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    Garden of Aden
    Garden of Aden
    Garden of Aden
    Ebook85 pages1 hour

    Garden of Aden

    By steve harris

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Ron Penner, disgraced New York realtor is offered by a wealthy former client, a chance at redemption at a posh and very private island in the far east. Little does he realize the price of admission.

    LanguageEnglish
    Publishersteve harris
    Release dateMar 2, 2017
    ISBN9781386210603
    Garden of Aden

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      Book preview

      Garden of Aden - steve harris

      GARDEN OF ADEN

      Stephen Harris

      Copyright Stephen Harris 2016

      All rights reserved

       The following is a work of fiction.Any similarities to persons or places, living or deceased are purely coincidental with no intention to represent otherwise.

      For my Sweetie

      There’s more Hon, more you need to know. But you’ve got to swear you won’t tell a single soul where this is coming from… Of course I won’t Lisa… Swear, she repeated, swear Ron… this is my fucking life here, not much I know, but it’s all I’ve got. I’m taking a huge risk here and… I do, I swear on it Lisa, I swear to God, now please…  

      ***

      Cruising  37,000 feet over the cobalt blue Gulf of Aden Ron Penner felt good for the first time in what seemed ages. Finally able to clear his troubled mind of old issues that had dogged him since the literal explosion of his career a few years earlier. Now he looked forward to this new opportunity. One that might finally put him back in the green, back where he felt he deserved to be,. After all the crash of ’08 wasn’t his fault. There were signs yes to be sure there’d been signs. Hadn’t he in fact even been offered some inside and very personal advice to liquidate or at least scale down his small but healthy portfolio? And hadn’t he actually known or at least suspected that Charlene his college sweetheart and later to be his wife had been stepping out? Yeah he knew alright… denial.

      All that was hopefully behind him now, the bankruptcy, the divorce and all the bitter legal wrangling, was all history. He’d managed to come out of it a little  worse for the wear and quite a bit poorer but he had an opportunity now and he was going to exploit it for what it might be worth.

      The pilot of the G650, a Captain Gary Munro according to the gold name tag on his steely colored uniform quietly slipped into the seating area and stood beside his daydreaming passenger. Enjoying the flight Mr. Penner?  Huh…I’m just admiring the view here and the ride. Never been on one of these babies before but a guy could get used to it, couldn’t he. Very the pilot smiled a wide grin. How long have you been doing this? Flying? Penner nodded. I guess about 18 years more or less as a commercial pilot with AA and then I was let go do to cutbacks. A lot of us were canned with the recession, and me I just got a lucky break when I answered an ad in the DuPont Registry a couple years back. The money was right and the hours and equipment are a dream compared to AA he went on. Amir and I fly mainly back and forth with   guests  from Hong Kong, Japan, Moscow, even a few from back in the states like you, but mostly to and from the Arab Emirates. Nice, very nice, Penner said. Has Hassan here been looking after you, The captain gestured towards the 20 something attendant standing a few feet behind him. Yes thanks he’s been a gem. Good, we’ll be touching down in about 25 minutes. Glad you’re enjoying the flight. The captain retreated back to his seat in the cockpit  alongside the co-pilot. 24 minutes later the craft touched down gently on the tarmac.

       As he stepped off the jet a warm tropical breeze met his face. A young dark skinned lovely was waiting nearby and taxied Penner via golf-cart to a splendidly landscaped terrace area a few hundred yards away where Khalid Amjad and his younger brother Omar sat on comfortable loungers. A glassed top table nearby had an assortment of items which included an iced pitcher of liquid refreshment, a laptop  computer, a notebook ,  and a bowl of fresh sliced fruit surrounded by bits of crushed ice. Khalid rose to his feet and extended his hand to Penner. Ronald, so good to see you again my friend, please come and sit, lunch will be here in just a minute or two. I hope you brought an appetite. He turned to his younger sibling and spoke. Omar this is Ronald Penner you’ve heard me speak of him. Ronald helped us secure the Br istol  building in Manhattan several years ago. One of our finest American acquisitions wouldn’t you agree. Omar sat up, straddled the lounger and lowered his sunglasses  to see the new arrival. Welcome Ronald, my brother speak highly of you and I am so much pleased to finally meet you. Omar spoke with a distinct Arabic accent unlike his brother who was more widely traveled and showed little trace of his birthright. Khalid handled the family’s overseas investments portfolio with the help of a modest team of analysts. Ron Penner had been the go to real estate broker in New York. Since meeting Khalid in the early part of 2000, he’d racked up several sizable deals culminating in mega commissions. He’d agreed to service Amjad Inc. almost exclusively after the sale of the Bri stol , a multi million dollar office/retail complex in lower Manhattan. Over the next handful of years Khalid had taken a shine to Penner schooling him to invest his commission earnings into a couple of small real estate holdings which were poised to explode and explode they did. Unfortunately he’d ignored the elder tycoon’s advice in 2007 that he should now liquidate his holdings as he himself had done reaping many millions in the process. As for Ron Penner, the rest was, as they say, history.

      When the dust   settled from the divorce settlement and bankruptcy, Penner had been slow to put his life back together. When Khalid had contacted him in search of new real estate wants,  he’d been forced to explain how he’d lost all in the crash of ’08 including his brokerage license. Was it pity or maybe something more Penner wasn’t sure, but when Khalid Amjad suggested a well paying position with an exclusive gaming resort he and his brother owned in the east, he ’d  jumped at it.

      Now here he sat with the two brothers enjoying steaming surf and turf somewhere in the Arabian Sea, miles from anywhere. How bad could that be?

      2.

      The  following weeks brought home the realization to Penner that while he enjoyed a somewhat privileged position with Khalid and his brother he was still after all, just an employee and as such was subject to a work regimen like any other of the 2 5 0 or so staff  in Amjad resorts employ. Ron was shown his duties and responsibilities as a sales consultant for handling overseas clients, mainly English speaking guests from North America and the U.K. The resort’s client base read like the Forbes’s 500. He would be the go-to guy for co-coordinating gambling junkets, arranging flights and supervising the reservations for the 220 ultra luxurious rooms in the main hotel. For this he was to be paid a generous remuneration, and comfortable lodgings. His salary was to be deposited monthly at a bank the family owned in Abu Dhabi. And that w orked  just fine for Ron, in fact he couldn’t have cared less as there was little he needed to buy or pay for on the island. And at any rate, lest he wander into the posh casino in his down time, which would have been a bad idea as the stakes were entirely out of his league.    

      Within a month of his landing on the island, as it was better known by most everyone , a sales meeting was called in a smaller building alongside the casino-hotel. It was Ron’s first look at the executive offices and boardroom and he wasn’t disappointed. By now he was getting

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