The Inside Passage (Ted Higuera Series Book 1) (25 page)

“I’m not buyin’ it,”
Ted spoke through a full mouth. “If there was any chance of oil here, don’t you
think someone would have found it by now?”

“My young friend,
history is full of examples of bold men finding treasure where no one else
thought to look.”

“How long will you
be here?” Meagan asked, delicately slicing her asparagus.

“My business here
is just about completed. I will be heading home soon. And you? How long will
you remain on the Inside Passage?”

“We have the whole
summer,” Chris said. “We don’t need to be back in Seattle until September.”

William and Mary Island, Canada

“We’re ready,”
Mohammed said as he and Kalil finished setting up the digital camcorder on the
tripod.

Ahmad watched them
stretch a large white tarp between two trees. He walked behind the camera and
peered in the view finder. It would be impossible to determine their location
from the videos.

Why did he care?
This was a last will and testament. They might not survive the mission anyway.

“All right,” He
heard Yasim say from behind him. “Let us begin.”

A lump filled
Ahmad’s throat. His pulse quickened. They were really going to do it.
What
about those poor people?
He had to not think of them. Think of them as the
enemy.

Ahmad was dressed
like the others, in green combat fatigues with a dark
shimage
over his
head. He ran his hand over his new growth of beard. It was the first time Ahmad
had ever grown a beard.

Each man clung to
an assault rifle as they crowded around the camera.

Am I doing the
right thing?
Father would be heart-broken. Damn him anyway. He’s too
cowed to stand up for his rights. Somebody has to do this.

“I’ll go first,”
Ahmad could feel his heart beating in his throat. If he didn’t go now, he’d
never be able to.

After months of
planning, this was the final step. By tomorrow they would be in combat with the
enemy.

“I am Ahmad, the
son of Mahmoud Shareef Fazul.” Ahmad stared straight into the camera, his voice
low and breathy. “This I believe: that the prophet Mohammed is Allah's
messenger here on earth and that the time will come that Allah will resurrect
people who are in their graves. I want my family and everyone who sees this to
fear Allah, to not be deceived by the West’s false gods and to follow Allah and
his prophet Mohammed. I want to do what Ibrahim told his son to do, to die as a
good Muslim.”

****

Port McNeil, Canada

Madame Trufaunt
cleared away the main course. Ted felt he was being robbed as she removed his
plate. He looked longingly at the cart as Etienne wheeled it out of the room.

“And now, a
petit
salat
to cleanse the palate,” Yves said.

“Salad after the
main course?” Ted thought they must be out of their minds.

“
Oui, mon ami
,
it clears the taste buds for what is to follow.”

Madame Trufaunt
slid a plate of rabbit food in front of Ted.

“If there’s oil
here,” Meagan returned to their previous topic, “how come no one has looked for
it before?”

“When the price of
oil was twenty dollars a barrel, it did not make sense to try to extract oil
from under the ocean, unless it was in very large quantities.” Yves sat back in
his chair. “But with the price of oil now? Soon it will top one hundred dollars
a barrel. Who knows, maybe they make a killing, no?”

“Wouldn’t Exxon or
BP be looking if there was big money in it?” Chris asked.

 “I cannot answer
for Exxon,
mon ami
. I only know that my clients, they are sure that they
will find their target here.”

Once again, the
steward swept in like an avenging tornado and removed the salad plates.
Something about her kept Ted’s spider sense tingling.

“Now, for
le
fromage
,” Yves said.

Madame Trufaunt
poured a port into delicate crystal wine glasses without a word and left the
room with the red wine glasses. She returned with a glass dome-covered
cheeseboard. Ted had never seen such a variety of cheeses along with fruits,
nuts and thinly sliced baguettes.

“This is
beautiful,” Meagan exclaimed. “It’s a work of art.”

“Etienne, he gets
carried away sometimes,” Yves plucked a grape from the plate. “Please, eat.
Help yourselves.”

Ted watched Chris
for a clue on how to proceed. Chris reached across the table and took a slice of
brie from the board. He put the brie onto his plate, then spread a little unto
his baguette. Ted followed suit, spearing an apple and pear slice in the
process.

“Mmmm.” Meagan
closed her eyes. “This is wonderful. Tell us some more about your ship.”

She’s really
sucking up to this baboso.

“
Le Pegasus
,
she was built in Holland for me by Millennium Yachts. She is built to go very
fast in great luxury. We can do seventy-five knots in calm weather.”

“How much gas does
it take?” Technical details always interested Ted.

“We carry fifteen
thousand gallons of fuel. Both diesel and Jet A-1.”

“Jet A-1?”
Why
does he need jet fuel on a boat?

“Yes, jet A-1. We
have two jet turbine engines that drive water jets for running at high speed.
At those speeds, the propellers, they become very inefficient.”

“The first time we
met you,” Meagan said picking at a tangerine slice, “I noticed you with two
Arab looking men.”

“Those are my
customers. They are exploring the coast for oil deposits.”

“Aren’t they a
long way from home?” Meagan nibbled at the tangerine.

She’s so slick
at this
, Ted grudgingly admitted.

“
Oui
,” Yves
looked through his wine glass at the sky light. “But where in the world is
there more expertise in the oil industry than the Middle East?”

“I don’t know
about that,” Chris said. “My dad has a friend who grew up in Arabia. Her father
worked for a big oil company over there. They brought all sorts of Americans
and Brits over there to help them with the oil business because they didn’t
know that much about it.”

“Yes, but they learn
fast, these Arabs.” Yves waved Chris’ comment off dismissively. “In a few short
years, they have become the masters of the oil industry.”

“Don’t their
politics worry you?” Ted’s fork, poised over a pear slice, stopped in mid-air.
“After all, they’re the people who brought us 9/11.”

“First of all, I
am not political. I am a business man. I do business with clients who can pay.
I don’t concern myself with what they do with my products. Secondly, you are
painting a whole people with broad strokes. I could just as easily say that
Americans are the people who kept Africans enslaved for three hundred years.”

“Yeah, but that’s
different.” Ted felt the heat in his face. “We realized we were wrong and fixed
it. Besides, those people are all long dead. I’m talkin’ about people who are
alive and causin’ us trouble right now.”

“Who is to say how
history will look back on this little episode? It may be that two hundred years
from now, the Islamic radicals will be seen as great prophets.”

“Yeah,” Ted could
barely contain his anger. “Like maybe they’ll think that Hitler was too?”

****

Etienne wheeled in
his cart again, breaking the tension.

“Ah,
le entremets
, the dessert.
Etienne always goes, ah, out of head?”

“I think you mean,
‘he goes crazy,’” Meagan corrected.

“
Oui
, he
goes crazy.” Yves pronounced “crazy” as “cray-zee.”

Etienne removed the
silver domes. Ted jumped as the little chef flamed a chocolate soufflé and
apple tart.

 “You have your
choice.” Yves said.

“Can I have a
little of each?” Ted asked.

“But of course,
Etienne?” Yves signaled to the chef to cut slices for Ted.

Ted watched
hungrily as Madame Trufaunt served coffee from a silver filigreed pot on an
outrageous looking stem. The four began their desserts. This was the most
amazing chocolate Ted had ever tasted.  

“So, you went up
to Nelson Inlet after all,” Yves said. “Did you go all the way up?”

“No,” Chris said.
“We were kind a shook up after the whirlpool. We decided to come back to
civilization.”

“That was probably
wise,
mon ami
.” Yves paused for a minute. “There is nothing up there to
see. It is much more fun down here.”

“What was your boat
doing up there?” Chris stirred sugar into his coffee.

“While I was away,
Captain Evans, he was kind enough to take Etienne up there in search of baby
octopus. I understand the octopus in the inlet are among the best in the
world.” Yves nodded to Etienne who cut a tiny sliver of the tart and topped it
with fresh whipped cream.

“You’d take this
huge ship up there to look for octopus?” Chris sounded skeptical. “It must cost
a fortune. Besides, can’t you just buy them in a fish market?”

“Etienne, he is a
perfectionist. He must have his seafood fresh. The boat wasn’t doing anything
while I was gone.” There was that candy-assed hand flip again. “It did no
harm.”

“It almost did us
a lot of harm,” Ted slammed down his fork. “That whirlpool nearly sank us. The
cabin was full of water. It’ll take us days to get it dried out. It still
smells like mildew.”

“Once again, you
have my apologies. Would it help if I sent one of my crew over to help you
clean up?”

“No,” Chris said.
“We’re fine.”

“Let us retire to
the sky lounge.” Yves pushed his chair away from the table. “I believe Madame
has some sherry and chocolate truffles for us. What we French call
le cefe
”

****

Ted was so full
that his sides hurt, but he couldn’t ignore the awesome truffles. Did this
cabrón
eat like this every night? How come he didn’t weigh three hundred pounds?

“So, you did not
go up into Nelson Inlet at all?” Yves pried again.

“Not after we had
our run in with the whirlpool.” Chris rolled the sherry around in his glass.

“That is strange.”
Yves looked at his sherry, then turned and stared directly at Chris. “I heard
that a blue sail boat was seen at William and Mary Island.”

Chris and Ted
exchanged glances. Neither spoke. Ted didn’t know what to say. They were caught
in a lie.  

“It wasn’t us.”
Meagan was so smooth at lying. “We’ve seen a couple of blue sailboats up
here. It could have been anybody.”

“Yes, you are
probably right,
Mon Cheri
.” The intensity of Yves glare softened. “It
could have been anyone.”

He’s not buying
this crap
, Ted thought as Madame Trufaunt brought out a decanter of cognac
and a humidor of cigars.

“Cuban, of course.” 
Yves reached for a cigar. “It is my little thumb on the nose of your President
Bush.”

Ted felt like he
had just eaten an elephant. The last thing he wanted was stinky cigar smoke.

“I’ve always
wanted to try a Cuban cigar.” Meagan reached for one.

While Meagan swirled
the cognac in her snifter, Jean-Paul returned to the sky lounge. He spoke
briefly to Yves in French, then left.

What the hell?
Ted understood enough of what he was saying to be worried.

“Chris, we gotta
go.” Ted couldn’t get off of Yves’ yacht fast enough. “I’m sorry, dude, but
it’s late. I think I’ve eaten too much. I don’t feel good.”

“I am so sorry, my
friend. Use one of the cabins on the lower deck.” Yves gestured toward the
spiral staircase. “Would you like to lie down?”

“No, I gotta go.
RIGHT NOW.”

****

 “I don’t like
him,” Ted led his friends away from the
Pegasus
. “I don’t trust him.”

“What’s the rush?”
Chris swayed slightly as he walked. “Why did we have to leave right then?”

“I was having a
good time.” Meagan giggled.

“That John-Paul
dude.” Ted looked back over his shoulder. “He said something to Yves. I don’t
speak French, but it’s close enough to Spanish that I understood a few words.
He said something like ‘
Ha hecho. Se va el barco
.’”

“So, what’s that
mean?” Meagan slightly slurred her words.

“He said ‘I did
it. The boat’s gone.”

“I don’t get it,
what boat?” A puzzled look crossed Chris’ face.

He is obviously
not playing with a full deck.
“That’s what I want to find out.” Ted
increased his pace. “My spider sense is tingling, dude. I want to get back to
the boat.”

“Why’s he so
interested in us anyway?” Meagan staggered back and forth across the dock as
she walked. “We’re certainly not in his class. He . . . he . . .”

“He seems mostly
interested in you.” Chris glared at her. “He could care less if Ted or I are alive.”

“Do I sense the
green-eyed monster?” Meagan slapped at Chris’ shoulder.

“You certainly
didn’t have to throw yourself at him. . .” Chris swatted her hand away.

“Give me a break.
You don’t think I’d be interested in a creeper like that, do you? I was trying
to get him to open up.”

“He sure spent a
lot of time asking about Nelson Inlet.” Ted was less interested in Meagan’s
flirting than he was in Yves’ connection to William and Mary Island. “For someone who tried to talk us out of going up there, why was he so interested in
what we saw? Does he know what’s going on up there?”

“He knew we were
lying.” Meagan stumbled slightly as they walked. “You and Ted are such
amateurs.” She swiped her hand at Chris and missed.

 Chris stopped
walking. Ted and Meagan gathered around him, “When we first met him, he told us
that there was nothing to see in Nelson Inlet and said we should go somewhere
else. Then, when we head up the inlet, his ship forces us into the whirlpool.
Do you think he was trying to keep us from finding the missiles?”

 “Duh!” Ted
resumed walking down the dock. “He knows about the terrorists. He’s trying to
protect them. But why? Why would anyone try to protect people like that?”

“He’s in business
with them,” Meagan said. “Remember he said he bought and sold used industrial
equipment. What if that equipment is missiles and stuff? I saw him meeting with
a couple of Arabs. He says they’re exploring for oil, but what if he’s an arms
dealer?”