Redoubled

by Warren Esby

  With the AK-47 in one hand, I used the other to support Noorzai. When we finally made it to where the Whaler was tied up. I got in pushing Noorzai ahead of me. I called to Muffy and she didn’t hesitate. She jumped in while Anya untied the boat, and I got the Whaler started and headed out, away from the island and into the setting sun. As I looked back, the burka wearer was on the beach and I could hear a few shots of frustration that didn’t come near us. Nevertheless, Anya picked up her AK-47 and fired back at the burka wearer who went scurrying back towards the cabin.

  By this time, Noorzai was pretty much awake. I got on the satellite phone and told Ben and Edy what happened. I told them that circumstances had forced us to take out the guards, but that there were probably one or two armed men or women likely to be on the island, and that we were now off it and in the boat. They could plan accordingly. Ben said the drone strike was still scheduled for the morning and that he was on the way in the special ops boat, but it would be several hours before he got there. I told him to look for the Muffy which I knew would be nearby. I called Tom who had been cruising around just out of sight of the island and arranged to meet him, which we did about a half hour later. As we headed to the rendezvous, Anya kept an AK-47 pointed at Noorzai, but he seemed to be more frightened of Muffy who just sat there and stared at him, sensing his fear I’m sure.

  “So I was right not to trust you,” he finally said. “You are working for the Americans, not the Russians.”

  “We work for the highest bidder. We have worked for the Russians, but now we work for the Americans.”

  “But I paid you well, two million dollars.”

  “Yes, but they paid us three million. You were outbid.”

  “So you are really mercenaries. You only do it for money. You are not patriots.”

  I didn’t answer directly. I said, “Money is always nice.”

  “And you will turn me over to the Americans. What if I offer to pay you more, if you are such mercenaries?”

  “It’s too late. They are on the way.”

  “So they will take me to Guantanamo. Another sign of their decadence.”

  “How so?”

  “Because I read that they think it should be closed because it’s only a recruiting tool for us. But that is laughable. We hate American anyway, but it is a recruiting tool in a way.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Because we know if we get captured, you won’t just kill us. You send us to your Cuban country club and you won’t torture us, and we will live very well until we are released. It helps when our recruits know they will be kept very nicely in a resort until they are repatriated no matter how many Americans they kill. Yes, it is a good recruiting tool. You Americans are so soft and stupid and despicable. All you think about is money and using your power to deprive the rest of the world of what is their fair share. You have no moral principles.”

  Hey, I thought the fair share part was our government’s complaint.

  I answered, “If you mean the kind of moral principles that involves killing innocent women and children, then I guess the Americans don’t have your version of moral principles. But look, Anya and I are just simple mercenaries trying to make a buck. You use mercenaries all the time. Don’t ascribe all that moral principle mumbo jumbo to us. We’re just a couple of kids having fun.”

  I was just trying to aggravate him, but he didn’t bite. Instead he continued with his diatribe against America.

  “Well America’s depravity and lack of morality will not survive. Your decadence has led to the softness we are exploiting in your system. The Great Satan will be defeated in the end.”

  I thought he was probably right, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him. Instead I took out my Glock and shot him between his eyes. No, I didn’t kill him in cold blood because of what he said. While he was talking, he was shifting around randomly and got into a position where he started to take a small revolver out of his pocket just as Hassan had tried to do. I hadn’t had time to search him while he was out, and Anya hadn’t thought to do it. He was talking the whole time, and I didn’t notice the gun until it was halfway out of his pocket and the hammer momentarily snagged on the edge of the pocket as he tried to jerk it free.

  I actually would have liked to have been able to turn him over for further questioning to Ben and Edy, even though I suspected they wouldn’t get too much out of him because of the current rules of interrogation. I guess I was lucky that the pistol snagged on his pocket. Anya would have killed him, but I might have been dead by then, and I’d rather be lucky than dead. Apparently, just like Hassan, his pocket pistol was a five shot Smith and Wesson with an exposed hammer rather than the hammerless version of the same gun that I often carry. The hammerless version is designed so that you can carry it in your pocket without worrying about it snagging as you withdraw it. The hammered version is better for use as a holster gun if you want a small light-weight revolver. It just goes to show how important it is to choose the right equipment for the job you do, and I realized that Hassan and Noorzai just weren’t as professional as they should have been in this whole terrorism business.

  Chapter 39

  We met up with the Muffy and Muffy went aboard the Muffy with Anya for the first time. I tied the Whaler to the Muffy and went on board too. Muffy met Long Cruise, his wife C Cruise (her real name is Catherine, but we all call her C for convenience) and his nephew Jay Cruise. Muffy wagged her tail the requisite number of times at each introduction, sniffed what she needed to sniff and, when she was satisfied, she went into the main cabin and sniffed all the cushioned seats until she found the one she liked the best, jumped up on it and curled up. Muffy had taken her first step in becoming an old sea dog.

  The boat with Ben and Edy came alongside after a while, and I went on board by myself. I really didn’t want to involve Tom and his family any more than I had to, and he knew enough not to ask. I briefed Ben and Edy on the situation on the island. I told them I thought the remaining inhabitants were relatively low level, but one or more might decide to fight. Edy said she was sure that after they incinerated the laboratory building, the others would all surrender. I also told them the Prokaida would show up within a few days if it was not already on its way because someone on the island called them to come and get them. Ben told me they were prepared to intercept the boat. I asked them to take the Whaler with them with the AK-47s and Noorzai’s body still aboard. I asked if they would need us for anything else, and they said they would carry on from there. We told them we would head back to Charleston to close up our house there and my MUSC research laboratory. We would cruise up there on the Muffy and then cruise back to the Caymans. If they needed us, they knew where to find us. Edy said that they had given instructions for the Sick Sikh Singh to be arrested, and he should be gone by the time we got into Charleston.

  We stayed anchored until the next morning, watched the fireworks from a distance and sailed on to Charleston. Before we left Charleston for good, we had my parents fly down from Boston for a visit. They had never been to Charleston before and enjoyed the big house downtown. We took them to see the plantations just outside of town and took them on a carriage ride and did the other touristy things just like we had just got off the boat, which we had, but it was our boat and not a cruise ship.

  We really enjoyed the time with my parents who were very proud of their son, who apparently was such a good scientist that he could afford to live in a big house in the downtown section of Charleston and buy plane tickets for his parents and take them to nice restaurants and all. How easily we can fool our parents, can’t we? They always like to think the best of us. They don’t realize that we lie to them all the time, but it is really for their own good. Oops. I’m beginning to sound like them. I don’t know how many times I heard when I was growing up that it was for my own good. When I say things like that, I begin to think that maybe I’m almost mature enough to have children of my own. Nah. I’m really not. We’ll just have to see what t
he future brings.

  As we headed on the boat back to the Caymans, I had time to reflect on what we had accomplished. We had successfully eliminated Al Qaeda in the Carolinas and Al Qaeda in Cleveland as I mentioned in the beginning of this narrative. I wasn’t so sure about Al Qaeda in the Bahamas because there are so many islands within striking distance of the United States located there. Unfortunately, as I also mentioned in the beginning of this narrative, there is still one district where the CIA believes that Al Qaeda still continues to have a presence in the United States. This branch of Al Qaeda is known as Al Qaeda in the San Francisco Peninsula, and its headquarters are in the historically liberal district of San Francisco near the tip of the peninsula. Al Qaeda in the San Francisco Peninsula has recently been awarded the Federal Government’s new designation for certain minority groups. They have been awarded MMM status. MMM stands for Much Maligned Minority which Al Qaeda definitely is if you live in a Western country. Any group with MMM status cannot be referred to as a terrorist group, so Al Qaeda in the San Francisco Peninsula is instead referred to as a group of Muslims with an attitude, and being a subset of ordinary Muslims they are definitely a minority group.

  Because San Francisco is known as a sanctuary city, there is no reason that Al Qaeda shouldn’t find sanctuary there, at least until they decide to blow it up. No one in the community seems to be upset about the presence of Al Qaeda because so many of them are users of the poppy-based products that are raised by Al Qaeda’s affiliates in Afghanistan and nearby areas of the Middle East, and certain San Franciscans will allow those people to thrive even if it kills them either by the use of the poppy products or the use of an AK-47, whichever comes first. They all use the poppy products for health reasons. It is my understanding that without Al Qaeda in the San Francisco Peninsula supplying them with drugs, it would be a real headache to find those drugs from other sources, and preventing a headache is considered good healthcare and is in line with the Federal Government’s latest guidelines and policies outlined in its recent health care bill. Ben and Edy said the CIA would keep its eye on Dong, the spice merchant there, as a possible indicator of the level of activity of Al Qaeda in its remaining known bastion in the United States, and I wish them luck in their efforts.

  Well that brings me to up to date with my memoirs. Once again, I have remained lucky and had a chance to write again as a redoubled agent for the CIA. And once again, I can assure you that this is a real story and almost every word of it is a true word, with perhaps a few more words than the last time that really aren’t true words but should be. I know you’ve noticed some of them, but even if you were smart enough to note all the words that aren’t true words, it doesn’t matter because I don’t give out commendations for that sort of worthless attention to detail. But now I truly have to finish this narrative. It has only taken a few months. That’s how long it’s been since we left Ben and Edy in the Bahamas. And we didn’t hear anything from them until just last week when they came down to the Caymans, and we all went out for an ice cream of all things at a Baskin Robbins of all places. And now the reason I must end this narrative is because Anya and I have been dispatched with dispatch on a mission to dispatch dispassionately those who need to be dispassionately dispatched for the good of our country and the good of our retirement accounts and for the pre-emption of the boredom that has not as yet set in. If I remain lucky and am not dead, I will continue this narrative at a later time. And if my luck runs out, so be it, and at least I won’t be bored.