“Day two of our wonderful beach holiday,” Nick said as he finished his coffee and rose from the small table in the B&B breakfast dining area. He stretched from left to right. Samantha frowned at him as she grabbed her beach bag from the chair beside her.
“I’m stiff from trying to stay on my own side of the bed,” Nick said. “I was too scared to stretch out.”
“And so you should be,” she said with a glance out of the window to the beach. “C’mon let’s go. It’s far too cold for swimming and sun baking; no one in their right mind would strip off in this weather.”
They called their thanks to the B&B owner and Samantha followed Nick across the road and onto the sand. Finding a good spot to view the entire area, she placed her towel down as Nick dropped beside her on the beach.
“Look at those people.” She pointed to a family arriving with a ball, buckets and spades. “They’re dressed warmly. Why would you take a beach holiday in this weather?” she continued to grumble.
“So leave your gear on,” Nick suggested. “It’s October! There’s still a few weeks of warm weather left at least. We could have been here next month, then you would have something to complain about.”
“We probably still will be here at this rate,” she said. “I’ll look a bit odd just sitting here for hours on end half dressed. I’m sure we can come up with a better cover than this. Besides, I was hoping to work on my tan.”
“I was hoping you would too,” Nick agreed. “Do you want me to rub some suntan lotion on you?”
Samantha turned to look at him. “You wish.”
“Yeah, I do actually.”
“Maybe we should take up fishing or something.” She looked out past the rocks where the waves were coming into shore. A couple of keen surfers wearing wetsuits paddled out towards the waves.
“Surfing …” Nick thought out loud. “Now there’s a good idea. Then I can have a view back to shore. Just need to hire a board.”
Late Monday, Marcus the Caribbean Casanova and former boyfriend of Samantha printed off the report and frowned. He sat down and doubled checked the information again. Picking up the phone, he rang Mitch.
“Mitch my man, I’ve got some information for you that you might want to see, like now.”
He hung up and waited. Within a minute Mitchell Parker appeared at the door.
“You’ve I.D. the two dead divers?” Mitch asked expectantly.
“Did you take the steps or fly here?” Marcus asked.
Mitch grinned. “I’ve been sweating on this info. Looking very mute today, for you.”
Marcus looked down at his pale blue shirt. “All my best shirts are at the dry cleaners.”
“I hear you,” Mitch said dropping into the seat next to him and looking at the screen.
“The divers we found are two ex-marines,” Marcus began. He looked around ensuring no one was nearby and continued. They are identified as navy officers from the People’s Liberation Army Navy.” He watched as Mitch’s eyes squinted as he ran through a million scenarios in his head.
“Are they in the country?” Mitch asked.
“No. There’s no record of them entering the country, not now, not ever.”
“Christ,” Mitch swore. “Can you print that out for me?”
On his way back to his level of the building to see John, Mitch’s phone rang. Samantha’s name came up.
“Hey, where are you now?” he answered.
“We’re still on the beach.”
“Surf up?” Mitch asked.
“Well, Nick said it was a decent swell and there’s a few surfers out. But we’re all work, we haven’t really noticed,” Samantha answered.
Mitch laughed. “Sure, good answer. So what’s next?”
“We’re going to give it another half hour then pack up,” Samantha said. “The light’s fading and it is chilly. No one’s on the beach.”
“Except us idiots!” Nick piped up in the background.
“Our B&B in the village is cute, not far from the lighthouse,” Samantha told him, “but we could do with something closer…”
Mitch heard Samantha surrendering the phone.
“Cute if you like everything having a frill,” Nick’s voice came down the line. “It would suit you, Mitch.”
Samantha grabbed the phone back and put it on speaker. “Don’t start you two,” she warned. “Besides, it’s not that bad.”
Mitch cut in. “So did you see anything unusual today at all?”
“Not a thing—and I mean zilch. What are you guys up to?” Nick asked.
“We tried to see William’s wife but she couldn’t see us until later in the week. So we’ve been following up witnesses, their families, liaising with missing persons, waiting on results,” Mitch said, keeping the identification of the navy officers close to his chest until he reported to John.
“Any luck?” Nick asked.
“We couldn’t find any that are still alive,” Mitch said.
“Were they all old?” Nick asked.
“No.”
“This might be bigger than we thought,” Nick said.
“I’ve got that feeling too,” Mitch agreed. “Stay in touch.”
He hung up and knocked on John’s door at the same time he entered.
“Uh oh,” John read Mitch’s face.
Mitch closed the door behind him.
“Got some info for you that we better feed up the line now. The two divers …”
“The ones that you and Ellie collected on Saturday?” John asked.
“The same—they’re Chinese navy men that are not officially in the country,” Mitch said handing over a printed sheet listing their identifications.
“And now they’re not leaving it either,” John exhaled. “How did they get on the ocean floor at Cape Hatteras? Washed ashore, fallen off a boat or ship, fell from the air?”
“Well we know they weren’t part of the local dive group since they called it in,” Mitch said.
“Lucky that group leader had a bit of nouse and noticed they were using equipment that wasn’t run of the mill. Imagine if the local police had found them and then the local media got a hold of it,” John shook his head.
Mitch continued. “The level of decomposition suggests they’ve only been there a couple of days. Hell of a wash from China if they got swept away while swimming,” Mitch smiled. “Going to ring?”
“No, I’ll go in person. But you’re right. This is ugly,” John rose, taking the print out, he grabbed his phone and diary and headed out of the office.
One hour later he rang Mitch to say the case was getting attention at the highest levels. Mitch knew what that meant, more reporting, more meetings and plenty of finger pointing.