Standing Against The Storm

Prologue

                                    Part 1: Thunder Day minus one year and 24 days

                                                               Nah Trang, Vietnam

    Valentina and Dimitri looked at the boat and weren't too pleased. "Do you think it's OK?" she asked.

    It was a simple speedboat but love had been absent from its life for a long time. Paint was peeling, the outboard motor seemed to be held on by a thick piece of wire but it was the driver that gave them both the most pause – he couldn't have been more than twelve.

    After a moment they looked at each other and, with a slight shrug, accepted their fate. The hotel had found them the boat and the hotel had been nothing but excellent to date. "I guess we'll live," said Dimitri with a little laugh. "It's only a short ride."

    Duc, the boy, looked up at them and the corners of his mouth turned down and he gave an an almost imperceptible shake of the head. He wondered about foreigners - they always seemed to stop and look at his boat with worry, but he knew it well. And by now he knew the foreigners well too.

    Fifteen years old, he had been on the sea all his life. His father had allowed him to take the controls of this little craft when he was less than four and now controlling it, maintaining it, understanding it were all second nature to him. He knew it was sound, that the motor was secure, but he knew the tourists he ferried around the islands in Nha Trang bay came from a very different, much softer world.

    To grow up in Vietnam was no easy path, but Duc was happy. He had known no other life and he loved his little boat. He talked to foreigners about faraway lands. They sounded at times interesting and at times very odd. Overall he thought that foreign lands sounded like a lot of trouble for very little benefit. He loved his boat, he loved his family, sure more money would be nice but, he thought, looking out to sea, this was a fine life.

    "I help you on board," said Duc with a bright smile. And, with the sea calm and the air hot and still, Valentina and Dimitri stepped just a little timidly into their boat.

                                                                     *    *    *

    The ride to Kangaroo Island took just fifteen minutes. With nothing to do but enjoy the journey Valentina had quietened after the first few minutes of chat and the boy and her lover had allowed her to find a moment or two of peace.

    As the boat sped across the water, it jumped and bucked just a little as it hit small waves but the effect was still restful. The boy, sensing their mood, took his time and only opened the throttle half way. The sun sparkled on the water and, apart from a couple of other small speed boats, a decrepit local ferry and a couple of fishing boats on the horizon, they were alone.

    The smell of the sea delighted her and transported her back to glorious days in her childhood. And then Valentina found herself thinking about her father, their flight to England when she was nine. Her mood darkened.

    England had been a strange and frightening place but she had become happy there - happier, perhaps, than she deserved, she thought. They had escaped a corrupt and powerful group of men who would become fearful oligarchs. Her father's foreign currency trading business was what they needed to get their money out of the country. When he tried to resist, they killed his second wife (his first had died four years earlier) and if he did not help them set up the business to satisfy their needs, they promised the same would happen to his daughter.

    For six months he had worked for them and then, in the middle of the night they were gone. Valentina and her father were smuggled over the border to Finland hidden under a load of potatoes destined to make yet more vodka to make more Finns very happy.