TINKER’S REVENGE: Bellavista
JANUARY 8, 2024
THE R&R SUPERYACHT
Anchored in Paradise Cove, Jamaica, the luxury superyacht R&R is a sleek three-decker, measuring over two hundred feet from stem to stern, and is the focal point of the opening sequence in Tinker’s Revenge. Lying several hundred yards offshore, in the lee of the cove, it was in the midst of Negril’s famed seven-mile stretch of wind-sand beaches. With the quaint, little town of Paradise several hundred yards off the yacht’s port side, it afforded a stunning view of onshore action, from the pristine beaches to an assortment of hotels, restaurants and trinket shops, where locals served an abundance of tourists, all here to enjoy the calm, warm, crystal-clear waters of the Caribbean Sea. Despite the vast array of paddle boarders, kayakers and boaters scurrying to-and-fro, it was the activity underwater, unseen by prying eyes, that would kickstart the story and set things in motion. Note: Paradise Cove is a fictional town.
BELLAVISTA, CALIFORNIA
As the seaside community where Jake Tinker was born and raised, Bellavista is the backdrop for much of the Jake Tinker Thriller series, including for much of the high-octane action in Tinker’s Revenge. With stunning views of the city, the beaches, the harbor and the wharf, the town borders the wealthy enclave of Palm Canyon, jokingly referred to by locals as Billionaire Gulch, where Jake’s clientele were cloistered behind the walls of their gated estates, a veritable who’s who of many of the world’s richest and most powerful men. As he learned from a very early age, where there was money and power, you were almost certain to find greed and corruption, and the PC community never had a shortage of either. It was only after leaving the military and returning to private life that he learned the true depth and breadth of the evil to which some men would stoop. As with his opponents during his stint as a Navy SEAL assassin, they would learn the hard way what it meant to be on the wrong side of Tinker’s revenge. Note: Bellavista is a fictional town.
CASA BELLA ROSA
Owned by Serge Brzezinski, Casa Bella Rosa was one of Palm Canyon’s premiere gated estates, affording the owner every luxury known to man, rivaling even the most lavish estates in Bel Air, The Hamptons and Palm Beach. Anchored by the 25,000 square-foot, Mediterranean-style mansion at the heart of it all, it was a show palace consuming more than ten acres of the most expensive real estate in the country. Having graced the covers of numerous magazines, it had also served as the backdrop for several movies and at least one novel, Tinker’s Revenge. With the only way to gain access to the posh digs being a hand-engraved invitation from the owner, it hosted semi-annual fundraisers that brought in more money than the GDP of many countries, grand galas that were attended by everyone who was anyone, making it a must for every A-list celebrity. Too late they would discover that, while the host catered to every guest’s depravities, supplying whatever they needed to carry out their deepest, darkest fantasies, it was all surreptitiously recorded. Blackmail was such a dirty word, but no one was better than Serge at using that particular art of persuasion.
BILLIONAIRE-ROW PENTHOUSE
As the ultimate in luxury and privacy, the pencil towers in the posh neighborhood known as Billionaire’s Row were also the perfect tax dodge for laundering vast fortunes. Boasting a magnificent view of Central Park, Victor Petrov’s penthouse took up the entire top floor of one of Manhattan’s priciest high-rises, and was the home of Tinker’s arch nemesis in Tinker’s Revenge. At roughly twelve thousand square feet of living space, the apartment was situated along the southern end of the park, nearly one thousand feet in the air, making it an opulent treehouse in the sky. Overlooking both the Hudson and East Rivers, it enabled Victor to completely disassociate himself from the noise and other unsavory elements at street level. It was privacy personified. With a price tag well in excess of one hundred million dollars, and artwork and furnishings that doubled that amount, his home was a show palace that hosted grand parties attended by a very elite group of international businessmen and socialites, all of whom served a purpose in his secretive dealings, although most were unaware.
PETROV’S UNDERGROUND VAULT
Buried ten-feet underground, Victor Petrov was the only living person to know of his top-secret vault, a key locale in Tinker’s Revenge. At a cost of seven million dollars, it was built by a team of Kazakhstanis over a period of a year, all of them now dead, most under mysterious circumstances. Having squirreled the vault out of the way on his Palm Canyon estate, it was accessed from a hidden door in his office, for which he had the only key, making it impossible to find, primarily because he was the only one who knew of its existence. However, for anyone who somehow made it into the tunnel, connecting his office to the vault, the massive steel door was protected by an breakable code, although that layer of security was cleverly hidden behind an easier level that could be breached, only to release a deadly cyanide gas into the confined space, instantly killing anyone foolish enough to attempt to steel his priceless treasures. It’s not that their value was monetary; rather, it was the unspeakable power they inferred on those who possessed them.