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Ella Mamedov drove to the dock area where she immediately saw that Tariq Amin’s yacht was missing. Having vacationed there with Tafar a few times, she knew her way around, so she drove over to the portmasters office and questioned them about the yacht. When they told her that the yacht mysteriously exploded out on the sea earlier that evening, Ella just walked away dazed. She got to her car and looked listlessly out to sea, remembering the fun times she had with Tafar out on the yacht, when the two of them would frolic like honeymooners the entire weekend. Life was good back then, but now he was gone now, and so was the yacht. She looked up the hill toward Amin’s mansion and almost expected it to be gone too, but there it sat elegantly overlooking the bay. She drove up the hill to see if anyone was around, thinking that six of the soldiers and Amin could not have all been victims on the yacht. The plan was that half of the soldiers were to return to the Ismailly compound while Tariq and the three others took the yacht to Iran.
When she got to the mansion’s gate, she was surprised to find that it is wide open. She drove up the driveway and cautiously pulled her pistol out and laid it on the seat next to her. She did not see anything out of the ordinary as she parked her car on the driveway near the front door. She walked up and rang the doorbell, but got no answer. After she rang it second time with no response, she got curious and began to walk around the mansion and check the other doors. She hardly walked ten feet away from the entryway when she saw a light trail of blood. She followed it and found that It ran from the lawn area with small drips going across the driveway right to the front door way. This time she tried to open the door to make sure that it was locked. She walked about thirty feet out from the door and pulled out her pistol. She started sprinting toward the door and leapt feet first and powering her booted feet at the lock and deadbolt section of the door, driving the door wide open. She landed on a rung in the foyer with her pistol at the ready.
She looked around the area and immediately noticed the bare walls where all of Amin’s paintings, sculptures and other artwork were gone. It did not appear as if he moved, because the furniture and other necessities were in place and looked as if they were used recently, including the blood dripped carpet.
She followed the blood drips into a living room where she found some thick plastic tie wraps that were probably used as handcuffs. She sat down wondering whether or not she should call the police station to see if the locals arrested Amin and the others.
She thought the lesser of this because if they were arrested, they would certainly come after her too.
She was startled out of her thoughts when she suddenly heard a noise coming from the basement. She quietly worked her way down the stairs to the lower area and followed the noise. She entered what appeared to be the servant’s quarters and spotted a young man cleaning out his locker. She quietly walked up and surprised him when she put the barrel of her pistol against the back of his neck.
“Don’t turn around, just tell me where Tariq Amin is,” she said to the scared servant.
“I, I, was just released by the police myself, they took him and the soldiers to the airport.”
“Airport, who took him to the airport?”
“I don’t know, I think they were Americans.”
Ella’s eyes widened as she looked around the room trying to grasp what had happened.
“Did they say where they were taking him?”
“They kept talking about taking them to Cuba, an American military prison there.”
“What about Max Landau?”
“He was shot, he’s at the hospital, they said they would come back to take him when he was healthy enough to travel.”
Much to the scared servant’s relief, Ella put her pistol away and started opening the other lockers until she found some woman’s clothes that could fit her. She gathered them up, ran out of the mansion and got into her car.
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