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On a beat up trawler in the Mediterranean
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jroepel
jroepel
Con Artist

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.

Replies

R Anstett
R Anstett

Oct-9-2006 05:50

Hands the two of them a bowl of dates.

It has been a long wait, I am sure the Bazzar in Cairo will be something to behold.

yoyofoshow
yoyofoshow
Old Shoe

Oct-9-2006 06:00

'I can see Cairo!' shouted Yoyo. He was looking forward to getting off the boat the choppy sea made him sick.

Secret_Squirrel
Secret_Squirrel
Safety Officer

Oct-9-2006 07:13

I looked up from the pretense of reading my dime store novel to watch a mere whisp of a lad shouting and pointing frantically towards the horizon. He was all arms and legs, and his voice failed on the wind. I smiled. Ah, the impetuous nature of youth in all it's glory. It made me want to leap up out of my deck chair and push the little cretin overboard.

However, I refrained from doing so, for once again my gaze shifted back over the top of the pages of Ms Bertha Clay (a less than beleivable author if her first tawdry chapter was anything to go by) to the girl standing quiety in the shadows. She was good, I gave her that. The ship was pitching none too gently, but she spread her feet like an old tar and rolled with the punches, so to speak.

On another occasion I might have asked what she was doing there, a pretty girl - even in shade - a tendril or two of blonde hair escaping from beneath her beret, an overcoat hiding what vestiges of femininity she may have been graced with. But it seemd a moot point to expose her, when to all intense purposes she did no-one any harm. Besides, we were all here for the same reason, weren't we?

Shambling Rittenhouse, his pince nez balancing on his nose, through no more than sheer will power I was sure, as he spoke animatedly with the Captain. The girl Tinuviel, with her middle eastern eyes as black as coal, and as cold as the sea-breeze that whipped the sari about her feet. Even the bodyguard; Justin. Silent, and aways sea-sick as he was. Clutching his whiskey bottle grimly, casting furtive glances over his shoulder as if none of us knew he was more regularly fueled than the ship itself. Even that great hulking brute of a man, waited patiently. Waited and watched. Biding his time, as we all did.

For Cairo was close at hand...

Tinuviel
Tinuviel
Well-Connected

Oct-13-2006 11:39

Tinuviel had had enough of waiting. She impatiently got up, tossed her hair back, and dove straight into the water. She would deal with those pirates. They watched her come out of the water and walk past the pirates, into Cairo, and disappear ...

Breitkat
Breitkat
Pinball Amateur

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....

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