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Oct-8-2006 23:43

Clutching the railing I look down into the choppy seas as I again lost the remainder of my lunch. God, it had been months at sea. Sitting here stuck off the coast of Egypt thanks to those bloody pirates and their raids on any ship to come within sight of shore. We’d already been ransacked and pillaged twice, by two different crews. Thankfully they missed my whiskey both times. It was the only thing that was keeping me going. The Captain kept threatening to turn us back and head to a friendly port somewhere else, but Dr. Alan Rittenhouse (famed archeologist) wouldn’t hear of it. He had to get into Cairo. Something of great value and power was hidden in that city, and Dr. Rittenhouse was determined that he be the one to find it. It was just my dumb luck that I had signed on as a bodyguard for the good doctor. My job was to protect him, ego and all. I’d thought hard about refusing the job, but solving purse snatching cases and tracking down runaways just wasn’t paying the bills. I had gotten in bad with the loan sharks at the local LCN and it was a toss up as to how long it would take them to put me at the bottom of the East River. Leaning over the railing with my third straight month of sea-sickness, I was wishing I had taken my chances with the mob.

Oct-17-2006 00:11

The middle-aged, nondescript, taciturn man watched as the others cheered the young woman on during her swim past the thugs still blockading the city, then walk up out of the sea onto the beach as if on a Sunday stroll, and vanish into the depths of the city. He smiled slightly. The young lady certainly had guts. He glanced at the other passengers, observing that none of them had seen him yet. That was good. He melted deeper back into the shadows of the afterdeck, unnoticed by all. He turned and headed for the bridge, and the Captain's radio there. Time to break through this blockade once and for all. If it couldn't be broken from the outside, perhaps it was time to put pressure on the pirates from the inside of the city....