Chapter 6 - Marissa Gueret

Chapter 6

Marissa Gueret was born on the French archipelago of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean on the island of Basse Terre. Her mother was a native to the beautiful tropical island, her father the French Prefect; responsible for representing the Government of France therein. Her early years were spent snorkeling on the beautiful coral reefs surrounding the islands, hiking in the breathtaking and beautiful National Park of Guadeloupe and sunbathing on the gorgeous beaches.

Occasionally she would visit the rum making sugar cane distilleries with her friends. She wasn’t an angel, but she wasn’t a prude either. Intelligent she was.

After the normal progression through the system of “lycees”, Marissa was enrolled in the school of science at Pointe-à-Pitre , part of the University of the Antilles and Guyana. She excelled at everything she did, sports and academics alike, eventually winning a scholarship to study law at the New York University School of Law. It was through this avenue of fate that she had entered her current predicament.

At the age of 21, she had become an enchantress, a raving beauty, a woman that was ogled over, talked about and dreamed and fantasized about by every man who had the absolute pleasure of laying eyes on her. She had majored in her time at NYU in International law, and had become quite proficient in both its theory, and its application in the real world. Her parents were extremely pleased with her, and had granted her access to an inexhaustible trust account with which she was most responsible.

Marissa was also a natural and exceptional athlete. Lean, wiry, powerful loins and a killer instinct inherited from both of her parents had blessed her with a natural ability to excel in sports requiring skills of a dexterous nature. Her natural inclination was to be drawn towards, and to love, the martial arts. Just like Billy Williams. And also like Billy, she was most fond of the Chinese arts; Kung-Fu and Chi-Gong, and she was an avid student of both. She would love Billy’s garage.

Unfortunately on the night of her abduction Marissa hadn’t the chance to exercise her knowledge of these honorable and deadly arts. The assault had come quick and smooth, the shots from the Berettas quick, deadly, silent and accurate. The work of a seasoned and hardened emotionless professional had quickly overcome and voided any knowledge and passion that Marissa might have had for survival. Of herself, and her friends. Fortunately for her, she received only a tranquilizing agent in her projectile.

Maria and Violet were Marissa’s roommates, confidantes and trophy friends. Rich and from privileged backgrounds, they had provided her with what she didn’t really need; an in to the favored social circles of Manhattan and the confidence of those who cherished it. Confidence was not a forte of those who frequented the Manhattan scene, and Marissa would have fit into anyone’s social circle who relished beauty and class.

The disappearance of her friends gained backpage coverage in the “Times”, two drug using socialites of an affluent lifestyle gone missing was nothing unusual in the Big Apple. They were probably in Malibu, or Monaco for that matter. Her vanishing, however, had different consequences. Thanks to the Viper, an international incident was in the making.

Her father, Henri Gueret was a fraternity brother and best friend of the current Premier of Bermuda, Stewart Spencer-Browne. They had attended the University of California and Los Angeles together, both studying political science and marketing and playing together on the University soccer team. Holidays were taken together, and the families were very close. Stewart Spencer-Browne and his wife Dianne had no children of their own, and Marissa had become much like a daughter to them. Often she had spent time with the Spencer-Brownes in Bermuda during the summers that her parents had toured Europe and Africa on both personal and state business. She was fond of Bermuda, and little did she know that her own and Bermuda’s future were now fatefully entwined. Much like her hands and feet and the rope that bound them.

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