Chapter 142: Meet the Gang

Flying all night is never any fun. I tried to get comfortable, but there was just no way. On top of everything else my feet fell asleep repeatedly. I was totally miserable all night long. It wasn't the longest night of my life, but it was right up there with the night my team was surrounded and couldn't get re-enforced till daylight. On the plane at least I wasn't hearing gunships overhead all night trying to keep the bad guys off our wire. Instead, I heard the noise of the Jet engines, even though the cabin was supposed to be sound proof. In my stupor maybe I just imagined that I heard them.

In Athens we were met by R2D2 himself. Although I didn't know who was holding the sign which simply read Stone. "I'm Stone," I said.

"You sounded taller," he said. Even after missing a nights sleep, I picked up on it.

"You sound younger," I replied. We both laughed.

"Your security detail is waiting for you on the ship," he informed me.

"And is the ship still in Crete?" I asked.

"Yes, it is. I spoke to my lawyer in Germany. He informed me that your advice is spot on, so we will be following your lead right down the line. Except when we go tactical, then we do things my way."

"Ah I thought so, do you have our return tickets on you?" I asked. We were standing in the concourse of the Athens International Airport. None of us had retrieved our luggage at that time.

"Why?" he asked. "Are you going to bail on me?"

"Just as soon as you give me my ticket home?" I replied.

"Would you mind telling me why?" he asked.

"This is not the best place for this kind of conversation," I replied. "Tell you what let us get our bags, we will have to either way, then we can go somewhere less public to discuss it."

R2d2 did not look happy as we waited for our bags. I could tell that he wasn't the kind of man who had a lot experience at not getting his way. Oh course I didn't care, since I usually found a way to have things my way as well.

"So what do we call you, since R2d2 is going to be a big hard to explain to casual observers?" I asked.

"Just call me Alex," he suggested.

"Okay Alex, how well do you know Athens?" I asked.

"Not all that well, My business is in Germany." he informed me.

"Maxine, I have been here a few times," Morris said.

"Good, do you happen to know a quiet park nearby?" I asked.

"Sure, there is one not too far away," Morris informed me.

"Maybe we should go there to have this talk?" I asked that since the bags were coming down the shoot and onto the carousal.

Twenty minutes later we pulled into a green area that surrounded a parking lot. It was a very under developed park. by American standards. Alex and I sat on a bench, while Morris and Gwen sat on a bench as well, but a good distance from us. The limo driver sat in his car in the parking lot.

"Okay, so what did you mean you wanted to leave?" Alex asked. Alex had the body to support being overbearing. He was intimidating because he was tall and heavy framed without appearing to have any belly fat at all. His hair was gray, but his eye were as black and cold as iron. He could have been fifty years old, but I had a feeling it was more like sixty.

"Because you want to have complete control, when this thing goes operational. I can't allow that. You are paying a lot of money for my advice. I assume that you want to avoid going to jail, if this goes public."

"We could kill them all, but they will probably be in contact with someone by radio."

"I would venture to say you are right. Not only that, they will be accomplished in playing the race and religion cards. You will come off looking like crazy killers, which you probably are. Even so, it's my job to keep you out of prison. To do that I need complete control."

"Is there really a difference in who calls the shots. In combat you do what is needed, period." He said.

"The difference is mindset. Your mindset here has to be civil action, not military action. In the military after you engage, you work them as a group. In a civil action it will be, why did you shoot gunman three, he was turned away from you and therefore not a threat. If one of you shoots gunman three, we are all going to jail, not just the trigger man. So yes I have a vested interest in seeing that we think like civilians." It was quite a speech for me.

"That's all fine and good, but it isn't why we are here," he said.

"Which brings me to, why the hell are you here.? Is it just a blood sport game or what."

"After a year in hell, there were ten of us who came out of the jungle. We kept in touch over the years. One is a drug addict in New York. one put a 12 gauge in his mouth, one more is on kidney dialysis. Four are on the boat and then there is me, that makes nine. The tenth one became a missionary. He and his wife were on their way to Somalia, when the pirates grabbed their boat. As he was prone to do, Jeff tried to preach love to them. Them, being good Muslims there were, cut off his head. The world is so fucking terrified of offending Muslims that nothing ever got said about it."

"The other four and I decided that we couldn't bring Jeff back, and it probably wouldn't even be the same ones, but we would at least send a message."

"What message, do you think they will take away from this,"

"Sometimes the guys on the boat fight back. We aren't all sheep, who willingly walk into the gas chamber."

"Okay you know this won't bring them back, and you know you probably won't have anyone involved in the killing of your friend, so you are willing to satisfy your need to do something by killing a few pirates. The guy on the boat are from a country so poor most of the population is starving. The guys on the boat are just pawns. They are still cut throats so I can work with that the plan. Nonetheless you have to understand me on this, we can't just murder them. However, we can defend ourselves, and we can defend our ship and the humanitarian cargo. That is my job of course, and your friends as well.