Sarge
Chapter 11

Copyright© 2018 by MysteryWriter

The first night on that yacht wasn’t all that comfortable. Like the captain had said when we first spoke. “We are due for a bit of a blow.”

His idea of a bit of weather was strong winds and rolling seas. The boat came through it with only a small amount of water and wind damage. We all celebrated seeing the sun the next morning. I also felt some better since I took the Dramamine tablet. I was on the verge of falling asleep all morning, but I fought it off.

We lifted our cone of silence, long enough to communicate with the general’s lawyer. The same swift boat that brought the UN prosecutors also delivered him. He came on board with his personal assistant, who also happened to be a big boobed blond. I wondered if there was a special boarding school for the higher education of political assistants. Hell maybe even a breeding farm. I shook my head to clear it of the Dramamine and those wild thoughts.

The latest blond bombshell to come aboard, walked up to me and said, “You do know that you work for the American CIA?”

“Is there a Swiss CIA?” I asked as I turned away. Even though I had been flip about it, her making the declaration as if it was a documented fact did concern me. I hoped that I still worked for a freelance security firm. You can’t be good at your job, if you have more than one dog in the fight. That probably only makes sense to me, I thought.

The team gathered together for a quick meeting after lunch. “Listen everybody. The assistant for the lawyer is making wild accusations. Now, you work for me, and I work for Force Protection inc. That is the job we are going to do. We are going to protect these people from each other. After that fuck them all,” I explained.

“Here, here,” Lucy agreed. “Including Martin?”

“Including him,” I agreed.

While we were meeting the six negotiators were locked in the one large area available to them. A table had been set up in the dining room, by the first mate and /or deck hand depending on your point of view.

I had no idea how the negotiations were going, nor did I care. I expected that their first agreement was that the food was awful. The only thing worse was the coffee. However the oversize fridge in the galley was filled with various canned soft drinks.

The negotiators assistants were responsible for making all their bosses meals. The whole experience was designed to make the negotiation move along quickly. My team was not allowed into the dining room during the meetings, but we had a sense of what was happening. The prosecutor wanted more names to put before the international court. He wanted those before he would allow negotiations to move forward. They agreed to negotiate again after an early dinner break.

There was an almost picnic atmosphere during their dinner made up of frozen dinners. The dinners looked appealing to me, but I wasn’t a high priced lawyer, or a big shot politician. I wasn’t even an average American. I was a half ass American. I owned a microwave, but I didn’t drink designer coffee. I tended to do a warm over of yesterdays coffee in the Microwave. So the political lackeys need not bother to complain, I thought.

“I can’t say I approve of the accommodations, but if your intentions are to make the negotiations move along, I think you have succeeded,” Shepard said.

“Good, that was indeed the idea,” I agreed. “What did you have for your early dinner?”

“Something that looked like dog food, but remarkably was not too bad,” she said with a smile. “Even the vintage Diet Coke was acceptable.”

“Very good, I’m glad you approve,” I replied.

“I wouldn’t go quite that far. There is one other thing you should know,” she continued.

“What is that?” I asked obviously expecting the worst.

“I just discovered the sea air makes me horny,” she giggled.

The giggle wasn’t arousing coming from a woman around fifty. I actually laughed as I walked away. “In another life,” I mumbled.

“I heard that,” she replied happily.

The meeting after dinner must have gone better, because they were still in there at 10PM local time. When they broke up I had Ameer and Nita watching the corridor between their staterooms. At the end of their four hour shift. Lucy and Tasha would relieve them. I was kind of on duty all night. But it was mostly looking at the ship’s captain, who checked the radar and the other systems. The systems were also monitored at some site off the ship. Just to make sure we didn’t miss anything.

We lifted the cone of silence for ten minutes after the meeting. Everyone was glued to their satellite phones during that time. Hopefully they were giving coded updates to their higher ups. For the General’s Lawyer it meant updating the butcher of Chechnya. I had to keep him alive, I didn’t have to play golf with him. I was dozing in a cot on the bridge when a buzzer sounded.

“There is a zodiac sized boat inside our five mile kill range,” the captain informed me.

I went on the intercom to inform Lucy to meet me on the fore deck. “Bring a few of Law rocket launchers,” I demanded. “And the .30 caliber air cooled light machine gun loaded with tracer rounds.”

A few moments later I addressed the boat with a bull horn. “You are in a restricted space, turn around now.”

They didn’t of course, and I didn’t expect them to. “Light his ass up, but not lethal,” I instructed Lucy.

She fired the tracer rounds well in front of the small boat. They got the point though and moved away. “Son of a bitch, there goes my nap,” I informed Lucy.

“Me too, ain’t it great,” Tasha said. I shook my head and walked away.

“Clean the fucking .30 cal bitch,” Lucy said smiling.

“Who you calling bitch, bitch?” Tasha asked with a grin in her voice.

I went back to the bridge while the captain reviewed the radar tape. “It could have been worse,” he mumbled to himself. Since he wasn’t talking to me, I went back to sleep.

The next morning at 8AM Nita finished making scrambled eggs with cheese. She made enough for everyone. She sliced several tomatoes and even fried up a pound of bacon. It was crispy the way she liked it. To bad there was no biscuits, only toasted English muffins.

“What happened last night,” Shepard asked when she walked into the room.

“Reporters, save the rest of the interrogation until after I’ve had breakfast, and a shower,” I replied.

“Okay, but I’m not sure I believe you,” she said.

“Not sure I care,” I added.

I had my very own ‘egg mcmuffin’ made by Nita. She handed it to me with a smile. I looked across the table at her and said, “Where is the cashier?”

“This is just a sample of things to come,” she replied.

After the muffin, I went to the room which Ameer and I shared. Once inside I took a shower and changed into clean clothes for the day ahead. If the negotiations dragged on, I would need to find the Yacht’s laundry facilities, I thought.

Negotiations resumed at 10AM local time. Over night the captain had moved the ship a hundred mile from the spot where the zodiac had approached us. The five mile kill zone was to prevent line of sight communications. In theory a balloon could still be launched with a laser pointer to send Morris code messages.

The cone of silence was lifted for one minute every hour. At that time a burst of radio signals could be sent from the Lt to me. It was how we got situational updates. The times were completely random and the frequency varied. I really didn’t understand how it worked, but I knew that it did every time the captain sent me a message.

That morning the message read: ‘Not sure if it means anything, but chatter has picked up. I found Shepard’s man and Boris’s real names in some of it. Stay awake. A strike team waits ten miles out, in super swift boat. Call if you need help.’

The meeting broke for lunch, and I still hadn’t stopped for a nap. I was a sleep walker by the time I got a plate with reheated Mexican style Macaroni and Cheese. It was really quite good. I planned to use the idea when I got home. After that message from Martin, talking about ‘when I got home’ was a huge leap of faith.

While the negotiators were in their afternoon session, I took a nap. I felt comfortable doing so, since Ameer and Nita were both on duty. I tried to keep at least one experienced shooter on watch at all times.

The knock at my door awoke me. I was groggy, but clear headed enough to know something was wrong. Major or Minor, I didn’t have any idea.

“Hold on I’m coming,” I staggered to the door in my underwear.

“And I thought you wore Spiderman Jammies,” Lucy was laughing at me.

“Alright two, what’s going on?” I asked closing the door.

“It appears that the whole fucking world wants to kill the Boogieman,” she replied. “The general’s lawyer said the world wide mafia wants his head on a pike over the drawbridge.”

“Huh? I asked.

“The mafia has turned on the general. He doesn’t have the protection he expected in jail. They are ready to close down the operation,” Lucy explained.

“Good, I’m getting bored anyway,” I replied.

“Well, you have to tell Martin,” Lucy continued.

“Screw him. He can wait. Let’s see what the negotiators have to say,” I commented.

Lucy and I questioned them at dinner that night. “So is the general still ready to surrender?” I asked his lawyer.

“I don’t know. I can’t communicate with him at the moment,” he said.

“Well we are going to raise the cone of silence for an hour tonight. You can call him on your encrypted satellite phone and try to figure out your next move. When we know that, we can decide what our response move will be.” I explained.

The cone was raised after we all had eaten. I stood on deck looking out at the ocean. I couldn’t see the three or four Swift Boats stalking us, but I knew from the radar that they were out there. I advised the captain not to answer the calls from the reporters during our lifting of the cone. I did send Martin a coded message advising him that the negotiations were on extremely shaky ground.

His return message was quite cryptic. It was simply, “ok.”

I sat in on the negotiation session after the cone was restored. The general’s lawyer said, “I have been instructed to discontinue the negotiations. The general promises to deny anything in our statement of facts. It is not signed, nor was it written by the general.”

“So we just fucking wasted two days,” Ms Shepard insisted. “The general should remember Osama ben Laden, we do not forget, ever.”

“There is no call for that kind of threat,” the general’s lawyer said looking at me.

I simply looked away, then suggested. “You might try the Russians.”

“What a waste,” Tasha lamented once I came out and advise the team that we could leave first thing in the morning by Swift Boat. There was no need for us to take a small boat on a five hundred mile cruise at night. The plan was for the ship to sail toward Iceland all night long. There by cutting two hundred miles off the distance needed to travel by small boat the next morning. If we delayed the departure another day we could almost have the ship in port before we left. I was considering doing that. I did give the participants the option to leave at first light or to wait.

I left one person guarding the exterior of the ship and one walking the corridor outside the cabins. I went to my cabin which I shared with Ameer. When Shepard’s knock came on the door, he had just started his four hour watch from the bridge.

“Now what can I do for you?” I asked.

“The mission and the war between us is finished, so let’s get it done,” she spoke with a slurred voice.

I will only say this one thing about Shepard, she was a very enthusiastic lover. I enjoyed her efforts a great deal, but I also felt a great deal of pain. I just wasn’t as good a person as I wished I were.

Shepard had returned to her cabin before Ameer returned to mine. No one should have known about her. Somehow I felt sure that Lucy at least knew about Shepard. At least she or Ameer had to see her leave my cabin in the middle of the night.

Of course since Lucy saw her return to her cabin in the middle of the night, she would know. Like the old saying goes when a secret is known by another person it could not remain a secret. Since it was obvious that Lucy2 was second in command, Ameer wished to curry favor with her. I was pretty sure that they shared information about Shepard. I expected that she also had told Ameer to forget what he had seen. She also promised him that Shepard’s midnight booty run would have no effect on the mission. That would also go for any future missions.

I called our people all together where I explained my decision. “I have decided we are going to stay on board the yacht for one more day. We will leave sometime tomorrow morning. We should reach our meeting point less than one hundred miles from Iceland. We will be picked up there by a swift boat, then delivered to the dock at Akureyri. From there it is a taxi ride to the Keflavík. Airport in Reykjavík.

So break out your swim suits, and just hang out on deck in the sun.”

“You do know the high temperature for today is predicted to be fifty degrees?” Lucy asked.

“Okay Bikini, and thermal sweater,” I suggested.

Once everyone had left the ship, we lowered the cone of silence. I immediately had a satellite phone call from Martin.

“Our sources at the State Department are pissed. They put out a lot of bread and got nothing for it,” he said at the very beginning of the call.”

“Lt that is why it’s called a negotiation, not an agreement signing,” I almost shouted at him.

“I know, but they don’t feel that way. So figure out something else that the general will sign off on to complete the mission,” Martin demanded.

“I’ve already sent them all home,” I said.

“That’s fine, it should be just your team and Shepard this time. You are going to him,” Martin explained.

 
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