“Ok, boss,”
We rise up above the tree line, cloaked and take a position half way up the side of the valley. I can see the Huey approaching in the distance. Even though I know we are invisible, I feel completely naked and vulnerable. The Huey is loafing along at some eighty miles per hour, his best fuel economy speed, flying maybe a hundred feet over the jungle. The doors are off and the fireteam is sprawled inside enjoying the cool breeze blowing in through the open doorways.
D matches the speed of the helicopter and moves in behind the Huey and begins coming up underneath. There is a lot of turbulence as we are in the rotor wash. As we get closer under the Huey the turbulences reduces due to the belly of the Huey sheltering us.
I take my extremely high tech wooden stick I made expressly for this purpose, attach one of the shaped C4 charges to it and reach out and hook it on the left skid rear upright. Then repeat the process hooking the shaped charge onto the right skid rear upright, so the charge doesn’t slip off in the wind or sudden Huey movement.
“Charges are in place,”
“Nicely done, let’s backup some distance, this is going to be intense!”
D drops quickly away from the Huey and for a minute it feels like we are going to fall into the jungle. We don’t and we swoop back up to altitude to overlook the chopper some four to five hundred yards away.
“Hang on, here we go Matt,”
KA THUMP goes the C4, there is an obscenely blindingly bright pulse of light, followed by a furious red/orange boiling fireball as the C4 explosion atomizes the jet fuel with the air and it burns, air shock waves racing outwards clearly visible in the jungle humidity. Huey parts and people debris are blown upward through the flames and smoke and arc downward into the jungle. The shockwave concussion from the explosion whacks me in the chest and the quad copter rotors scream to hold positional station. The Huey and contents are literally vaporized. What isn’t completely vaporized tumbles slowly down into the jungle. There is nothing left larger than a lunch kit. We cycle down and inspect the debris field at close range. Bits of this and that, perhaps some human parts on fire, some small pieces of twisted burning wreckage, and some just burning jungle foliage.
“Wow, I’d call that extremely proficient demolition work, by God!”
“I concur,” says D. “Nothing left here to concern us about. A nasty accident for those folks, they should really be more careful!
Chapter 7: Review
Back at the ship over a couple of cold beers we discuss what has transpired and congratulate ourselves. Beast sits close by watching and listening and monitoring the jungle.
“So we have visually confirmed the fireteam in question was in the Huey, destroyed the Huey and contents, done an up close inspection of the debris field, and can say without pause or doubt the fireteam is disintegrated and deceased. Is that correct?” asks Frosty.
“Completely correct Boss,” I reply.
“Was there any form of satellite or UAV monitoring, like an MQ-1 Predator, MQ-9 Reaper, RQ-4 Global Hawk, RQ-170 Sentinal or anything along those lines during the operation?” asks Frosty.
“No, there was no monitoring active, and to be doubly sure I created an interference field to hide our activity from anyone. We were low in the jungle in a valley so it is highly doubtful that the event was seen by any human at all.” replies D.
“Excellent, I really like nice tidy missions,” smiles Frosty.
“So do I,” says D. “However we do have more work to do nosing around the gov’t computer servers, LAN’s, WAN’s, AI neural nets, data banks, and so on and so forth to find what we can on the their efforts to find out who we are. Have their efforts escalated, who is running the project, are there covert efforts afoot to track us down, all those types of good things. So with your agreement I’ll get the sisters working on it right away.”
“I’m certainly in agreement,” says Frosty. “How about you Matt?”
“For sure, we need to be aware of what we have to deal with.” I reply. “Also what do you suggest we do about the employees of the cocaine drug farm that were scheduled to be eliminated?
“I say nothing, leave them be, they are not our concern,” offers Frosty.
“Yup, I agree, leave them alone as they have bigger problems,” says D. “But I have a suggestion that as we travel back up the coast we watch for the high speed ocean going cigarette boats loaded with drugs.”
“Are you suggesting we might interfere with the shipment of drugs into USA? I ask with a smirk.
“I am suggesting exactly that,” grins D.
“You realize that the cartels move their money in semi-trailer units, as it is the only way feasible to handle the sheer volume?” says Frosty thoughtfully, as he rubs his chin.
“Wouldn’t it be handy to hijack a semi full of money?” chuckles D. “I bet that would cause one hell of a stir.”
“It would if we happened to release security footage of a rival cartel member doing the hijacking, and some shipments of drugs going to US just happen to disappear.” grins Frosty.
“Oh dear god, here we go. How does this fit in with our assignment?” I ask.
“The money is spoils of war, and the disappearing drug shipments are our moral duty to the citizens of the US.” says D.
“Hmm, you know I can live with that, particularly as it is going to cause a hell of a disruptive drug war for both cartels.” I muse.
“Pack up your equipment boys and lets wander over to the coast and see what we can find to create a ruckus!” chuckles D.
“Beast, you copy all this, time to leave, we’re gonna go make some mayhem,” I say.
“Yeah boss, I been listening, too bad we have to leave, I like this jungle stuff. You know I saw a snake that had to be thirty feet long and big around as a barrel?” he xmits.
“Christ Beast, just make damn good and sure it doesn’t get on board the ship, ok?” I ask
“Little squeamish about snakes are we boss?” he xmits.
“Who taught that perfectly good wolf about such things, D did you do that?” I demand.
“Maybe... you are such a wuss about a little snake,” replies D
“Oh come on, thirty feet and a belly like a barrel is not a little snake, you guys,” I whine.
Frosty is cackling away, D is giggling uncontrollably, and Beast comes by and rubs up against me hard enough to knock me over. He sings a little croon in his throat the way Husky dogs do when they are laughing and happy. The ship rises smoothly, the legs retract into the hull, the AI scans in all directions, and we move off slowly toward the west coast of Columbia.
Chapter 8: Whack a Mole
We position the cloaked ship six hundred miles off the west coast of Columbia and five hundred miles south of Guatemala. This is a vast huge area of the Pacific Ocean and it’s no wonder so few go-fast drug boats get stopped out here. We figure we will hang around her for a few days before moving closer to Guatemala. So we set up a search grid, each sweep is twenty miles across, and one hundred miles long. We make our passes at right angles to the direction the go fast boats will be coming.
The Go fast boats are thirty five feet long; open at the front to speed loading of cocaine and gasoline. In rough seas the front is covered or on clear days a blue tarpaulin in pulled over the boat to make it blend in with the water. The boat is small enough and has a very small radar signature, and almost impossible to see. These boats will carry up to two tons of cocaine worth four hundred million dollars on the street. The Go Fast boats use multiple powerful, reliable, Yamaha outboard motors. They have up to four, three hundred horsepower motors strapped on the stern of the boat. Enough to allow them to hit 150kph on smooth water. They will be at sea for three to four days to make a run.
It’s not as busy as we hoped it would be. After a week of searching we have only contacted one group of five go fast drug boats.
Beast’s comments as he watches the endless ocean also reflect my view.
“Boss, I find this complete lac
k of solid ground more than a bit un-nerving.” he xmits.
“A little nervous about getting wet, Beast?” I grin.
“Getting wet is fine, swimming until out of energy and sinking like a rock, not so much.” he xmits.
While sniping did provide some entertainment for us as we shot at the boats and exploded them with the plasma rifle, it did not justify the long wait period. The ocean is just too large to be able to detect boats this size. There may have been boats coming through this area but we did not detect any but the five. After discussing this we decide that we will move over to the Caribbean Sea between Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, another favorite route for the cartels.
We sure didn’t have to wait long to find what we wanted here. This short six hundred mile journey was very busy with go fast drug boats going to Dominican Republic.
“I have radar contact on eight go fast drug boats,” advises D.
It’s dark outside; we are cloaked and pacing behind the convoy of drug boats.
“Excellent, I’m getting tense as I haven’t shot anything for a couple of days now,” I grin.
“The Plasma Cannon is extended, warmed up and on-line,” replies D. “You gonna need a change of underwear too?”
“Oh aren’t you just the funniest AI system ever” I reply. “Just try not to fly into something in the dark, ok?”
I walk around the hallway to the armaments and magazine area and enter through the sliding blast proof door. Get myself settled in the seat comfortably, adjust the focus and power of the scope image on my terminal screen, and select the rear most go fast boat. The boats are small and move around in the regular swell of the waves. I wait until the plasma cannon AI system reads the motion of the boat and synchs the cannon to it.
“Ok, all set, going to commence firing.” I warn.
I briefly ponder on the occupants of the boats. Fathers away from their families, young single men, maybe young single women for that matter. People, just people from a tough environment trying to make their way in life and get by. Participating is an activity that makes billions off their backs. I ponder briefly...fuck it, they made a choice!
The cross hairs of the sighting system are solid on the boat, I press the fire button, the plasma cannon says “thump”, and the boat explodes. The empty and full gas drums for the thirsty Yamaha engines explode and take everything with them. There may be some bales of cocaine that survive but most are punctured and the seawater will destroy the precious cocaine. The other boats see the explosion and speed up and spread out farther. Some stop completely and try to become invisible in the waves. They likely would have succeeded to if we had not had the tracking radar, and an infra-red heat signature lock on them. We explode the two stationary boats with one shot each. Then continue on after the ones running to get away. They can run but there is nowhere to hide. I can target and hit the boats from a mile away as easy as can be. Just let the cannon AI system have a few seconds to read and plot the movement of the boat so the cross hairs stays steady when I press the fire button. No problem, they do not stand a chance. I dispatch the remaining five go fast drug boats.
“You know that is a hell of a loss to the drug cartel to lose eight boats each one carrying two tons of cocaine. That has to be in the range of a three billion dollar loss. That’s way beyond the numbers that I am used to. I can’t even comprehend that.” I say.
“It’s going to sting the cartel very bad and there is going to be some serious hell to pay over the loss,” replies Frosty.
“Are you suggesting that there will be a general turn over in the human resources area of the cartel?” smiles D.
“Yup, that would be a very fair assessment, heads are gonna roll!” chuckles Frosty.
“We have a weather disturbance coming in from the North West,” advises the ship AI. “I advise that we move to Puerto Rico into a remote area in Yauco and ride out the inclement weather.”
We are all in agreement, especially Beast as he knows he gets to do parameter security patrol around the ship in the jungle. One of his favorite tasks, probably look for snakes to tease me about. And he gets to be on solid ground.
The weather disturbance is an understatement, more like a bloody monsoon. It blew with up to eighty mile per hour gales, rained like there was no tomorrow and as if we were under a waterfall, eased up and then changed its mind and got worse. All told it grounded all activities for three days. Man, if that was a disturbance I would sure as hell hate to see a real tropical storm.
“The nature of weather disturbances is that they gain a lot of power while they are over warm water and really are more of a storm when they come ashore. But they peter out quickly when they get over land and lose their power.” says D.
“Well where I’m from in the Midwest we measure storms in hours not in days, so it seemed long and powerful to me.” I reply.
D and her sisters are busy monitoring cartel communications looking for information on semi’s full of money coming out of Mexico, as that is going to be our parting shot to this assignment dealing with drug cartels. We can afford to travel slowly and comfortably north west to get back into Mexico. There are plenty of flights of low flying aircraft in this area, no doubt drug related business and Federal agents trying to catch them. We want nothing to do with either party so we go about leaving the area as quickly and quietly as possible; we can hang around in the remote sections of Mexico as need be until we identify a cash shipment.
Chapter 9: Cash on the Barrel
I think we have been here for about a week doing maintenance on the ship, robots, gear and general items when D calls a meeting.
“The sisters have established that a Los Zetas cash shipment is planned from Chihuahua to Durango a distance of some three hundred and fifty miles, using a variety of highways available. This sounds like an ideal opportunity for us make mayhem, with the potential of up to five hundred million in cash, a huge disruption to the cartels, and the possibility of setting off a drug cartel/gang war. All well and good, but how do we handle the logistic of such an endeavor? So while we fly along quietly and invisible, we need to ponder and plan this operation out.
“D, can our clamshell winch lift handle the weight of a forty foot loaded semi-trailer, say in the twenty thousand pound range?” I ask, scratching my head.
“No, the ship is not designed for cargo transportation, that’s outside the design criteria weight limit for both the lift and the ship.” replies D.
“Ok, how about ten thousand pounds?’
“If we spread the weight around within the ship, yes it can. And if the lift doesn’t have to lift all ten thousand pounds at one time, yes.”
“So it would seem that we need to remove the money in pallets from the trailer and bring them into the ship and place them at strategic spots.” states Frosty.
“Dandy, how do we stop the truck, so we can get in the back and move the money?” I ask
“And don’t forget the two carloads of cartel gunman charged with protecting the money. They are not going to just hand it over if you say please.” adds Frosty.
“This may be a damn site harder than we initially envisioned.” I mutter.
“I know how we might stop the semi.” xmits Beast.
“Yeah?” I reply
“Yeah, toss a wasp nest in the semi cab; you’ll have guys jumping out in all directions.”
We stare at Beast; he sits and looks back at each of us. “Well?” he xmits. “Humans hate being bitten by bees, wasps, or any stinging insect, but wasps are particularly painful and nasty buggers.”
“Where did you learn all this stuff, and how come I never thought of this idea.” I shake my head.
“Choking, toxic smoke will also get the guys out of any vehicle, truck, cars and incapacitate them long enough to be dealt with.” says D. “But insects are a dandy idea Beast, good one!”
“Thanks”
“Could we incorporate the choking toxic smoke with a remote detonated magnetic grenade that would punch th
rough the roof of a car or truck?” asks Frosty.
“I don’t see any reason why not,” replies D.
“How long would this gas render them unconscious?” I ask
“How long do you need to unload the money and get it into the ship,” replies D?
“So if we put a gas mine on the trailing car, the semi-tractor, and the lead car, then detonate them trailing car first, semi, and then the lead car. And perhaps spray down a patch of oil behind the trailing car wreck and in front of the leading car wreck, and set the oil on fire, we would have a window of 15 to 20 minutes while Mongo carries out the pallets of money and puts them in the ship. Then we are gone.” I speculate.
“And why are we just gassing the gunman in the cars? They would shoot us in an instant and feel good about it. Let’s just use a straight explosive charge and blow them to hell.” says Frosty.
“Yup, good point, but I might argue that for the semi crew it would be better if they could stop the rig rather than crashing. It will take less time to get the money out if the trailer is not rolled up in a ball.” I reply.
“I agree, and I have the portable backpack flame thrower to set the road on fire to block traffic. As a matter of fact I can use it on the wrecked cars to make a dandy big fire.” adds Frosty.
And with that comment we had the basics of our operating plan as to how we figured we would hi-jack a semi full of money from the cartel. The spoils of the drug war we called it.
During our travelling time to Mexico we went over the plan again and fleshed out more details at the lower levels looking for faults or areas that need modifications. By the time we were north of Durango the plan was complete. We gathered on the VR deck and ran and reran the simulation walk through to groom the process.
Our next task was a very thorough examination of the route looking for the optimum area to make the hit on the money semi. We found several and accordingly we rated them in terms of priority one to three with three being the least desirable, but still a good spot on the highway for such nefarious activities. D and her sisters were monitoring the cartel communications so close we knew what they were eating for meals and who had bad gas. The day prior to the hi-jack we made a final pass over the selected hi-jack spots on the highway and did the last weapons and equipment checks to ensure all was in order.
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