Es watched them go with a mischevious gleam in her eyes.  She was too
excited.  Where would they go?  What would they do?  It was all she
could do to contain herself until they had safely rounded the corner
of the resturant.  She didn't like the tall pale man, he gave her the
creeps. Plus, his head was really long!  Who had such a long head?  It
wasn't normal.  Was his brain that long too?  Is that why his head was
like that?  She couldn't tell if he was really smart or not.  She had
only heard him speak a few times, and never to her, but she reckoned
that if his brain filled up all the extra head length he had, he must
be some kind of genius or something!

Es saw them emerge again from behind the building but this time they
were further away, across the road. She made sure that everything in
the dinghy was secure and it was firmly attached to the jetty before
stealing up the ladder herself.  She looked back down at the dinghy,
softly bobbing in the waves.  It should be OK.  I mean, they always
just left it tied up like this and it had never been stolen before.
Still, if it was and Danes found out that she had left it, oh man, he
would be soooo mad!  She had kind of made that story up about it
needing guarding as an excuse to come ashore with them.  She had never
been to Grand Cayman before and she wanted to have a look around.  Who
wanted to be cooped up on the ship, anchored in the harbour almost
within shouting distance of the shore?  Boring!  Plus, Danes and the
funny man were going on some sort of secret mission!  She had no idea
where they would go or what they would do but it all sounded very
exciting.  Danes going off on some sort of spy-adventure and making
her stay here with the boat?  Es didn't want to leave the dinghy when
she had promised that she wouldn't, but, she would just follow them
for a bit, from a distance.  Danes would never find out.  She'd be
back here way before him.  And what if something happened? They might
need some protection or she could call for help or something.  She
could be his backup, like a sidekick.  Totally awesome.

The sun was getting high in the sky now and it shone down brilliantly
on George Town, glittering off glass fa\c cades on myriad fancy bank
buildings.  Yesterday when Es had asked Danes about this place they
were going, he had explained to her about all the banks and stuff
here.  Something about rich people hiding their money here so
governments couldn't get at it.  Es wasn't fully sure she understood
what exactly that entailed or why the governments were so obsessed
with running off with peoples' money.  She knew this though, she would
be super pissed if some government dude came after her money!  Right
now Es' life savings consisted of exactly 593 euros.  She had spent
the last few years saving as much as she could of her pocket money
(Danes gave her 5 euros a week which she could spend on whatever she
wanted when they were in port) and doing odd jobs whenever she could.
One day she would use it to buy her own boat where she could be
captain and noone could ever tell her what to do, she'd be free!  Or
maybe she would buy some land somewhere and build an awesome house.
Or maybe she would live on one of those awesome floating cities that
Danes had told her about (Seasteads he called them) but they had never
visited, yet.  She figured there was plenty of time to work that out
later.  Right now she had to make sure not to lose sight of Danes.

They were about 100 metres ahead of her, walking up a busy street.  Es
guessed it was some sort of main street judging by the traffic and the
size of the buildings lining it.  She had been following them for
about 5 minutes along the waterfront before they had turned onto this
street a few minutes ago.  Every once in a while she lost them as they
rounded a building or walked through a large-ish crowd of people, but
she always caught sight of them again.  She made very sure to stay
well back though, so as not to be seen and she was sure that they
didn't know she was following.  The last thing she wanted was for
Danes to be mad at her, or worse, get grounded!

The city was pretty small that she could see.  Nothing like Havana or
some of the huge American cities she had seen as they sometimes
cruised along the US coast.  Es really wanted to visit America one
day, but Danes always said it was too risky.  She hoped that she could
talk him into visiting Disneyland after this trip, but probably not.
Oh whale.

After about 15 minutes or so of following, she saw them finally stop
in front of an ordinary-looking office building.  Or at least she
guessed it was an office building, not having much experience with
this sort of thing.  In any case it was pretty similar to all the
buildings they had been walking by so far.  Five storeys tall, grey
concrete with small-ish windows set every metre or so.  Every once in
a while men in business suits carrying briefcases would walk in or
out.  She always thought that people were stupid for wearing suits.  I
mean, they must be so hot and they look like you couldn't run or climb
in them or anything, yeuch!  You'd never catch Es wearing something
like that.  She preferred shorts and a t-shirt, or when it got really
hot, a singlet.  But still, they must wear them for a reason...  Maybe
it made them feel important or something?  Business men liked to feel
important she had noticed, especially when they worked for fancy banks
like the ones in the Cayman Islands.  This didn't look like a fancy
bank though.  It looked pretty dull.  Maybe Danes wasn't going on some
adventure after all.  Maybe he was just going to some boring business
meeting.

Danes and the other man didn't have to wait long before one of the
business men coming in and out of the building came up to them.  It
looked like he was talking to the tall man but Es couldn't really make
anything out at this distance.  After a minute or so the suit-man
turned and walked back into the building.  Danes and long-head
followed them in.

Es looked around.  The street she was on sloped slowly up hill from
the sea and she could make out the kill-9 lying at anchor in the
harbour.  Glad she wasn't down there right now, being totally bored.
Although she wasn't having the fun adventure she imagined right now
either.  There was nothing here but boring office buildings.  At least
there had been more exciting down stuff going on down at the harbour.
It had been around 10 minutes since Danes and the other dude followed
the suit-guy into the building.  At first she had gotten a little
closer to see if she could see anything, but there was nothing going
on that she could see.  She had sat down on some steps in front of
another office building about 100 metres away to wait.  It didn't take
long before she was thoroughly bored, sitting on some concrete steps,
sun beating down, nothing to do.  Gah!  She completely forgot to bring
her lunch with her.  Stupid!  Well she was hungry and hot and bored
now so she decided to go back down to the dinghy.  This was not how
she thought things would be.  Maybe Danes had not wanted her to come
just so she wouldn't die of boredom!  Es got up and started walking
back down the street in the direction of the harbour.

All of a sudden there was a loud crashing sound!  Es spun around in
time to see a man in a business suit (maybe the one she saw lead Danes
and face-man into the building, she wasn't sure) come flying out one
of the windows on the first floor!  He arced downwards, surrounded in
flying bits of glass which sprayed everywhere when his impact
shattered the window.  He seemed to hang in the air forever before
smacking with a sickening crunch into the roof of a parked car on the
street.

All Es could do was stare, slack-jawed at the aftermath.  Holy shit!
This was more like it!  But WTF was happening in there, and was Danes
OK?  She didn't have to wait long for her answer as a few seconds
later her guardian threw open the front door of the building and came
running out, flat out, closely followed by Matroska, and after that
several rather angry-looking business-suit men carrying guns!