The Exchange

Sunday

Sunday evening

A loud sound warned the passengers that the ocean liner was about to sail. Shrouded in the foggy air, in the deserted silence of the night, the Araldic left the pier and moved away slowly. It was cold, as a late autumn can be, and that pier, so dark and empty, looked even more secluded from the world. There wasn't anybody out there, any workers checking that everything was alright or loading food supplies into the galley, anyone waiving hands and saying its farewells to the passengers or scanning the complex procedures of a ship ready to sail out. And that was indeed a ship that couldn't go unnoticed. 1200 feet long and 130 feet wide, with sixteen decks that made it look tall like a building of about twenty floors, with a capacity of 1400 passengers and a crew of more than one thousand people, the Araldic was a perfect combination of old era splendor with modern technology. Her Majestic Cruises had launched it some months before in pomp and ceremony and the liner held the record of the largest passenger ship ever in service.

He was leaning against the railing on deck 2. A man in his forties, with short reddish blond hair, wrapped in his dark trench coat to shelter from the damp cold of the night, with the collar up to cover his one-day beard and a scar on his right cheekbone. He felt nervous. He didn't like the idea of spending four days out on the open seas, far from the dry land, especially after he had quitted, some time before, serving his country after five years on board a warship that was anything but stable and stomach friendly. But since then many years had passed and now he needed that voyage.

It had been strange. Reading a few hours earlier on the newspaper that his former Navy fellow officer had become the Captain of the biggest cruise liner in the world and that very ship was sailing to New York the day after had been a real stroke of luck, the kind of outrageous good luck he couldn't lose, even if that meant calling a friend he had been avoiding for ages. Finding another escape plan so quickly wouldn't be easy at all. Watching the few lights of the port dimming in the dark, Max told himself that a few days of weak stomach would be a lesser evil.

"What a perfect setting for an old espionage movie, isn't it?" said a male voice behind him.

A man in an elegant navy-blue uniform, with four golden stripes on his shoulders that identified him as the Captain, went towards him with a friendly face. The two men hugged warmly.

"It's great to see you after so much time, brother!" the officer said after giving him a pat on his shoulder and getting one in return.

Thomas Francks looked like he was born to wear the Captain's uniform of an opulent cruise ship. He had dark skin, brown hair and a masculine face. His remarkable height conveyed all the authority of the stripes he was wearing, but his face looked amiable with that gentle smile and his mustache covering the entire outline of the upper lip. He appeared a little more mature than his friend, and he was in fact a few years older.

"How long is it since we last met? Two... three years?" Francks asked still smiling.

"Five, at Captain Conrad's wedding."

"Right, in Hawaii. What a wedding that was, after that last Bloody Mary I was this close to go down like a teenager. It was when you told me you wanted to move to Australia, right?"

The other dropped the question. "Tom, first let me thank you so much for the favor you're doing me, I really appreciate your help."

"My pleasure, you're heading for New York and this old friend of yours happens to be the Captain of a hell of cruise ship, how could I deny giving you a ride? If we old seamen don't help each other, who does? Now tell me, what are you up to in this part of the world? Five years ago you were moving to Australia to try your luck and now I find you here, in the old England eager to go back home."