Convoluted Journey (The Mercury Black Authority Book 1)

by Finian Blake

  Noah was telling the officer about the Jack story. Creed heard the name ‘Jack” again and screamed, “fuck Jack” at the top of his lungs, as the police took Creed away.

  “Buck, are they going to evaluate him? He is super scary.”

  “We will hold him for observation, but it depends on the psychiatrist. It’s safe to say that they will want some time with him.” The police officer followed the others down the hall.

  Noah closed the door lighting a cigarette his hands were shaking. He knew that he went too far this time, and somehow he had to repair the damage. As he finished the smoke, there was a knock at the door. He looked carefully out the eyehole in the door. It was Buck again.

  Noah opened the door, “Jesus, Noah you put him clean around the bend. I thought he was going to kill you.” All the color had drained from Bucks face. “You went into that fagot routine. Creed is out of control homophobic, and he really did want to kill you. That was not just a figure of speech.”

  “He was right out over the edge.” Something clicked with Noah. His main talent was thinking on his feet.

  “Buck, do you know who he reports to directly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have the recorder on?” Noah waved Buck into the adjoining room. “Is the recorder on in here?”

  “There are no pickups in here, just receivers.”

  Noah relaxed. “Can you access the recordings?”

  “Yeah, they are right here.” Buck was wondering where this was going.

  “Let me run this by you.” Noah put his arm around Buck’s shoulder. “Erase the tapes, and tell them that Creed ordered you to turn off the recorders. He came on demanding the cash be delivered directly to him, and when I insisted on going through you, he went nuts. He went clean off his rocker during a negotiation and attacked both hotel security and the police. Tell them that we need to keep him incommunicado for thirty days to preserve the OP. All you want to do is preserve the OP.”

  “We do have the police and the hotel report.” Buck went silent. He thought for a few minutes. He grabbed Noah’s shirt.

  “This can work. Creed had a case of greed and wanted to skim the operation. When he couldn’t Creed went off his rocker. All we need to do is keep him incommunicado for thirty days to protect a critical operation.”

  “You did everything here that you could to prevent the operation from being exposed,” Buck smiled. “You just couldn’t stop that maniac. All you could do is stand back and be sure that things did not go public.”

  “I can go with that. Can you?” Buck held his hands together as if praying. “Head out of town tomorrow at zero nine hundred. You will have to trust that I can do this.”

  “You’ve got it. We will do our part. As far as we are concerned it never happened. Everything goes ahead as planned and we will cover all expenses as discussed. All deposits will be made as you direct.” Noah hesitated and went back into Buck’s room. He took a piece of hotel stationary and started writing.

  “I have an idea that should help negotiations,” he handed the list to Buck. After reading the list Buck nodded his head.

  “I think that I can have most of this to the Ark by morning.” Buck walked over to the recorder, removed the cassette handing it to Noah. “I assume you can safely dispose of this. Now get some sleep, I have some territory to cover.”

  “Shit this is complicated,” Noah went back into the room talking to himself closing the adjoining door. Rolling into bed with luck he would get about six hours sleep in a bed.

  Noah awoke at four thirty to a knock on the adjoining door. Buck held his finger to his lips motioning for silence. He gave Noah thumbs up. He walked in the room and handed Noah a fat envelope.

  “These are the map references and frequencies. I managed a briefing on the buyers, but you need to finish the negotiations on the price. It’s not yet set in stone.” He wrote down a phone number. “Call me at this number. It is a secure line God speed.”

  “See you in seven,” Noah closed the door and locked it.

  It was 04:50. He didn’t dare go back to sleep, so Noah hit the shower packing and was down at the front desk by five fifteen. Noah caught a shuttle over to Everywhere Air, to check on the servicing of the Ark making arrangements with customs to access the Ark. By six fifteen, he had cleared in-bond and started servicing the Ark. It took 45 minutes. By seven o’clock, a white van marked catering pulled up to the loading ramp. As Noah walked to the rear of the aircraft, two men exited the van.

  “We have a catering special from Buck.”

  “I’ll check with customs and drop the ramp,” Noah needed an ace and had one now.

  “No need, we have cleared everything. Drop the ramp and we will put the load on.” They had three D containers, which were large cardboard boxes. An extra-large cooler accompanied the boxes with the whole load taking only a few minutes to board. They handed Noah a form to sign and he scribbled ‘BUCK’.

  The ‘Ark’ was ready to go and everybody but Frank was on board. The relief volunteered to do his walk around and Noah was starting to get worried. It was eight fifty-five when he saw a van pulling up to the plane with Frank in the passenger’s seat. He grabbed his bag and hustled into the Ark.

  Noah was at the door, “Good morning Frank.”

  “Not one word. Not one damn word!” Frank threw his bag in the rack and went up to the flight deck throwing himself into the engineer’s seat.

  “Don’t be so pissed Frank. We called your room and when nobody answered we thought you were on your way out here. Where in the hell were you anyway?”

  “I was in the shower.”

  “Did you run into a vampire last night?” Noah laughed as the pilot pointed out several hickies on his neck.

  “It’s a left over from the Inn,” Frank said in a short manner. Nobody pursued it.

  They were in the air and heading south a little after nine.

  “We need to arrive a little after two. Our radio contact won’t switch on until then. Keep out of their air space until we have contact. They will be about 75 miles in from the coast. This one might be tricky. I don’t think that the local government wants the rebels to have automatic weapons. How about staying on the flight deck until we finish negotiating? Here are the frequencies and approach patterns.” Noah handed the relief an envelope. We will be going in about fifty miles from the Honduran border so we need to be careful.” Noah tapped the engineer lightly on the shoulder, “Come on down to the galley and I’ll pump some coffee into you.”

  “Good deal, I’ll be right down.” Frank went down to the galley, carefully taking the steaming cup of coffee from Noah so tired that he was unsure of his hands. Frank went to the far corner of the galley. “We played truth or consequences.” He opened his shirt, and there were numerous red bite marks on his body.

  “I won’t be taking my shirt off for a while.” He buttoned his shirt and started to sip his coffee. “I didn’t get out of her room until eight this morning. Sheila is a DA’s assistant in Cook County. She made me promise to see her after the trip.”

  “Did you tell her where we are going? We are not in a position to brag,” Noah was more than a little nervous about this one. “If she asks we were delivering machinery to Panama City.”

  “You’re not going to threaten to kill her or threaten me? You got rid of those other guys in a pretty horrible fashion.” Frank was very nervous.

  “Do you really think that I would do that?” Noah was a little peeved that Frank would even think of such a thing. “Frank, have I ever threatened anyone? Have I threatened you? Look Frank, those guys that I killed in Manchester were serious bad guys and I just barely stopped their murderous plans. They were guilty of torture and rape.”

  Noah continued, “You or any of the other guys are free to walk away at any of the stops. You will be paid for the services you performed plus your bonus to that point. I do not threaten people. It is one of the dumbest things that you can do.” Noah ran his hand through his hair. “If
anything, I keep any nasty activities confined to nasty people.”

  “You told me not to tell her anything,” Frank was not fully convinced.

  “Frank, if you feel that way when we get back to Ontario we will pay you off and you’re done or you can get off in Nicaragua. I’ll have a talk with the others and see if they want to continue.” Noah was thinking that only one run would be the best thing. Each successive run increased the risk by ten percent and there were way too many strange things popping up on this run. He would go back to his family and find another way to make a living. Noah was not sure exactly of the amount, but there would be a nice payoff. He could square things off with the ranch and still have three years reserve, but he would have to find a job that was more or less normal.

  “We can call off the other two runs, so when we hit Ontario, we’re finished. Everybody is paid off and we are done.

  Frank went up to the flight deck and told them what Noah had done out over the Atlantic and why. He told them what he was doing last night. He related what he and Noah had just finished talking about earlier. Noah lit a cigarette listening in on the conversation. The other three told the engineer to stop thinking with his dick. Noah sat back and let the conversation die out. The quartet started to ask questions and Noah held up his hand to hold the questions.

  “This is your decision. Talk it out and let me know what you decide an hour before we get there. If you cannot make up your mind, I will tell them this is a one timer. We have a planeload of weapons, so we need to finish this run. You will get your pay and your bonus. Let me know what you are going to do.”

  The discussion in the cockpit became less heated and Noah called up to the pilot.

  “Let the relief take the controls and come down.”

  “Hey Noah are you serious about only one run?”

  “I am serious as a heart attack. Without you guys up front this operation is a bust.” Noah wasn’t trying to sell it. He was speaking factually.

  “We can do it without Frank. Three would be a rough trip, but if you could relieve on the engineers panel it will work, and we would give you some help in back when we are on the ground.” The pilot sounded like he wanted to do all three runs.

  “This is your call. If you want to do it with three I will pitch in. Hey Frank, I just need to know what you are going to do when we hit the ground. I need to negotiate the deal with these people and it would be nice to know what I can or cannot say.” Noah was starting to think that this deal might go through. If it did he could walk away with enough to retire from this line of work permanently. He would have a twenty percent share of Susan’s deal and finish off the ranch in Antelope valley plus he would have a five-year cushion in the bank. It would be a long stretch and Pat would be pissed, but he could pull it off. After all, it was for his family. The quartet called him up to the flight deck.

  “Frank’s out, but the rest of us are in. This is a solid commitment. We are on until the end.” The engineer turned back to the console and shuffled some papers.

  “I can’t handle it.”

  “I would just as soon have everybody, but we are good with three.” Noah slapped him on the back. “Fifteen thousand plus whatever the bonus is for this run, am I right?”

  “Yeah,” the answer sounded a little dejected. “I just can’t handle it.”

  “You said that before Frank which is as good of a reason as any. We are good and that is all that needs to be said.”

  Noah went down to the crew cabin. He had not looked at the briefing. He opened the envelope hoping for something that would give him an edge. Juan and Jesus Baca were the contacts heading up the rebels in this area and were communist backed. According to the report, they were ineffective having no popular support. There was a long list enumerating what piss poor leaders they were. He could not see how this bullshit report was going to be much help. If these people were that stupid how could they rate three planeloads of weapons and how could they maintain a base that was in open country? Someone that wanted to please his superior wrote this report. Noah knew that story: ‘Tell me anything as long as it is what I want to hear’. Juan and Jesus knew about the reinforced roads. They had attracted somebody’s attention and they could successfully move 30,000 pounds through the difficult terrain. These were not incompetent people.

  Frank called down from the flight deck. “We have them on the radio. We do a hard right in ten minutes. After that, it will be under thirty minutes to touch down.” Noah came up to the flight deck.

  “Do we have the coast in sight yet?”

  “It is just on the western horizon.” The relief was at the controls and the pilot was navigating. They did their right turn as planned and the coast seemed to jump at them. As they cleared the coast, the pilot was calling out heading and altitude. They were flying over some fairly rough territory. The relief called out. “I have the runway in sight on our heading.” The road was a slight uphill. At the last minute the pilot and copilot both had to pull back hard, with the Ark settling down with a thump. Frank slowed the aircraft gradually. He saw a wide spot at the end of the road. A pickup truck pulled in front of the Ark and drove toward fifteen other pickup trucks. Frank turned the plane one hundred and eighty degrees before they reached the other pickups and fired up the APU shutting down the turbo prop engines.

  Noah opened the door lowering the steps. He walked down the stairs and sat on the first step watching a Toyota light pickup race toward him. He recognized, Juan and Jesus from their pictures. One was cursing in Spanish with the other trying to stop him.

  Noah looked up, “No habla.”

  “He is saying that you stopped too soon.” The other man spoke reasonably good English. “We are ready over there. You need to move over by the trucks.”

  “I am sorry but we did not understand. We are here now would you like us to leave. We need to turn around for the takeoff and the plane is very heavy, so this looked like the best spot to turn around. Is there any chance that we could work here?”

  “No you must move over there now!” From the picture, it was Jesus talking.

  “Then we will leave.” Noah walked over and caught Frank’s eye. He spun his finger in the air indicating a start. He pointed straight ahead down the runway.

  “What are you doing senor?” Jesus placed his hand on the hand that Noah was holding up.

  “We go now!” Noah nodded and Frank started to turn number four.

  “Wait, I think we can work here.” He motioned to Juan. “Bring the trucks here.”

  Juan hesitated and Jesus held both hands out to him, “Por favor.” Juan drove off to the other pickup trucks. Noah gave the cut signal to the flight crew.

  “We should talk.”

  “Yes we need to talk,” Jesus had deep concern in his voice. “I believe you have something for us.”

  “Yes we do, but first we must discuss price.” Noah made it a point to talk softly. “I am told you wish to pay in drugs.”

  “Yes we do not have any cash. We only have what we grow. You are blocking the road so we must hurry. May we unload while we negotiate?”

  “As a sign of good faith you may unload. Let me open the ramp.”

  Noah walked up the stairs motioning for Jesus and the others to follow him into the cargo bay which was full of crates. Noah wanted to have him see the extent of what was in the bay. He walked to the control panel lowering the ramp. The stacks of crates were impressive. Three large cardboard boxes and one large cooler were stacked at the end of the ramp. The first of the pickup trucks was starting to back up to the ramp. Noah asked Jesus to move the boxes out of the way. The rest of the trucks pulled to the side waiting to load up. 30 men stopped at the bottom of the ramp. Noah loosened the cargo net while they looked at the crates. It was decided that they would take the weapons out of the crates to reduce the amount of space needed while Noah rolled the first pallet down the ramp.

  Noah and Jesus watched as the work progressed. Noah estimated that if they took the weapons out of
the crates each truck would make three runs. They had plenty of time to negotiate. Noah walked down the ramp leaning on the boxes.

  “The weapons are the main part of the cargo. I decided to throw something else in.”

  “Are we talking about some special weapon that we can’t do without?” Jesus’s voice had a hint of contempt in it.

  Without a word Noah opened the cooler which was full of ice and antibiotics. Jesus’s face lit up. Noah opened up the other boxes which also contained an assortment of medical supplies, two field surgical kits, portable water filtration kits, anti-malarial pills, ointments and dressings. Jesus’s eyes lit up big time.

  “You know what we need. We cannot get medical supplies out here. We have a doctor, but he cannot get the proper things to help the people.”

  “I thought you might put this to good use. Please destroy the containers so they do not know where they came from.” The work of removing the crates was proceeding quickly. They were stacking the crates and removing the tops. We are ready to load.” Noah motioned for Jesus and Juan to move forward, “Let’s talk some business.”

  “Yes we will talk,” Jesus and his brother sat down in the crew cabin.

  Noah passed out some bottled water and took a seat on the cooler as the heat in the cabin was starting to climb. He opened the water taking a sip. The brothers downed their water quickly. Noah took their empties pulling two more bottles from the cooler sitting back down again. Juan said something very rapidly in Spanish to Jesus. Noah could pick out a few words: hablar, agua, and something that sounded like idiot.

  “Would you care to interpret?”

  “No, it was not very flattering. Let us say that he was wondering why they would send a negotiator that cannot speak Spanish?”

  “That word that sounded like idiot. Am I close?” Noah asked the question calmly. Jesus hesitated briefly wanting to choose his words carefully.

  “My brother gets excited frequently. He is the passion in our movement. I am sure he does not wish to insult you.” Noah was about to reply when Frank called down from the flight deck.

  “Is it ok to come down? I have to take a crap.”