Chapter 17: Used Vehicles (historical)

12 Years Ago

The South Pacific

This explains where we got some useful toys.

When I was 16 the Patron sent me on a job to close and deliver a large amount of cocaine. We both knew it was a test for me (one of two that summer) to see how I would deal with problems as Patron. In this case the test was command and dealing with serious bastards. He was thinking how, maybe, there was enough time to have another son if I blew it. He was cautious by nature. I suggested some backup, when I laid out my ideas he agreed so I went with something extra up my sleeve. Uncle Martin came along to keep an eye on me, but basically I had command of the mission.

The deal started when this Asian entrepreneur/wanna-be-gang-leader had put together 6 APCs and a small tank from the largest, most corrupt storehouse in the world for rusted/damaged ex-US military hardware: VietNam. The Asian, who was a river pirate trying her hand at self-promotion, found the vehicles (well, somebody found them) and partially fixed them. She wanted to trade the rusting collection for the Patron’s first-class white powder, with hopes of becoming a regular volume customer. The Patron said “no trades, cash only” which ended things for a time. Then the Asian came back with a mad Brit who wanted the obsolete war vehicles for his own foolish purposes and claimed to have lots of money. Discussions followed.

Trading 75 tons of rusted steel for a large suitcase of cash, then trading the cash for a briefcase of primo blow presented some practical problems. The parties agreed on a three-way meeting on an unoccupied Pacific island well off the trade routes. We would each bring one personal ship with 10 troops. The military vehicles were on a freighter contracted for delivery where desired at any Pacific port. The Patron agreed and gave me orders. I set sail with the powder. (Actually, I flew to the ship which was already at sea. We use floatplanes to reduce the time spent at customs.)

The Patron and I expecting the worst from our partners, so I had a second ship, out of sight but under my command. It was an armed Q-ship we use on pirates and rival dealers. (A Q-ship is a freighter with hidden heavy weapons, like torpedoes or naval guns.) As a precaution it landed a handful of soldiers on the island one night 10 days before the meet. The Q-ship then stayed out of sight south and east of the island, but close.

Some Asian folks, dressed like river pirates, showed up at the island 6 days before the meet, dropped off by a large fast cabin cruiser called “Crazi Horse” which then turned around and left. They were early and lazy and pissed off at their boss so they never looked for my guys. These were not soldiers, they had no discipline. They did a enough recon to find a place to piss then essentially played cards (16 hours a day?) and took turns screwing the mute girl they brought along to cook and entertain.

The girl had been promoted from whore to cook for this assignment. Except the guys wanted a whore. She threatened to poison them all for not respecting her but they fixed that. They took over the cooking (rice, 3 times a day) and kept screwing her. They said she could run away if she wanted, but unfortunately they had the only water. So she was screwed. Repeatedly.

The Asian named “Madam Brang” returned right on time in “Crazi Horse,” coming from the north west. Her men were dressed as river pirates. It seemed that they were all dressed differently so they were easy to spot but it was a ploy, by having several dress the same way Brang concealed her true numbers. No surprise, there were actually about 20 troops. “Crazi Horse” was crowded below decks. Brang also brought a trio of hot females to use as distractions. Her guys did not use the girls so we figured they had more germs than the CDC. Instead her guys went into the jungle in pairs where they found the other guys and joined in screwing the poor cook.

The cabin cruiser was escorting a slow chartered freighter with the 7 former US military vehicles in the hold. The freighter captain was an independent hired to deliver the vehicles to the buyer. None of the guys on the freighter came ashore for any reason, which was unusual. They plainly didn’t trust somebody.

The deal was to unload and test the vehicles: one tank and a half dozen M113s. However, the draft of the freighter would not let it close to the island, so inspection had to be done in the hold. This was not what we agreed to.

Madame Brang said the freighter captain lied about his ship and acted surprised about not being unable to unload the vehicles, but clearly it was part of the plan. Many Pacific islands, like this one, are underwater mountain tops encircled by reefs, forming a lagoon. The reef typically has one deep entrance where the reef has eroded. We all knew this. The charts said how deep the entrance was, and the freighter was marked to show how much draft it needed. Even unloaded, this freighter could not get close to the island. Since the vehicles could not be unloaded, they could not be test-driven. I figured that was the Brit’s problem.

The Brit, Lord Elroy Stormbridge, showed up a couple of hours later from the south in a really large fully-automated sailing yacht with the agreed upon number of troops. These looked like professional mercs in tip-top shape, they did exercises twice a day. The Brit cheated by bringing another dozen mercs that he claimed were cooks. They dressed like cooks, they seemed to cook a lot of good food, but they did military calisthenics at sunrise and shooting drills at sunset so he wasn’t fooling anybody.

The big sailing yacht had a deep keel so it could not get close to the island. They used a speedboat and a trio of Zodiacs to get ashore. The yacht anchored in a location where it could quickly “close the door” blocking the deep entrance to the reef if needed.

I arrived last, an hour after Lord Elroy, entering the lagoon in a catamaran (cat) with very little draft, it could actually clear the reef in a half-dozen places but the hull markers were repainted to conceal the truth. My troops all wore military uniforms - Mexican Special Forces - without insignia. They were heavily armed carrying an P90 and a cut-down pump shotgun. The assumption was that they also had long-range rifles. I never “showed” more than 10 troops.

Late afternoon the first day my guys organized a combination knife throwing and drinking contest with the others. As a matter of pride, everybody sent their 5 best. My guys took 4 of the top 5 spots, one of the Brit cooks took third. The river pirates arrived at the contest already drunk so they were really bad at it.

We had all agreed to such details before the meeting. Since everybody was obviously cheating I figured it was really a question of who cheated best. I had the Q-ship up my sleeve as a trump card so I stayed for the game.

My ante was the cocaine, 100% pure, the highest quality. I let them test a sample every way that was reasonable and they all agreed it was great powder. I gave generous free samples the first night, who could say ‘No’ to that? In the way I got an accurate count.

The others were not so well represented. The second day, early in the morning Lord Elroy inspected the vehicles the freighter’s hold and even in the hold they didn’t work as Brang promised.

One of my guys tagged along and made a report. About half the engines started but we could see they all had serious problems. They did have intact hulls and tracks, plus they were clean with fresh paint. But the non-starters had frozen drive wheels which are a serious problem. Random machine guns worked, they could be removed for testing, but their was no way to test the tank’s main gun without shaking apart the ship. Besides, the 152 mm ammo is scarce. Also, all the radios and intercoms were trash.

“Am I to use hand signals?” Lord Elroy asked.

Madam Brang blamed the problems on cheap parts from China and Korea.

“You should have ordered from the UK,” the Brit answered with a straight face. Even his men rolled their eyes, British electronics always go bad.

Nobody took Lord Elroy seriously after that.

Still, his Lordship did not seem as upset as he should have been, he really wanted the vehicles. After lunch cooked by the Brits came some more discussions. That was when we learned the Brit intended to pay with really bad funny money, printed with his own ugly mug. He intended to start his own country and this ass-wipe was his proposed currency. Things got tense but nobody talked about leaving.

When we all arrived we set up tents on the beach, Brit on one side, Asian on the other, me in the center. The second night the others wanted to party so they could each scope out how to steal the coke from the young guy. I played along, giving away more free blow, even the Brit’s cooks came out for that. It was really good shit. After the drugs and some more of the Brit’s food (I will say it was fine cooking) the trio of Asian girls did a late afternoon wet-outfit/strip show on the beach.

Once naked they wanted to dance and grind on the beach but couldn’t tempt anybody to join them. This put the girls in a bad mood and Madam Brang, who hoped I would take one or more of them onto my cat to scope out the layout, in a worse mood. She did lines and got drunk on foul-smelling rice booze instead of picking a fight. That told me the shooting would start after sundown. So I called the Q-ship with the time and co-ordinates for it’s surprise - a shell fired from a 10.5 cm Nazi naval gun, taken from a submarine. The shell would arrive as soon as Q it showed it’s hull, in the dark to the east, at sundown.

After supper the last surprise of the day was when drunken Lord Elroy told us his plan for the country he intended to start. With China taking over Hong-Kong he planned to start a replacement, a tax-free ‘Casino Island’ off of Western Australia.

The Aussies already owned the island but it was along way from Sydney, he figured the military vehicles and a few mercs could force negotiations. The Asian acted like the paper had value and she might buy in, but I was the one who was supposed to take the funny paper. That wasn’t going to happen. They tried to intimidate me, but each of my guys had 50 bullets in his fully automatic P90 before reloads, so that did not work well.

One of my guys shot off the magazine into the jungle just to prove the point, 4 dozen was a lot of bullets without a reload. He might have hit a pirate or two coming back from the mute girl.

Since the money was for me I dragged the discussion out to sundown by “being reasonable” and talking about other assets Lord Elroy might have - like his yacht and lands in England. I happened to have a list. When they saw negotiations weren’t going to work the other two each figured to just take from me by jumping me at dusk. They both had their extra guys maneuvering for position, including guys from each side in SCUBA gear who started a firefight boarding my (empty) cat. They shot at each other.

Suddenly the Q-ship appeared flying an Aussie battle flag. I got out from between the two groups by running into the jungle instead of toward my ship like they expected. In the last half hour my jungle troops had neutralized the Asians planted in the jungle and they now provided effective covering fire. It surprised the heck out of the Madam Brang.

In rapid fashion the Q-ship’s 105 mm gun (about 4 inches) blew up both Lord Elroy’s and Madam Brang’s tents where the majority of their men were hiding. That evened the odds on the beach. A “shot across the bow” of the yacht followed. The three captains got the warning, the cabin cruiser, the freighter and the sailing yacht would sink with one hit from that gun, so they struck colors, dropped anchor, and dropped the remaining soldiers in the water.