Seawolf End Game

by Cliff Happy

  Masrata shook the offered hand and then eyed the rabble in the bed of the truck. Four men dressed in filthy suriyahs—the Libyan name for the dress-like gown common among Arab men.

  “Who are they?” Masrata asked, anxious to skip the pleasantries.

  Andrew’s smile stayed in place, and Masrata noticed the arms merchant wasn’t even sweating. “You said I would need drivers. I wasn’t certain how many,” he replied.

  Masrata nodded and asked, “My money?”

  “It’s waiting for me to deliver it to your Swiss account, my friend, just as soon as you show me the merchandise.” Andrew looked perfectly at ease, which was impossible considering the fact the entire country was in anarchy. Masrata had lived here his entire life, he knew the country well, and he knew the situation was desperate. Just how Andrew could appear so calm was a mystery, but he had always been this way. Always calm, always self-assured, always in charge of the situation.

  “Everything is already loaded,” Masrata assured him and gestured toward the open gate. Dmitri motioned to one of the men in the bed of the Toyota. The Libyan immediately got behind the wheel of the small truck and followed Andrew, Masrata and Dmitri through the gate.

  With the NATO air campaign hammering the military forces being used against the Libyan people, the country’s army bases had become death traps, and Masrata was fairly certain American satellites were doing their best to keep track of all key facilities, such as the arsenal they were walking into.

  As they passed through the fence, Masrata saw the long rows of low, broad concrete bunkers covered in several feet of sand to provide some camouflage and additional protection. Not that the sand or reinforced concrete would have withstood a modern airstrike. They’d been built long before precision guided munitions had become widespread, and Masrata wondered why NATO hadn’t targeted these bunkers already.

  The vast majority of the bunkers contained small arms ammunition and artillery shells—things the arms merchant had—years earlier—been interested in. However, Masrata knew Andrew no longer coveted such mundane things as rifle bullets. These items were valuable, but only in huge quantities, and such amounts were hard to move and required greater risk. No, Andrew wasn’t interested in such things any more. He wanted only the high-value items; the merchandise that was easily transported and had a huge payoff.

  “You said my merchandise is already loaded?” Andrew asked as the Toyota truck slowly followed them while they walked toward the large tractor-trailer rig parked in front of one of the bunkers.

  “Yes,” Masrata assured the American. Andrew had never admitted his nationality, but his accent was pure American. “The base is all but deserted, and I was able to find a couple of soldiers hiding in one of the barracks to load the pallets. They are guarding the truck as we speak.” The forklift was parked just inside the entrance of the bunker.

  Masrata looked toward Andrew who was still smiling but quiet. Masrata understood the reason. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else involved. Witnesses were always a threat.

  “Not to worry,” Masrata assured his longtime associate. “They are nobodies.”

  * * *

  “Andrew” wasn’t his real name, although he used many as he managed his global interests. His real name was Martin Fischer, and he didn’t like complications such as the unwanted witnesses, but he was pleased with what he saw. The tractor-trailer rig appeared to be in good shape, certainly good enough to get him, Dmitri, and a driver to Tobruk where a coastal freighter would be waiting. He’d expected to need several trucks for the trip, but Masrata—as always—had done well and found a rig in good working order. The three soldiers tightening down cargo straps securing the pallets of munitions were an unexpected problem, but hardly an insurmountable one.

  Dmitri stepped quietly to the side. Martin lowered his sunglasses as he stepped into the open magazine. He felt his skin tingle at the sight. It would have been nice to take it all, but he reminded himself of one of his favorite maxims: “The pigs get fat, the hogs get slaughtered.” He’d been in business this long because he knew when enough was enough. Unlike Masrata who’d made millions selling state-of-the-art weaponry to Martin over the years but was again penniless.

  Martin was aware of Masrata’s money problems and had used this knowledge to make one final score from the Libyan general before the weapons store that had been Libya for so many years was potentially closed with the arrival of a new government. The fact that Masrata was broke wasn’t a surprise. He had unusual appetites, and Martin had helped the general acquire his particular needs over the years as part of their mutually beneficial arrangement.

  “Splendid,” Martin announced appreciatively. “What about the gripstocks and infrared receivers?”

  Masrata led him to another pallet he’d brought from one of the base’s armories. The general pulled a tarp off the pallet to reveal two dozen launch systems. He then pointed at two large suitcase-like boxes. “The test equipment is in there.”

  “Always a man of your word,” Martin said with delight. “Have your men place them in my truck.” He returned to the Toyota, clapping his hands to get the attention of the four Libyan drivers he’d brought along. They were poor beggars, all of them desperate to feed their families, and more than willing to do whatever Martin asked, considering the money he was paying them. “Let’s go!” he barked in Arabic.

  The men scrambled from the back of the truck and removed the rolled-up fabric cover in the bed of the truck. Made from dozens of hastily sewn together white linen bed sheets, the complete assemblage was large enough to cover the entire bed of the tractor trailer. A large red—freshly painted—cross had been added to the top of the covering to hopefully fool any NATO aircraft overhead. Martin reached into the cab of the Toyota, removed his briefcase and set it up on the hood as Masrata stood beside him. Dmitri stayed in the shadows, watching everything and protecting Martin’s back, as always.

  In the briefcase was a laptop as well as an Explorer 700 portable satellite receiver to provide him broadband Internet service anywhere. Martin looked over at Masrata, noticing the fifty-something year-old Libyan sweating profusely. He was still dressed in the uniform of a general, which Martin thought was a bit strange. Then again, Masrata had always liked his flashy uniforms. The general’s vanity was just another vice Martin had been able to exploit over the years.

  Once on-line, it took Martin a few seconds to log into one of his business accounts and set up the transaction. All that was needed was an account to send it to. He turned to Masrata. He didn’t particularly like the general, but he felt he understood him. The general was a businessman. His entire government had been corrupt—like most governments Martin dealt with—and the general had seen that his only path to success was by cutting out his own little piece of the pie. It made Masrata predictable, but also trustworthy as far as Martin was concerned. As long as Martin fulfilled his end of every deal, Masrata had been dependable. A very satisfactory business arrangement.

  Too bad it was about to end.

  “Okay, General, just type in where you want the money to go, hit the enter key, and it’s all yours.”

  Masrata wiped his sweaty hands on his uniform trousers. Martin thought he looked a bit more nervous than usual, but considering Libya was collapsing around him, he thought it not odd that Masrata appeared a bit desperate. The general typed in the bank routing and account numbers, then hit enter. As the computer processed the request, he looked at Martin.

  “I was afraid you would kill me,” he confided.

  Martin understood the feeling. Betrayal and treachery were part and parcel of the business he’d chosen years earlier after leaving his former life as a trader at the New York Stock Exchange. Wall Street had been rife with deceit, and the lessons he’d learned there trading in stocks and bonds had transferred nicely to his current business. But not all lessons had come from Wall Street. “Cheating customers is hardly a good strategy for expanding one’s business,” Martin confided, remember
ing a Yale Business School professor’s advice.

  Martin closed up the satellite link, placed it in the briefcase, returned it to the cab of the small truck, and then turned to face the three soldiers standing nervously outside the hangar.

  “What are your plans for getting out of here?” Martin asked curiously, not really caring. With a new regime coming to power and Masrata’s long history of brutal treatment of the Libyan people, he would be lucky to escape Libya alive. He’d killed thousands of people within the last few months trying to suppress the rebellion, and God only knew how many people he’d murdered over the decades.

  “That is hardly your affair, my friend.”

  “True enough,” Martin responded and checked his watch. There was a brief window where there were no satellites overhead. Just two hours, and by the next pass he wanted to be long gone. Of course, he reminded himself as he checked the skies around them, there were spy drones that could already be orbiting his position, ready to unleash a Hellfire missile into the bunker killing all of them.

  Such were the risks of business.

  The white sheets and the red cross weren’t the best camouflage, but they would have to suffice. Martin motioned toward his four men. They were nervous. Untrusting. They were smart. He gestured for them to get into the trucks. Two climbed into the cab of the rig and fired it up while the other two tentatively got into the back of the Toyota. Martin then turned his attention to the three Libyan soldiers standing just inside the shade created by the ammunition bunker.

  He didn’t care for senseless violence. Murder was a dirty business that often had unforeseen repercussions, so he avoided it when possible. But the three Libyan soldiers had no loyalty to Masrata. They were simple conscripts who were literally trembling with fear. NATO teams were already in the country securing key weapons facilities, and it had been through a combination of luck, his connection with Masrata, and a close friend in Washington that had allowed Martin to plan this final score in Libya before folding up his tents and moving on. Those NATO teams would be arriving here soon, and these men would talk. Martin allowed an unhappy sigh to escape his lips. “Are those three soldiers important to you?”

  Masrata shook his head. “I found them loitering on the base. They are deserters who ran from their units when the fighting started.” Masrata said this last with disgust, as if the three young men trying to save their skins were somehow less noble than what Masrata was doing. “I told them they were traitors and unless they did what I told them, I would have them shot.”

  Martin turned his head toward Dmitri. A barely perceptible nod. Hardly a gesture at all.

  “Can I give you a lift anywhere, General?” he asked as he turned his back on the three unfortunate soldiers.

  The staccato burst from the FN SCAR caused Masrata to jump and turn abruptly as Dmitri opened fire, killing the three hapless deserters with a short burst. The big Lithuanian then stepped closer and delivered a coup de grace to each of the men, ensuring they were dead.

  Masrata removed a package of cigarettes, his hands trembling. Martin understood. The general feared he’d outlived his own usefulness. Which he probably had, but Martin knew the general would never talk; and besides, the odds of his escaping Libya were remote.

  Andrew raised a lighter, steadied his longtime supplier’s shaky hand, and lit the cigarette. “Get in.”

  Masrata climbed into the passenger seat while Dmitri got into the bed of the truck. Once more, Martin drove, returning the general to the shade of the tin guard shack outside the ammunition dump. Martin pulled up to the small building and looked at Masrata. The general hesitated, afraid he would be murdered like the others.

  “General, if I was going to kill you, I’d have done it before I paid you five hundred thousand dollars,” Andrew pointed out.

  Masrata nodded and offered a sweaty hand. Martin shook it. “Best of luck to you, Amadou,” he said in goodbye, using the general’s first name.

  “Thank you.”

  Dmitri slipped into the cab beside Martin, the assault rifle between his legs. The general withdrew to the guard shack and Martin pulled away.

  Dmitri turned up the air conditioner and then glanced back to make certain the tractor-trailer rig was following them. He then turned his attention to the road ahead. They drove in silence for several minutes, Dmitri watching the skies for any hint of NATO aircraft and the road ahead for the telltale signs of an ambush. Libya was in chaos, like many of the places Martin travelled to.

  After they’d cleared the base, Dmitri broke the silence. “You should have killed him, Martin,” Dmitri said in heavily-Lithuanian-accented English.

  Dmitri was one of the few people in the business who knew Martin’s real name. It was necessary, since he went nowhere without the Lithuanian giant. Martin shook his head, “It’s bad for business. The last thing we need is for our other friends to believe we aren’t to be trusted.”

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  Copyright: © 2013 by Cliff Happy

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Edition: August 2013

  Cover Design: Angela Oltman @ angieocreations.com

  Ebook Formatting: Pilcrowphile Productions

  Contents

  Seawolf End Game

  Books by Cliff Happy

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