica was excited; she was going on holiday for the first time in a couple of years.
Yes, she travelled the world constantly, collecting plenty of stamps in her diplomatic passport along the way, but this travel was always for work, and usually ended messily for someone.
Today, though, she was packing her suitcases and going on a cruise.
Two weeks of sunshine, cocktails and picking up strangers ... she’d have to stick to girls though, because dead bodies or missing people would be noticed on a cruise ship.
Talking of the ship, this wasn’t your usual Disney or Carnival cruise ship; she was doing this holiday properly, on a relatively small boat, only around a hundred cabins, all of them first class.
A couple of colleagues raised their eyebrows when she described the ship, wondering how she could afford it on a Civil Service salary, even one with the agent’s uplift.
Fortunately, Jessica didn’t have to rely on her salary, because, like Ian Fleming’s secret agent with the same initials, Jessica inherited a vast fortune from her parents after they were killed in a car bombing when she was at boarding school.
After her parents’ deaths, she was taken in by her Great Aunt Philomena. Philomena, or Phil, as she preferred to be known, was both a Great Aunt, in that she was her grandmother’s sister, and a great Aunt in that she was an amazing person. During her stays at Phil’s Mayfair apartment, Jessica learnt all about her days with the Secret Intelligence Service during the Cold War. Phil had been stationed undercover in East Berlin; her cover was a dancer ... not a ballet dancer.
Phil passed away during Jessica’s second year at Cambridge. The man who came to tell Jessica of Phil’s death, later recruited her into the Service after Phil’s funeral, which was held on her vast Scottish estate.
That day Jessica also learnt the estate was now hers, and she’d inherited a second, much bigger fortune.
Jessica had only been back to the estate once since the funeral. She didn’t like the landscape, the weather, or the house; so she’d left it in the capable hands of Rory, the gamekeeper.
Rory, along with his wife, Rhona, turned the house into a small hotel, providing a decent income for themselves and Jessica by offering shooting weekends and tours of the many local distilleries.
Jessica preferred sunshine, and lots of it, so she’d spent about a year’s worth of her civil service salary on this cruise and was determined to spend her first full fortnight off work in years doing nothing but topping up her tan, drinking cocktails, and having lots of sex with pretty girls after sundown.
Not wishing to leave either of her Aston Martins in the car park at Southampton docks, she brought Phil’s old Land Rover out of storage and tossed her suitcases in the back. She wasn’t looking forward to the 80-mile drive from Mayfair to Southampton, but the hard seats would only make her appreciate the comforts onboard even more.
One major benefit of her black diplomatic passport was avoiding the queues at customs. As soon as she showed the passport at the gate, a porter arrived and whisked her suitcases from the car to a trolley and straight up to her stateroom. She wasn’t far behind, slipping the porter a £10 note as he left, along with an appraising look ... maybe he had potential if she was desperate for company one night.
Jessica looked around her stateroom and was instantly glad she’d chosen to do this cruise properly. This wasn’t some pokey cabin at sea level with a constant rumble from the engine; oh no, she was high up, on the port side. She had a bedroom, a lounge, a decent sized balcony, and a very large bathroom. Her stateroom was probably bigger than most of her fellow agents’ apartments. That thought made her sad, because she liked most of her colleagues and disliked the price of housing in London.
There was a gentle knock on her door as she lifted her cases onto the bed, Jessica stepped through the lounge to the door, where she met a very pretty maid who’d just let herself in.
“Hello,” Jessica said, “I didn’t request room service.”
“No ma’am,” the maid replied, her English was good, although her accent betrayed her roots, Latvian, Jessica thought, or maybe Estonia, “I’m your maid, I’ve come to unpack your bags.”
“I can manage,” Jessica replied, then she looked at the maid properly and the porter she’d been thinking about 5 minutes ago was forgotten, “but I’d enjoy your help.”
The maid, who revealed her name to be Amelia, walked past Jessica, through the lounge, where she automatically picked up each of the throw cushions on the sofa and fluffed them up, before stepping into the bedroom.
Amelia immediately got to work, lifting out Jessica’s dresses from one case and hanging them in the wardrobe. She put one dress to one side, “this is creased a little,” she said, “I’ll bring a steamer to get the creases out.”
“Thank you...” Jessica replied. She did not expect this level of service.
Jessica realised that Amelia didn’t need her getting in the way, so she moved across the room and sat in the chair by the balcony door. She watched Amelia work and watched Amelia’s face as she pulled all her bikinis and underwear from the smaller suitcase.
Amelia was very pretty, even by Baltic standards. For Jessica’s money, the most beautiful women come from the Baltic states; Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. They were generally tall, usually slender, though Amelia was one of the lucky ones, she had curves; oh my, did she have curves. Her skin was porcelain white, her hair naturally blonde, her eyes were blue, and the sum of all those parts left Jessica breathless.
“Ma’am!” Jessica heard, and she realised Amelia had been speaking.
“Sorry, I was distracted ... by the cabin...”
“Yes ... would you like me to get you anything from the bar?”
“Oh no, I can get one myself, surely you have other rooms to visit.”
“Ahh, no ... I’m your maid, ma’am.”
“Really!”
“Oh yes, anything you need, I will get it, I’ll change your bedding and do any laundry.”
“In that case, drop the ma’am and call me Jessica, and I’d love a Tequila Sunrise ... get two, you can join me...”
“Oh no, I can’t...”
“You can, we can have a drink, and while we drink, we can get to know each other better.”
Amelia thought for a moment, then she smiled... “yes, that would be nice.”
While Amelia was out of the room, Jessica quickly removed her clothes and slipped into a black bikini. She’d left a blue bikini out on the bed ready for part one of her hastily assembled plan.
Amelia, clearly used to seeing beautiful women in flimsy clothing, stumbled only slightly when she re-entered the room carrying a tray loaded with two cocktails and a plate of blinis.
Jessica took the tray, placing it on the balcony table, “why don’t you change out of your uniform?”
“Oh no, I can’t...” Amelia replied.
“But won’t other passengers wonder why I’m sharing cocktails with a maid if they see you? Nobody will suspect if they see two beautiful girls in bikinis.”
Jessica watched as Amelia thought about this, then she smiled and unzipped her dress. The dress tumbled to the floor, rendering Jessica speechless.
“Oh my...” she managed eventually.
“Do you want me to wear that bikini?” Amelia asked, shaking Jessica from her reverie.
“Not really, I’d rather you stay just like that, but maybe you should wear it, or other passengers might be upset.”
“I like this colour,” Amelia said as she lifted the bikini off the bed.
“I thought you might, I saw your eyes when you pulled it out of my bag.”
“I think I was reacting to the size, rather than the colour ... you have very large breasts.”
“I don’t think yours are far behind. Why don’t you slip out of your panties so you can try it on.”
This time, Amelia didn’t hesitate, quickly removing her panties.
I’m going to have so much fun if this works out, Jessica thought.
Once Amelia was safely covered by the tiny bikini, they moved to the balcony.
Amelia lifted her glass as they watched England recede into the distance, “I’ve wanted to try one of these for ages, but we don’t have so many nice drinks in the staff bar.”
“Have none of your other passengers bought you a cocktail?”
“Never ... I’m lucky if I even get a tip off some couples.”
“Wow!” Jessica gasped, “that’s appalling behaviour.”
“I’ve wanted to try these little blinis as well,” Amelia added, as she picked one up and looked closely at the topping, “I know caviar comes from Russia and the Black Sea, and it’s sold in lots of shops in Latvia...”
“Ahhh, I guessed right!” Jessica cried, giving herself a little clap.
“Guessed what?”
“That you’re Latvian. Girls from Latvia are so beautiful.”
Amelia blushed a little, “thank you Jessica ... mmm ... yes, I was talking about caviar, it’s sold in a lot of our shops, but I’ve never tried it before.”
“Really! That surprises me ... well, it’s not a strong flavour, but it’s an interesting experience ... a little salty, a little buttery ... the best part is the flavour bursts as the eggs pop.”
Amelia took a tentative bite of her blini, her whole face smiling as the eggs popped in her mouth.
“I like caviar...” she giggled.
“You can have it every day on this trip if you like.”
“Oh no, it’s too expensive!”
“If I can afford this stateroom, I think I can afford to treat you well while you keep me tidy.”
“Thank you...” Amelia replied as she picked up another tiny blini and popped it in her mouth.
Jessica watched as she used a slender finger to sweep a few stray eggs into her mouth, she had very nice lips that she was going to enjoy kissing later.
After the blinis were gone, Amelia told Jessica about life back in Riga, or rather a small village about 20 miles from Riga on the banks of the Daugava.
Jessica’s eyes widened when she heard the name of the village; she remembered it from a briefing about a month ago. The briefing had been about increasing reports of human trafficking through Latvia and Estonia, and Amelia’s village had been one of the places singled out, with concerns about young children being groomed, captured and forced into the sex trade.
Jessica was becoming concerned about her behaviour towards Amelia, about her desire to see her naked, and Amelia’s eventual willingness to strip ... yes, Jessica was a very attractive woman, and she rarely had a problem getting women into bed, but she’d only known Amelia about 15 minutes before she was standing naked in her room.
This was quick even by Jessica’s usual standards.
Jessica tuned out, Amelia’s soft accented words washing over her, though her training meant she was still paying a little attention and processing any passages that contained trigger words.
While she listened, she thought about ways she could turn the conversation around to see what Amelia knew about the trafficking.
“Oh, I’ve just remembered where I’d heard your village mentioned,” Jessica started.
“Oh really, it’s such a tiny place, it’s in the wrong direction for the airport, so you don’t travel through it to get to Riga.”
“It was on TV a couple of weeks ago, a documentary about Russian crime gangs smuggling kids through Europe.”
Jessica was wearing her work sunglasses; they look much darker than they really are, so Amelia couldn’t see Jessica’s eyes watching her reaction.
“And they mentioned my home?”
“Yes, the researchers think the gang uses a farm just outside the village, they keep the kids in one of the barns.”
“That’s horrible, why would they do that?”
“Because there are people who are willing to pay a lot of money for a child, one they can do whatever they like with, then dispose of when they’re bored of them.”
Amelia’s pale skin was turning a bit green, so Jessica changed the subject slightly.
“The programme also said they use the village for smuggling drugs...”
Amelia was looking just as nervous as Jessica spoke about the drug traffickers, so Jessica decided it was time to ask more direct questions.
“Amelia, do you know anything about these people?”
“Which people?”
“The human traffickers, the drug traffickers; either, both ... are they the same people?”
“There’s so much that I know, but I can’t tell you anything or my sister will be in danger.”
Jessica sighed, she had such high hopes for this holiday, “does the name Yury Jermalovič mean anything to you?”
Amelia curled up in her lounger and burst into tears.
Jessica sighed once more and stepped into her room. She dug deep into her handbag and pulled out her phone ... not her iPhone, this was her Blackphone, a secure phone that is all but invisible to cellular networks, connecting with government communications many layers below regular cellular traffic. It could also connect to government communication satellites, which is handy when you’re on a cruise ship and have an urgent need to call the office.
“Hey Billi, I need a favour...”
Two hours later, Jessica and Amelia were dressed and standing on the top sun deck as a British Army helicopter approached from the east.
“It’s a shame we’re not further out to sea,” Jessica mused as the AW149 grew closer and louder, “then we could have got a ride on a submarine ... still, helicopters are a lot of fun.”
The captain had ensured the sundeck was clear of people and furniture, but there still wasn’t room for such a big helicopter to land safely, so it hovered over the deck as two people were attached to the rescue winch and lowered to the deck.
“Captain Clarke at your service, ma’am,” the officer announced over the roar of the helicopter, as his feet touched the deck and he started to release his passenger.
“Jessica Brown, not ma’am, and thank you for coming so quickly, we have an urgent meeting in London.”
“We don’t have enough fuel, or permission to fly to London, but we have a fast car fuelled up and waiting on land.”
“Amazing work...” Jessica replied as Captain Clarke fastened Amelia into a harness and strapped her to his harness.
“Thanks for coming, Sherry,” Jessica shouted.
“I was hardly going to refuse a 5-star cruise and helicopter ride,” she laughed.
“Still, it was kind of short notice.”
“I guess most people are invited onto cruises before they leave the harbour, but I’ve learned to expect the unexpected with you.”
“We’ll chat later,” kissing Sherry tenderly, “I’ll try to meet the boat in Jamaica or Mexico. In the meantime, have fun, charge anything you like to my cabin.”
Sherry hugged Jessica, then let go as she grabbed hold of the winch cable and rose into the air as the helicopter turned and set off back towards land.
“Ahh, she forgot to tell me her cabin number,” Sherry sighed as the captain approached with many crew members to put the deckchairs back.
The captain shook Sherry’s hand, “this is Marta, your maid. She will show you to Ms Brown’s stateroom,” he told her, trying to match Sherry’s calmness despite just being lowered to the deck from an army helicopter.
“Delightful,” she replied, hoping she sounded as cool as Jessica looked swinging from the helicopter.
“Do you know when Ms Brown will be returning to the ship?”
“Jamaica or Mexico she thinks. It all depends how many countries she has to invade first.”
25 minutes later, Jessica and Amelia were sitting in the back of a black M5 with black windows and blue lights behind the front grill. They had military police motorbikes front and rear, clearing a path through traffic as they headed towards London at ludicrous speeds.
Their destination, a building that’s been blown up three times by villains in James Bond movies, yet it still stands on Albert Embankment at Vauxhall Cross.
Their meeting was to be held deep underground, in a room so secure, Jessica had to request permission from C to use it.
The door was flanked by a pair of armed guards, one of whom used his pass to unlock the door to allow Jessica, her team, and Amelia to enter.
“Why are there men with machine guns outside?” Amelia asked as everyone took their assigned seats around the long meeting table, and Billi passed around coffee and biscuits.
Jessica looked at the plastic cup of warm liquid, “is it really only 3 hours since we were drinking cocktails?” she mused sadly.
“Cocktails, in the morning?” someone asked.
“I was on holiday, on a cruise, hence the summer dress on top of a skimpy bikini. And the men with the MP5s are there to keep people out, because this room is linked to intelligence services across the world, so lots of very bad people would really like to get in here to play with the computers.”
“Ahhh ... so why are we here?” Amelia asked.
“Another great question,” Jessica replied, grimacing after taking a sip of the coffee, “maybe we should have held this meeting in a Costa ... we’re here because some very bad people are doing very bad things, and we need to stop them. Those men have a barn full of young children; they’re holding them to keep your village quiet. One of those children is Misha.”
Amelia gasped at hearing her sister’s name, “how do you know her name?”
“Because we have someone in the village,” Billi replied as she used a remote to fire up the screens around the room.
Amelia gasped again as she saw images of her village, most were from CCTV cameras around the village, but one was an aerial shot from a satellite.
“Oh my!” she cried when she saw Misha in a room with perhaps 50 other children,
These were all live feeds, and the one that caught Amelia’s attention was from a camera mounted high up in a barn where the gang were holding all the children from the village. The children ranged from toddlers to early teens. They were free to move about the barn, but the camera view showed both ends of the space were secured by a steel cage.
The floor was covered with dirty straw, and in one corner was a row of wash basins and toilets, the toilets were open with no privacy.
“If you have cameras, why are the children still there?” Amelia pleaded.
“They’re not our cameras,” Billi replied, “I’ve hacked their feed. Our informant in the village works at the petrol station. He sees everyone going in and out of the village. This is why we know they’re about to move all the girls over 14 out of the barn.”
“Misha is 14 years old!” Amelia wailed.
“Which is why we’re having this meeting,” one of the other agents replied, a brunette around Jessica’s age, but without her strong genes, so she looked world-weary, Amelia didn’t like her. “Valdis is useful for reporting movements, but he lives outside the village, so can’t report on events inside. We have lots of CCTV,” she said, casting her arm around the walls, “but the images are static, you know, we have access to about 60 cameras, but we don’t know what is between the cameras. We have the satellite image,” she added, pointing at the screen showing the view of the whole village, “but that’s from space, and because this operation isn’t high priority, it’s a still image that’s not even from one of our best cameras up there, as they’re all watching Ukraine at the moment, it only updates each time the satellite passes over, about once every 90 minutes.”
“I guess what Lizzy is saying,” Jessica broke in, “is we need someone who has been in the village recently, to tell us exactly what is on the ground. When was the last time you were home, Amelia.”
“I was home three weeks ago,” she replied so quietly Lizzy asked her to repeat herself, “I was home three weeks ago ... they took Misha six months ago, when they moved into the village...”
“She’s been in there for six months,” Billi cried.
“Yes ... they took all the children, about 80 I think. We didn’t know where they took them. They killed one boy ... they gathered everyone into the market square, they made the boy kneel in front of his parents then shot him in the back of his head ... they told us that the same would happen to the children of anyone who spoke about the village to anyone outside. Any families without children who thought they were safe were told their parents or neighbours would be shot, and they’d be forced to eat the corpses...”
“Oh man...” Billi gasped, “I’ve seen some bad shit in this job, but that’s just plain evil...”
“You said they took 80 children,” Lizzy asked.
“Yes, some must have died, or maybe they’ve been moved elsewhere...” Amelia replied.
“Would it be the older children who are missing?” Jessica asked.
Amelia looked at the camera, checking faces she recognised as the camera panned to and fro, “I think so, yes...”
“When did Valdis say they were going to move the girls?” Jessica asked.
“The day after tomorrow, after dark...” Billi replied.
“Define after dark...”
“Sunset is...” Billi started as she tapped something into her phone, “22:20 the day after tomorrow.”
“So we have a little over 48 hours to work up a plan, then get our arses to Latvia,” Jessica replied, “Geoff, can you sort transport for 8, including Amelia; airlift in and out, and cars. Michael, go speak to Damon, we need the usual urban incursion kit, plus body armour for everyone...”
“Including Amelia?”
“Yes, including Amelia, we’ll need her on the ground.”
“Why me?”
“Because you know the village, and my Latvian is far from perfect, so you’ll be speaking to the locals.”
Amelia nodded at this, it made sense.
“Have you ever fired a gun,” Jessica asked.
“Mmm, yes ... we’re a small boat with many important passengers, so we’re a target for pirates. We have all had firearms training, both pistols and rifles.”
Jessica beamed at this answer, then turned to Michael as he was leaving the room, “Amelia will need a Glock 19, in case of emergency.”
“Yes ma’am.”
As Geoff and Michael went about their business, Billi tapped some keys on her laptop and all the screens on one wall went black, then she brought up a high-resolution map of the village and the surrounding area. The map covered the whole wall, it was the most detailed plan of the village Amelia had ever seen.
She stepped up close, she could see the outline and name of each house, “this is my house,” she said, “it’s my parents’ house, not mine, but I still stay there when I’m home.”
Billi moved close and gave her a quick hug, “can you describe the area for us ... like, do you get visitors?”
“Why would people visit? The village is at the end of the road ... well, the farm is at the end of the road. There’s nothing beyond the farm, just a forest and nobody goes in the forest because of the wolves.”
Billi pointed at the map in two places, one at the bottom middle, and one in the top left corner, “where do these roads go?”
“The bottom one goes into the forest, there used to be a sawmill there, chopping wood from the forest, but it closed a long time ago ... there’s wolves, nobody goes into the forest.”
“Excuse me,” Lizzy interrupted, “the satellite image has just updated, look...”, she added, pointing to the bottom of satellite image.
The new image showed a canvas covered truck entering the forest.
“Billi, does this satellite have thermal?” Jessica asked.
“Not this one, I’m afraid. I picked the best camera from the satellites available.”
“Do we have a thermal camera in this part of the sky?”
“I’ll check,” Billi replied as she dashed back to her laptop and started typing, “there’s no satellites that I can use for the next few hours.”
“Do we have any planes patrolling the Baltic?” Lizzy asked.
“Let me see ... yes, we do!”
“Any chance one of them could take a quick detour and scan the forest?” Jessica asked.
“They’ll want to know why...”
“I think that’s where they’re making crystal meth, so there’ll a lot of heat from the old sawmill.”
“Of course,” Billi replied as she typed up an urgent operation deviation request and sent it to NATO HQ.
“We’ll need more people if we’ve got two targets,” Lizzy observed.
“Not necessarily,” Jessica replied as studied the map, “Billi, could you scroll the map down a bit ... perfect! I thought so ... we could land here,” she said, pointing to a clearing a mile or so beyond the densest part of the forest, “the trees will block out the noise, then we move in ... can you find a plan of the old sawmill, Billi?”
“I’m looking for one now...”
“We hit the sawmill, take out everyone inside and plant a few charges on timers, small ones to blow the building without starting a fire, then we move onto the farm, which is only a mile from the edge of the forest. This is perfect, we don’t need to come through the village this way...”
“You asked Geoff for cars...”
“I did, Lizzy, and we may still need some, but not for us. We’ll need to bring in people to help the kids ... they’ve been held captive for 6 months.”
“Ahh yes, good idea...”
“Now for the big question, Amelia. Do you have any idea how many people we’ll be dealing with?”
“Maybe fifteen...”
Jessica thought back to the briefing she’d attended about the gang, “that sounds about right. Eight against fifteen, I like those odds.”
Thirty minutes later, Geoff and Michael returned pushing a trolley loaded with coffee and food.
Billi was just tucking into a cheese and pickle baguette when her laptop pinged with an incoming message, “brilliant,” she cried, then wiped crumbs off her screen, “we’ll have thermal in 15 minutes, the Danish Air Force are sending a C-604 over to make a couple of passes.”
They’d just finished eating when Billi’s laptop pinged again, she hit a few keys, swished her fingers over the touchpad and hit a few more keys then, “voila! You have your thermal,” she announced as she overlayed the thermal image she’d been given onto the map.
“Amazing, get the pilot’s name and I’ll send him a couple of bottles of vodka,” Jessica said as she moved over to the map, which now had a bright red area in the middle of the forest, with orange areas tapering off in all directions.
“What does this mean?” Amelia asked.
“The red area is hottest, this will be where they’re making the crystal meth, the orange is hotter than the rest of the forest due to heat radiating from the building.”
Amelia looked closely at the screen, tracing her finger around the red area, “we used to play in the forest...”
“What about the wolves?” Billi asked.
“There were no wolves then, just the lumberjacks and the sawmill.”
Jessica stepped up to the screen, “see how the area around the sawmill is hot...”
Amelia nodded.
“The rest of the forest is dark ... if there were any animals you’d see a heat signature, even a small animal would show up.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means there are now wolves, the gang made it up to stop people going into the forest,” Jessica replied.
“Oh ... that’s sneaky...”
“How big is the sawmill?” Jessica asked.
“About 50 metres long, maybe 20 wide.”
“Can you describe the area around the sawmill?”
“It’s in a bit of a clearing at ground level, you can’t see it so well from the sky because the tree branches above are so dense, but on the ground there’s a long clearing with the sawmill in the middle, there’s a little stream runs through, we used to fish there when I was little.”
Jessica pointed at the screen, “that’s quite a big truck, is there room for it to turn around at the mill and drive out?”
Amelia closed her eyes and thought for a moment, “yes, there will be. The lumberjack had a big vehicle with a crane on the back to carry the trees he cut down and lift them into the back of the sawmill.”
Jessica thought for a moment, “OK, here’s my plan, feel free to point out any glaring mistakes ... we come in from the south, the transport hovers over the clearing, we disembark, the transport flies south and west over the Baltic. We’ll call it back when we’re finished...”
Amelia raised her hand, “when you say disembark, how do we do that if the helicopter is in the sky?”
“Remember a few hours ago, when my friend Sherry arrived at the boat?”
“Yes...”
“We do it that way...”
“Ahh ... OK, carry on...”
“We’ll move through the forest and go around the sawmill and approach it from the north ... that’s the front of the mill, is that correct Amelia?”
“Yes, that’s correct...”
“Are there windows?” Michael asked.
Amelia thought for a moment, “not at the front. There are windows at the sides, and the back is mostly open ... oh! Half of the front of the building is open as well, the trees go in the back, and cut timber comes out the front.”
“Will the front and back still be open if they’re not cutting lumber anymore?” Geoff asked.
“I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”