Chapter 393

Andy joined in on the planning session; the first question he had was a stumper right off the bat. “What are they going to store the food in? Boomer said the only thing he saw was a little building with bags of corn in it?”

Ambassadors Morrison and Fauntroy had no real answer.

“Lets plan the trip, and then I will go see what I can find,” Andy replied.

It was 250 road miles to Nimule. With the trailer Andy estimated that the truck would get 8 to 10 miles to the gallon and had twin 60 gallon fuel tanks, so fuel would be no problem.

I estimated that it would take at least 6 hours to get there by truck at the best, four more to unload, 6 more to get back and that was if everything went well.

Andy chose the people to make the trip and put things in motion to make it work. The truck left to fuel up. Boomer and the guys were back with lumber on top of the Suburban to make the tables. As soon as it was unloaded, the Suburban left again.

The truck with trailer and both Suburban’s and 4 heavily armed men each for escort would leave at four AM. At 8 the chopper with the drugs and we three ambassadors would leave and all of us should arrive at the same time.

“OK, I will arrange everything. I have something I need to go check on,” Andy replied as he was walking away.

Ambassadors, you need to be here by 7:30,” I said. They left shortly after that; it was a good thing because Robert sent me another big data file to decipher.

I spent two hours working with the encryption. People in the Kampala terrorist group were not happy. They had put all their people into the assault and knew they had a sure victory for their financiers; that turned into a defeat of catastrophic proportions. Their few injured that had survived may never fully recover.

Anton was very unhappy and was demanding to know why his people were put into the position to die. They were supposed to be observers - not to be participants - and to collect any classified documents they could find after the fact.

Anton’s superiors were putting so much pressure on him for answers that he had demanded a meeting with all the leaders. The leaders on the other hand were so sure of success they let all their key people join the attack - even their key communication people - for the glory of victory over the great Satan.

Now their communications were sloppy; some were being sent in plain language with no encryption, including the time and place of a meeting; Wednesday evening at 6 PM on Nubulagla Road, house 515. Those that were encrypted were done so at a basic level, according to Robert.

I needed an urgent meeting with Andy and Howie as soon as he returned, but for now the tomorrow trip was the priority.

I worked on emails until supper and then more after supper. Andy had only been back a few minutes. He and I, with the team leaders - the men and ladies he had picked for tomorrow’s trip - ate together.

The afternoon meal was a joint meal; breakfast for those getting up for the evening shift and supper for the day crew. My salad tasted really good with fresh bacon bits, something I would remember when I got back home. The cook cooked the bacon super crispy and then broke it into little pieces.

I asked the cook if we needed to get up a food order from home, or were they able to find everything we needed here.

“There is no bacon or sausage available here but we have enough for a couple of weeks; beef is no problem,” one of them replied.

“Maybe we should make a list of things we need from home. I might be able to get them on a military supply flight,” I replied.

We did a general review about the trip; Lexy and Bambi were going to be pilots again. I ask Julie if she remembered how to follow the flight with the tracking programs.

“I think so,” she replied.

“Then you need to get up to be able to do that at 4 AM to track the first group on the journey,” I replied.

I listened while the men talked about all the things they had accomplished today. The east wall would be done tomorrow morning and then the contractor was going to gather the materials to do the west wall.

The men had found a steel supplier all the way across the city. Wednesday morning the truck was going to go pick enough to do the west wall.

In my office I showed Andy the deciphered file Robert had sent me.

“Convenient of them to all be in one place. Is this a coincidence? Are they that afraid of this Anton Pavlenko or just plain stupid or is it a trap?” Andy asked.