Butler Did It! (11 page)

Katharine smiled gratefully. She
willingly followed Salvador toward the accommodations set aside for
her.

“We usually have more scientists on
board but we’re between assignments now so you can have one of
their staterooms,” said Salvador. “If you need anything, just find
somebody and ask them. They’ll take care of you.”

“What do you do on the ship, Salvador,
that is, besides taking care of stranded females?”

The corners of Salvador’s mouth quirked
upward, “Now that would be the job of my dreams, dear lady,” he
said with a theatrical bow. “When there are no ladies in distress
about, I see to Mr. Butler’s needs.”

“So you’re Butler’s butler?’ She
laughed.

Salvador shrugged, “It’s a better title
than cabin boy. It was Mr. Cooper’s idea. You see, when Mr. Butler
gets interested in a project he tends to forget about everything
else. It is my job to see that he eats properly and has clean
clothes to wear. It is also my job to find the things he puts down
and can’t find five minutes later.”

“Mr. Cooper?” she asked.

“Tommy,” explained Salvador. “He said
someone must do it before the chaos engulfed us all. He calls me
‘Butler’s Keeper’. Before that, I was a cook’s helper. This job is
far better,” he grinned.

<<>>

DARK YACHT

Unbeknownst to the Pelican, two crewmen
from the dark yacht had been hiding out in the palm and mangrove
thicket on Little Curieuse, watching the actions of the Pelican’s
crew. Once everyone on the beach had returned to the ship, these
two had come out of hiding and radioed the man with the black patch
on the dark yacht.

“Boss, the black man and the chick were
rescued by a group of people from that Butler Project ship that
showed up.”

“Is the ship still anchored
there?”

“It sure is. It looks to be settling in
for the night. They dropped both forward anchors and a stern
anchor, and the deck lights came on a few minutes ago.”

“Did any boats head for shore? Is there
a chance that they sent the two we want off to Mahe or
Praslin?”

“No. No one has left the ship. It looks
like our targets are still aboard.”

“Keep an eye on the ship. If anyone
leaves, let me know. If the ship is still there tomorrow, I want
you two to plan a raid on it. I’ll send over the necessary supplies
and reinforcements. Get on board, find the black man and the girl,
and kill them both.”

“And, if someone should get in our
way?”

“Kill them, too!”

<<>>

ABOARD THE PELICAN OFF LITTLE
CURIEUSE

After Salvador led Katharine away, a
Captain’s council gathered on the foredeck under a cloudless,
moonlit sky.

Opening the discussion Trask said, “If
what she says is true then there are some pretty dangerous people
out there. It’s likely they’ll assume that we’ve helped
her.”

“Why would she not be telling the
truth?” The Captain asked. “I can’t see anyone going through all of
this effort just to end up on the Pelican.”

Tommy narrowed his eyes and struck a
dramatic pose, “She’s a spy, here to steal all of our precious
secrets.”

“She’s a beautiful young spy!” Butler
returned, taking up the game. “I guess that means someone will have
to interrogate her. It’ll be very dangerous. I better do it
myself!”

“When you two are finished,” said EB
dryly, “I’ll remind you that we’re between assignments and don’t
have anything particularly secret on board at the
moment.”

“Then I’ll have to string her along
until we get some more secrets,” grinned Butler
playfully.

“In the Seychelles?” Captain Z huffed.
“Good luck finding any secrets here! It’s not exactly a hotbed of
intrigue.”

“There’s at least one intrigue going on
here,” said Chan, “there’s an injured man in the
infirmary.”

“Yes, intriguing indeed,” said Trask.
“The man was beaten badly, and from the look of it, by
professionals.”

“I think it’s likely that that our Miss
Katherine Annenberg is telling the truth and has accidentally
stumbled onto something pretty dangerous,” Butler
responded.

“I gotta agree with you,” said Trask.
“Still, we will have to treat her as a possible threat until we can
determine if she is telling the truth.”

“So I believe our next move is to check
everything out,” said Butler. “Let’s see what we can find out about
that dark yacht. Obviously, it’s expensive, and very distinctive.
Even here, in the playground of the very rich, I think a ship like
that would stand out. Someone has to know something.”

“Do you think there’s any danger to the
Pelican in the mean time” asked Captain Z. “Like you said; it won’t
be too difficult for them to figure out that we helped her. They
might try to come aboard and take her and her friend.”

“You’re right.” Butler answered. “But I
think they would be safer aboard the Pelican than ashore. At least
we can defend ourselves.”

“This could be a chance for me to try
those new non-lethal weapons I’ve been working on,” said
Tommy.

“Waddya mean by non-lethal weapons?”
Trask asked suspiciously, thinking Tommy might be out to thwart his
security empire. “You aren’t planning on foisting more half-assed
ideas on us, are you?”

“No, no. These are passive defensive
systems.” Tommy explained carefully. “They will make your job
easier. I’ve been working on several prototype systems ever since
the Pelican got orders for the seismic project in the Sunda Strait.
I knew we would have to pass near to the Horn of Africa, an area
with some of the worst pirating waters in the world, and I figured
we needed something new to help prevent pirate attacks on the
ship.”

“Uh, Tommy, you’re a little late. We
passed the Horn of Africa more than a month ago.”

“Yeah, well, I kinda of hit a couple of
technical snags that threw the timetable off,” Tommy admitted, “but
everything is working fine now.”

“Okay, okay, your perimeter doohickeys
work now. So, what are they?” Trask growled.

“Well, I figured we could mount a
motion sensitive infra-red camera to the top of the bridge radio
mast. That way the duty staff could see anyone moving around on the
main deck at night.”

“Hmmm, yeah! That’s not a bad idea.”
Captain Z exclaimed, throwing Tommy a thin lifeline of support.
“We’ve all heard the rumors of pirates sneaking aboard ships at
night and murdering everyone.”

“Got anything else?”

“Why don’t you tell them about your
‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ idea?” EB fiendishly suggested. “You
badgered me with it for nearly a week.”

Butler, mildly surprised, leaned into
the conversation. “Why haven’t I heard about this?”

“It’s something new.” Tommy admitted,
nervously.

“Okay!” Matthew sighed, and sat down.
“Let’s hear it.”

“Well, in the Jules Verne classic tale,
Captain Nemo electrifies the hull of the Nautilus to drive off a
giant squid. I thought we could do the same thing with all the
railings around the main deck, using wireless electrical
transmission.”

The sudden silence in the room spoke
volumes.

“Isn’t that technology banned by the
Geneva Convention?” Doc finally asked, facetiously.

“If it isn’t, it certainly ought to
be.” EB concurred.

“If I remember right, Tesla died before
he could perfect wireless transmission of electricity.” Richard
commented sardonically, “And, as I understand it, modern scientific
thinking now believes the concept to be unworkable.”

“What does modern scientific thinking
know? The man was a genius and his concept was brilliant.” Tommy
snapped back. “Just imagine, unlimited power flowing freely thru
the ether.”

Vivid mental images flashed around the
room, electrifying everyone’s mind to the horrifying
possibilities.

Slowly, everyone’s eyes went to the
boss for the obvious decision.

After just a short infinity of
nano-time, Butler made up his mind. “No. I’m gonna have to veto
that one. Sure as hell, someone would zap some unsuspecting harbor
pilot or customs inspector and the Pelican would be blacklisted in
every port from Aden to Zanzibar.”

Captain Z laughed. “I have to agree
with Mister Butler, not that there aren’t a few customs inspectors
that I wouldn’t mind zapping.”

“Okay, okay,” Tommy amiably agreed.
“That one was gonna be tricky anyway, but I do have a couple of
ready to go non-lethal devices that will mesh beautifully with your
present security systems.”

“Such as,” Trask demanded.

“The first is a mono-directional loud
speaker system. It can project focused high decibel sound waves
anywhere within a two-hundred foot line of sight. The sound waves
are so powerful that not only do they hurt the ears, they cause
involuntary bladder contractions.”

“Involuntary what,” Richard
asked?

“Involuntary bladder contractions,” Doc
explained. “The sound waves make you piss your pants.”

“Okay,” Trask hedged, “so far we got no
death-rays! We can see perps in the dark, and make them piss on
command. What else you got?”

“Well, my personal favorite is
non-lethal air cannon with a variable muzzle velocity adjustment
that can propel a weighted bean-bag up to two hundred feet at
speeds up to sixty miles per hour.”

“Jesus, Tommy, you call that
non-lethal!” Doc bellowed. “Anyone hit with a bean-bag moving at
sixty would be a dead man.”

“No, no. You don’t understand. That’s
always been the problem with non-lethal technology. At close range,
even a rubber bullet is lethal, and at long range, it just bounces
off. That’s the beauty of my device. I’ve fitted it with a laser
sighting system that determines the distance and automatically
adjusts the air pressure so that the velocity of the projectile
always strikes with less than lethal force depending upon the
proximity of the target.”

“That’s not a bad idea, either.”
Captain Z admitted. “A cannon on the bridge with a two hundred foot
range could cover most of the main deck easily.”

“And, the best part has been left for
last. All three items, the camera, the loud speaker and the air
cannon can all be run from the bridge of the Pelican from a
laptop.” Tommy said.

“What do you need to get all three set
up?” Trask asked, finally convinced.

“Just a couple of hours to mount them,
and another couple of hours to train your people to use them,”
Tommy answered, “and Matthew’s approval, of course.”

Everyone in the room turned to Butler.
Butler looked hard at Tommy for a few seconds and then turned to
Captain Z and laughed. “It’s okay with me, if it’s okay with
you.”

“These are all good ideas, well, except
for the one about the electrified rails. If you don’t mind, let’s
also assign a couple of guards to the bridge, just to be sure.” The
Captain added.

<<>>

Katherine was up before dawn the next
day. Someone had thoughtfully left a pair of baggy cotton cargo
pants and a small t-shirt outside her door. The pants were a bit
big for her but she had solved the problem by tying a shoelace
between two belt loops and pulling them together to tighten the
waist. It was an old trick from when she was a teenager, when super
huge pants had been the fashion. The t-shirt however, was on the
tight side, a perfect fit for the current fashion. Overall, she
didn’t think she looked too bad.

The sun had just begun to highlight the
surfaces of the Pelican when Katherine found her way to the railing
overlooking the main deck. Early morning light is a valuable
commodity in photography and Katherine was used to rising before
dawn. She had come to treasure the freshness of the air and the
peaceful few hours she could steal before the rest of humanity
began their day. For this reason, she was surprised to find what
appeared to be most of the crew of the Pelican, on deck and
involved in a noisy martial arts exercise. It was easy to pick out
Chan in his shorts and another loud Hawaiian shirt, moving from
group to group. At each group, he would stop and demonstrate a move
for that particular group to work on. He seemed completely relaxed
as he threw crewmember after crewmember to the deck with no
apparent effort. He would then tyrannically rehearse the group in
that move. Sometimes he would say, “I’ve seen worse” before he
moved on. Those words seemed to be the best praise he would
give.

Some other members of the crew appeared
to have been singled out for a special form of torture. They stood
absolutely still in a sort of half crouch; feet apart, legs halfway
bent but backs vertical. Occasionally Chan would walk by and make
some minor adjustment to a person’s stance, before moving on. Their
faces were set in concentration. Among these victims, Katherine
quickly picked out the exquisitely muscled torso of Matthew Butler.
The rosy morning light caught in the droplets of sweat standing on
his smooth tanned skin. Her fingers itched to find a camera. She
vowed to herself that she would find an excuse to spend more time
among these people once she had retrieved her cameras and the rest
of her gear from her hotel room.