Pirates of Privilege & Princess Rescues From Above

Follow me, live in the moment

Put a pinch of salt in the palm of your hand

Stick your tongue on it

Slowly lick your way to the end of your fingers

Take a swallow of water, a long deep inhale through your nose

Exhale slowly out your mouth

Come with me at Sea.......

Hold on tight......

Bam! Sea spray blast, bone rattling - shock waves- on a open RIB Sea rescue boat at 40 knots, brain shaking impacts, skipping over meter high white cap waves, neoprene suite-Helmet on tight- white knuckled numb hands grip-holding on for dear life. Every few seconds ducking wave blasts twice in size, airborne to slamming blitzing walls of water.

Fuel gauge-redlined-on empty

Background whine of outboard engines

Reducing speed makes the up and down throws more brutal, skimming-crashing wave tops is what the boat is designed for.

The Sea Rescue Captain has that stone cold look on his face as he's calculating fuel burn, time and distance, glancing at GPS screen and his watch. You're glancing at him in flash thoughts; he's bloody mad, lost the plot or he actually knows what he's doing?

You're exhausted, hungry, as the dawn to dusk shift is almost over.

Last week you just qualified for the Sea Rescue (A) Team

Now you realize; Fear of the Sea training with Sea Rescue pro’s is better than fear alone.

Life has changed, the gym is your new free time hang out, caught in a time loop of clean-repack, check-check-double-check your kit is now a routine in your dreams. Social media life has dropped by 90% because you’re too dam tired and everything else is just plain boring compared to the new life and friends you have now.

Days blur into nights, nights blur into days.

Your calorie consumption has doubled, you lost weight, gained muscle tone and finally you get it-it’s not some esoteric theory anymore; a regular meat diet drops your endurance level, making you tired and colder faster in water, you lost that craving anyway.

 At this moment; those minutiae drifting thoughts are pointless if you don’t survive the brutal shake, rattle and roll in a high tech composite-glass fiber hull vibrating like it will disintegrate at any second as you're body slammed ducking another massive wall of sea water blitzing over the bow, Sea spray stinging your face like skin is peeling off.

Go ahead, ask the question?

I’ll ask it for you

What The Hell Are You Doin’ Here?!

Marsaxlokk Bay Malta- Southeastern Port:

The Sea rescue boat arch’s into a picturesque sheltered bay. Wind dies down, water smooths, the clear tranquil Sea Port known as a safe haven for ancient Seafarers.

Fort San Lucian, the 16^th century- gun battery comes into view, Malta’s Freeport on port side and the Il-Kalanka Light house starboard. The Lifeguard Captain, DJ, points the boat towards Pretty Bay Beach.

The look of relief on the two new (A) team rookies is an understatement

DJ radios his beach crew

 “Rec 1 PB in-bound copy”

-peep-

“Copy Rescue 1;  Welcome Back Captain* landing area cleared in front of skate park, extra fuel ready, Chief Ryan is here, he and his police crew ate our pizza while waiting for you”.

DJ breaks out laughing, keys the mic.

“Tell the beach pirate with the badge I better see a conformation of a takeaway order from Mama-Pacho’s for my crew or he and his scalawag’s are swimming to other side of the bay to pick it up”.

-peep-  back ground noises of muffled, cheers, right on’s, yaa’s!

DJ keys the mic again.

“And Go Big! The Police have more money in the budget than we do”!

50 meters off the crowded beach, the engines sputter and die, out of fuel; it’s a slow glide into shallow sand where Trix; Team Leader for the sector, waits with a smile to help with the boat, she looks at the newbe’s and ask;

“How’d it go out there”?

The two newly anointed fake a smile and nod. One attempts a leg swing exit over the gunwale, loses her balance and falls face down in shallow water, the other looks a little peaked; he vomits over the side.

Not cool on a crowded beach surrounded by onlookers and kids in awe of the tuned sleek Rescue water machine.

Trix looks at DJ, salutes, blurts out for others to hear;

“Well at least you didn’t make em’ swim in like you did with me”

DJ grins “They wanted too, but we’re to dam busy”

DJ’s best mate Chief Constable Ryan strolls up with several Police officers.

“Ya, ya, ya, I did it Lifeguard Captain! The full takeaway order will be here in 20 minutes, Dam! It’s like feeding a Zoo with your crew”. Ryan hands DJ a large refreshing drink from the beach Juice bar. The two shake hands with a shoulder bump. DJ takes his Helmet and sunglasses off, there’s an eye to eye stare for a second, something’s up.

Ryan calls out to his police officers;

“I need a minute with the Lifeguard Captain, take a beach stroll with the Lifeguards, do a tourist greet & meet round and hand out some coloring books and Jr. Police caps for the kids”!

He pulls an e-tablet from his shoulder satchel, scrolls a bit and hands it to DJ as he nonchalantly gazes off in the distance nodding and waving to late afternoon beach goers.

DJ knows what he’s looking at;

A series of Interpol intelligence aerial drone photos of a luxury Super Yacht. He doesn’t need to see the name of the plush, sleek, Sea machine.

He knows it.

The Nikonoz;

75 meter of Monaco registry, Panama Holding Company owned, controlled by an Alpine Principality Investment Trust with nominee directors. Charter licensed, never done any business, built by the master luxury shipbuilders in Bremerhaven.

Investigators failed chasing leads of four people supposedly missing on a cruise last year off the Coast of Turkey and trying to find the real beneficiary owner(s) to no avail.

DJ and Chief Ryan know who it is

Years ago he was a client in DJ’s private bank fund

DJ hands the e-tablet back to Ryan

“How long do we have”?

“It’ll be in Malta waters in a few hours, there’s a dead body on board. He contacted me directly and asked for you personally for a so called ‘special needs person’ he was very cryptic about that....I cleared it with the PM & Justice Minister"

DJ laughs “Ha! that was fast, did you spike the bureaucracy with amphetamines over there”?

The two laugh

 Ryan continues;

“As long as this gets cleaned up before it enters Malta waters no one needs to know”.

 “In return we get the information we want and samples of the goods the Cartel is exchanging on the market. And that dead guy is one of their own that tried to assassinate him on contract with all the markings of what we found on the last two washed up on the coast, I need a close look with DNA and blood samples, if we get all that Nikonoz gets its port privileges back in Malta”.

Both men gaze out over the crowded beach tinted with pre-sunset light.

DJ nods, with a deep breath “So it needs safe harbor and gives up some pirate loot”.

Pause, as the two watch a mum struggling with tote bags full, herding screaming kids covered in ice cream smears and sticky sand as one of DJ’s Lifeguard’s jogs over to lend a helping hand.  

DJ let’s out a sigh;

“Here we go mate, pirates of privilege with a payoff and tradeoff, everyone is looking for a clue to a mystery cartel and it comes to us on our shores asking for help”.

Ryan: “So were on”?

DJ: “Let’s do it, now or never”

The two smile with a fist bump and a long sip of fresh juice.

1 Hour Later:

It’s a rapid descent as the rescue helicopter banks into a wide orbit over the superyacht in evening twilight.

The pilot lights up the infrared cameras on screen.

Even though this is an invite, gotta scan a pirate’s ship first. The rules are, there are no rules, its only a gentleman’s agreement at Sea.

Underneath their rescue gear, they both have Kevlar vest and extended clip 9mm semiautomatic pistols.

DJ has Teflon hollow points, Ryan has Teflon coated Frangible’s.

That’s a personal preference thing

For those of you in the know, as gruesome as that armament sounds, don’t forget where these gents come from.  

Two former SAS field counter intelligent operatives both wounded in close quarter street fire fights.  Thinned out some warlords in Mogadishu, commandeered a few ships from rouge states with weapons of mass destruction to inside compounds face to face strikes on opium empire thugs of the Haqqani terrorist Klan. The Russian hit team never found in Libya, a few hostage rescues in the Gulf of Aden and a North Korean trafficking supply network, vanished, from East African Coast.

The point is; in close quarters gun fights, especially on a ship, have allot of fast bullets that don’t ricochet while inflicting maximum damage to humans.

Catch the drift?

“Air Rescue Nikonoz copy”

“Copy Air Rescue Nikonoz clear”.

“Nikonoz; Air Rescue on approach 1 minute, aft deck clear-confirm”?

“10-4 Copy Air Rescue, visual confirmed, aft deck cleared”

RPM, fanjet, rotor pitch changes, nose up on approach.

Door slides open, hoist extended, DJ & Ryan clip in, helicopter hoist operator (HHO) double checks rigging and carabiners – 5,4,3,2,1

Descent

Paramedic bags touch down first

Feet on deck

Stable

Unhook

Cable hold, stabilized so it doesn’t recoil, sucked in the rotors or caught on the deck rails

Sea air blast of Rotor wash, jet fans high pitched roar, kerosene jet fuel smell

HHO signals, all clear

Hoist retracts

Radio check;

“Rescue team on deck-clear”

Pilot confirms;

“10-4 copy-clear, will maintain a 5km orbit pattern, you got max 30min Rec-team, God’s Speed”

“Rec Team Copy”

As they approach the aft deck salon, the bullet proof sliding glass doors open

They’re surrounded by muscled up body guards, pumped up on body building steroids, N’ da club tattoos, designer yacht fashion, armed to the teeth with side arms and sub automatic weapons.

Obviously not your chill’n yacht club types

There’s a tense pause in the room, everyone sizes up each other, a body guard places his hand on pistol holster, another raises his submachine gun

 The man himself appears; Bojan Draggi.

“Easy, easy, easy, I know these two, we’re in good company”

Everyone’s posture eases a bit

Bojan: Serbian, ex-Army Sgt. Made his money in gansta life the old fashion way, drugs, gun running, prostitution, gambling parlors, took out a few rivals, graduated up to blood diamonds and conflict minerals and is key to the Cartels European distribution network.

On a sofa lays a small body that lets out a sigh, a crew member kneeled dabbing an ice cooled hand towel on head. DJ steps over, takes a knee, medic bags down and releases his Helmut.

There lays a little girl just under ten years old dressed in the latest pink princess wear from a popular Disney movie , shaking, profusely sweating.

Tears in her eyes

Short fast breaths

Mumbling “papa, papa, help me”

She’s a down’s-syndrome child

DJ glances up at Bojan

Whatever your vision is of a harden international ultra-wealthy slick- gentleman- Cartel gangster, well-groomed, silver hair, fit, tanned, a few gold chains symbolizing his Orthodox Christian roots, with a custom jeweled Geneva watch you’ll never afford, pinky ring, diamond big enough to sling-shot across the street and kill the neighbors barking dog.

You got the right picture*

What makes this moment surreal?

A harden gangster tearing-up, falling to his knees shuttering, crossing his heart, reaching out to the Rescuer in grief, begging;

“Please save my little princess”

Gasp

“I’ll do anything”

A broken man, streaming tears of love and fear

A crew member reaches out, hand opened with a small transparent plastic bag, a blue tablet with a smiley face imprint. Ryan snatches it out of hand, holds it up to the light, takes a sniff, and curses       “ Bloody Fuck’n Hell- MDMA”!

What do we have here?

A synthetic street drug; Methyl​enedioxy​methamphetamine (MDMA), commonly known as ecstasy, molly, the sex drug, (E, X, XTC) +

Bojan had a raging party a few days before with a stable of high class racy hookers and Cartel buddies. That’s when one of those Cartel brotha’s tried to kill him but his crew got the drop on him first.

A small MDMA tab got away from someone, the crew missed it on their clean up.

A day later his daughter arrives, this evening the little princess dressed herself up, turned on her favorite animated Disney movie and danced and sang as if she was there in wonderland.

She finds what she sees as a piece of candy.

DJ nods at Ryan;

“I got this, get to that body”.

In this moment the rescuer lives in a zone of millimeters and milliseconds in a stretched dimensional time warp in a very narrow focus.

DJ calls out, “Ice bags now”!

Dilated Pupils, temp over 41.5c, Oxygen-refit-child’s mask, finger ECG on, BP 140/80

This don’t look good

Beta blocker injection prep- back up, quick scan symptom double check, ice packs in place.

And then, her little eyes role to the back of head, a seizure starts

 ……..flat line, cardiac arrest

CPR

DJ talks to himself on the chest compressions;

“Come on princess, come on baby give me breathe, dont let go, I got ya”… it’s also a prayer of sorts for rescuers.

2 CPR rounds of one hand compressions and breathe cycles, the other hand under her little neck tilting her head back clearing the airway.

No response, seconds ticking.

AED-Di-Fib kit, open, he cuts through the princess outfit. Pads on, chest- back, charge, clear!

The little body convulses

Another CPR round

“Come on baby, come to me princess”

Di-Fib reset, charge, clear, she convulses again

Pause

She opens her eyes, takes a deep breath, pulse, oxygen flow recalibrated, eyes close.

DJ injects a beta blocker, that’s all he’s got to drop the accelerated heart rate; it’s a risky quick therapy on a child, he waits about a minute while softly rubbing her hands and forehead which seems like an eternity.

And then he feels a squeeze on his finger as the little princess opens her eyes and smiles

DJ strokes her hair and kisses her forehead

She utters words through the oxygen mask;

“Are you the prince sent to rescue me”?

DJ can’t hold back tears as he strokes her forehead;

“Yes princess, I’ve come for you and we’re going to fly away to an Island paradise”.

She smiles

The wider view; in this luxury yacht salon of well-dressed gangsters armed to the teeth- all of them are breathing a sigh of relief, even a few with tears in their eyes.

Seconds turn to minutes

Ryan and Bojan return from the lower decks, samples taken, body photographed, disposed overboard.

Bojan kneels next to his daughter as she tells him a fantastical story of Papa sending a prince to save her.

DJ preps the princess for evacuation; the crew scrambles clearing ice bags and opening the sliding doors as DJ starts an IV.

He looks at Ryan with a nod;

“Call it, were clear for EVAC”

Time check 17 min

Air Rescue; “Copy Rescue Team, stretcher basket set up, ETA 4min, make sure the captain keeps the bow windward”.

Thud!  A duffel bag lands next to DJ, of fine designer Parisian make,  it’s about ten kilos of cash, that’s about a cool million €Euros.

DJ looks at Bojan;

“As your former private banker, here’s some financial advice”

“Keep your money mate, rescues of love can’t be paid off, not for sale, never traded, financed, leveraged, borrowed and there’s no debt. Do a donation to the Water Rescue Corps. via one of those Alpine Trust. We don’t have enough for equipment upgrades this year.  Enroll the princess in my Jr. Lifeguard training program and let’s get her with my power rescue girls, there’s more love there than on this floating palace”

Bojan nods, gives DJ a hug, the two shake hands

Home:

DJ arrives greeted by his wife Portia with a kiss, glass of wine, as he realizes she’s actually attempting to cook something, it doesn’t matter if she can’t really cook, it’s all made with love and that’s what counts here. Find a little love, save some love, see some love and Rescues of Love.

She asks, “How was your day babe”?

DJ smiles; “Same, with a little more love on the last rescue”