Wilco- Lone Wolf 22

by Geoff Wolak

  I sighed. ‘Somehow he threw a grenade down a toilet. Don’t ask.’

  The second man asked, ‘Do all your men look like that?’

  ‘Most look even more Neanderthal, well defined muscles, plenty of scars to boast about. They’re scary when naked, yes.’

  ‘Cartel was played?’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘The phone intercepts had them scratching their heads as to who drove the Stingers north of the border. But someone in their ranks was cooperating with the FBI mob.’

  ‘Charall?’

  ‘Him or Dazo, but both are dead. And we got their cash. Well, a fraction of it.’

  ‘They’re worth a billion or two,’ the second man noted. ‘Invested in our stock markets.’

  ‘Capitalism, eh,’ I said with a cheeky grin.

  ‘What comes next?’ Delaney asked.

  ‘Kosovo, but I may spend some time in Panama and Mexico.’

  ‘Good, fuck Kosovo,’ Delaney let out. ‘But where could it lead?’

  ‘It could lead … to Carlos running a large part of the border. If I find someone like him, in the east, then – ultimately – we control the drugs trade after I destroy the Medellin cartel.’

  ‘How would that affect Tomsk?’

  ‘He’ll buy from the farmers at a good rate,’ I pointed out. ‘Medellin only account for 30% of his raw product.’

  Delaney floated, ‘Could Tomsk send some money our way?’

  ‘Yes, but would it not be better spent doing what the DEA is supposed to be doing, and saving you money that way? Fewer border agents someday?’

  ‘That would save us money, yes, but if he controlled it all then … shit, that’s a lot of money, boy.’

  I nodded. ‘No one group could ever control it all, and then there’re the Bolivians and Brazilians and the Afghan trade, the Asian trade. Asian drugs hit your west coast as well remember.’

  I chewed my food. ‘If your people have a bank account, I can arrange some money for office expenses, lunch, stationary. I’ll deal with my contact at your end, sort something.’

  ‘It all helps,’ Delaney noted, and I suddenly didn’t want to be having this conversation with him, a threat held over Tomsk as soon as the payments started, a precedent set – more and more money asked for as the years went by.

  Still, if they accepted the money then they were the ones in trouble, not Tomsk, I considered.

  ‘How are the American Wolves doing?’ Delaney asked.

  ‘I haven’t started with the officer batch yet, but the enlisted men are all shit hot and great to work with,’ I told them. ‘Some are in Kosovo as we speak. Selection process worked well.’

  Delaney explained, ‘The officers are waiting for you, but having some expensive training on all sorts of topics.’

  ‘I’ll be back in the UK in a few days, so send them,’ I suggested. ‘We’ll make a start with some gentle training.’

  ‘Gentle training,’ he said with a smirk. ‘You’ll take them to Liberia or some shit hole and have them live in a hole in the ground.’

  ‘Uh … yeah, probably,’ I agreed. ‘No five star hotels.’

  The second man put in, ‘Oil in Liberia is looking good.’

  ‘You involved with that?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re invested in it, yes.’

  ‘I can get you some land very cheap if you want it,’ I offered.

  ‘We know some people that would want it, yes.’

  ‘Have them contact the President there, mention my name, have him call me and we’ll sort it.’

  ‘He follows your lead?’ Delaney floated.

  ‘He does, yes,’ I confirmed. ‘Tomsk is bankrolling him.’

  ‘And if some day we wanted to replace him…’ Delaney floated.

  ‘I’d oppose that move,’ I told him, ‘because longevity is important, relationships built up over years, trust earned.’

  ‘A good policy,’ he agreed, and I had to wonder if I was being tested, sure that I was.

  I told him, ‘The British Government - my bosses, the French, and Tomsk, would also oppose such a move. They have a great deal invested in the area, and we all want a quiet few years there, the oil flowing.’

  They exchanged looks.

  With Delaney gone I stripped off for a shower with Tiny, warnings given to her about my back and hip.

  ‘Look soldier, you just want me to get on top and do all the hard work,’ she quipped.

  ‘Sounds about right, so do your worst.’

  In the shower she washed me, rinsed me, then knelt to suck a stiff cock for a minute. On the bed, on towels and still wet, she got on top.

  ‘Rodeo time,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Rodeo?’ I repeated, but I soon understood what she meant as she gyrated her hips as if riding a bucking bronco, squeezing my cock in alternate movements, her wet matted hair flailing around. But the best thing was the view, looking up at her cheeky grin and perfect small boobs, those boobs elongating as they hung down towards me.

  I came inside her to a loud moan, the moan accentuated by a twinge in my hip, and my mind was soon on babies. I forced a breath and asked, ‘You are still on the pill?’

  ‘Yes, Mister, no worries if your naughty sperms are swimming around looking for a happy home. They’ll find the door closed.’

  She eased forwards, my cock still inside her and twitching, and she hugged me from on top. We lay there without talking, and my part-time partner was soon asleep, an awkward position for me to be in. Still, she weighed only forty-four kilos.

  When it grew painful I eased her over without waking her, a drink of water before I lay back, holding her.

  She stirred an hour later. ‘I fell asleep?’ came from behind some matted hair.

  ‘An hour, I think.’

  ‘Cup of tea, Mister, or you pay double.’

  I knocked on the kettle and washed out the two cups we had been using, putting on my underwear. Tea made, some cold water added, I handed a cup to her and sat next to her on the bed with my own cup.

  She held her cup as if it was precious and fragile, and sipped. ‘So what work have you got for me in Panama?’

  ‘I need to meet with Tomsk soon, but you can send the message first and discuss it with him; Americans want to quieten down the cartels, any which way, but I suggested some cash and they agreed, so we’ll train men with Carlos and start to hit the cartels.

  ‘I want Tomsk to recruit Mexican natives, or people who would pass for Mexican, twenty or thirty of them, and then we’ll train them. After that, it’s open season on any cartel member that’s not talking to us.

  ‘Ask him about what other cartels and distributors he deals with, someone in the east of Mexico, and we’ll build them up - so long as they talk to us and keep a low profile, no killing for fun.’

  ‘Carlos has grown a great deal,’ she noted, sipping her tea.

  ‘They want him to keep growing. Well, they don’t know about him, not the White House at least, but they want me to do the job, don’t care how it’s done. Just knock back the cartel men they said.’

  Bob called later, and the NRA meet was on, knocked together at short notice, the head of the NRA allowed to choose thirty men, and they were all men. There would be no cameras and security would be tight, thirty Valmets to be provided, no live ammo, but the meeting would take place near a long range west of the city.

  I had worries about some of the men being FBI Deep State, or working for the arms manufacturers, but I would have my Secret Service detail with me to deal with knife-wielding maniacs and deadly assassins alike. Hopefully.

  ‘Bob, while you’re on, that list is to be researched and then activated straight away where you’re sure, all sides want it, including the Saudi monarch. If some are outside Saudi, make it look like an accident, or make them look dirty, do not … make it look like an assassination unless it’s the main man.’

  ‘I have an idea who he is. So, loud and messy for him?’

  ‘Very loud, very messy. Rest get decommission
ed quietly. And … we have an extra fifty million quid to play with.’

  ‘Jesus. From who?’

  ‘The Saudis. They want us to clean their sandals for them.’

  ‘Bloody typical, but the money is always useful – better teams, better plans, more escape routes.’

  ‘Money will go to Tomsk via our friend in Monrovia. Ask him about it in a few days. And, just to shock you, The White House will misappropriate funds via a similar route, for the very illegal use against the cartel men.’

  ‘Bloody hell. If that got out…’

  ‘Let’s make sure it never gets out.’

  ‘You’ll tell London?’

  ‘Only David, and only face to face.’

  I called Mike Papa at midnight, waking him. ‘Mister President, sorry to wake you.’

  ‘It is OK. What is wrong?’

  ‘Nothing is wrong, I just wanted to inform you that my friends the Saudis will grant you fifty million dollars for … mosques and educational projects. Send the money to Tomsk less five million, and be seen to spend the five million on Mosques.’

  ‘They know that the money will go to Tomsk?’

  ‘They do, all arranged, don’t worry.’

  ‘I will keep the money, and then Tomsk does not need to send it to me. His people can adjust their books.’

  ‘Why does he send you money?’ I wondered.

  ‘The oil money goes to him first, then back to me, I don’t take money direct here. I take money for the use of the land, not the sale of the oil.’

  ‘Ah, I understand. Talk soon.’

  After a restful night, and a great deal of sex with Tiny on top – my new favourite position, the Deputy Chief turned up at 10am, snacks ordered from Room Service with a fresh trolley of tea, coffee and biscuits.

  The Secret Service had swept my room twice already, but the Chief’s men also swept it before finally issuing a nod as they withdrew, the Chief sitting with a loud sigh as I made him coffee.

  ‘Good night’s sleep?’ I asked.

  ‘Better than the damn cot in the office, that’s for sure. I even got a back rub from my wife.’

  ‘And your kids?’

  ‘Never knew I was wasn’t there,’ he said with a peeved look.

  I hid my smile, badly. ‘The joys of married life.’

  ‘And yours?’

  I avoided looking at Tiny. ‘I had a second daughter recently, the mother still just as difficult. She wanted my sperm, not to have me around, a sister for our first child.’

  ‘No chance of you two getting together?’

  ‘None at all, she’s hard work, very hard work.’

  He studied Tiny. ‘And this lady is … in the loop on everything?’

  Tiny cocked an eyebrow at him.

  ‘For just about everything, yes,’ I told him. ‘She’s like a daughter to Tomsk. And that leads us to our next project: the cartels and the drugs trade.

  ‘White House just about suggested that we control the drugs trade, all of it, and that they’ll throw a great deal of cash at the project instead of wasting the money spent in Central America on … drug eradication programmes.’

  ‘Ha, they never work, waste of money.’

  ‘That’s what the President said.’

  ‘What’ll you do?’

  ‘Recruit men in Panama that could pass for Mexican, and recruit men with Carlos, and train them up as snipers, good with camouflage and all weapons, then start to thin out the cartels. Fortunately for us, they tend to have their men stood around on street corners with guns.’

  He shrugged. ‘More men shot in Mexico, and no one will even notice, nor care.’

  ‘You have a great many cartel men in prison in the States, so go looking for someone that wants a reprieve.’

  ‘Trusting them is the problem, they could just melt back into the population.’

  ‘Then find men with families, letters written to the men in prison, have a bargaining chip.’

  ‘I’ll put a team on it.’

  ‘I only need ten good men. When selected, we move their families to Panama. And then, I was thinking that the Panama Army have its own Lone Wolf programme, thirty men.’

  ‘If they operated on the borders it would cut down the mules, yes,’ he agreed. ‘With the money, and your men training the locals, well … it could work, we could cut down those cartels that are an issue.’

  ‘Quiet on the border?’

  ‘Last 24hrs, yes. When you see an Apache stalking by, you turn back from the border,’ he adamantly stated.

  ‘How long will the troops stay in place?’

  ‘Another four days, then it all gets scaled down,’ he explained.

  ‘Get me a bank account number, for your narco team hidden expenses.’

  He made a call and wrote down a number, sort code and BACS codes, handing it over after he carefully checked it.

  ‘I’ll put $99.99 in to test it,’ I told him, getting a nod. ‘Get me those prisoners. If they’re on Death Row, fake a suicide.’

  ‘We’ve done that before,’ he agreed.

  ‘Oh, tomorrow, I’m meeting with the NRA.’

  ‘NRA?’ he puzzled.

  ‘Some of their members were linked to FBI Deep State, some are linked directly to the arms producers, so … I’m going to make friends with some people, sound them out.’

  ‘But … you don’t know who they are?’ he puzzled.

  ‘I will do, as soon as they start talking. And if I get an invite to a private dinner, then I’ll go.’

  ‘Be damn careful, eh.’

  ‘I have the Secret Service detail, and they won’t try anything here.’

  ‘Your speech was helpful, especially the boat stopping off Panama. We’re back-dating evidence for that.’

  ‘I’ve had some practise at being a sneaky shit,’ I told him with a cheeky grin.

  The next afternoon I changed into uniform, the clean one provided, the Secret Service detail taking me out the back way in my facemask, soon in the vans and heading out of town and into the countryside.

  After forty minutes we pulled into a shooting range, but it was a range for rich people, and it sat next to a nice golf course. It also displayed alert security guards.

  At a modern building looking like a school we stepped down, a man stood waiting with a keen smile.

  I shook his hand. ‘I’m Major Wilco.’

  ‘I would never have guessed,’ he laughed, leading me inside. I took off the mask when we entered a large auditorium, asking about cameras. There were none in this room, the rest switched off already. I soon found myself facing myself, my doppelganger actor stood smiling, and in uniform. He looked more like me than I did; his uniform British, mine American.

  We shook. ‘Bob Stoneman.’

  ‘They call me Wilco.’ He laughed as we were being closely observed by a group of older men. ‘And I never got a fucking penny for your film.’

  ‘Shooting two more, four planned.’

  ‘Visit the base in the UK, buy the lads a drink,’ I firmly suggested.

  ‘I will, yes, and get some more training in.’

  ‘And if you want to play my double when I move around Central America...’

  Those listening-in laughed.

  ‘Let’s not go that far, eh. I’m an actor, husband, father of two, looking forwards to a good career, good money and soft beds.’

  I saw a man move past the crowd, and it was my garden gnome salesman. I faced the man I had met. ‘What’s the format you guys want?’

  My meet-and-greet guy explained, ‘I thought we’d have a lecture here first, then some training, then the range.’

  I nodded, soon introduced to many, and I put my facemask back on so that most of the invited guests could be photographed with me. Delaney walked in, in combats, a surprise. I shook his hand. ‘You going hunting, Senator?’

  ‘I hunt often,’ he said with a smile. ‘And I have a Valmet.’ He introduced me to board members of Haliburton, his company, and a company that supplie
d the military. I was getting closer to the source.

  With coffee dispensed, the men sat at the front of the auditorium, about forty of them, and I adopted a table made ready with a Valmet.

  Lifting the rifle, I began, ‘When I first operated in the SAS, in Northern Ireland, I favoured the AKML, long barrel AK47 family. It was reliable and accurate, and it was old Russian standard 7.62mm, so if someone dug the bullet out of a dead IRA gunman then it might look like an internal feud – not a British soldier’s bullet.

  ‘Later, in Africa, I adopted the same philosophy, and if you see a group of men in the distance with AK47 rifles you don’t assume that they’re British or American soldiers. We also had a policy of picking up ammo off those we killed, so we carried less ammo ourselves.

  ‘That policy worked very well, because we often found ourselves behind the lines, low on provisions, but we would take ammo and water off the men we shot, sometimes bread and tinned food. Rarely did we shoot local game and cook it. If the enemy had a jeep, there was usually something to drink and eat in the jeep.

  ‘In Bosnia I would check the pockets of men I killed and liberate some ammo, grenades maybe, sometimes a tin of corned beef. And in Bosnia I benefitted from a quirk of ammo storage, in that I created a custom vest that had pockets for magazines, the magazines horizontal; my bandolier was designed to let me reload rapidly whilst carrying ammo flush against my body.

  ‘What I found was that it saved my life. I was shot many times, but some of the rounds hit the magazines, and that’s why I’m here today. Later, my teams adopted the same practise, and a few have been saved because a round hit the ammo bandolier, magazines front and back like body armour.

  ‘And in Bosnia I got to know the AKML like a new girlfriend.’ They laughed. ‘It was in my hand 24hrs a day for four days, so many rounds fired I thought the damn barrel would melt. It was on the job training of an extreme kind, my life on the line.

  ‘I learnt a few things, and I taught what I had learnt to my teams afterwards. First off, count your rounds fired. How many left? Safety on or not, cocked or not, how many magazines left? These things are now lifesavers for my men, and the men practise counting rounds fired, they weigh magazines in their hands and know how many rounds are in it.