Tough Times - 11. Tough Chapter 11

Once Sam and the lads had enjoyed their time in the jacuzzi, and we had returned to the harbour, they appeared wrapped in the cosy robes, “Thank you very much Mr Stalder for the chance to check out your yacht and enjoy the jacuzzi”, the lads said to Marc, “We will go and shower and change before dinner is ready,” Sam added.

“Your welcome, and dinner will be served at 7pm sharp,” Mark replied as Brady’s phone rang, and he stood up and stepped out of the room to answer the call, while the fishing crew set off back to the fishing boat to get ready for dinner. “I am sorry, but I need to return to the city for work. Marc, would you be able to arrange for me to catch tomorrow’s flight back to Perth for me please,” Brady said when he returned.

“Sure, not a problem, and since you are leaving, I think that maybe we will stick around in this region for a while, and see what there is to check out, and maybe you can be my travel guide, Dev?” Marc replied, and I saw Brady smile at this suggestion.

“I guess I might as well stay, plus I would like to do at least one more trip out with the fishing crew before leaving them, so they are not too short handed,” I said, “That is a fair request, do you know when that will be?” Marc responded, “In a day or two I guess, it always depends on the weather conditions,” I answered.

The following morning, after a very early breakfast, I said farewell to my good friend Brady, as he caught a taxi to the airport, to catch his flight back to the capital city, and I spent the next two hours just relaxing in the sky lounge on the upper deck. Interrupted only by the arrival of Marc, who I saw briefly at breakfast, before he was called away to a telephone conference call.

“Hey, sorry about disappearing on you this morning, I had two meetings that I had to attend, one by telephone the other online. It appears that I have some family problems that had arisen, and instead of heading west towards Fremantle, we are going to be heading for the Pacific, and you are most welcome to come along and enjoy the cruise,” Marc said to me.

“Do I need to know what the family problem is?” I asked cautiously, “No, not right now, and any way, I have only the basic of information so far. We will know more in a day or two, and if you like you can remain here in Esperance, so you can spend some time fishing, and come and join me in the Pacific, just call me and I will arrange the flights and everything,” Marc said to me.

“Yes, I think I like that option a bit better. When will you be setting sail for the Pacific?” I responded, “First thing tomorrow morning, so your stay will once again be a very short one, which is very disappointing for me,” Marc said to me.

“I will be happy to join you, once I have done one or two more fishing trips with Sam and crew,” I announced to Marc, “Good, that is set then. Stay tonight, and we will get you over to the fishing boat before we leave in the morning,” Marc said, and he looked happy that we would be meeting up again soon.

After breakfast, with just a small bag of belongings, with the rest remaining in my assigned cabin on the Yacht, I watched from the wharf as it set sail, and headed East towards the Pacific Ocean, before walking the twenty or so metres to the deck of the Fishing vessel, where I found Sam waiting for me.

“Ah, the prodigal seaman returns, welcome back,” Sam said to me, and I laughed at this. Very funny skipper, I am here for a few more trips, then I am of too re-join the yacht, somewhere in the Pacific,” I said to Sam. “Very well, it is good that you are with us for a little while longer, as I am having trouble finding enough crew as it is,” Sam said in response.

For the next three weeks, I was kept very busy being crew onboard Sam’s fishing boat, and I was really enjoying it the more time I spent there, but I remembered that I had promised to return to the yacht, and the time came, when I received a sat phone call from the yacht, when I was on shift at the helm.

“Hello stranger, just wondering if you are still going to be joining us on the yacht, or are you having too much fun fishing?” Marc asked when I answered the call. “Sorry, I am having too much fun, and learning so much about ocean navigation… But I did promise come back to the yacht for a while, so I will be there.

We are three days out from returning to Esperance, so give me a day or two of getting cleaned up and ready, and then you can send me to where ever it is that you are hiding,” I replied, which made Marc laugh. “I am glad that you are coming, it has been quite lonely without you onboard my yacht, I will see you in less than a week, byre till then,” Marc said before ending the call.

I realised a few moments later that I still had no idea where Marc is at the moment, and where I would be meeting up with the yacht. On this latest fishing trip, we had an extra crewman – Lance, who we are training, to take over my duties, and he was hard working and keen to learn as much as possible, which was good to see.

When we finally arrived back at port, we quickly unloaded our catch and cleaned up, before the lads disappeared to their on-land apartment, and the two new crew members headed to their family homes in town. In the five weeks that I had been working for Sam, I had earned over $5,000, and with an extra final bonus, I had just over $6,000 saved, with a small portion spent to buy a new I-Phone.

Sam had agreed to look after my Jeep, while I am away on the yacht, and offered me a job if I was ever interested in returning to Esperance, which I was pleased to hear. When I was ready to set off on my new adventure with Marc and his crew on the luxury yacht, I made the phone call, but it went unanswered, which made me a little confused, so instead I called Brady in Perth.

“Hey Brady, I am ready to join the yacht, but there is no answer when I called the sat phone. Any idea why no one answered?” I asked Brady when he answered the call. “No, I don’t, but let me do a few checks and I will get back to you, ok?” Brady replied. “Not a problem, we are back in port, and the boat is staying put for a few days so as to deal with a minor maintenance issue,” I said to my good friend.

About half an hour later, while I was wandering along the beach, my mobile rang, and it was Brady calling. “Hey, I did a yacht tracker search, and the Blue Seal is currently located at Ulinga Pier, on Majuro Island, the Capital of the Marshall Islands,” Brady informed me.

“Have you managed to get in contact with the yacht?” I asked, “No I haven’t, and I have made a few attempts, but now it is turned off, so I am not sure what the situations is there. I was going to make some enquiries with the police on the Marshall Islands, to see if they can assist in any way,” Brady said to me.

After the phone call with Brady, I was not sure what to do, since I was out of contact with Marc and the yacht, and so I began looking at other options on what to do, and eventually decided that the best thing to do is to drive back to Perth. Finding Sam and the two lads busy working on maintenance with the fishing boat, and Lance was sitting on deck watching what was happening.

“I am heading off shortly, I will be driving back to the City, and spending a bit of time there for now. Sam, I just want to thank you very much for what you have done, taking a homeless and mixed-up young man under your wing, and you lads thanks for putting up with me all this time,” I said to them, with my luggage in hand.

After the farewells were completed, I left the fishing boat for the last time, as I walked down the wharf to jeep and I had booked accommodation in town for the night as I had decided to start to trip bac to the city in the morning, since it is a long eight-hour drive.

I left bright an early at 6 am, as I knew that I would be spending some of the time driving into the sun in the afternoon, and I arrived in the agricultural town of Lake Grace shortly after noon, where I wanted to refuel the jeep and also to get some lunch. Once I had fuelled up the vehicle and sat down to eat, I pulled out my mobile phone and dialled a number that I knew in my head.

“Hey Devlin, where are you now mate? Still in Esperance” Brady asked when he answered the call, “Nope I’m halfway back to Perth, stopping for fuel and lunch,” I replied. “Ok, well when you get to the big smoke, come directly to Fremantle, your cabin is still there for your use, like you had never left,” Brady said to me.

“Thanks mate, you and your family have been so good to me, and I don’t really know why I deserve it,” I responded, “Because my friend, you have people that really do care about you, and we want to make sure that you are ok,” Brady replied. “Ok, fair enough, I guess. Anyway, it will be about another four hours before I get to Fremantle, so I guess I will see you or one of your gang there when I arrive,” I said.

“By the way nothing new from the yacht, except that it was on the move out of the MI capital, before the transponder was turned off, so there is no way of tracking it, and the satellite phone is still turned off, we just have to hope that everything is ok,” Brady said to me, “Yeah, I hope so, catch you later in the day mate, bye,” I replied, before ending the call, and once I had finished my lunch, I thanked the roadhouse staff and hit the road.

I was fairly tired after the very long day of driving, and I had to deal with the afternoon traffic which didn’t help my mood at all, but I was glad when I finally arrived at the yacht club, and parked my car in the secure carpark. “Hey Devlin, good to see you again,” Kyle said to me as he approached, “Hey mate, its good to be back, man that was a long road trip, last one for a while I hope,” I replied.

Kyle helped me to get all of my luggage out of the jeep and onto the yacht and into my cabin. I decided that I would only unpack on small bag with just the basic of clothing and supplies, as I was still not sure what I would be doing in the future. Kyle and I relaxed in the jacuzzi for a while, until Marlena and Marissa arrived, and half an hour later Brady, Trent and Jacob arrived.

I had a wonderful and enjoyable evening with the whole crew, where I was treated as just as part of the crew and family, which made me feel safe. At the end of the evening, Kyle announced that he would be staying overnight on the yacht, while the others headed off to their own homes, after cleaning up from dinner.

Kyle and I were relaxing on the fly bridge, when my mobile phone rang, which I had left down in the main saloon, and I was feeling too tired and lazy to go down and answer it, so I let it ring on, till it stopped. Moments later Kyle’s mobile rang and he answered it.

“Hello cuz… yes, he is here, his phone was down stairs…” I heard Kyle say, before he put it on speaker, so I could hear the conversation. “Dev, I was finally able to get in contact with Marc, or more to the point he contacted me, but from a public phone, in Vanuatu. Apparently, Marc has a half-sister – Rebecca, who is in trouble, and Marc has had to do some very secretive stuff to get his half sister and her children out of Canada, because of her ex-partner, who it appears is a high-level crook, now seeking revenge for Rebecca telling the authorities all about his illegal activities,” Brady said to us.

“Wow, so is she under witness protection?” Kyle asked, “Nope, much better than that, she is under Marc Stalder’s protection, after a few failed attempts on her life were made, while under Canadian Federal protection. Apparently, Rebecca who has her mothers surname, and who does not have a father listed on her birth certificate, so she isn’t linked to Marc in any way on record, managed to leave a message for Mark at one of his offices in Europe, and that message was eventually passed onto Marc.

Marc and Rebecca haven’t seen each other for over ten years, when Marc was just 16 years old, and she is six years older than he is. Rebecca has three sons, Paxton who is aged 14, and twins Ashley and Brandon, who are aged 8 years. For the past week, Marc has been coordinating travel plans for them, starting from their former home of Saskatoon, they travelled to Calgary, then to Vancouver, and from there to Honolulu, Hawaii.

From there, they caught a ride on a yacht South to Kiribati, where they flew to French Polynesia, then to Tonga, and Fiji. From there, they travelled by yacht again, to Vanuatu, where Marc is collecting them. Apparently, they travelled over 14,600 kilometres in that time, and they are now on board the yacht, and heading out to sea soon. I have been instructed to inform you that arrangements have been made for both you and me, to travel to an island that is part of Australian Territory, leaving Perth tomorrow morning,” Brady announced.

“Wow, any idea where this island is located?” I asked, “Yes I have a good idea where it is, but I will tell you in person tomorrow, when we are on our way, so get packed and see you tomorrow morning,” Brady said before ending the call. The next morning, while eating breakfast, Brady arrived and he looked very tired.

“Didn’t sleep very well?” Kyle asked his cousin, “No, not really, this is all very hush hush, because of the price put on Rebecca’s head dead or alive but preferred dead,” Brady said, which shocked Kyle and me. “Holy sheep dip, this sounds very serious, and I am not really sure that I want to get involved in something like this,” I responded, sounding very worried.

“Please don’t worry, Marc has assured us that once on the yacht, we will be well away from any danger, and that from now on, we will be on a long-term holiday, as I have taken extended leave from work, to be head of security for Marc, as Hans has to return home to Switzerland,” Brady announced.

“Can you tell us where we are going now?” I asked, “No, not until we leave to go to the airport, and only then only us three will know where we are heading, for security reasons,” Brady replied. “So, I guess that means, I will need to take part of the morning off to take you both to the airport?” Kyle asked.

“Yes, if you don’t mind, please, cousin,” Brady replied. I had decided to take just one large suitcase plus my backpack, containing my toiletries, computer, I-pad, and one change of clothes, and hoped that if I need anything else then I can get it from a shop somewhere. “By the way, Marc also asked us to delete, all of our social networking pages, and to delete all email addresses, so that we can’t be tracked in any way, plus to turn off our mobile phones, and remove the sim card, while we are travelling,” Brady said to me, as I finished my breakfast.

Half an hour later, with all of our luggage crammed into my jeep, and with our phones off, we set off for the International Airport, dressed in business suites, as we are to travel in Business Class, and Broody wanted us to look the part, so as not to give away our real reason for travelling.