by Warren Esby
“I don’t understand why I need permission to walk my dog on the beach.”
“I will check with Ahmad Noorzai to see what level of security you are to have. He hasn’t told us yet. Please follow me.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m going back to the cabin. You can have Noorzai come and talk to me there,” I said as I walked by him, daring him to shoot me which I knew he wouldn’t unless and until Noorzai told him to.
Noorzai knocked on my door a few minutes later and I came out. Anya was up, but had just gone into the bathroom and had not yet dressed. Even though she likes to sleep in the nude, I told her to wear a bathrobe when she was up and around because I hadn’t had a chance to determine where the inevitable cameras were located and didn’t know if I would be able to detect any or all of them. They were entitled to my work, but not a free peep show.
“You should not have wandered about without permission. You could have been shot,” he began.
“Why?”
“Because, it is not allowed without permission.”
“I don’t understand. I need permission to walk my dog on the beach? Do you want her to go to the bathroom in the cabin? What’s going on?”
“It is security. We have guards. You could have been mistaken for an unauthorized visitor.”
“You mean I could have been mistaken for someone who swam here in the middle of the night across the ocean with his dog?”
“I do not object to you walking your dog. I just didn’t have time to introduce you last night and we need to keep this facility secure.”
“Okay. But I hope you will introduce us to everyone as soon as possible so that neither Anya nor I am confronted again. This appears to be a small enough island so that we shouldn’t be confined to only a part of it.”
“Well you are new. We have to get used to you.”
“I thought we were on the same side now. If you didn’t know if you could trust me, you should not have brought me here.”
“I do trust you. I’m just a little careful about Americans. We have had problems with our American operations, and I am a little suspicious.”
“Are you suspicious of Russians? I thought you checked me out with the Russians?” I wanted to make him think of me as a Russian ally and not as an American mercenary.
“Yes, we did. Okay. Maybe I’m being a little too cautious.”
“Especially since we can’t get off the island, and we can’t communicate with anyone while we are here and are at your mercy. We are not fish and cannot swim away, and the island is too small for us to hide. Look. Why don’t you relax? I’ll help you. You’ll have no cause for alarm. I will get paid and we will both have success working together.” I held out my hand to him and he shook it.
“Now, there is something else we need to discuss. You need to provide Anya with the appropriate dress. If you require a burka, please get her one. Also, I do want access to a boat as you promised, so we can go water skiing to relax and get some sun. Since you will no doubt object to Anya wearing her bikini bathing suit, she will remain covered up until we are away from land. But she is my wife, and I like to look at her outside of a burka.”
“But you can do that within the cabin.”
“Can I? Without others looking at us and listening to us. I don’t think so,” I said, letting him know that I was sure that there were cameras and listening devices installed. He would have disappointed me if they hadn’t been there.
“What do you mean? How would we see what you are doing inside?”
“Listen, Noorzai. I’m not stupid. I know you are concerned with security, but you don’t have to worry about me. I produced for the Russians and I can produce for you. But I know how this game is played.” I was essentially telling him that I was sure that our cabin was bugged and he knew it. I waited to see if he denied it. He didn’t respond to what I said.
Instead, he said, “I was not planning in letting you go water skiing without one of my people on board.”
“The answer to that is no. She can’t ski in a burka. And besides, we may want to engage in other private activities, and we don’t want company while we do, especially since we don’t feel we have enough privacy to engage in those activities in our cabin or on the beach.”
I could see him digesting what I had said. He responded, “Okay. I’ll think about it. Let me have some of our technicians evaluate the material you sent to us. That should make me more comfortable, if I think it is what we need. As far as your wife is concerned, a dress that covers her arms and legs and a scarf covering her head will be acceptable and less cumbersome than a burka, just so long as it is not revealing or tight. If she doesn’t have one, let me know and I will get her a burka until you go back to Freeport in three weeks. Now come up to the main house for breakfast in about twenty minutes and I will introduce you to the rest of the people here.”
Chapter 36
Anya didn’t have an appropriate sundress, but she did have a pair of sweat pants and a sweat shirt which she wore with a scarf up to breakfast, but we knew it would be too warm to dress like that in the middle of the day outside, so a burka it was going to be. We met most of the rest of the occupants over breakfast. There were eight guards in all. They told us that they got every fourth week off and two would go back to Freeport or Nassau on the weekly boat. That meant that only six armed guards would be present at any time, but at least one of them was on duty at all times of the day and night. They all lived in the large guest house. Three Mid-Eastern women, who always wore burkas, lived in one of the cabins, and a Chinese scientist and his wife lived in the other. In the main house, in addition to Noorzai, lived his assistant and three other Pakistanis, one of whom also had a wife and a Russian communications technician.
The three Pakistanis worked in the lab and the Pakistani’s wife, and one of the other Muslim women living in the cabin was responsible for cooking and cleaning. In addition to the three Pakistanis, the Chinese man and his wife and the other two Muslim women worked in the laboratory that was located in the commercial building. We were told all this as the introductions were made over breakfast. As I assessed the laboratory workers over the next three weeks, I realized that although they were all good technically, they were not particularly creative. They could replicate any work that was shown to them if given suitable instructions, but they were not particularly capable of coming up with any new ideas on their own. That must have been the responsibility of others like Dong working at locations off the island. It was apparent why they had thought they needed me.
After breakfast, Noorzai and his assistant took us on a tour. It was fairly brief. The commercial looking building contained a very well equipped laboratory with the necessary containment facilities for handling deadly viruses. As we were shown around, the assistant did the talking, explaining what everything was and all the rules, such as who was allowed where, when we were allowed to be in the building, what times it would be locked, what time we needed to arrive, and so on. He was a very officious and self-important individual. I took a dislike to him immediately and could tell by Anya’s body language that she did too.
Parked in the back of the building were what looked like two very large toy airplanes. I recognized them as drones immediately. I asked Noorzai who operated them, and he said his assistant and two other operators who were due to arrive as soon as there was a need.
He then complemented me in a back-handed way by saying, “We are using an operating system for these that our friends the Russians gave us. They told us it was developed by the Americans and provided to them by one of their friends in the United States.” He smiled when he said it, and I made a slight bow in his direction as if to acknowledge the compliment he hadn’t verbalized.
He continued, “These drones can easily reach Miami from here and come back. We have tested them by having them fly the same distance out to sea and back. The Iranians supplied the drones which they were able to design and build after capturing some of the American drones that are forever intr
uding on their air space and ours in Pakistan. The Americans have expended a great deal of effort and money in developing these useful weapons, and then they practically give them to us. Their stupidity and carelessness will help to destroy them in the end.”
I just nodded, but didn’t say anything. I knew the CIA had instructed me to turn over one of their drone operating systems to the Russians through Boris several years before, when I had last worked for them, but I still didn’t know why. Oh well. Never question why the Federal Government is always doing things that are detrimental to the American people. If you do, you will never get an answer because I don’t believe the government itself knows what it is doing most of the time or recognizes the unforeseen consequences of most of its actions.
Hopefully our enemies will not catch up technologically and destroy us in Anya’s and my lifetime, but I am only thirty-one so I’m not optimistic that I will escape that potential fate. And besides, if we continue to help them by practically giving them our inventions and even training them on using modern warfare techniques like we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, that time may come sooner than any of us expect. Oh well. I’ll probably be safe in the Cayman Islands and can watch the big show from there.
That afternoon, before we were to start work the next day, I made sure that Noorzai allowed me to use the boat. They had only one and it was tied up at the dock. It was a seventeen-foot Boston Whaler with a 115-horsepower, four-stroke Yamaha engine. We had brought water skis as part of our luggage. Noorzai came with us as I tried out the boat with Anya. We had left Muffy in the cabin. The boat was exactly right for the purpose and it had a deep V designed hull so it was stable in the open water. Noorzai was not that comfortable and I took the boat out quite a way before returning. I told him it was suitable and we were looking forward to using it. Neither Anya nor I wore bathing suits for the outing. She was completely covered and had a straw hat over her scarf for his benefit. We all wore life preservers and it was a little warm for Anya, I could tell, and all the more reason to convince Noorzai that it would be no fun for us if we had to cover up.
The next day I went to work in the laboratory. One of the Pakistanis had been working with my material and within a few days had analyzed it and told Noorzai it was the real thing. Anya did come in to help, but left periodically to walk Muffy. That first afternoon after work, we went out on the boat and it was a good little ski boat. We went a fair way off shore since it was a calm day and managed to have sex on top of some of the boat cushions before coming back in after Anya had her fill of water skiing. When we got in, Noorzai was waiting for us with a concerned look on his face.
“I was worried a little. You went so far out that I was not sure you could get back in. And what if you capsized?”
“It wasn’t that far out and the Whaler can handle it. Didn’t you know that these boats can’t sink, even if they fill up with water? They are designed that way.”
And then Noorzai said something that really helped me.
“You were so far out I could barely see you with the binoculars, and you just sat out there for quite a while, and you weren’t moving. What were you doing and why did you have to go so far out?”
“Well duh, Noorzai,” I said. “It appears that it was a good thing we were that far out because of what we were doing. You shouldn’t be so nosy. And why would I want to be closer so that you and your men could spy on us and watch for something that is none of your business to be watching? Something that we would not be comfortable doing even in the cabin because we would feel as if we are being watched, as you have just proven to be the case by watching us while we were out on the boat.”
When I said that with disgust in my voice, Anya snorted her contempt and Noorzai actually looked embarrassed. He walked away without saying anything else. After that, we were free to go out any time we wanted, which we did whenever the seas were calm enough to ski, and occasionally when they weren’t. They gave up watching us closely, although I know that whoever was on duty would periodically make sure he could see us in the distance. And occasionally we went out before work instead of after because I wanted them to get used to us going out in the morning for a reason that will become clear later in this narrative.
The three weeks went by quickly and by the end of it, I must admit that Noorzai’s operation was pretty much back to where it had been prior to my having gotten involved at the request of the CIA. We had given him no reason to be suspicious of us and had cooperated with all his rules and regulations. It was a good thing that the day came when we were supposed to go for our leave in Freeport. There were some plans we needed to make with Ben and Edy before Noorzai decided that his drones were ready for a test run over Miami or West Palm Beach, and that day was approaching. The reason we needed to make the plans on this trip was because I suspected Noorzai would not let us take another leave before the test run had been made and maybe not afterwards either. I was a little surprised he had even let us take the leave we were about to go on.
Chapter 37
We came into Freeport late at night again. Noorzai still didn’t want us to see the route the boat took. Not only did he come in, but the two guards who were to have two weeks off and most of the other members of the lab, who were all due for some time off, came in as well. I did get to see that the boat’s name was the Prokaida, the same nonsense name that Jack Doff had used for his company in Rat Park. I thought that the name might have some meaning after all, but I couldn’t really figure out what it might be. Noorzai was thoughtful enough to give us a cell phone to use while we were in Freeport.
I didn’t want to run into Noorzai or any of the others during our outing, and also thought there was a distinct possibility that we might be followed, so after checking into a hotel for the weekend, Muffy, Anya and I got up very early and took the first ferry to Nassau to meet Ben and Edy. I threw the cell phone Noorzai had given me overboard when we got on board the ferry. I was sure it was tapped. I retrieved the one Ben had left for me at a prearranged location in Freeport. We called Ben and arranged to meet him and Edy at a Baskin and Robbins of all places.
When we met them, we acted as if they were strangers that we just met and had struck up a conversation with. We discussed our strategy for going forward. I still hadn’t found out whether the island location was the only one where this effort was underway, or whether there were others. We all felt it would be important to have that information, if possible, before the CIA proceeded to try and destroy the island facility. If the island facility wasn’t the main facility, and if there were other locations within or near the United States, then we needed to find out before proceeding. I didn’t think I had that much time, maybe a week or two after we got back, before Noorzai would want a test run. He had been talking about using a little of the material we had prepared for a test run over West Palm Beach while he stockpiled enough for a large attack on Miami. We would take him out before then, if we could, but we really wanted to find out if there were any other locations or people involved before we did.
As we continued discussing plans for taking out the facility and taking over the island, at least temporarily, Ben said, “If we’re going to take out that facility, we need to do something about the staff and get them off the island and maybe interrogate them. I have a boat that we will station nearby with some special ops people and some technicians to sift through the data. We also intend to take control of the supply boat, and detain any of the others who are coming back from leave and anyone else associated with the operation. So after you get the final information, you had better get off the island in that little boat and let us do our thing.”
I said, “That all sounds great, but you really need to destroy that laboratory facility completely first because it’s filled with dangerous viruses which you don’t want anyone to have a chance to let loose. And you should probably use incendiary bombs and incinerate the place during the initial drone attack.”
“But it may contain a lot of valuable information.”
“Okay. That sounds good. Will do. Do we have to plan for any other armed guards except for the eight? Have you seen any more? And are any of the rest of them likely to give us any armed resistance?”
“I would think only the armed guards and Noorzai and maybe his assistant. The others seem like laboratory types, except maybe for the Pakistani women who clean the house, but I don’t think you need to worry about them, and one of them is the wife of one of the lab workers who is pretty low key.”
I asked them if they had located the island. I didn’t really want to go back there if they hadn’t. Edy said they had been lucky because the collar didn’t transmit very far, and it had been detected only a day or so before it went dead by one of the surveillance drones that had been crisscrossing the area at night looking at the many islands around Freeport. They also told us they had taken good surveillance pictures of the island after getting the coordinates from the collar transmitter. We were lucky in that regard, although we wouldn’t know if we were truly lucky until we got on and off the island alive one more time. If we didn’t then I would presumably be dead and not so lucky after all. And it was still my preference to be lucky and not dead.
Ben had a chart and the aerial photos of the island. I told him about going out in the morning and evening to water ski, and that I wanted to arrange to have Tom waiting just out of sight of the island with the sun at his back so that those on the shore would have the sun shining in their eyes and not be able to see. I wanted him to come towards us in the motorized dinghy and bring us our Glocks and a satellite phone to use so we would be armed and be able to communicate. I didn’t trust Noorzai and thought there was a fifty-fifty chance he would dispose of us when the mission was completed. I showed Ben on the chart and photo he brought just where I thought that off shore location should be.