Laura 01 The Jaguar Prophecy (7 page)

Not knowing that Laura’s life is in grave danger, Victor decides to let her cool off a bit and moves over to the bar in the corner for a drink and to see what is on the card he has just copied. As he moves between the tables towards the bar, he takes one last glance to the main exit. However, Laura has already disappeared out of sight.

Slowly Victor turns his gaze away from the exit, but then something in the corner of his eye catches his attention and he immediately returns his gaze to the exit. He notices several people entering and leaving the room, however one man stands out from the rest. There is something that bugs Victor about him, not the fact that the man is looking at Victor while leaving the room, but something else.

The man is around six feet six, normal build with dark brown hair, and is wearing a black dining suit. Nothing unusual in this upscale dining room, then Victor realizes what had caught his attention, it is the jacket. The jacket is too short and wide for the man, as if it was made for a person with wider shoulders but shorter in length, not by much, but just enough for Victor’s trained eye to notice it.

Is Laura in danger, maybe he should follow her just to make sure she is ok. Victor makes to go, but then stops. It is possible that the man borrowed the suit for the evening and that there is no danger. Victor decides to have a drink and inspect the files. Although he cares for Laura in a way he does not fully understand yet, finding out what is on the memory card is of greater importance at this moment than running after her. He also does not expect any more assassins or spies on the ship, for how many people can be looking for the disc?

It makes sense now, the man who had tried to plant the bug in his cabin is working for Josh. It is just too unlikely that someone would try to kill him, and on failing bug his room instead. The most likely explanation is that Josh quickly had someone sent in with a bug to try and catch him or Laura on tape giving themselves away or saying something about the disc when the agent left. Victor is unaware of just how desperate Russia is in obtaining the disc, and that they had sent Russtoff after hearing about the three dead hitmen. He also does not know that the man he killed in his room was sent by his own agency after discovering that he had killed the three men and taken Laura to his room. They feared that he had turned.

Victor continues on to the bar. The young but capable French bartender greets him with a warm smile as he sits down. He guesses the man to be around 26 years old. The bar is currently deserted save for Victor and the bartender, everyone else is busy eating. The bartender places a bowl of salted peanuts and a coaster in front of Victor as he greets Victor.

“Good evening sir, I am Thibault, your bartender for tonight, what will it be for you?” Thibault has a friendly but professional smile as he talks.

“Whiskey, straight up,” Victor replies while taking his phone out of his pants pocket, and starts looking at the files he has copied from the memory chip in Laura’s pen. Thibault nods and starts pouring Victor’s drink, but keeps watching him out of the corner of his eye, making sure Victor is not watching him pour the drink. Victor is unaware just how much Laura needs him at this very moment.

With fury in her step Laura makes her way back to her cabin. Although it is a good 10 minutes walk back to her room, she is so pre-occupied with her own thoughts that she does not notice the man trailing her, only a few steps behind her, waiting for the right moment. When she reaches her cabin, she starts looking through her purse for her cabin access card, while behind her a shadow is waiting, opening a small bottle and pouring chloroform onto a handkerchief.

Laura finds her access card and slots it into the door mechanism, the red light next to the handle turns green and a click informs Laura that the door is unlocked. The shadow steps closer, ready to strike.

With her left hand Laura pulls the access card from the door and with her right she reaches for the door handle and opens the door. Suddenly a hand appears from behind her and places a cloth over her mouth and nose while another hand grabs her by the hair, stopping her from turning her head.

Laura tries to kick the attacker, but her power leaves her almost immediately. The world around her starts to turn and Laura’s legs give in. A hand catches her as she falls to the floor, and darkness takes her.

Russtoff picks Laura up and throws her over his shoulder, then opens the door to the room completely and carries her inside. As soon as he is inside he drops her onto the bed. Russtoff quickly picks up Laura’s purse and room card that she has dropped, and then closes the door behind him.

When Russtoff first saw Laura and followed her to the dining room, he thought that he would have to torture her to get the disc, but this is far easier. The unknown man got the memory card for him. Strange that the man replaced the chip and did not keep it.

Working quickly Russtoff finds the pen in Laura’s purse and removes the chip. He has no means of accessing the data on the memory card himself, but he needs to make sure that he has the right card. Russtoff starts to search Laura’s apartment and finds her net book. The net book has a place for different memory cards and one is for a Micro SD card, just what he needs, he just hopes that Laura does not have a password on her net book.

Opening up the net book, Russtoff presses the power button and a smile comes on his face. He glances towards Laura to see that she is still unconscious, although he knows that it will be hours before she will awake from being chloroformed.

Laura did not shut down her net book, nor did she lock it, she just closed the lid when she left, causing it to go into sleep mode. When Russtoff pressed the power button the net book immediately resumed the tasks from before it was closed down. Russtoff quickly accesses the memory card and starts to go through the files, at the same time as Victor is also viewing the files on this cell phone.

Victor frowns at the data from the memory card; it contains a lot of photos of different people, taken all around the world. Each picture is named only by a number, 500 in total. Scrolling through the index and passing all the pictures, Victor notices two documents and an application file. One document is named “List” and the other “Unknown”.

The bartender brings Victor’s drink as Victor opens the first file. Instinctively Victor reaches for the drink as he waits for the large document to open. Slowly Victor brings the drink to his lips and is about to take a sip when the file opens. What Victor sees makes him stop all movement, so it is true. Quickly Victor closes the large document. He has an idea what the application file is, but cannot test it on his phone, and opens the second document. This one is smaller and opens immediately. The document only contains a few lines of text, but it is the text Victor sought.

“This is ridiculous. Bartender, a beer, Heineken.” The voice startles Victor, as he had not even noticed the man sitting down next to him, and causes Victor to almost drop his phone. Quickly he closes the document and hides his phone.

Not trying to draw attention, Victor decides to ignore the man next to him and again brings his drink to his lips to drink. The man next to Victor bumps him just as he is about to take a sip, causing him to spill some of his drink.

“I tell you, it’s nonsense,” the man repeats. Victor decides that he is not going to be able to ignore the man, so he might as well hear his story. Looking up Victor replies, “What’s non…” His words are cut off when he sees the man’s face. Victor cannot believe his eyes. The man is an almost exact match to the man Victor saw leaving the dining room with the ill-fitting suit on. Is this the man that left the room earlier and has now returned? Something is different about the person. Ah, that is it, he is slightly shorter and broader in the shoulders.

“My room, it was broken into and my dinner suit stolen, but the ship’s security says no one but me and the cleaning personnel were in the room, and the cleaning personnel did not take it,” the man replies furiously.

“What kind of suit was taken?” Victor asks, his heart skipping a beat then resuming its pace at double speed. The man describes the stolen outfit, and Victor realizes that the man he saw leaving the dining room earlier was wearing it.

“What room are you in?” Victor is now standing, ready to leave.

“502, why?” Victor does not bother to reply but immediately runs towards the exit and Laura’s cabin.

Victor knows that the man he saw must be an assassin and that he is using a cover. He probably went to the man’s cabin to kill him and take his identity. It is pure luck for the man that the assassin did not find him in his room and decided to only take his clothes to be able to blend in at the dining room. Victor realizes that the person must have then followed Laura from her room to dinner, watching their every move. He wonders if the man saw him find the memory card, and if so, if he is too late to save Laura.

As Victor runs out of the room the man at the bar yells at him, “Hey, your drink,” but Victor does not care. “Inconsiderate bastard,” the man says as he gets up to leave and takes a few steps, but then turns around and takes Victor’s drink before Thibault can stop him. After gulping down Victor’s drink in one motion, he slams the glass down on the bar counter and starts to leave the room. He gets as far as the doors when he drops to the ground, dead, foam coming out of his mouth, cyanide poisoning. Thibault is already busy sending a report to the same agency that Victor works for, informing them of the failed attempt. He was placed on the ship without Victor’s knowledge before the ship left port, in case Victor failed, due to the importance of the mission.

Russtoff smiles as he sees the details from the memory card, it is exactly what he wants. He closes the net book and removes the card from the slot on the side. After replacing the memory card back into the pen, he hides the pen in his jacket pocket. What an excellent idea for hiding a memory card.

Slowly, he takes a 9mm Beretta 92 A1 pistol from an underarm holster. He then removes a silencer from his right jacket pocket and starts to fit the silencer as he walks over to Laura. With the silencer fitted the pistol is too large to fit in its holster and he has to keep them separately.

Russtoff is careful in keeping his eyes on Laura where she is lying on her stomach on the bed, in case she has woken up and is waiting for just the right moment to attack him.

“No loose ends,” he says, as he puts the gun to Laura’s head and starts to pull the trigger. The trigger is halfway pulled when a click at the door causes him to freeze. Who else has access to her room?

Quickly Russtoff rushes to the bathroom and manages to slip inside just as the door opens. Standing in the bath, he peers through the small opening between the wall and the end of the door. Three men enter the room, guns drawn. They stop when they see Laura unconscious on the bed, and then look at each other as if waiting for the other man to make a decision.

“She is not supposed to be here,” one finally says.

“Does not matter, we will take her with us. Quickly, check for any discs.”

Within seconds they locate the music discs Nick had sent Laura and take them together with her net book. Zack bends down over Laura and picks her up, throwing her over his shoulder, then walks towards the door.

As he is about to leave the room one of the others starts to make for the bathroom. He is already halfway inside when Zack calls out to him, “What are you doing? We need to leave.”

“I need to use the bathroom, just give me a minute.”

Russtoff presses himself as far as he can against the wall and behind the door, hoping that the man will not enter any further, just a foot more and he will see Russtoff.

Slowly Russtoff raises his pistol, ready to shoot. He will have no problem taking out this man, but the other two could pose a problem.

“You can go when we are back in our room, let’s go now,” Zack replies angrily.

“Okay, coming,” the man replies as he turns and walks out of the bathroom.

The three men leave Laura’s cabin, with Zack carrying her on his shoulder. The hallway is 100 feet long and has a turn at each end. Zack is walking in front and the others follow. Just as Zack is about to go around the corner, Victor comes running around the corner and crashes into Zack, causing him to drop Laura hard to the ground and both Victor and Zack fall against the hallway walls. Victor is now between the three men a very dangerous situation.

“My apologies, I just heard my wife is having our baby. You ok?” Victor blurts out.

“All ok, congratulations!” Zack replies.

Following Victor’s gaze to Laura lying on the floor, he comments, “She drank too much, taking her back to her room.”

Victor nods but has already summed up the situation. He can take all three of them if he moves quickly, but just before he can move he notices someone exiting from Laura’s room. Trapped between four people, he will not make it out alive, better to take his leave while he still can and save her later.

The three men are so focused on Victor that they do not notice the man until after he has exited the cabin and assume that he must have walked down the hallway. Victor nods again and starts running down the hallway as if he is on his way to his wife. Zack quickly picks up Laura and starts walking back to his cabin.

Chapter 6

The moment Victor rounds the corner of the hallway and is out of sight of the men, he quickly takes his cell phone from his pocket and activates the trace that is hidden in the chest ornament he gave Laura.

The sender has a range of 500 feet and Victor quickly retraces his steps to make sure he does not go out of range. As long as Victor is able to stay in range, he will know exactly what cabin they are taking Laura to, allowing him to rescue her, possibly asking Josh to help him. For 15 minutes Victor follows the three men, making sure they do not see him, until the little dot on his cell phone’s screen comes to a standstill, showing Victor the exact cabin the men are in.

Victor makes sure that the men enter the room then quickly runs in the opposite direction to get the tools he needs for the job. It takes him only minutes to reach lifeboat number 11. After looking around to make sure no one sees him, he lifts the boat’s canvas cover and pulls a large black rucksack from it. He quickly makes his way back to his cabin to prepare to rescue Laura.