by Edge O. Erin
Since getting word of the mission, the weeks had flown by, and now he was flying high.
The hand went down, signalling it was time to jump. It was not without trepidation that Cooper peered into the nothingness and leapt.
Once in freefall, the fear and bad vibes melted away much as did the deployment sphere. At ten thousand feet, the wings started to deploy, and three seconds later, Cooper was flying to a pre-programmed point. It was… fun. Seconds later, a ship came into view, and he switched to manual mode. He soared onward and briefly thought about what it would be like to keep going, just fly and fly and forget about duty and devotion.
Automatically he descended, engaged the drag system, and when he had slowed to a safe speed, ejected his wings and plunged into the water a couple of hundred feet from the ship. His breaker suit cushioned the impact and kept him from descending too deep. The inflator brought him swiftly to the surface and, as he pushed some foam and plastic garbage out of the way, he saw the three other members of his team come in one by one. The retrieval boat scooped them up, and five minutes later, they were on board and being eyeballed by a tall, intense-looking man of about seventy.
“Codes!” the man barked.
It was a demand and a question, one for which they were prepared, and each answered quickly and correctly.
The man nodded. “I’m Jales. Get yourself sorted.”
Jales’ younger, shock-haired subordinate came over and took them to their shared quarters. It wasn’t much, but they didn’t need much, for they would only be here for two nights. All of what he knew of his team was in a dossier viewed, committed to memory, and then destroyed. He assumed it was the same for all of them, though he was their leader.
The men named Apda, Jarvis, and Spangler stood by expectantly.
“And so, we wait…”
He sat down, so they all sat down. At another time and in another place, questions would be asked. Where do you live? Are you married? Do you have any children? How big do you think the plastic gyre out there is? Anyone seen a whale or dolphin? Questions that wouldn’t be asked until you knew the person for a considerable period could include: “How long have you been in MEM?”; “Who brought you in?”; “What’s your cover?”, and the like. That they were strangers made cold, calculated sense, obviously, they were all accomplished, and with a particular set of skills. Just as obvious was that in the whole scheme of things, they were expendable.
For the most part, they knew what they would be doing or at least were scheduled to do, and if all went well, it wouldn’t be much.
They didn’t have to wait too long as the door popped open, and they were beckoned to follow a surly and burly looking man.
“They call me Check. Jales will be going over the plans with you. I’m tasked with keeping things… clean.” He glanced over his shoulder; his face as cold as his words; they all knew what he meant. “And if you’re fortunate, you won’t be hearing my voice again.”
They continued down the hall to a meeting room. The room smelled clinical, though it was no operating room. He saw a pink stain on the floor… he reckoned it wasn’t from beet juice. The man known as Check closed the door, moved to a corner of the room, and began cleaning his fingernails. He was a cleaner.
Jales and another man stood looking over a three-dimensional representation of a small archipelago. The younger man looked up, but Jales did not. Jales studied the imagery, his hands moving calmly and smoothly about as if he was directing an orchestra. He then cranked his head around and looked at them, or through them.
“This is how it will go.”
Jales appraised them of changes to the mission and their limited, yet potentially vital role. Jales’ knowledge, preparations, and demeanour made it abundantly clear who was in charge. He seemed to intuit their questions and concerns. Clearly, he had been at this for a very long time, as indeed had the Yugons.
It seemed incongruous that an organisation synonymous with drugs, prostitution, human trafficking, and illicit arms sales was also known for unearthing and donating antiquities. Did they donate all their discoveries? Assuredly not. But a majority of the most fabulous finds of the past few decades were attributed to the Yugons. It made some ask why an organisation so ruthless and famous for everything from butchery to debauchery did not covet and/or sell all they found? He also wondered what relics of the past would fetch a price commensurate to the resources put out to find them or potentially have a value beyond credit and currency? One thing for sure, Jales wouldn’t be telling him!
“So, any questions, or are we all clear?”
Spangler spoke up, “When 8K7, or is it Kate7, pings us that the package is about to be dropped, can we track it as it descends?”
“Wezer’s eight… kay-seven,” Jales’ shock-haired map-coordinator offered.
Jales backhanded his helper in the chops, splitting the younger man’s lip.
“What did I say about using names? Do it again, and I’ll cut your throat and throw you to the sharks!”
He could tell by his countenance, and not just the deep lines and scars on his face, that he would probably do it in a heartbeat.
Jales glanced at them all, and with a particularly menacing look at Spangler, “Forget you heard that name! And, no, you can’t track the package on its descent. If you could, so could another. Any more questions, not especially well thought out or otherwise?”
They all kept their mouths shut, which was particularly important to Cooper, for he knew a “Wezer”, and the name was not a common one.
***
The concrete floor was cold and wet, and he had shit his pants at least once. He struggled to open his eyes, and pain shot through his head. Without his glasses, he couldn’t see more than shapes, and those shapes were of security personnel, perhaps three of them, maybe five, he didn’t know. He heard steps coming closer, and a kick in the stomach followed. He coughed and vomited; it was mostly bile as he recalled puking his guts out earlier.
“Fucking little turd and stinking like one too,” a man’s voice said.
He didn’t say anything, probably couldn’t even if he tried.
The man continued, “Hey Bates, can’t we just trash this little fuck?”
“No, we need to affirm his identity and see what they want to do with him. He’s too well dressed to be a don’t-do-mucher.”
“Can we at least put him in the back room? He really stinks!”
“Yeah, do that.”
Someone grabbed his leg, and he was pulled across the floor. His belt caught on a nail or something, and he came to a sudden stop, much to the annoyance of the man pulling him.
“For crux sakes!” The man grabbed both his legs this time and jerked madly. He felt and heard his pants rip off, and there was a sharp pain in his posterior. Then a door was closed.
He laid there and started to whimper… he was in such a bad spot.
“I’m going to lose my job!” he mumbled around broken teeth and swollen lips.
They will probably put me in jail or even kill me, he thought.
He heard his mom say, “Lester Chester Mistre, you stop your snivelling, or I will give you something to snivel about!” Remembering that, and the teasing he had received for his most unfortunate name, only served to fuel his despair.
“Mother, God, Goddess, please get me out of this! I swear I will be good!”
Almost on cue, he heard a scuffle; it didn’t last long, and the door creaked open.
His pants, stinking, landed in his lap, which was also covered in his faeces and vomit.
He wiped his eyes and pulled on his pants. Someone picked him up, and he felt himself being put into a big sack.
“Where are you taking me?” he mumbled.
“Shush,” was the response. He shushed, and then he was over someone’s shoulder. He passed out, but not before he pooped a little.
Chapter Ten
A sliver of a moon pierced the clouds and cut the waves as the driver negotiated the lightweight assault boat through the cho
p and the shoal and shark-infested waters. It was three a.m.; a good two hours remained before grey-light would horizon them. They tucked into the mangroves and waited.
The scratching of branches tore him away from thoughts of Claire and Jasker and back to the mission. Things had changed. Their aquasuit training was now going to be central in the recovery of any finds. The boat would be run aground and torched to simulate a drug-deal gone wrong and the asset, dropped from above as the exploration team left the island, recovered and delivered underwater to a sub-pod. The sub-pod would scoot to its pre-programmed destination, wherever that was, and they would make their way back towards the shore and be scooped up by a Yugon-friendly fishing boat. Presumably, their sonic disturbers would keep the sharks away, and the fishermen would, well, fish them out. By midnight they would be back in Port, and a swap of personnel at the local penitentiary would provide cover for their exits. It was clear as mud, which could be expected with dirty work. And so, they waited; Apda, Jarvis, Spangler, the boat driver and himself, five men that knew naught of how MEM had found itself in bed, a waterbed of sorts, with the Yugon.
Morning came, as did the mosquitoes, lots of mosquitoes. As the minutes ticked by, the drone of the pricking horde ratcheted up the tension. He knew they couldn’t bite through their aquasuits, but it sure felt like they could. He was itchy from head to toe. Apda began flapping his arms about — as if that were going to help — and Cooper was forced to give him a quick kick in the shin to make him stop.
The minutes became hours, and waxing stifling heat and humidity replaced waning mosquitoes, though the little critters were still there in enough quantity to make it a buzzing, sweating hell. The tension was palpable; surely, the expeditionary team must be on the way back to the float-copter hidden a quarter mile down the shore.
He drank some more water, resisting the temptation to guzzle it all down. He saw that Spangler had swallowed all save for the emergency bottle on his pack. The boatman, a tall, thin older man that went by “Five Fins” and looked to be hewn from the limbs of teak or mahogany, appeared to have had but a sip or two. In short-buzzed hair and neatly trimmed moustache and beard — all a mix of black and grey — he made for an imposing and striking figure. He could be sixty, he could be seventy, but with dark skin stretched tight over his frame, he looked as harsh and unforgiving as a spiral nail. Even his chest looked bigger than average. As strong as he knew himself to be, he wouldn’t want to tangle with Five Fins.
His mind wandered home. Claire had not wanted him to go. “This thing with the Yugons really worries me…” she had said.
He was worried too but couldn’t let her see it. “I’m sure it will be fine.” He used one of her lines, “As you say, sometimes the shirt doesn’t look right on the hanger, but once it’s on, it’s a good fit.” She did her little raised eyebrow, scrunch-smirk she sometimes did when she was sceptical. But she wasn’t going to guilt-trip him, for she knew he would always answer the call to the cause. More than that, she knew he was indebted to the men that had helped raise him and who were the lifeblood of MEM.
His heart grew heavy, thinking of Bien clinging to life in a hospital bed. Would he ever wake up? More to the here and now, would he had ever signed this ‘Deal with the Demon’ as some called it? Perhaps, maybe… it was probably impossible to get inside the head of a visionary and genius such as Bien. Jon had said Bien was the wisest man he knew and would probably ever know, and that the Grand Lady’s vision and intuition mirrored Bien’s lens of logic and window to the future. His words implied “trust her”; they had to at this point.
A new sound; a Grrr… Grrr…Grrr…shoosh… began to overpower the buzz of the mosquitoes, the scratch, and claw of the mangrove and sleepy swaup-swaup of the waves. At first, it was a soothing, benign sound. But as the moment overtook the familiar, its nature spoke loudly to them: there were indeed other boats operating in this protected area today, even though there weren’t supposed to be.
They could see it now, and it was a big one bearing the flag of the Western Block of the World Government, and it was heading towards where the float-copter was positioned. A chorus of rat-tat-tat broke out. Damn! He saw the bottom half of Five Fins disappear off the back of the boat; the old man was going ‘full-Mangrove’. They were on their own. He beckoned the others to stay low. They were no match for the gunboat. Unless the expeditionary force got off the ground immediately, they would be doomed, and the planned-for support would no longer be required.
He peered over the gunwales. The gunboat was close to shore now. A siren wailed as the shooting continued, then came to a stop. The float-copter never took off.
Either they had been betrayed, or surveillance of the site was more sophisticated than they thought. It was likely that the Yugon vessel was being boarded, and it would be up to Jales, the Yugons, and the authorities to sort it out. Would people die, and alliances be tested? Almost certainly, but it was now their mission to not be among those who would perish. It stood to reason that right now, someone, somewhere, was framing them as accomplices, or worse.
He got behind the wheel. “Let’s get the heck out of here!” He eased the boat ahead and under cover of the mangroves until he was sure they would not be seen or heard, and then he hammered the throttle forward.
They made it to the landward side of the island, but the mainland was beyond their fuel reserves, so he had come up with a plan.
“By now, the authorities will know there are four or five of us. They may already have the old guy; Five Fins could’ve been in on the whole thing… so we must assume they know what we are, if not who we are, and what resources we have. Obviously, we can only go a little bit further before we run out of fuel. There may be many sharks, and our sonic disrupters might not last the whole way to the shore. Of course, the coastline will be closely monitored, so we probably can’t all flop ashore as a unit.”
Jarvis chimed in, “If we’re not together, we’re doomed.”
He was right about that. “Yes, but the boat will mask our signature. It may also draw in the sharks, for a vessel often means spoils. Pick the incoming tide, ride under, overwhelm the crew after they discover the boat is empty. We manoeuvre it from underneath. They will probably want it as evidence, so while they might shoot some holes in the boat, they will hook it, bring it alongside and then lift it. As they raise it, we will be underneath. We grab onto the rigging and, at the last possible moment, start shooting.”
“Let’s say we can take over the gunboat. Then what?” Spangler asked.
“We know this facility has but one patrol boat and one gunboat. Aerial Support is supposed to be drone only. Whatever the boat, we take it, go down the coast as fast and far as we can and then boot it. If someone has a better idea, please speak up.”
The lack of input spoke to his desperate plan being their best chance of escape.
***
The contact and her grandiose plan no longer a mystery; Riot felt a sense of hope that she could free herself of her shackles. Apparently, the implant that allowed her to be controlled, and even eliminated, by the Grace could be removed. The Menhance programme had engineered the device and ways to circumvent its effectiveness. She wanted it removed, and that would occur, providing she demonstrated ongoing cooperation and commitment. Allowing the Data Analyst to be secured by a Yugon tactical team and not having the Yugon research vessel seized went a fair way towards securing her freedom and future. She was told to be patient, and when the time was right, she would be liberated.
***
The sea becoming rougher was coincident with shallower water. It was becoming difficult to control their positions under the boat and keep from being bashed against it or the bottom. Through the increasingly murky water, Cooper saw Abda get tumbled into the coral and red form around his posterior.
Three-foot long slivers of silver flashed by, barracudas. Their sonic disrupters were very effective against sharks but less so against the stealthy and unpredictable fish. Barracudas seldom attacked
humans, but it didn’t make their fang-like, razor-sharp look any less intimidating. And blood in dirty water was a dangerous dynamic. Over his com, he told Abda to remain calm. More silver flashes. A giant bull shark appeared then disappeared.
He tried to swing closer to Abda and apply a patch over his butt cheek, but he too was spun wild in the water. When would they clear this damn shoal! The beep, beep of a proximity beacon alerted him to the approach of another craft. The timing could hardly be worse!
Out of the murk, he saw a swarm of barracudas near Abda. He was trying to stay in position while one of his hands was swinging behind him. Cursing and screeching filled the coms. A red plume washed by him.
Beep-beep-beep-beep! The proximity indicator was really going off now. “Get ready!”
The shoal disappeared, and the water calmed a little. A hook landing in the boat made an audible, yet muted clang. “Hold steady. Wait until we are being yanked up!”
Abda had calmed. The boat started to come out of the water, and they grabbed fast the tethers they had secured to the bottom. They were about to clear the water when Abda vanished beneath the waves. He saw the broad and slightly curved tip of a bull shark’s front dorsal fin move away from the boat. “He’s got me! Fuck! Good…”
The message tailed off as the water was bloodied a hundred feet from the patrol boat. Men aloft were yelling excitedly. They had to have seen the carnage too. “Now!” Cooper yelled.
They climbed the lines and into their boat just as it was clearing the gunwales of the patrol boat. They opened fire on the stunned crew. It was over so quickly that Abda’s blood and barracudas could still be seen on the surface.
They had no time to waste.
“Let’s make it count for Abda!” Jarvis encouraged.
“Indeed. Let’s move!” Cooper strode to the helm and hit the throttle.
Chapter Eleven