Chapter 23, They must not leave Monaco alive, Pt-2.
Back at the hotel I unboxed the tiny robotic tractor and another unit that snaps onto the first one to form a rigid frame. But like I said they're the size of Matchbox trucks and primarily used in sewer pipes.
The front robot unit held the battery, the radios, antennas, the microprocessor and memory, the cameras, microphone, 4 drive motors, and this particular trailer robot held and operated the tiny spray cartridge. What I was told the dispersing unit did was something like a tiny ink jet print head, it sprayed clusters of spores or bacterium in specific patterns across a specific area. Instead of a can of spores if you loaded it with a tiny cartridge, it could print a line of dot matrix text on the surface upon which it was being pulled.
If police investigators developed a means to fluoresce our spores they would find the substance was precisely sprayed in patterns across the bed sheet, bath towel, paper towels, or paper masks. I was told that technology was off the shelf so it couldn't be traced to State. But it was a contractor for State that took the cartridges and changed them from ink to bacteria or spores.
I had the INR re-confirm what room the Rose couple were booked in and where it was in relation to mine, they also obtained a sewer pipe map so I could find their bathroom from mine.
I turned on my laptop and attached the rubber antenna to the connector on the back so I could drive the robot. I switched everything on and after a self-test I gently placed the units in my toilet (then washed my hands) and walked back to the table by the window and drove the robot up and over the trap and into the pipes. Since this was a large building the pipes were large but it was still super easy to get lost. Driving inside sewer pipes is like driving on a two lane road at night with no lights, no signs, and no lines on the pavement, but you can see the curbs.
Luckily, with these robots if you get hopelessly lost you click on the home icon and it backtracks and returns home as long as it has enough battery power. If the robot loses control signals after twenty minutes it self-destructs.
The robot has lights, both visible and IR so I can see inside the pipe on my computer screen but let me tell you, inside a sewer line there are no landmarks, just branches and elbows. Most of the time the sewer lines are straight or have 45-degree turns and at any moment a wave of liquid can sneak up behind you and push you further down the pipe. I like to run on the ceiling inside the pipe and invert the video image on the screen. And another plumbing secret is most toilets are connected to the largest pipes in most buildings so as long as you stay in the big pipes you will always arrive in someone's toilet.
One note I should add here because I will forget once this mission gets moving... After a single use these tiny robots are shipped back to Washington DC for re-work. They are designed for single use applications and are returnable for new batteries, and cleaning of the camera optics.
My toilet was on the 8th floor and with the aid of the sewer line map I easily found the main line and going down to the 7th floor was easy. The robot has a compass (and an artificial horizon) but sometimes in old iron pipes they don't work well and it's easy to get lost.
Once I got on the 7th floor I chose a direction I thought would take me back towards my room and counted the connections to the third one and followed that line to a toilet. That entire process is not as gross as it sounds, it's just a black pipe with mineral residue inside, sometimes there is some kitchen sink grease (usually looks like dirty Vaseline) stuck to the pipe walls but mostly it's just mineral buildup that coats the pipes and gives my robot something to grip. Brand new plastic pipes are the hardest ones to navigate, but this hotel is 70 years old. Some of the sewer pipes are iron, really old ones are clay, and really really old ones are wood.
The wheels on the robot are like microscopic saw blades with ultra sharp needle arrays all the way around so it leaves an invisible line of tiny dots everywhere it goes but they're too small to see. It is those needle-tires that allow them to climb vertically inside pipes, across walls and ceilings, and even across most windows. It even has a crude ability to jump.
This part of the job might prove to be the most difficult, proving I was in the correct hotel room. I had 3D tracking but I was still mandated to confirm I found the right perps since this was a dual execution mission. I didn't want to be that one guy from State who accidentally exposed some famous orchestra conductor and his wife, instead of a dangerous serial killer who was actually in the room across the hallway!
Its cool weather outside so most people left their windows closed but that was also a route into rooms, up the outside wall and in the window if it was left open. But you can get inside any building via the sewer lines if you're small enough and able to get traction.
Watching the video feed from the tractor it suddenly found daylight and climbed out of a toilet and fell to the floor. Then it rolled itself upright and moved along the wall and climbed up to a towel rack to clean the camera lens on a soft cotton towel. The lenses are coated to repel anything but sometimes they get smeared with grease. I left the bathroom on the floor along the wall and moved into the main room looking for personal belongings. Even if someone (housekeeper) was in the room our tiny robotic tractors are mostly silent.
I climbed up on top of a large mirror and stopped to photograph the entire room. I forgot to tell you that my robot was also being monitored live in DC in a Situation Room with 11 staffers observing everything. They were the ones very familiar with the perps and the case against them.
I located the closet, the doors were open and inside I saw nice leather suitcases and both had gold letters by the handles, one said DR and the other said JR, probably for Joyce and Doug Rose, but it could also be for David Rice and Jill Rice. I had to be certain before I did anything.
I went further into the room, beside the bed was a night stand and on the stand sat a hotel rental form and the paper folder that contained the door key cards. I had to partially unfold it with the tractor and saw their names clearly printed on the form, so this was 99.9% certain I was in the target's hotel room. I looked at the desk phone beside the bed and it showed the room number, which also matched what the computer said was their room. BINGO!
My next step was to drive the robot up onto the bed. The robot was loaded with a Botulinum print cartridge.
Review: Clostridium Botulinum is a naturally occurring rod-form bacterium. It is one of the most potent toxins known to science. A spore is kind of like a plant seed. It contains the genetic material inside to reproduce the parent but is coated in such a way as to protect the contents until the right conditions exist (for duplication) which cause the outside to break down and allows reproduction to begin. Botulism is the name for the disease caused in humans by botulinum ingestion, it is characterized by worsening paralysis and is difficult to diagnose and treat. The bacteria can be ingested or inhaled and include early symptoms similar to the flu. The most common cause for exposure is in contaminated canned food (bulging cans). The actual toxic substance is created inside and released from the rod-shaped bacteria.
The spores are inhaled/ingested and begin to come back to life and reproduce and emit toxins into the blood stream, after that it's usually less than 90 minutes until you start to feel sick and weak then it gradually gets harder and harder to move and breathe. Once symptoms are felt the toxin cannot be reversed and is always fatal. I've heard agents say the target slowly suffocates while wide awake. They cannot yell for help or call 911 yet they are usually wide awake and watching themselves suffocate without knowing why.
I got the tiny robot into position and drove it under the bed spread across the pillows leaving an invisible line of spores, and then it turned around and sprayed another (zig zag) line of spores. Once those were done I drove it on top of the bed spread and left two lines across the two decorative pillows. By my estimate I had a couple seconds of spray left so I returned to the bathroom towel rack, and sprayed the bath towels until the robot signaled empty. Once that was complete I pressed the home icon and the robot automatically retraced its route through the pipes to my toilet. I should also note that the best place to spray is if the target uses a breathing machine at night.
Fifteen minutes later I heard a faint sound in my bathroom and went in there and reached down and lifted the robot out of the toilet and rinsed it with soap and hot water in the sink and left it sit out to dry. I decided to spend the night in this hotel room.
When I pulled down the bed spread to uncover the pillows it always made me anxious every time I got in bed myself since a pillow was an ideal place to poison someone. I texted INR that night, mission accomplished but they already saw what I saw. I wanted to make sure I got the reward money.
I ordered a room service delivery of a 6-pack of Coors Beer and a bowl of buttered popcorn, and then I watched French movies on TV. The hotel had fifty cable channels, one was like TCM and only played old Euro films from before WW2. Their second channel showed action adventure movies going back to the 1950s. One old sci-fi action suspense film I like from the 1960s is The Satan Bug.
I got to wondering as I fell asleep how Monaco handled the French Revolution and WW2, I'm sure it wasn't a story with a happy ending. I'll never understand why the Europeans keep electing tyrants into their governments. My dad would call it `thinkin with the wrong head.'
According to hotel key card lock records the target couple returned to their room at 2:03am from a bar in the hotel next door. The desk clerk noted they walked like they were very intoxicated.
According to police their crime scene appeared like: Upon returning to the room they walked toward the bathroom taking off their clothes along the way. After showering they pulled down the bed cover and went to sleep in their underwear.
Around 7am each woke up feeling like they caught the flu at the bar, used the toiler but went straight back to sleep until 10am. By that time they felt worse and when they tried to get out of bed they discovered they were too weak to move but they woke each other and then started to feel like they were getting short of breath too. It appeared they tried to reach for a phone but couldn't move, their bodies felt like they suddenly weighed thousands of pounds each. Soon after that each one slowly respiratory arrested and cardiac arrested. The maid found the bodies at 10:55am. Their faces and lips were dark blue, their eyes frozen wide open staring at each other. Both bodies died with a horrified expression frozen forever on their faces, like they tried to shout for help but nothing worked.
To Local EMS it appeared they both died of respiratory arrest, and both corpses felt unusually stiff. Their deaths were ruled suspicious so they were taken for autopsy, but since they were vacationing there was not much information available for them other than wanted posters in every bank and police station in the EU. The bodies were then delivered to a police morgue in France awaiting positive ID by fingerprint. Monaco police tried for days to locate relatives (in the EU and USA) to claim the bodies and provide medical information. None could be found so they would eventually be cremated and their ashes dumped in an anonymous mass grave in a town near Monaco in France with all the unidentified who died in Monaco. End of story. And they never left Monaco alive.
Ten days later I received an invitation (and the $79k reward) to come to DC but declined. Jen's next trip here was coming up next month and we had plans to make. She asked me to meet her in Madrid to help look for apartments, perhaps even put a deposit on one. Her trip was also the first time the people in the Madrid office got to meet the new boss lady. Everyone had heard she was short, red haired, loud, and extremely smart and nerdy. Many of them believed she was gay, but I would testify under oath it is not true.
End of mission, back to normal life helping Americans in Tangier. I suppose in some way what I did in Monaco was helping people all across Africa, which includes Tangier. It put a stop to the killing machine for now.
I started spending time online looking at rentals for Jennifer and getting a feel for the neighborhood near their Madrid office. It's an older part of the city, and not too far from the airport.
Most of the older buildings were five stories and the really old ones didn't have elevators. She wanted a southern exposure with lots of sunshine and fresh air. I think that meant a corner apartment on 2nd or 3rd floor, one bedroom, kitchen, living room, balcony or patio, and stores nearby. She is planning on walking or riding a bicycle to work and not owning a car. She said driving in Barcelona was enough to teach her she did not have the personality to drive in the EU! She needs order and rules but driving in Spain looked like chaos with dangerous motor vehicles.
One evening during my online apartment searches I found an interesting place only three thousand feet from her office on the northeast side of downtown Madrid. It was an older building, brick exterior, kind of a modern Euro-contemporary (IKEA furniture store) look with large windows and a tiny fenced-in yard. When I read further the building had been totally rehabbed, inside and out. It might have had a fire too.
It was a private residence owned by an elderly couple, they divided the house making the upstairs a small apartment with its own entrance but the entrance wasn't private. The upstairs was: 850sq ft, air conditioning, appliances, partially furnished, and it was small and sunny with windows that opened. They had a yard someone could lie out for some sun but it would not be private. I sent her the real estate link. The residence was on a very narrow one-way mixed-use street and everyone had bars or shutters on the windows, most yards were fenced and the neighborhood was an odd mix of retail and residential. I saw almost no trees and very little traffic, so I assumed everyone rode a bike or took the city bus.
The neighborhood looked like most of the structures were originally single family homes, and over time some of them turned into a residence upstairs and a small retail store on the ground floor.
Jen fell in love with the place (and the neighborhood) immediately and started emailing to the realtor acting as the rental manager for the owner. They wanted two months' rent ($2200) as a security deposit, and references. No pets allowed, no loud music, probably should not own a car since there is no parking allowed on that block, but a scooter/bicycle should be okay. As far as weather goes, Madrid is as far north as Pittsburgh PA, 280 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. The house had a very narrow concrete driveway and a garage door but it appears they converted the garage into a bedroom to substitute for the loss of the upstairs space (originally two bedrooms and one large bathroom). The concrete pad in front of the garage door was big enough to park a very small car, emphasis on very. Jen said it would be the ideal place to lie out on a mat in the sun. Yes, in her past Jen was known to lie out naked in the afternoon sun for a proper dose of vitamin-D.
You entered the property from the sidewalk by unlocking an iron gate (with a key) and walking on a concrete sidewalk through a tiny garden to the first set of steps, and then turn left. Straight ahead is the front door to the main residence or turn to the right, up two steps to the door for the 2nd story apartment.
Insert your key and enter the door and you are in a tiny foyer at the base of a long wood staircase. At the top of the stairs you entered the living room with a view of the street (ugly) but the windows opened. On the far side of that room is the kitchen, with a tall but narrow refrigerator/freezer, microwave oven, 2 burner gas stove, no oven, single basin stainless sink, cabinets, narrow dish washer, and the entire place has hardwood floors. There is one bathroom, about 8x8 with a walk-in shower and low-flush toilet, sink on a cabinet, and other cabinets floor to ceiling. The bedroom is 12x16 with a large closet (lots of shelves) and two windows that open. It comes with a full size bed, memory foam mattress sealed in heavy plastic and curtains with pull down shades. The entire apartment can be had for $1100 US a month. They had about forty pictures on the internet to review along with the entrance and the view out each window. She said the upstairs has its own 15 gallon natural gas water heater, it was located downstairs. The upstairs apartment had its own utility bills: electricity, natural gas, city water. And it also had a small stacked clothes washer and electric dryer.
We hadn't even looked around the area and she wanted to mail them a cashier's check, hell, she wanted to buy the entire building! Jen has hinted to me that she's saved a ton of money in her current position. I think she told me once she earned about $175k a year and lived as if she earned $40k, so she saved a lot of money. My best guess is she's saved up about $800k US since college. I think that means she does not often order delivery pizza and beer.
Back at home she is almost done with her 6th semester of Spanish and feels confident moving to Spain. She said she might invest in some kind of battery powered scooter they allowed on sidewalks. Spain does not have many bicycle lanes on the streets in many cities because their streets were too narrow. She can finish her semester of Spanish online from Spain to finish her BA in Spanish, her 4th degree.
Madrid, the city center has been occupied by humans since pre-historic times. As a city, the first records found date back to around 800AD. So that is why some streets are narrow and winding because back in the era of animal pulled carts they were wide enough.
For her to move to Madrid she would have to apply for a special work visa, they need to be renewed in Spain every four years and cost about $4k US.
Three weeks went by and I heard almost nothing about her housing in Spain, so I sort of forgot about it, I did my part. Her move was now down to next month. She told me by email she decided to rent the place I found; it was five blocks from her office, maybe a 3100 foot hike one way. She overnighted a cashier's check to reserve it. Her address would be simple: Jennifer Wilson 18 Second Street, Madrid, Madrid Spain. The place is in the community of Madrid, in the city of Madrid, in Spain. It's in the old historic district. Actually, it's just outside the district by about 200 feet.
Jen was beyond excited and said they were planning a departure party for her at a banquet hall in Austin. When I asked what she was bringing to Madrid she said two trunks of stuff, everything else was going to Goodwill. She said it might take two weeks to pack her office, it was packed full of personal stuff like stuffed cats and photos of her cat. She had a picture of us framed on the wall, the photo was taken on the jet catamaran crossing the Strait with back side of Gibraltar in the background. She said we looked windblown but happy leaned against the deck railing. I forgot that happened. She handed an elderly man her cell to take our photo. She knows I'm uncomfortable with being photographed but not with her cell so she tricked me into posing for a few shots on her last trip.
Slowly, she was carrying home a grocery store bag of personal stuff every day and hoped to have it empty two weeks before her last day. They scheduled her off work for three weeks to move and start work again at the office in Madrid. She was actually taking a small pay cut by moving too.
Jen confessed she had dozens of stuffed animals at work and at home and all of them were going to Goodwill, along with 2/3 of her clothes, all her bedding, and almost everything electrical she owned.
Her responsibilities in Madrid would include modernization of their office and their training materials for staff and customers. The customer service phone reps in Madrid had the (well established) reputation for being impatient and rude, they were known to hang up on customers asking stupid questions. She swore she would quickly remove that cancer from their customer service department. Madrid handled customer service for the entire Spanish speaking world, including Spain, France, and South America. If you call them from anywhere in the world and press 3 for Spanish the call is transferred to Madrid.
I think her new title would be VP of Customer Service and Quality. Their company had experienced declining sales and worsening customer relations in the Latin speaking world. She promised the owners of the company she would arrive on the job in Madrid with a notepad, pencil, and she intended to legally purge the chronic offenders, the ones that refused to change (drop the hostility toward customers).
Jen told me privately there was some amount of Spanish culture involved in the problem, there was something about a display of anger in their culture that was a regular part of life, but in the modern business world there was no place for anger or hostility toward customers, it had to leave the company. One of the biggest fears in the corporate ownership was the Chinese would provide a better software package and make it easy to operate and install, she felt they had less than two years to improve or prepare to close the doors.
A big future for her employer was coming soon. In Texas they hired a highly skilled team of app writers, their plan was to move from just PC based retail software to using IPads, Iphones, and Android devices for the entire retail service. After fixing customer service Madrid had to get ready for an entirely new software suite for retail sales and point of sale equipment coming next year worldwide. It would be tested for 24 months in Texas then rolled out as new language versions were available. English went first, and then came French, then Spanish.
Their plan was to turn each employee's cell phone into a business machine and eventually phase out mandatory PC-based cash registers. When a customer selected a dozen items to purchase they could use any ordinary cell phone to scan barcodes, calculate charges, taxes, scan debit cards, and send info to a high-speed thermal printer for a receipt.
Their plan was to replace the standard retail check-out with a new station, just a table with a bag holder. The customer walks up with a small basket of items, the clerk takes items out one at a time and scans them, then places them in a store bag. Once all items are scanned they scan the debit card and a nearby printer instantly spits out the receipt. The formality and choke point of a check-out line is removed. Their software is ready for a time when some customers can scan their own purchases, bag them, process a debit card, and walk out. Their software eliminates the super expensive self-checkout scanners and standard cash registers and turns every cell phone into a register.
It's not the type of system for large supermarkets but for mid-size and smaller retail shops, in the USA retail chains like Best Buy, Walgreens, Lowes, and Hobby Lobby would be ideal for their software. It saves retail stores a ton of money a year in maintenance and repairs by eliminating the expensive cash registers. On the down side any customer paying with cash would be forced to use one check out where they had a machine to process cash and coins.
Sometimes when Jen and I got together all she can talk about is customer service stupidity. She showed me video of three (Madrid) telephone reps yelling and insulting customers in uncontrolled rage. She said Madrid has a lot of that, and it needs to go, probably starting in week #2.
On one of her conference calls with Madrid she hinted repeatedly that people would be replaced and they would start interviewing soon after she arrived. She wanted to get rumors started before she arrived that the new boss was going to clean house. The hope was some of the guilty reps would hear the stories and quit before she arrived. Jen believed most of the guilty people knew they were targeted.
A couple more weeks went by; I received French newspaper scans of the obituaries for Douglas and Joyce Rose. The newspaper story did not list a cause of death but said it was suspicious and being investigated by Monaco police. The family who lived on the large yacht immediately departed Monaco. First, they went on a $10,000 grocery and supplies shopping trip then left. During that time they hired a private security company and stopped the crew and family from leaving the yacht. For the people on the yacht Doug and Joyce Rose were like canaries in the coal mine and suddenly both birds died, which was why the yacht quickly-quietly left Monaco within 23 hours of when they got the news.
They paid a ton of cash up-front to tie-up in Monaco every year for one month, they left early and got no refund. The INR heard they sailed back to Brest, France and dropped anchors near the old U-Boat pens inside the seawall. I suspected their boat might soon sink at sea. Funding mass murder was just as bad as doing it yourself; I guess they thought their only involvement was money so they were safe from prosecution. And that may be true somewhere but it wasn't protection from sinking.
I know the USA has torpedoes for yachts like theirs. They are high speed intelligent weapons with heavy solid steel tips (and no explosives) that would pass straight through a hull like theirs, cracking their keel into multiple pieces. I've heard it's like a loud bang and suddenly your ship has two very large holes in the hull and the keel has broken too. They sink quickly from rapid/severe flooding, but if they linger on the surface too long the ship always breaks apart like the Titanic.
Dan was getting settled into his new home in Pflugerville. I reminded him to buy a weather alert box because he was in tornado country. There are towns all around his area that were partially flattened by large tornadoes. It's not as bad there as in Oklahoma but all it takes is once. I told Dan he should start a company to manufacture weather alert radios that do not alert for anything except tornadoes, and sell them cheaply around Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri.
Most of the store bought alert radios also alert for civil emergencies, amber alerts, and other disasters, like flooding. But most alerts include warnings that are completely irrelevant, like the Amber Alert. He should make a box that alerts only for the specific area code and tornadoes only. They reject weekly test alerts and messages from the government. That was why so many people bought alert radios but ended throwing them away because of bullshit alerts. The most meaningless alert is the Amber Alert.
Dan said he would think about it.
Ten days before her move we decided to meet at the airport luggage carousel in Madrid, Jen will rent a van and we'll stay together. But my primary mission (helping her evaluate apartments) was already done. She also needed me to carry heavy stuff. The air freight charges for the two trunks at nearly 45lbs each was steep, as much as a passenger seat in tourist class. I think she said the flight from Atlanta to Madrid cost her almost $6500 for her and her heavy trunks and her hairless soft butt in a first class seat. She packed some of her favorite kitchen things and took them to her mother's house for her to UPS to Madrid after she got settled in her new job.
Jen planned to rent a small cargo van at the airport because she needed to make a few trips to the local Walmart-type store to get the rest of the stuff she couldn't bring from Austin. Most of her appliances couldn't make the trip because the voltage is different in Europe, so she is going to spend a lot of money on day #1 replacing everything she had to sell or give away back in Austin. Her beloved alarm clock and coffee machine had to go since they were the wrong voltage, which really pissed her off.
I never asked Jen to pay for my flights because she was too busy even though she had a lot of money saved up. I'm sure it never crossed her mind.
Finally the week arrived. She was off work and spending her days packing and emptying her apartment in Austin (she called it: throwing away her life). Dan drove over to help; he was upset to see her move after he moved to be closer to her, but more than anything he needed to get out of Houston and the people there who still thought he killed some guy on a bicycle. He'll be dealing with that for the rest of his life and there is no way to un-do it. All he could do was leave town and never go back. I think Dan has not figured out yet the biggest upset he has relating to that event exists only within his own mind. I think he secretly feels responsible for the guy's death even though he knows he was a mile away stuck in traffic and a heavy downpour when it happened.
When she actually turned-in her keys and got in the taxi with a one-way ticket Dan felt rejected but over time he realized she had been planning the move for years, it wasn't because he moved near her. I heard their farewell was very tearful. Dan was there in the apartment office parking lot when she got into the taxi with her stuff and the one-way ticket to Spain.
I reminded him she started taking Spanish at Austin Community College two years ago for this move.
I had my overnight bag packed but I wasn't bringing much. I was only going to Madrid for three nights. Just long enough to finish her heavy moving. I had a hard time imagining what she had to bring from Austin that filled two trunks. I'm picturing they'll be full of clothes, bathroom stuff, shoes, computer, some kitchen stuff, pictures, DVDs, CDs, but no electronics except her computer. She has to buy a new printer there because the voltage and frequency is wrong. She'll bring several voltage convertors to power her laptop charger. She has a big Asus, Republic of Gamers laptop that had almost every option available, including a 3D screen. She needs to order a European voltage charger from Asus. The USA is 117v 60 cy and Spain is 230v 50cy. It's funny everyone in the USA calls our voltage: 110volts but it changed in the 1950s to 117, but it's like nobody but the power utility know that. Some things like digital clocks use the frequency of the electricity to keep accurate time, that's why our juice was at 60 hertz, because it matches 60 seconds in a minute, every 60th pulse = one second. Some electronics cannot tolerate the mismatch of frequency and voltage, even with a voltage adapter. I agree with Jen, it's better to sell everything and buy new stuff.
We wrote a shopping list for our first trip to the department store, she'll need stuff like lamps, bulbs, printer, cell charger, outlet strips, cooking gear, food, and all the kitchen things you need, like aluminum foil, glass food storage, spatulas, knives, sharpeners, and all that crap. We estimated her first trip to the store could easily run 500 Euros. She already opened a bank account and has a debit card in Spain. But she'll need to change a lot of US cash over to Euros right away because nobody in Madrid takes US dollars at the register. Her retirement accounts will remain in Austin and the statements will go to her mother's mailbox.
We discussed her sending me a check I could cash in Tangier then carry cash on the ferry into Algeciras and north to Madrid on the train. The problem she had was the fees for transferring money overseas. I think she is going to move most of her money by shipping cash and depositing it in the bank. Banks in Madrid accept US cash for deposit. Her mother will ship her insured envelopes of cash by UPS.
Jen told me she wants to buy her first bread machine over there but it might take a while to get used to everything measured in grams, liters, and meters. I think she packed her brand new kitchen scale. I told her metrics made much more sense than imperial, it was much easier and only took a short time to get used to.
The day arrived; I was off work for a long weekend. I took a taxi to Tangier International (that's not the actual name) and flew to Madrid, and then I walked to another terminal where all the North American flights land and waited for her at the luggage claim. I also grabbed a heavy cart and sat on it by the carousel marked for her flight. They usually get luggage unloaded quickly and it comes in groups so many bags arrive before the first passenger makes it down there. We've had many arguments and discussions about this and I hope by now she follows the rule. We'll see.
The commercial airport near Tangier is actually called: `Tangier Ibn Battouta Airport,' the airport code is TNG. The name Ibn Battuta was a famous historical explorer/traveler from Tangier, his name has several accepted spellings. You can read about him on Wikipedia. He was sort of like Samantha Brown from the 1300s, and explored: Africa, the Mediterranean, Middle East, and east across India and Southeast Asia including China... in the 1300s!
Thirty five minutes after her flight status switched to `de-boarding' she walked into baggage claim looking bewildered but she read the signs, saw the carousel number and walked there and found me sitting on the cart. Moments later her first trunk came down the belt. I grabbed it and 11 minutes later her second trunk and her suitcase arrived and we loaded them and rolled to the exit, showed her boarding pass and walked to immigration. We both got our passports stamped but nobody checked our bags. We pushed the big cart outside to the car rental agency bus and the driver helped move our stuff into the bus. From there we went to the rental agency and got the minivan. It was a short small commercial van with big back doors. She reserved it for two full days, to return late at night tomorrow. By 10:15am we were at her apartment and got them to open the gate to their tiny driveway since no parking is allowed on the street (because it's too narrow).
We met the elderly owners and hugged and shook hands; she already paid by UPS letter. She signed the lease and they handed over the keys and we (mostly me) started the dreadful task of carrying her stuff all the way up to the 2nd floor. The staircase inside had no railings and was open wood and was slick and felt dangerous but pretty. It also created a large open space beneath the stairs that was wasted. It was one of those decorative staircases that dogs hate because paws got no traction and you can see through it. I told her they should carpet the stairs for improved safety.
I gotta say I've seen stairs like this before. They look pretty but in my opinion are the most dreadful design ever conceived by man. Stairs need to be designed around safety, not beauty. I bet if Jen ever purchased this property the first thing she would do is hire a carpenter to remove them, drag them into the yard and set them on fire, then build a real staircase.
Since the stairs were decorative I had to carefully carry the trunks all the way to the second floor. And her trunks were the old kind without wheels, so I had to actually carry them, banging against my right thigh the entire way. Anyone who builds stairs without a railing is a dangerous moron in my opinion.
I carried everything except her body; she packed only essential stuff and got her suitcase unpacked, mostly with bedroom and bathroom stuff. She set out a notepad and started making a list of stuff to buy on our first trip. We even mapped the route to the Madrid equivalent of Target; I forgot the actual store name.
Within one hour her suitcase was almost unpacked but I insisted she could unpack her trunks on her own time, we needed to leave. So we grabbed the list and carefully backed out of the tiny parking spot and drove to the store. Because space was so tight I had Jen stand in the street to block traffic while I slowly backed the van into the narrow road and she climbed in front with me. Luckily the store's sign was visible far down the busy but narrow main street.
We spent almost $440(EU) on our first trip and got lots of electrical stuff: lamps, table radio, toaster oven, cell charger, alarm clock, coffee maker, clothes iron, plates-bowls, kitchen things, bathroom stuff, living room stuff, blankets, sheets, pillows, detergent, soap, razors, feminine products, groceries, outlet strips, and ant spray. She made a huge pile of boxes and packing material to tear apart and stack for the recycle bin.
Later that day we made our second shopping trip and spent nearly as much but that one was mostly groceries, by 8pm we had the refrigerator full and the pantry cabinets loaded I was exhausted and my back was sore. She offered to make a pizza and we had all the stuff to cook a frozen pizza and jazz it up with pepperoni, cheese, and stuff. While it was baking we opened two bottles of wine. And since we were away from Islamic influences I got a 12 pack of beer and a package of pre-cooked bacon. Luckily they had 12 packs of Coors so I got one and put several in the freezer. I showed her the pizza was not marked with GMO ingredients like it would have been in the States. Most GMO stuff is illegal in the EU because they care about the peasants. And none of the things we purchased contained HFCS, like they would have in the States.
After dinner we sat in the shower still sipping our wine. We sat on the tile shower floor and let the hot water trickle slow enough that we'd never run it out of water. I actually fell asleep in the corner and Jen kicked me when I started snoring. It was funny being busted. It was nice being naked and drunk with Jen in the shower. I got hard but she ignored Little Alex even though he was staring at her the entire time with his one eye.
So we went to bed and slept until 8am. Madrid was the same time zone as Tangier so I was fine but Jen was zonked because she was 6 hours off and had to adjust. The next day we drove to a store similar to Bed Bath and Beyond for bath towels, a traction mat for the shower, a better shower nozzle, a shower bench seat, and scented soaps. I considered buying her a vibrator once I got home and having it shipped but I saw she had two in her suitcase, I never said a thing but I wanted to. I wanted to pull one out and turn it on and ask if it was a coffee frothier, "How many horsepower is this thing?" And in the EU with 220v residential power they can install some true horsepower inside a corded vibrator! Holy crap not only will it push women into an orgasm in under a minute but it can also be used as an engraver for steel and bronze.
We returned the rental van at 7pm the 2nd day and made another mega pizza that night and I drank the remaining six beers. We went to bed early and early in the morning I took a taxi to the airport and took my flight back to Tangier. I arrived at my office at 9:15am, since it's on the way home from the airport.
There was some business to tend to, two tourists needed passports, and I had calls to return. I worked the rest of the day and got home at 6:45pm on the bus. I get a lot of calls at work about laws in Morocco, what things are legal or illegal. Probably the most common questions are about being high in public, smoking drugs, being around drugs in café's, and prostitution. What I tell people is if you feel the need to call and ask, it's probably safe to assume it's illegal in any Islamic country, including Morocco. But is the law actually enforced, probably not regarding drugs as long as you stay out of trouble. So go to a café and smoke some opium, make it back to your hotel quietly and directly, and take a nap and you'll probably be just fine. I tell them: no fighting, no thefts, no violence, no hassling women for any reason ever, and you'll probably go home just fine.
As I walked in my door I looked around and noticed how small my studio apartment was and thought an actual bedroom would be nice some day. It's not like I cannot afford it. As hard as I tried I could not get Jen out of my head. It surprised me that we were together that long and even naked together twice and never fucked, I think that was a first for us, but it showed how stressed both of us were. Neither of us ever mentioned sex aside from seeing her vibrator, it was one of those wand types with the big round head she liked to press against her magic spot. I guess we had intimate time considering how much time we spent together in the shower. She had her legs spread wide with the Beev and her nipples aimed at me the entire time. I don't think many women's crotches are nice to look at but her breasts are stunningly beautiful and compelling.
I added frozen pizza and cheese to my shopping list.
Now Jen can call me on her cell phone since a call from Madrid is no longer considered `international long distance' and we're even in the same time zone now. I started leaving my cell on all day and night. We started talking a couple times a week on a schedule. She was slowly getting settled into Madrid and she made a couple walks to her new office and met the crew 12 days before she was scheduled to start work. She said they have nearly 110 people working in that office. She casually mentioned probably firing twenty people this month, the ones with anger issues. They were instituting a customer feedback thing after support calls that might provide feedback and help identify the hot heads and verbal abusers. That office seems to have learned to ignore that citing customer stupidity as the cause, not poorly trained employees. Jen also cited declining sales as the word got out they had lousy customer support, bordering on abusive and incompetent. She said she was going to make some fake calls pretending to be a customer to identify some herself. Early on she could get away with that trick.
Jen also said she went downstairs to talk to the building owners (a retired Spanish couple in their late 60s) and offered to buy the entire building, but they said at this time: no, but they would keep it in mind because they hoped some day (6 years) to move to a retirement village in the country. I guess he has bad arthritis and can barely get around anymore. He worked in the steel industry for decades and it ruined his back and knees. She said they were very nice but somewhat difficult to understand because they spoke rapidly.
Daniel is in month #3 in his lease and is doing well. He is dating an older lady with a child at home, they met at an AA meeting. She is 45 and her daughter is 9 and in public school, or as Dan calls it: Guvment Skool.
He said now he wants to leave Texas but was glad he left Houston, the hardest part of leaving Texas has already been done, and he has no roots around Austin so he's free to live anywhere he wants. As a stupid joke I told him he should look into real estate in Morocco and he said he might just do that. When he said that I cringed because I really didn't mean it, I was just trying to show him I still cared very much what happened to him. That is difficult for guys to say over the phone, especially on an 8,000 mile long distance sat phone call.
The million dollar question was can an American buy land in Morocco. I think the answer was no, but I was guessing based on never having seen an American home owner here.
I got a fax at work from INR, but there was no return fax number, it was an anonymous fax so that means INR sent it. The fax was a newspaper article from far northwest Spain in the city of Fisterra, it's a small oceanfront fishing town. They recently had a severe ocean storm and supposedly a very large and modern yacht sank six miles off the coast, it leaked diesel fuel into the sea and everyone on board was missing. The yacht was the same one I photographed and stalked in the port of Monaco late last winter. Funny how that happened, the boat my employer said would sink, actually sank in a storm. The wreckage is too deep and no bodies were recovered (sharks probably). I think the death count from that wreck was nine people. (pilot, maid, 2 cooks, marine engineer, and four residents)
Supposedly the keel fractured in the storm and it went down rapidly, not even enough time to deploy the life boats. They all believed she was unsinkable. Yachts like that are supposed to sail around storms, not through them. Some people felt it hit something in the water which broke the keel and caused it to break in half and sink rapidly. They said it probably immediately lost power so trying to deploy a lifeboat without power, in the dark, in a severe ocean storm was the primary cause of death. Several people suggested it capsized while sinking. Sonar images showed it upright on the bottom in 600 ft of water, the hull cannot be photographed because of how it landed on the ocean floor.
I suspected somewhere on the planet was a submarine with a torpedo crew who knew exactly how it sunk. I always suspected the US Navy would sink them. In fact they might have used a torpedo without an active warhead, just the torpedo itself hitting the keel would shatter it and the yacht would sink rapidly. If it gets hit just right with a torpedo it fractures the keel and the hull splits part way up, and it takes on water very fast. Sometimes they go down so fast the passengers cannot even grab a life vest and jump overboard.
My boss in Rabat told me when he read the report about that family he saw they also owned a private jet which was parked indoors at an airport on the island of Cyprus, he said I should offer their creditors money for the debts and go re-po it. They were years behind paying for maintenance, and rent on the hangar space. The report said the jet hasn't flown in 3 years and was in need of maintenance. He said I should go there, and do the pre-flight checklist and see what things need to be repaired and possibly get it airworthy again and fly it home. The story sounded interesting, then it occurred to me I might be able to get Dan to go with me. He is a much better mechanic than me. It was risky, like gambling with maybe $10k US but that much for a $1.5m jet was worth the risk in my book.
After hearing the story I decided to do a credit check on them on Cyprus to see if there were delinquent bills for jet services. On the down side it could be in need of thousands in repairs or have some kind of structural damage.
The big issue was when the yacht sank and the entire family died they were the company. And their company was poorly managed and was often delinquent on paying their own bills as many small businesses are. They contracted out all the work and spent their days on the yacht answering satellite calls. After the yacht sank there was nobody left alive to say `Sell the jet!' Even their lawyer stopped working since they were delinquent on his bill too. It looked like the family believed they were too wealthy to sue.
Contact the author: borischenaz mailfence com