Cutler had come across Philip Cortez on an investigation into American forged bonds three years earlier. He had first met Cortez in Alicante, on the Costa Brava on Spain’s Mediterranean east side. Cortez was an undercover intelligence officer who had penetrated the Basque separatist group who had brought terror to Spain for decades.
The cell had been working seventy miles to the south of Alicante, in the town of Guardamar. As well as forging American bonds, the cell leader, Alonso, wanted to make a statement. Not a written statement, but one that used Semtex as its ink, and ball bearings as its paper. The explosion some ten miles further down the coast in Torrevieja was a dud.
Alonso had panicked on seeing a police car patrolling the area. He had left the device on the beach, which was busy with both Spanish and other European tourists. The conditions on the beach were blustery, and the sand had been whipped up to a mini sandstorm. This affected the timing mechanism. The explosion happened on a near-deserted beach some six hours later. The single casualty was a black and white mongrel searching for leftover scraps.
Cortez had been an undercover agent in the cell but was kept in the dark over the bombing. When he heard it had been a trial run and they were going to use a much bigger device on the bustling beaches of Benidorm, he took immediate action. He placed the timer in the remaining Semtex and put the explosive back in the backpack under the table. He told Alonso and his sidekick that he was going into the town to get a packet of Marlboro cigarettes. Two minutes after leaving the remote property, it disappeared in a cloud of dust and black smoke as the noise of the explosion echoed off the hills surrounding the compound.
Cortez knew that would kill off the investigation into the bonds, both his and Cutler’s work was for nothing. But he had to do something, and quickly. Cortez was an embarrassment to the Service, while Cutler and his operatives had seen Cortez as a good operator who did what he had to do.
Cutler engaged the ostracized Cortez and offered him the chance to make some money and do some good. The six-foot-one, dark Spaniard—an Antonio Banderas lookalike—jumped at the opportunity.
Chapter Seventeen
Classical Canta Libra was the latest addition to the fleet of the Jules Verne Cruise Line Company. It was at the forefront of technology and innovation. The ship cost $900 million, and within its structure had twenty-eight conventional elevators and six glass elevators, which rose up through the centre of the vessel from the concourse on deck four to the outer leisure area on deck fifteen.
All internal and ocean-view cabins were several square metres larger than its competitors. Balcony cabins had an eight-foot-square patio, and the mini suites and suites had separate office areas with a desk.
The fourteen separate bars and music lounges were spread around the ship’s plentiful and lush surroundings, seating, and decor.
The outdoor swimming pool on deck twelve was half the size of an Olympic swimming pool, and the bright-blue tiles shimmered through the crystal water in the brilliant sunshine. The pool had been fitted with a series of computer-controlled paddles to create a wave pool on the hour, every hour, between 8 am and 7 pm.
The Classical Canta Libra was hailed as the greatest ship ever launched, and during the ship’s inaugural year, 2009, Sebastian had been invited on its maiden trip to ply his talents.
The maiden voyage would take it and its passengers from its homeport of Genoa, on the west coast of Italy, and sail south the short distance through the Liguria Sea, into the Tyrrhenian Sea, to its first stop in Cagliari, on the island of Sardinia. After a twelve-hour stopover, the ship would feel the first laps of the waves of the Mediterranean before sailing northeast into the Sea of Marmara to berth at Istanbul. Anchoring in the Aegean for twenty-four hours so the masses of guests could visit the beautiful attractions of the Blue Mosque and Grand Bazaar, among others.
The following day, the Classical Canta Libra entered the Bosphorus Strait, the Strait that divides the continents of Europe and Asia. The ship sailed under the two bridges spanning the channel. The Faith Sultan Mehmed, at 3,576 feet, was some 50 feet longer than Bogazici Bridge, which was completed in 1973. The captain steered the massive vessel with the help of the Turkish pilot through the strait, bypassing boats, and fishing trawlers the Classical Canta Libra dwarfed, and into the Black Sea.
The route would take them to Nessebar in Bulgaria, to Odessa and then Yalta, both in the Ukraine, before its final Black Sea stop of Sochi in Russia, then returning back to Genoa with a stop at Kusadasi in Turkey and the Isle of Capri, close to its home and final port of Genoa.
Sebastian had been allocated the Ice Bar to perform in. The bar was luxurious and sited on the fifth deck aft, a short walk from the theatre with its fifth-floor entrance. The theatre also had entrances directly below on deck four, and above on deck six, as it straddled the three decks.
The Ice Bar was known as the Martini-Pimm’s bar by the guests, and it served over fifty cocktails. The other additives of the cocktails depended upon how blitzed the guest wanted to get, or how much money they had to waste. The most expensive martini included ten-year-old Morpheus XO Cognac, which retailed on-board
