‘The Commodore’, the elusive mastermind behind the formation and operation of The Barista Bureau – an international crime fighting syndicate made up of six professionals, all connected within the disparate worlds of intelligence, journalism, and communication, who also happen to be committed and super-skilled part-time Baristas!
Before we talk about The Commodore, however, let’s meet the other members of ‘The Bureau’ and discover just a little more about the developing story line behind the next big adventure of The Barista Bureau!
Anton Du Bois aka Blade Runner
Signature coffee: Légion du Café
Everything about Anton Du Bois is larger than life. Take the name for example. Recruits into the French Foreign Legion are permitted to enlist under an assumed name, the anonymat, switching later to their real name. Anton, however, liked his anonymat so much that he decided to keep it.
Anton served with Distinction in the 2nd Foreign Legion Parachute Regiment, and later, the Brigade La Fayette, but was invalided out of The Legion following catastrophic leg injuries sustained in Afghanistan where he was fighting as part of the Battle Group Altor.
After extensive rehabilitation, Anton returned to Casablanca where he set about building up a cutting edge security and surveillance business drawing on his extensive ‘Special Forces’ skills, knowledge and contacts, developed during his time with the Legion.
Setting the Story Scene
Casablanca, Morocco
On the edge of the Medina, within the shadows of the old ramparts, about a five-minute walk from Muhammad V Square, there is a small, dense, patchwork of narrow streets that is home to a curious melange of peoples, cultures, and eras.
Known as Petite Anfa by the people who live and work there, this is a place where traditional Arabic trades and lifestyles coexist with 21st Century high tech entrepreneurs working for established international corporations and a heady mix of AI and Social Media ‘start-up’ companies.
Here is where Anton Du Bois runs his tiny coffee bar, consisting of two tables and four chairs, all literally on the pavement, called, rather grandly, Café La Fayette.
The La Fayette is quite obviously a ‘locals only’ Café, so any stranger taking a seat will be treated with courtesy, but also with curiosity.
Anton was suitably curious about the large man, in a crumpled white linen suit, slowly sitting down.
Rani Das
Signature Coffee: Indé du Café
Mumbai, India
Colaba Causeway, Mumbai, is the place to find some of the city’s most fashionable Cafés, Bars and Restaurants. On that famous peninsula strip, also home to the Gateway of India Ferry Terminal, there is always a steady hum and thrum of dock workers, tourists, locals, traders, business reps, coming and going all hours of the day and night.
Which of course is the perfect place to camouflage the movements of a small team of security personnel comprising the India Special Security Bureau (ISSB).
The ISSB, an elite group of agents and technical assistants, occupy a spacious sub-basement command centre just a few steps away from the Causeway’s main through thoroughfare, the Shaheed Bhaget Singh Road.
‘Hiding in plain sight’ is the ISSB motto!
Setting the Story Scene
Rani Das answers her smart phone, “Hi, what’s up?”
She listens, then checks her mail, says coolly “No problems, I’m at the Leopold Restaurant right now but I’ll get Rajit on to it straight away.”
Rani hangs up, reconnects, then, forty two seconds of talk, text and attachments, job done!
A customer calls over, Rani looks up and smiles, “Hello, what can I get you?”
She listens intently, writes down the order, then moves across to the gleaming rows of Espresso Machines; “One Indé du Café coming up, great choice!”
Rani starts making the coffee, smooth fluid movements, but, her mind is elsewhere.
Johny Valdes
Signature Coffee: Caraïbes du Café
Kingston, Jamaica
Setting the Story Scene
Johny Valdes wipes his hands on the tea towel hanging loose from his apron pocket, he leans forward slightly to get a better view of the distorted image flickering on the lap top screen.
Choosing his words carefully he asks: “Are we looking at a Mammoth or a Mouse?”
There is a long pause “Depends on the size of lens you’re looking through.”
Johny straightens up “When did you get that?”
“A few minutes ago.”
The big man in the white suit looks at his watch, “It’s 08.35, I have less than an hour to make a decision.” He taps the trash can symbol and the Google Doc on screen disappears.
Johny nods then picks up the empty coffee cup and saucer, “Better get going then!”
The big man stands and slips the lap top into his leather brief case, “Where to now?”
“From here, find Hope Road, drive East. About halfway between the Bob Marley Museum and the American Embassy you’ll see a shopping mall on the left. Park out front, you’ll find a pop-up café just inside the main entrance, it wasn’t there last night and it will be gone by 10.00 am. Order a coffee and ask for the nearest mailbox, as usual.”
Johny Valdes is busy wiping tables and arranging chairs; he doesn’t look up as a black SUV screeches out of the car park onto the main road. He pauses, then pulls out a smart phone and fast dials. “He’s on his way, twenty minutes max.”
Three minutes later, a dark brown Humvee rumbles up to the front entrance. Johny takes off his apron, throws it across a chair, then runs to where the vehicle has stopped and jumps into the back compartment. His stab vest, Glock and spare clips are set out neatly on the seat beside him.
Johny looks up, smiles and raps out his order. “Let’s go. It’s time to bring the hammer down!”
Gabriella Abebe
Signature Coffee: Gabriella du Café
Cape Town, South Africa
Setting the Story Scene
The annual Cape Town Coffee Convention is in full swing, Gabriella is browsing through the merchandise stands. Casually looking around she notices a vaguely familiar face close by in the crowded exhibition hall. Gabriella looks away, thinks hard for a few moments then reaches for her phone.
A few seconds later, Gabriella puts through a call to a contact she knows well. A brief cursory greeting, then she sends through the photos she has just taken and hangs up.
The next ten minutes pass by, agonisingly slowly. Gabriella circles behind the target, trying to keep out of direct line of sight or eye contact, moving with the flow of people, but staying close at the same time.
The phone vibrates. Looking down at the screen shots rolling in, Gabriella discovers she is standing just metres away from Sam Belling, the new owner cum editor of The Southern Star, a ‘Fox News’ type of broadsheet about to launch in SA as a virtual, social media focused, publication.
Given that she is a well established science writer and journalist familiar with the national publication scene, Gabriella thought it odd that she had never heard of Belling or the Southern Star, so she had no idea who he was.
No, it was the man he was talking to who had originally caught her attention; even with his back to her he looked somehow familiar but she couldn’t figure out why. Who was he?
Looking down at the next few screen shots she could see now exactly who he was. There, just the other side of a book display stand, was Gunter Froebel, the leading light of Germany’s new Klimat Party, a strident, hard campaigning organisation dedicated to rebutting all claims and contentions concerning Climate Change, especially the notion of Global Warming linked to Industrialisation and the burning of fossil fuels. Throw in a few conspiracy theories about mass migration, population ‘explosions’ and wasted spending on welfare, and that would just about summarise the political platform on which the Klimat Party was planning to contest the next round of German and European Elections.
What was Froebel doing in Cape Town? And why the change of appearance? Without his trademark shaggy beard, and with his dark, long, unruly hair now dyed blond and cut short, Froebel might have escaped notice from the casual observer, however, there is nothing casual about Gabriella’a observations. She knows the field extremely well.
Standing still, gazing at her phone in hand, wondering what’s going on, Gabriella finally looks up and this time she literally has to do a ‘double take’; a third person had just joined the duo, and this time there was no doubt or confusion about who Gabriella was looking at.
Gabriella’s hand dropped to her side, and she stared wide eyed.
“This is unbelievable!”
Xavier Di Salvo
Signature Coffee: Capu du Café
Agrigento, Sicily
Setting the Story Scene
Xaviar took his time wiping down the table top, gently repositioning the little vase with the bud roses, before straightening the menu standing beside the napkin with the cutlery.
Avoiding eye contact with the waiting customer, a very big man who was obviously very annoyed and impatient at having to wait, he turned instead to the elderly gentleman sitting alone, “Everything OK for you?” The old man looked up and smiled, “Fine thank you.”
As if seeing the big man for the first time, Xaviar motioned him to the waiting empty table, “What can I get you?”
The big man in the white suit squeezed into the wicker chair, grunting and perspiring, “A coffee will do for now, but tell me, where can I find a local mailbox?”
Xaviar finished writing the order, paused as if double checking his own handwriting, then, without looking up, asked quietly, “Who shall I say is asking?”
In the corner, the old man folded his newspaper, placed a few small coins on the table, then, head down, slowly shuffled away.
A little background!
Agrigento, a fine old city of the Magna Gracie, situated on the SW arc of the Sicilian coast, on a plateau overlooking the sea.
Twinned with the city of Perm, which is nestled deep in the Urals, Agrigento celebrates its links with the Perm Opera and Ballet House, one of the best in Russia. Also, Perm Motors, key suppliers of rocket engines for the Angora rocket system.
Perhaps less well known, and certainly not celebrated publicly, are the many close operational ties between the Russian FSB and the Sicilian Mafia!
Jolie Satre
The organising ‘Mastermind’ herself:
Signature Coffee: Pouvoir du Café
Barcelona, Spain
Jolie Satre carefully opens the floor to ceiling French Windows and wheels her chair out from her private office onto the granite stone balcony facing south across Port Well.
The matt white yachts, moored securely out in the harbour, tremble and vibrate in the early afternoon shimmering heat haze.
Not a cloud in the sky.
Jolie raises a pair of high-powered binoculars and slowly sweeps the the far horizon, gently adjusting the focus wheel with her thumb, probing through the thin veil of pollution that now afflicts all Mediterranean coastal waters.
She stops, there it is, the unmistakable lines of The Rambla, a Classic Yacht, gaff rigged, sporting all-black fore and aft sails on two masts. She is making good speed.
Setting the Story Scene
The big man in the white suit looks up from his lap top, closes the lid, slips it into his tan brown calf skin briefcase. Snapping his fingers he nods to the tall, tanned, waiter, standing patiently a respectful distance away.
“Put this in my cabin and get me a coffee, oh, and tell the captain I want to make a ship to shore call, but in private you understand?”
The steward cum on-board Barista smiles, but only very briefly, “Of course.” He takes the brief case and makes his way below deck. At the foot of the stairs, shielded by the semi darkness, he takes a tiny electronic chip, a tracking device, from his shirt breast pocket, and carefully conceals it deep within a decorative side panel of the brief case.
He looks at his watch, 14.32, everything was good to go!
Watch this space for updates on the forthcoming Barista Bureau Adventure Story.
To see more details of the Barista Bureau Signature Coffees use this link to go straight to the ‘All About the Coffee’ page.
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