20
The car arrived at the hotel at midday. It was an ordinary taxi. The driver spoke neither English nor French. He said they were going to Porto Cervo, smiled at all their questions and answered in Italian. The language is very similar to French, so they were able to understand that he had been called in a usual way, asked to pick up two men at the hotel and take them to the sea port. It was mostly grand yachts that moored at Porto Cervo, the driver explained. But in every luxury port, you could also find ordinary fishing boats and smaller yachts too.
Isaac and Bikie were met by a morose character who introduced himself as the professor’s assistant. His dour look sat strangely with the jolly red color of his beard and a gleaming bald patch. And his sudden appearance confused them even more: how would Link deal with them? What should they expect?
Meanwhile, the assistant handed each of them a package containing shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops. There were also two baseball caps with the inscription “Sardinia”.
They went to the nearby beach to get changed and were given a key to a locker where they could leave their things. They looked funny. In fact, the clothes fit Bikie, but hung baggily on Isaac. Bikie tried to conceal the knife in his shorts but he couldn’t so he left it in the locker.
Redbeard waited for them to get changed and led them along the quayside. Isaac examined with curiosity the little boats and the large yachts and ships standing a bit further off shore. They came to a rather large sixty-foot sailing yacht, old but well- kept. The sail was furled, the engine running.
“Board the yacht, please,” Redbeard said.
They walked across a springy gangway to where an Italian captain was waiting for them. As soon as they were all on board, he cast off the mooring rope and the yacht put out to sea.
There was a slight swell and Isaac started feeling sick. The captain noticed and handed him a pill.
“For seasickness,” he explained.
Isaac thanked him, pretended that he was feeling much worse, leaned over the side and flung the pill away.
“Boss, I could do with a pill too!” asked Bikie. He took it and tucked the pill in his pocket inconspicuously.
“What for?” Isaac said quietly.
“Maybe we can check to see if it’s a poison,” Bikie whispered with his lips barely moving. “Maybe even test it on our professor. Or on Redbeard there.”
Bikie was upset at being left without his knife, and he felt calmer knowing that at least he had a pill of “poison”.
The yacht kept sailing away from the shore. The guys sat at the bow and gazed at the sea’s blue, rippling undulations. They weren’t sailing to Capri like this. Perhaps the professor was coming to meet them on another yacht?
Suddenly a sharp voice behind them said:
“Well then, congratulations! You managed to do what no one else could. You found me.”
Isaac swung around. A short man of about sixty was emerging from a small cabin that Isaac had thought was empty. He straightened up to his full height and the guys immediately recognized that cunning glint in his narrowed eyes: the professor had gazed out at them so many times from various photographs.
His thick, back-combed hair with very marked receding temples glinted in the sun, dividing the upper part of his head in two, which gave him a somewhat diabolical air. Fine lines radiated out from his eyes, making his expression cunning and good-natured by turns, and several deep furrows in his forehead testified to exceptional intellectual capacity. He was attractive and scary at the same time, which was exactly what Isaac had imagined the professor to be.
Isaac eventually replied to the professor in the same tone. “I think we really wanted to.”
“I can see you did. Well done, well done.” “And I see you weren’t really in Capri?”
“Of course, I wasn’t. I never left the villa. You’re still kids, you have a lot of weapons in your arsenal: passion and unflinching determination. But in mine, I also have experience and bluff.”
“That all comes with time, but we have youth in our arsenal too.”
“Now you’re offending me, that’s in poor taste.”
“I’m sorry, it just slipped out. I don’t like to back down.” “That’s a good quality, but there is also Aikido. Why go head on, sometimes it’s better to make use of your opponent’s energy… Would you like some wine? Local, home-grown.”
“Professor, why did you choose such a strange place for the meeting, on a yacht? Do you think you’re safer here?” Isaac parried.
“No, not because of that. I have nothing to be afraid of, and my experience tells me that wasting nerve cells on stress causes far more harm than the actual danger that so often fails to materialize. I enjoy fishing. Sitting there, catching fish, thinking.”
“I booked this yacht last week. And I decided not to cancel it, I thought we could talk perfectly well out here.”
“And what if we’d been seasick?”
“There are pills for that,” the professor said with a smile, holding out his hand, into which the captain placed exactly the same kind of pill he had given to Isaac and Bikie. The professor screwed up his eyes and tossed it into his mouth with an abrupt movement.
Isaac and Bikie exchanged glances and the professor continued.
“And then, even if you were seasick, we wouldn’t be far from shore, the engine would get us to port in five minutes, and we could easily talk in the evening, eating what we catch today for supper.”
“Great! You live the good life alright!” said Isaac, beginning to feel less tense. He finally realized that he had achieved this incredible goal.