She had heard from the crewmembers that he had once been a crown prince in the ruling family, but was deposed following some sort of international scandal that rocked the entire country and sent him into a semi-permanent exile. Lee didn’t want to know any more than that, for it wasn’t her business.
His breath stank of cold scotch as he drew his mouth closer to her. “May I have a kiss?”
Lee giggled before locking her lips with his. Before her journey to the Middle East, she had thought all Muslims were terrorists and held them in secret contempt. Nowadays she just considered them hypocrites, openly engaging in their forbidden desires when not out in public.
The Prince chuckled as his swarthy hands began feeling her lithe body. “Whenever you are around I feel so good. It is like being in Jannah.”
Lee raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “What’s that?”
“Jannah is like your Heaven,” the Prince said.
Lee nodded, squealing in delight as he continued to caress her. She knew that whenever he was aroused like this, it was better for her to act as if she wanted it too, since he would ejaculate quicker, and the whole session would finish much sooner. “Oh, you make me feel so—”
Their foreplay was interrupted when the entire cabin seemingly rocked forward, throwing them both off balance. Lee cried out as she fell sideways, but thankfully landed on the wide sofa, with the prince falling on top of her.
Cursing in Arabic, the prince leapt back up on his feet and started screaming. “What is going on?”
Lee turned, hearing a slight commotion out by the starboard side of the ship. She saw two uniformed crewmembers frantically gesturing for help. Getting up from the sofa, she moved towards the large windows by the side of the cabin for a closer look.
She couldn’t understand whatever language it was they were using, but one of them kept pointing over the side of the boat, and the sheer terror on his face was evident. “Hey look, he seems to be telling us that something is out there.”
The Prince growled as he stomped towards the door. “I will have all these fools whipped!”
Just as her employer reached for the door knob, a series of loud, pounding noises began emanating from the floor. Lee felt like she was in the middle of a construction yard, with jackhammers punching through solid rock to work on a building’s foundation, only this time she could see the marble floor underneath her suddenly crack open.
Lee began screaming as the flooring gave way, a jet of water rushing up and quickly beginning to fill the cabin’s interior. A few seconds later the ship’s power went out, plunging the entire vessel into darkness.
The floor began to slant sideways towards the hole in the center of the room. Lee cried out as she clawed at the back of the sofa, trying her best to hang on, but the water was rising fast, and when she glanced back and saw a glimpse of what seemed to be a gigantic mass of transparent feelers breaching the surface, her face became frozen in absolute terror.
At that moment the prince had been halfway out the door, but he was quickly pulled back inside when the cabin’s interior collapsed in on itself. The screaming man tried to reach out to Lee, but the onrushing deluge of seawater quickly engulfed them both as the Aqaba broke in two and was quickly pulled under the frothing swells.
20
JUST A FEW KILOMETERS south of Sydney’s central business district, the suburb of Alexandria had a number of industrial estates dedicated to the marine oil and gas industry. Professor James was so impressed with the submersible demonstration that he offered them the use of his car for the final day of their stay in Australia, and both Ethan and Chloe jumped at the chance to take a drive around the city.
Ethan had been checking the emails using his smartphone during lunch and was pleasantly surprised to get a correspondence from an old acquaintance who also happened to be nearby. They had a few hours left to kill, and another possible business opportunity was too good to pass up.
Turning onto Maddox Street, Ethan slowed the Toyota down to a crawl as he waited for the map application on his smartphone to give him directions, ignoring the blaring horns from the other vehicles behind him to speed up and stop holding traffic. “The entrance to Alan’s company is somewhere along here, keep looking to your left.”
Chloe laughed a little as she waved at the cars at their rear to go on ahead. “You’re not making any new friends out here.”
Ethan shrugged apologetically as he kept both hands on the steering wheel. “Sorry about that. I’m not used to driving on the left side of the road.”
Chloe patted the seatbelt she had placed over her shoulder before the car even started. “I guess we’re just lucky so far. We’ve had nearly half a dozen head on collisions since you got into the driver’s seat of Mick’s car.”
“Okay, okay. Don’t rub it in.”
“Still, you’re doing better than that burger that’s still lodged in my throat,” Chloe said.
It was Ethan’s turn to laugh. “So you don’t like Aussie burgers?”
“I’ll say. I don’t know of anyone in America who puts beets and pineapple slices on top of the meat. The additional fried egg is okay, but it’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten on this whole trip.”
“More disgusting than the crap we used to stuff ourselves with in the sat chamber during our dives?”
“Well, those things didn’t taste like anything though.”
“If you had to choose between either of them, which would it be?”
“I’ll take the bland stuff, thanks.”
Ethan roared with laughter before he pointed towards a gate entrance. “Oh, found it.”
“Okay, let’s get in there before somebody calls the cops on you.”
The sign above the building read PERCY MARINE CONTRACTORS PTY LTD. Ethan parked the Toyota Corolla near the side of the property and they both got out. The front door was open and they could hear the unmistakable sounds of industrial drilling coming from the cavernous interior.
Walking inside, they came upon a large, high ceilinged workspace. A massive fifteen meter tall mechanical device, resembling an upright, yellow painted multi-piston valve, occupied the center of the room, being worked on by a team of six men wearing hardhats and wielding industrial sized tools with their brawny arms.
Chloe immediately recognized what it was. “BPO.”
Ethan nodded. BPOs, or blowout preventers, were used to seal and control wells to stop uncontrolled releases of oil into the environment. The workers appeared to be fitting the parts together and making adjustments to its calibration for an exact fit.
A grizzled, heavyset man wearing shorts and a worn, plaid sleeveless shirt stood on a platform leading up to a set of offices, observing the crew from an elevated position. When he turned and saw Ethan and Chloe standing by the entrance, he quickly ran down the short metal stairs and approached them with a wide grin on his face.
Ethan met him halfway and shook his hand before turning and gesturing towards his business partner. “Alan Percy, meet Chloe Gietz, my better half of the company.”
“Nice to meet you, Chloe,” Alan said while shaking her hand in turn. “How do you like ’Straya so far?”
She gave him a playful wink. “Well, the people and the place are nice, can’t comment about your burgers though.”
Alan tilted his head back and let out a big throaty laugh. “Just wait till you try our pizzas. Come into my office, it’ll be quieter inside.”
Making their way up the stairs and onto the metal platform, Alan gestured for them to enter through the open doorway. “Sorry about the racket, but we’re all flat out trying to get this BPO set for an Indian firm.”