The Somali Deception Episode IV (A Cameron Kincaid Serial) by Daniel Arthur Smith Page A

prestige, Pepe found the driveway to the
home of Demetrius Stratos.   Demetrius’ home, arguably the most expensive estate in Gstaad,
audaciously boasted two massive chalets on the inclined field, two heads
attached to a far larger beast below.
    Pepe and Cameron were fresh, clean,
and in surprisingly good spirits.   The death of the Somali warlord Ibrahim Dada at Pepe’s hand was an
apparent catharsis.   Though he had
not yet found his sister Christine, taken from the hijacked yacht Kalinihta,
Pepe was jubilant, almost his old jolly self.   Pepe’s mood in turn lightened
Cameron’s.   The violence of the
previous evening and the day before, of every day of the past week in Somalia,
Dubai, London, and Paris, had become a perverse normal.   The reinforced conditioning and training
of his younger super commando self had overridden any morality play his mature
psyche had applied to the events of the preceding days.   Cameron was after all a stoic by nature,
a factor in his promotion to the Corsican Green Dragon special ops group of the
French Foreign Legion.   He accepted,
believed, that the actions of the past could not be prevented or changed, only
avenged, and that was what they were here in Gstaad to do.   Avenge Pepe’s sister, Cameron’s former
lover, Christine, for the wrongdoing at the hands of Nikos Stratos.
    Neither Pepe nor Cameron had
spoken of Alastair Main.   Three days
prior their friend Alastair was by their side.   He had split off to piece together
information that could help them in their search.   That the two had not mentioned him did
not mean their friend was absent from their thoughts.   Alastair had a history with Nikos.   To openly speak of their friend, could
lead down a path that neither wanted to walk.
    Without words, Cameron and Pepe
had made the mutual decision that they alone would deal with Nikos.
     
    * * *
* *

 
 
Chapter 58
    Gstaad, Switzerland
     
     
    Despite the prominent portion of
Demetrius Stratos’ estate being hidden below them, deep beneath the earth, what
was above ground still gave the impression of grandeur.   The first of the two mammoth wood faced
chalets towered above them.   The
Greek shipping tycoon was obviously immune to the visible height limit imposed
on the mere millionaires that peppered the mountainside around him.   To their front was a garage door that
Cameron calculated, by the dimensions, was the entrance not to the garage
proper, rather to an auto elevator designed to transport the Stratos fleet of
unique Ferraris and Lamborghinis to and from the depths below.   Attached to the garage overlooking the
valley was a building aligned in style with the two brethren above yet
miniature in size and status.
    Cameron gazed out over the town
of Gstaad in the valley below, and then, momentarily unsure, asked Pepe,
“Demetrius is expecting us?”
    “He is expecting us,” said Pepe.
    “And he knew who you were?”
    “I believe he knows who we are,
he has been funding our expedition.   Anyway, I did not speak to him, I spoke to an assistant.”
    The heavy wooden door of the
miniature chalet opened and from within stepped an exquisitely beautiful young
woman.   She wore tight fitting
slacks and a wool sweater, predictable Alpen garb.
    “This must be her,” said
Cameron.
    The young woman said
nothing.   As the door pulled shut
behind her, she looked fixedly at Pepe and Cameron.   Her eyes appeared to pair with each of
them.   That her sultry gaze was at
the same time obviously innocent yet seductive was provoking.   She reminded Cameron of paintings he had
seen, the Mona Lisa, or the Girl with a Pearl Earring, the way the women in the
portraits poured out in a gaze, fixed on the observer, in silent
communication.   She offered them a
pleasant smile, the knowing kind of smile that says -- feel at home, you are
welcome here.   Her light hair was
full, blown out, and her relaxed nature implied a woman on holiday rather than
an assistant to an