Laura 01 The Jaguar Prophecy by Anton Swanepoel

splinters from the explosion. She also has a slight concussion from the shockwave of the explosion and bumping her head on the floor as she fell down.
    Josh informed her that he would be around later to question her as soon as he has secured the room and evidence, leaving two armed ship’s security guards with her. No one is allowed to see her for the time being except the sickbay staff. The nurse informs Laura that a doctor will see her in a few minutes to check on her head injury.
    Chapter 7
    Josh looks at the dead men in the room, five in total, four on the living room floor and one in the bathroom. The four men in the living room have multiple bullet wounds, some done execution style after they were already dead, and one has both his arms shot off. It is the most gruesome killing he has ever seen, but moving to the bathroom he is even more shocked. The man in the bathroom is a mess. The assassin must not have known how many men there were in the bathroom and just opened up.
    Josh is intrigued by the holes in the bathroom walls. Although the walls are made from ALUSTONE, a composite of a 3mm thin slice of real stone combined with ultra-light aluminum foam, making a very thin lightweight but soundproof wall that even a standard 9mm bullet will penetrate, armor piercing rounds had been used, as if the killer expected the people in the room to be wearing body armor.
    Josh knows that the men in the room are not just a bunch of unlucky passengers. They must be connected to all the other killings and the missing disc, but how? He also knows that whoever is killing all the people wants Laura alive for a reason, what that reason is he could only speculate on. Josh and his partner fine-comb the cabin, numbering every casing and bullet hole. It takes them almost three hours to catalog and photograph all the evidence in the cabin.
    Shaking his head, Josh walks out of the cabin and calls Captain Steel over.
    Captain Steel has seen many things in his 25 years at sea, but in all his 54 years of life he had never witnessed such destruction first hand, and never expected it on a luxury ocean liner, it is a nightmare to him.
    “Captain, due to the current happenings, I am ordering you to turn the ship around immediately and return to US waters where the Coast Guard will take control of the ship. All crew and passengers are to be detained and questioned until cleared, is that understood?”
    Captain Steel thinks of arguing with the agent. They are near Grand Cayman and he would have liked to dock there and have the local police remove the bodies rather than turn around, but they are still in international waters and the ship is registered in Florida, thus he has to comply.
    Josh takes some last photographs of the room, and then has the bodies taken to one of the kitchen freezers. Due to the ship having space to hold only two bodies in its mortuary, they have to clear some space in one of the kitchen freezers and lock it.
    As Josh and Parker place the last body in the freezer with Captain Steel looking on, Josh comments, “Free ice cream for everyone then.”
    Russtoff is standing on the main deck and glances at his watch, 6:15am, should be another hour before they are in port. He is waiting for a glimpse of the island when suddenly an announcement is made over the ship’s public address system.
    “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. Due to unforeseen technical problems, we will not be docking in the Cayman Islands. We will also not be able to continue our cruise and are now turning around and heading back to Florida. I apologize for any inconvenience caused. Have a nice day.”
    People start to complain immediately, and some make angry threats of suing the captain and the ocean liner’s owners. Russtoff is also angry, but not of a failed trip, rather of going back to Florida, taking him further away from his contacts. With haste Russtoff makes his way to a lifeboat numbered 20, and after looking around to make sure he