Cyberclipper Read online

  “Yes, and you know the sea so well after all the years we’ve been coming here,” replied her husband.

  “Yes, and there’s a particular wreck that I’ve never explored. Now’s my time to do so,” said the New Yorker with some accent in her voice.

  “Arron will take you to where you want to dive, and I’ll be at the lakeside café where I think they’ll name a chair after me,” said Steven. “We can meet up for cocktail at Noah’s Ark late in the day.”

  “Sounds good to me,” replied Audrey as she left the balcony to gather her dive gear.

  Two hours later Audrey was floating on the Sea of Galilee, just above the wreck she wanted to explore. As she spit into her mask and rubbed the spit around to help prevent fogging, she asked her friend Arron to keep the boat where it was in the water to serve as a point of reference.

  “Good luck, my friend,” said Arron as he lowered an anchor and watched Audrey flip over backwards to enter the water.

  It was a crystal-clear day that allowed the Middle-Eastern sun to penetrate several feet below the surface.

  Always the adventurer, Audrey Goldman swam down onto the deck of the sunken ship. “This is spectacular,” she thought to herself. “This boat must be 1,000 years-old. It’s beautiful, but a little spooky at the same time.”

  The experienced diver looked around the boat before entering an open hold. Her light illuminated the inside as she swam cautiously inside the hull of this ancient craft.

  As she swam around, she looked at her dive watch to find she only had 5 minutes of oxygen left in her tank.

  In the corner of her eye, she spotted something gleaming like a metal plate or necklace. As she reached for it, a beam was dislodged and fell on her, pinning her to the deck. She couldn’t move. And the beam was over her two-way radio, so she couldn’t call for help. She struggled with all might but could not free herself from this watery grave.

  On the surface, Arron called her repeatedly on the radio, but there was no answer. In a panic, he jumped over and swam down about twenty-feet but saw no trace of his friend. He gasped as he got to surface and knew that Audrey would out of air at this point.

  Arron called Steven and reported that Audrey was missing! Numbed by disbelief, Steven ran down to pier to meet Arron’s go-fast boat. The boat sped to the spot where Steven thought he could dive to save his wife.

  After twenty-five minutes and two tanks of air, Steven surfaced with the look of horror on his face. “She’s gone,” he cried. “She’s gone!”

  The next day, divers raised her lifeless body to the surface.

  Arron tried to comfort his friend: “She died doing exactly what she loved.”

  A small ceremony was held at the family’s grave as she was laid to rest within 24 hours. Steven sobbed uncontrollably through the entire event.

  As he boarded his flight back to New York city, the grieving husband had no way of knowing that with his wife’s death, the robbery case lead of the fingerprints on the cellphone battery was also dead.

  24

  CELEBRATION

  In the backyard of his mansion on Al Sharq Street in the ritzy section of Dubai, Prince Latif and Dahlia were relaxing in the gazebo by the swimming pool. The Prince broke the silence: “Let’s see where we’re at in our Mission Houdini as he started to count with this fingers:

  -The money is in three secret accounts, made extra-secure by our Israeli friends

  -The sanitized Blue Gene L supercomputers are doing good things for their new owners

  -In only sixty days, the Blue Clippers were sold, sans any evidence of their use on the project.

  -The ambulances are destroyed or at the bottom of the sea

  -The cellphones have been destroyed and should not be traced to us

  -The ship’s crews have dispersed around the world, and only seven of us are aware of the project, and we are sworn to secrecy

  -The Bottom Line: The cost of the 3 clippers and 3 computers was $175million. We paid $45 million to outfit the ships. Fuel, operations and crew costs were$72 Million for a total expense of $292 million. And we got $92 million for sale of the clippers. In the end, it cost us $200M to have $800 million in our accounts in just two years. Not too bad. I think Prince Khalid will be pleased with the results of Operation Houdini.

  -And we made a down payment on a condo in New York City.”

  “Dahlia” the Prince continued, “it’s time to reward our team with a royal party.”

  “Three weeks from now, I have an important polo match. I would like them to attend as my guest, and we’ll set up a tent here on the lawn for a lavish, and I mean LAVISH, party. Do you think that can be arranged?” asked the Prince.

  Dahlia was quick to respond: “Yes, Your Highness, but the invitations should go out tomorrow in order to give our guests enough time to plan for the occasion.”

  “How many people should we plan for, Sir?”

  “Sixteen to twenty,” answered the Prince. “For sure the three captains, the Israelis, Nikki, Steven Goldman (what a tragedy about his wife!), the Countess, Katie Flynn, and, of course, Foster York. Aussies are always the life of the party!”

  They both laughed.

  “And, of course,” continued the Prince, ”whom ever Prince Khalid wants to invite. Let’s reserve a block of rooms at the Oberoi.”

  “It will be done, Your Highness,” replied Dahlia who was already thinking about what to wear.

  The humidity was zero, but the temperature was 100 degrees the day of the polo match. The Prince’s party took shelter in an air-conditioned tent sipping adult beverages while occasionally venturing out and cheering for the Prince’s team. When the match ended, naturally the Prince’s team won. He toweled down, changed his polo shirt and joined his guests. The focus of the conversation was about the ponies, not Operation Houdini.

  At 7:30 a convoy of Maybachs brought the guests from the Oberoi to the Prince’s mansion. Countess von Strassberg and Nikki Villefranche, the two Europeans, were dressed in bejeweled high fashions. Katie Flynn and Amy Grossberg looked like fashion models in low-cut, floor-length royal purple velvet gowns. Naturally, the Captains wore their evening whites. And even the Aussie trimmed his red beard for the occasion.

  The celebration tent looked like an exotic movie set with ice sculptures of yachts and ponies lit up as center pieces on buffet tables. The predominant color of the evening was gold, even the silverware. Rare silk carpets were everywhere. Crystal chandeliers hung from the top of the tent. One guest was overheard saying: “It doesn’t get any classier than this!”

  At 8:30PM, the co-hosts asked their guests to take their assigned places at the 30-foot banquet table. Prince Khalid anchored one end and had Dahlia by his side. Prince Latif anchored the other end surrounded by Nikki, Katie and the Countess. Prince Latif rose and toasted Prince Khalid with a glass of France’s finest champagne. Prince Khalid smiled and nodded his approval. The seven-course dinner was catered by the Oberoi. No morsel was left on the plates.

  After dinner, the Princes circulated around the tent which had a cigar bar on one end and a cognac bar on the other end. The Skippers were seen at both ends.

  At 11:30 PM, the limos arrived to take the guests back to the hotel or wherever they wished to go. Several guests continued the gala at the hotel’s lobby bar until it closed.

  At the mansion, the Princes met in Prince Latif’s oak-paneled study to review Prince Latif’s project checklist. One-by-one they reassured each other that all of the actions were completed. Prince Khalid was confident that no trace of the mission could be found.

  Early the next morning, Nikki was seen in a bathrobe walking barefoot around the swimming pool while clutching a cup of coffee with both hands to her mouth. She probably felt like she was in Heaven on Earth.

  25

  COLD CASE

  The Prince’s cyber gurus, Ada
m, Amy and Amira, decided to remain in Dubai for three days after the celebration to shop for gold, see the sights and lounge by the hotel’s pool. On one afternoon, they were treated to a “thrill ride” on Prince Khalid’s cigarette speedboat. They thanked His Highness profusely, but they jointly vowed never to do it again.

  Meanwhile, two INTERPOL agents convinced Detective Stark that Amira Atara was still in Dubai.

  “Sir, you must station some of your people at the airport,” said the Detective Stark to the local INTERPOL captain.

  “As much as she travels, she will eventually have to pass through customs there. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” was the answer from the local authority.

  The next day the three gurus arrived at the airport for their flights. With tickets and gate passes in hand, they had coffee in one of the sky lounges. Ms. Atara excused herself to go to the Duty Free Shop. As she approached the shop, she noticed two policemen asking questions to the cashier and showing her a picture. As the cyberguru turned around to leave the area, one of the policemen noticed her and commanded her to freeze in place. Ms. Atara then ran down the concourse, past a gold-platted BMW, and entered a woman’s restroom. The two policemen stopped at the entrance and called for back-up.

  Five minutes later, a female police officer arrived, was briefed of the situation, complete with displaying a picture of the suspect. With the area cordoned-off, the officer drew her firearm and entered the restroom. No shots were fired. It was spooky quiet. One minute later, the policewoman emerged to say: “She’s dead. My guess is from cyanide.”

  The two policemen looked at each other and ran into the restroom, only to find the body of a woman on the floor of a lavatory stall. One of them checked for a pulse. “She’s dead.”

  As the police were taking a body bag away from the scene, Adam and Amy passed by to catch their flight.

  Back in Lyon, when the news of the death reached Detective Stark, he was heard to say: “Oh, shit! Now we really have a cold case.”

  26

  GOLD STREET

  Detective Stark resigned himself to the fact that he may retire before solving the robbery. Why?

  -Only Captain Crowley knew the whole mission, and he was not a suspect. He also had a capsule just in case.)

  -Adam Raviv and Amy Grossberg were not suspects, and they retired to a sequestered lifestyle behind the high walls of a city near Tel Aviv.

  -Tom van der Heyden moved to a remote Indonesian island.

  -Audrey Goldman was dead, and her husband, Steven, wore gloves while driving the ambulance.

  -The marina managers, Katie Flynn and Win Parker were aboard a Blue Clipper but never saw the cargo bay.

  -Ms. Villefranche sold the clippers but never saw the cargo bay and was able to pass lie-detector tests.

  -Countess von Strassberg was above reproach.

  -There were no get-away vehicles to be found.

  “You know dear,” the detective told his wife at the dinner table, “I may be hot on the trail of a perfect crime.”

  “Finish your brussels sprouts, Nigel, and get on with your life,” she replied rather tersely.

  A month after the celebration in Dubai, the Prince’s jet landed at the JFK International Airport serving New York City. A limousine took him to his new condominium in the Financial District of Manhatten. While in the elevator going to the 26th floor, the Prince thought to himself: “I really like this place. After all, it’s on Gold Street.”

  As the elevator opened into his unit, a brimming Katie Flynn walked up to him and embraced her “Yousif.”

  For three days, the couple enjoyed New York City. They ate at fabulous restaurants, enjoyed Broadway shows and toured several art galleries. They even strolled through Central Park. The Prince rarely answered his cell phone. As the couple left the Metropolitan Museum on 5th Avenue, they hugged each other. Life was great.

  At midnight of the third day, the Prince gently released himself from his lover’s grasp and went to the floor to ceiling window. He looked down on the Federal Reserve Bank on Maiden Lane only two blocks from 2 Gold Street. He smiled, comforted by the flawless execution of his mission, and returned to Katie’s warm embrace.

  But he failed to notice the two black Suburbans that just pulled up in front of the building.