Murder on the High Seas - The Devereaux CaseFiles Book 3

Chapter 18

It took about half an hour for Raidon to get through to his contact in Romania, where he knew the cruise ship would be stopping for the next historical trip. But when he did, it wasn't good news. The tour operator in the country had been informed that the cruise ship was no longer stopping at the port and would no longer need the trip previously arranged. That alone seemed strange to Raidon, since cruise ships very rarely changed their predetermined itinerary unless something serious happened. And even then, he knew from contacts that they would usually try to keep the trip as normal as possible for the other passengers, not involved in the incident.

When he made the same call to his contacts in the Ukraine, his suspicions were confirmed. It was the same story. The ship wouldn't stop at any port and wouldn't stop for any historical trip around the island. The situation was no longer 'fishy' as Gideon would have said, but confirmed as there being something wrong aboard the Paradise Island. He would have to do a lot more than phone the companies involved to figure out what was going on. As far as he was concerned, it called for a trip into the ocean and to do that, he would have to get in touch with someone who could find and map the cruise ship's location. And then transport him to that location to find out what had gone wrong.

First of all, Raidon put a phone call through to France to speak to Gino, knowing how well he was doing in the agency. He was the one person he could turn to, without letting Murray know what was going on, who could get him what he wanted, quietly. "Gino, I need a tag on Reed Devereaux's location and a helicopter to take me there." He announced as soon as Gino answered his desk phone.

"Oh hi, Gino. How are you? I'm fine, thanks for asking. I'm a dad now, did you know that? No, I didn't. Congratulations. Thanks, we had a little boy. We have a son now." He imitated the warm greeting he expected from someone he hadn't heard from in over a year. He carried on the whole conversation himself, to let Raidon know that it was the polite thing to do, to ask after him.

"Congratulations. Where's Reed?" He sighed in frustration, uninterested in civilities when he now knew that something was seriously wrong. He had been blind to it because of the distance between him and his best friend since he had taken over his leadership role. Ever since Reed had married Ayah, there had been a gap of communication between them that neither had closed. They were either too busy or too wrapped up in their own lives to remember each other.

"Reed is already being taken care of. What's alerted you to the situation?" Gino asked the question so casually, with a little bit of a laugh in his voice, that Raidon stopped. He had been pacing the floor and now, he stood there, frozen out of sheer surprise. He wasn't sure why he hadn't expected him to know anything about it. But he supposed that since it had only come about from Gideon not being able to call Ayah, he had thought no-one else would have been worried. Now he was a little relieved and angry.

"You know? Hang on, we need to confer here." He decided, realizing that although it was good that someone in authority to help, had discovered a problem aboard the ship, as far as he could tell, they hadn't done a damned thing about it. That wasn't how the agency worked and he didn't think it mattered that Reed had retired, because he was still the best man they had. He needed answers and it seemed that Gino was in a position to give them.

"It will take too long to confer. Here's the short hand - there was a murder on board and Reed offered his services to the Captain to investigate it properly. It seems Ayah found the body and panicked so he's taken on the responsibility to reassure her it's getting done right." Gino explained what he knew and what Raidon needed to hear. Anything else was confidential.

"So there's been a murder? That explains why Ayah's disconnected her phone line. She won't want to have to tell Gideon and have him worry." Raidon waited a while to see what Gino was going to say about the agency's involvement before complaining about their lack of action. He realized that Ayah's disconnected phone made much more sense now that he knew that she and Reed really had got caught up in someone else's problems. The last thing she would want to do, was have to admit to Gideon that, yet again, neither she nor Reed could go anywhere without stirring up trouble or getting caught up in someone else's drama.