Chapter 15

With the new permits, everyone with a permit would now be armed. I didn’t like the idea that someone thought they could just drive up and take the girls.

The local police did not contact us, and there was nothing in the news about the men being shot and killed.

Our group decided to move on to Monte Carlo since this place was becoming unsafe. Frank said that it would take about nine hours so we would arrive around 6 a.m., give or take, depending on weather and the sea.

This time we were docked away from the marina, on a floating dock. A maintenance barge came to us and did the waste removal and refueling as well as offering delivered food and other items via their concierge service. We took a pass as my girls wanted to pick out the fresh food stuffs. I was happy with whatever would make them happy.

We did get breakfast complimentary but it was a buffet style breakfast. We didn’t mind and truly enjoyed the variety the buffet provided. Everyone had their fill and by 10.30 a.m. we were ready to see some sights. There was a regular tour that we chose to take.

We were back just in time to change into dinner clothes and had to sit at four tables all next to each other. The management would not allow us to move them together, regardless of money or anything else. We had 25 people in total, with six sitting at three tables, and my seven sitting at one table.

Zalla sat with Frank’s crew in Dr Carl’s place and he sat with Salt and the four models, leaving Pepper and Spice sitting with my boat girls, so there were at least two men at each of the tables except mine and Frank’s. We did draw a little more attention than I wanted but it is what it is.

After dinner we decided to check out a casino.

WEUSALL said that there were cameras monitoring the entire casino including the bathrooms, however, the bathroom cameras only viewed the entrance and the sinks, each toilet was private and boxed floor to ceiling.

We started at the roulette table and WEUSALL was able to jump the ball one space either direction or let it stay, depending on what would be best for our bet. We had won just over $50,000 by one a.m. when we called it for the night. I was not really into the casino scene and my girls were good with whatever I wanted to do. I wanted to head back stateside and the girls quickly agreed.

Frank said it would take about 30 days to get back to Miami and we set sail at 8am after a huge buffet breakfast. We hit one storm and it pushed us off by a couple days. 32 days after leaving Monte Carlo we were just off the Florida coast. Frank said we would dock sometime the next day around 10 or 11 am.

We were just getting ready for dinner when the proximity alarm sounded and Dennis called from the watch helm that there were two blips approaching fast from the west. The blips would not identify themselves nor their intent so Frank called the Coast Guard.

A cutter was about 3 hours away from us and started heading toward us after our call. When the blips were less than 500 meters away we could just make out that they were cigarette boats which are fast and maneuverable. It also appeared that there were six or more men on each boat.

Frank made the call that they were probably pirates or at least had ill intent toward us. All the weapons were distributed and instructions on where and when to fire. Frank made one last call to the Coast Guard, hoping the cigarette boats would hear and change their minds.

The Coast Guard said that a plane and helicopter had been dispatched and were 30 minutes for the plane and 45 minutes for the helicopter to arrive on station and wished us the best of luck defending ourselves.

Again, all this was said in an attempt to make the intruders leave.

At just over 50 meters out the boats split so one would be on each side of our boat when they attempted to board us. Frank gave the order to open fire and I was not surprised when both of the cigarette boats were just about sunk with the accurate and amount of fire they both received. One boat was now locked in a circle, going away and then back toward our starboard side about 30 feet at the closest and over 100 feet at the farthest. The other boat was sinking about 70 feet off our port side.

When the Coast Guard cutter arrived, the port side boat was all but submerged. There were seven dead from that boat; five dead and two that probably wouldn’t survive on the starboard boat.

One of the Coastguardsmen was heard saying, “Same shit different crew”. When I asked the cutter captain what was meant by that statement he said that these (pointing to our logo on the sail) boats have been attacked numerous times and every time the outcome has been exactly the same; attackers all killed or seriously wounded and only once did one of these boats have someone injured and that was only a minor flesh wound.

I thanked him and his crew for their help. He laughed and said it had been the same just about every time there is a call from one of these boats, just the cleanup. Then he wished us safe and uneventful rest of our trip.

We managed to dock without any more excitement and bid farewell to Frank and his crew who were now short two personnel. We were taken to a nice hotel and enjoyed a fine meal with the owner’s family and friends at the largest covered patio I have ever seen. It had to be 70’ by 100’ or more. There were easily 80 or more people that we were told are families and friends who all work for the companies yes companies as in more than I could keep track of. The owners were billionaires yet lived in a huge triple or quadruple wide trailer in the trailer park they owned and most of their employees lived here too.

WEUSALL said that it was not a cult or religion just families and friends that have made a choice of how they want to live.

One of their funny painted jets took us all back to Colorado to my house that I now knew was not going to be big enough for the 19 people our group had grown into.

Alice called a long-time friend who was a realtor to find out what was available in a large house or possible estate.

Carol Andrews, a 35-year-old standing 5’ 6” and maybe 120 pounds, sporting a hot 34B-28-34 body, was a brunette with short curly shoulder length hair and green eyes. She agreed to meet with us the next day for a working lunch. I stressed to everyone including WEUSALL that pheromones and everything else was to be shut off, blocked, locked away. The girls all pouted but understood the situation we were now in. Carol brought three packets based on the brief Alice and I had given to her.

The first was a five-bedroom six-bathroom two-story home sitting on six acres, with all the surrounding houses also sitting on 6 acres, which meant you had at least three acres between houses (an acre is roughly 330 ft by 132 ft). This property was 396 feet wide and 660 feet long and had a small pond and light forest behind the back of the house.

The second was a six-bedroom four and a half-bathroom two-story house sitting on four acres, on the same type of housing area, just closer; neighbors on the sides and back. It was on a cul-de-sac in a gated community, which was a plus but a negative too.

The third, which Carol acted like she didn’t really want to show to us, was a corporate getaway building. The company had broken up for whatever reasons and the building had been sold to her realtor company.

It had eight bedrooms with full ensuites, six on the second floor and two on the ground floor. There was a 20X20 conference room, a dining room that was set with 10 tables that seated four people, which could also be set up in two rows and seat 48 with a head table of eight to ten. The kitchen was large and had two stoves along with two ovens and commercial sinks and dishwasher.

There was also a small office/library and one full bathroom and two half-bathrooms on the ground floor. In addition, there was a pantry, plus a maintenance area that held an over-sized water heater and HVAC system and the electrical breaker box. It was located just outside of Canyon City, where most of the prisons were located.

All three of the places were listing at about the same amount: the first house $410,000; the second house $435,000; the third place $450,000. We all decided the third house or corporate getaway was too big, but Alice said it might be a good fit for a company headquarters.

I raised my eyebrow as I made my ‘what are you talking about?’ face. My girls just laughed, which made things more confusing for me.

After a little more discussion, we decided to go see the five-bedroom house. We all seemed to like the floor plan more and with three full bathrooms upstairs with the bedrooms and three half-baths downstairs we were not worried about having enough toilets available. The master bedroom’s ensuite bathroom had a huge, jetted tub that could seat eight people comfortably, and had a ceiling shower set in one corner with the wall-mounted spray-heads on the two corner walls. Another feature that we all liked was the extra room off the master bedroom’s dressing & walk-in closet area. The girls wanted to make it into a dungeon-like playroom.