Several days later, he assembled his team. He wasn’t quite sure what would happen, but he trusted his skill of improvisation. So he told Taylor Phinney to stay behind at the hotel, and play the role of DS. The rest of the team, complete with cleverly concealed large weapons, was going to go sleuthing.
Bluetooth has had made talking to yourself in public inauspicious, something for which Jacob and the international spy community was uniformly grateful.
“So, Taylor,” Jacob said, “can you get me a ping back on where Horner was when he was abducted?”
“Uh, yeah, hold on.”
Silence.
A cough.
More silence.
“Is it coming through?” Jacob asked.
“Oh, sorry, I was just making popcorn.” Taylor replied. “Yeah, here it is now. Looks like he was staying at Le Meridien Beach Plaza, room 531.”
“Hmmm, Johan’s pockets must run deep.”
“Gentlemen,” Jacob said, turning to Will and Jason, “Looks like we’re going to rent a room. Jason, you cover the door, Will, flip your collar, we’ve got to look the part.”
Looking the park though in this case only ranked number four in Jacob’s top ten suave moments.
A pretty receptionist greeted him with a charming smile. “Hotel Meridien, how may I help you?”
“I’m looking for a room,” Jacob began, squinting his eyes just a little bit, doing a little number with his eyebrows, then putting on glasses, popping his collar, rubbing his unshaven chin slightly, looking around coolly, brushing his hair back just a bit, and rapping his fingers on the counter, but careful to avoid using his fingernails because then it would be loud and he wasn’t here to attract attention to himself, suave though he may be.
“Sir?”
“Oh, what?” Jacob asked, returning from his suave-induced fantasy land.
“I said we have a room.”
“I’m not just looking for any room,” Jacob replied, “I’d like room 531”
“I’m sorry, that’s not available.”
“Oh, then anything on the fifth floor will do.”
“Certainly, Mr…”
“Ethleton, Mr. Ethleton” Jacob replied, handing her a fake ID, fake passport and fake credit card.
“Oh, we don’t need your passport.”
“Certainly.”
Several minutes later, Jacob, Jason and Will were on the fifth floor, staring at the door of room 531.
“Do we knock?” Jason asked.
“But there’s a do-not disturb sign.” Will replied.
“Uh…”
This was a crisis in leadership that Jacob excelled in. Thinking quickly, he kicked the door down. Fortunately there was no one inside.
“Hmm…looks clean.” Will said, looking around.
“Perhaps too clean?” Jacob asked.
“Yes,” Jason began, “I was thinking the same thing.”
“It looks like maids have been here.” Jacob astutely noticed.
Just then the door opened.
“Ah!” screamed a gruff-looking man obviously several steps down the suave-ness ladder from Jacob. The gruff man reached for his gun, but Jason was quicker, shooting the door next to him and causing the man to run out the door. The gruff man ran down the hall, pulled the fire alarm, and suddenly the hall was filled with noise, and noisy people as the man escaped down the stairs.
“Ha!” Jacob exulted! “The moron, we’ll take the elevator, and we’ll beat him down.”
Disappointed that the lack of elevator music really didn’t calm their heightened nerves, the trio burst out of the elevator to find a lobby in panic. The well-grommed intellectuals, the ‘I’m too busy to shave’ suave men and the important old people were strewn about in disarray. Soon though, their target burst out of the stairs and into the street.
“Follow him!” Jacob yelled above the clamor.
“Taylor, are you getting this?” Jacob asked, panting and running across the marina.
“Yeah, and I’m also recording today’s stage of the Tour.” He replied.
“Good man.”
The frenetic chase continued down the marina, until the man turned down a pier, yelling something foreign to someone who looked foreign. The foreign-looking man untied his boat and gruff man hopped on, and Jacob, Will and Jason stood at a loss.
“Quick!” Jason yelled, shoving aside a hot French woman and jumping into a boat.
Will and Jacob jumped on, Jason worked his magic with hotwiring, and the chase was on. The gruff man and the foreign-looking man had the advantage, but Jason’s taste in motor yachts meant that he had selected a nice one.
“Jason!” Jacob yelled above the roar of the engine, “Keep her steady!” He said as he crawled onto the bow, two AK-47s in hand. Using an AK per hand, Jacob sprayed the enemy boat with bullets, yelling in a macho way as he did so. Somehow, his shirt got ripped. Out of ammo, and not wanting to use the ammo in his bandolier, he went back into the boat, and repeated the process with his pistols, yelling obscenities as he did so.
This had no effect on the other boat, but then Jacob started throwing grenades, and they had to take evasive action. Turning about, and with the enemy boat now firing back, and Jacob throwing grenades and shouting lines from the French soldiers from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it soon became a confused scene. Eventually though, a grenade blew off the enemy boats rudder and rendered the ship unsteerable.
Hurtling towards land at top speed, and with Jason following close behind to save up to 30% fuel, the enemy boat couldn’t steer away from land and Jacob’s boat didn’t notice the approaching land until it was almost too late.
In a move that defied all sense, the foreign-looking guy stripped off his clothes and changed into a non-descript cycling outfit. Knowing that a chase would soon be on hand, Jacob, Will and Jason stripped off their suave clothes for their cycling kits.
With the enemy boat flying in mid-air, having launched off a small seawall above traffic, the foreign-looking guy jumped out of the boat with bike in hand, tucked and rolled on the landing, and performed a cyclocross mount back on.
In awe of his dexterity, and ignoring the cries of the gruff man as he hurtled towards the satisfyingly odd death of boat colliding with the 3rd story of a casino, Jacob, Will and Jason jumped off their boat as it hurtled towards a roulette wheel, rolled, popped up and were lucky to find European cyclotourists on Pinarellos. These unhappy tourists were deprived of their steeds and the chase was on, for the third time.
Weaving in an out of expensive cars was something new to Jacob, as in his messenger boy days the cars he weaved in an out of were mediocre at best. They soon adopted a team time trial type rotation, but were still losing time to the mysterious foreigner. Having his suspicions of all foreigners being better at cycling than him confirmed, Jacob looked somewhat downtrodden.
Fortunately for him though, the pretty girls in the car next to him were sympathetic.
“Something the matter, sexy cyclist?”
“Ah! Quick, give me a pen and paper!” Jacob exclaimed, knowing that there wasn’t much time until the mysterious foreigner was lost forever. As such, he quickly scribbled his name and phone number and gave it to the ladies. Then an even better idea struck him.
“Get your hands on that wheel and follow that cyclist!” he yelled, and then at Will and Jason, “Hold on!”
The pretty girls in their nice car, but not-as-nice-as-he’d-like-car (which made Jacob think that perhaps they weren’t for him) obliged and sped through downtown Monaco chasing the cyclist. Seeing the cards turn against him, the foreigner cyclocross dismounted and started running down an alley.
“Thanks” Jacob said to the ladies, certain that he would never see them again, but consoled by the fact that they weren’t Lamborghini-hot, but just BMW-hot. Jacob, Will and Jason hopped off and followed the man, running now into an abandoned building.
Not pausing the think off the oddity of an abandoned building in Monaco, they ran into the building and stopped, as a shadowy foreign figure stepped out of the haze created by the dust particles that floated around the building being illuminated from one of the few windows in the building through which light was flowing through.
TO CONTINUE THE NEXT DAY!
Episode III: Like a Pigeon Among Cats
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