by Finian Blake
“Come in.” He extended an open hand and shook hands with Creed. Creed was a large man standing about six foot six and weighing somewhere around two hundred fifty pounds. His salt and pepper hair was a military brush cut. This man looked like a linebacker for a NFL team. At least he was not wearing a suit. He was wearing a golf shirt and jeans. After retrieving his hand from Creed’s vise like grip, Noah asked, “Why the special briefing?”
Creed had heard that Noah was to the point, but he was still more than a little surprised.
“No formalities just wham bam thank you mam. Ok, as you have guessed this is not your cut and dry delivery. There are more than a few complications, and that is why you are on this run. There will be a back haul of munitions with an additional delivery in Central America and to finish up you will deliver the payment to Ontario airport. This first leg is the least illegal, after that it goes downhill. This government can have no direct link with any of your actions.”
Noah wanted to shout, ‘You are clean out of your ever loving mind’, but he said calmly, “Is that all?”
Creed shook his head, “We want you to do it three times.” He waited for the explosion.
Noah surprised Creed by answering calmly, “Have they been passing out hallucinogens over at the CIA? You people must have slammed down a lot of them! Is that all you want?” Creed shook his head.
“We want you to do it twice more and it is not the CIA, it is the NSA.” He was trying to gauge Noah’s reaction.
Noah was still talking quietly, “Whether it’s NSA or CIA does not matter. You people are a bunch of loons. What you are asking me to do is generally illegal all over the world. In most countries they just shoot you on the spot to save on the trial but of course we may get lucky and they will give us life in prison.” Noah found himself walking over to his bag. He honestly did not know whether he was going to grab the bottle of scotch or the .38 revolver. He opted for the scotch.
“If I’m going to listen to any more of this, I will have to have some of this!” Creed did not have any idea what Noah was reaching for. He really hoped that it would not get ugly. When he saw the bottle of Dewar’s, he thought ‘Well maybe there is hope.’
“Are you going to share that drink or down that by yourself?”
“There are a couple glasses over there,” Noah motioned toward the dresser. “Do we need ice?”
“I filled the ice bucket in my room while I was waiting for you to show up.” Creed said while Noah cracked the seal on the bottle.
“I have to meet the fly boys for dinner in about ten minutes. You can talk while I change into my Dockers.” Creed had two glasses set up with ice. Noah poured the scotch while Creed started his pitch.
“It has not been in the news much, but we are having a real problem down in Nicaragua. Guerrillas are very close to taking over the country. With few exceptions they are communist backed, and well equipped. We need you to pick up a load of used Russian small arms and deliver it to the guerrillas. Of course, you will insist on payment and they will try to pay you in drugs. What we want you to do is get into their base, scout it out for a strike, accept the drugs as payment, and fly them back to Ontario where we will dispose of the drugs. Three deliveries ought to give us enough information to line up a strike.” Noah had finished changing. He fished a smoke out of the pack lighting it. He sank into the chair and picked up his drink taking a long pull on the Dewar’s scotch. “Why choose me?”
A puzzled look came across Creed’s face. “We researched your back ground. First you have a ‘Mercury Black’ security clearance that goes beyond secret, and ‘Authority Hermes’. Second all of your IDs are right your Social Security checks out and your driver’s license checks out. You pay your taxes, and you have the highest credit rating possible. Plus, other than taxes you have never had any association with any government worldwide. We even checked your school records and we can go all the way back to kindergarten. It is all very neat, clean and perfect, except when we ran your security clearance. Your clearance is ‘Mercury Black’ and I cannot get there. This is the first time that my clearance is not high enough.”
“Thanks for the compliment. I make my own arrangements.” Noah smiled broadly. “I have a special flare for IDs. They are expensive, but air tight. Stopping the spread of communism is a good and noble cause however I am self-employed and each contract must generate income or the rent does not get paid. The higher the degree of difficulty, and the greater the risk the higher the fee will be. Can you discuss fees?”
Creed grimaced. “You’re right to the point. We were hoping that your normal fee would apply. Why don’t you just tell me what you have in mind?” He had not touched his drink yet.
Noah refreshed his own drink and lit another cigarette not wanting to miss the look on Creed’s face when he gave him the bad news. “Three high-risk runs per trip, on site negotiations and creating a new identity after we are through. We are actually talking about twelve trips total. You need me to make three round trips to Iran and three round trips to Nicaragua. Let us say seven thousand for the first run, ten thousand for the second run and fifteen for the third run all payable at the start of the delivery. That is just my fee. You will have to deal with the fly boys separately.”
“I’ll have to get this approved,” Creed blanched. “This is a lot steeper than we thought.”
“Let me know. I am sure somebody else will do it a whole lot cheaper. There are a lot of good international freight forwarders in the market.” Noah downed the rest of his drink and stubbed out his smoke. “I’m going down the hall and collect the fly boys on the way down to dinner.” As he rose from his chair, he motioned to the adjoining door. “Let me know.”
“I will pass that along and get back to you soon.” Creed did a quick exit clearly not at all happy with Noah’s demands.
Noah put his boots on walking out the door strolling two doors down knocking lightly on the door. Frank answered with a strange look on his face.
“Did you get your briefing? That is one hell of a laundry list they’re packing. Somebody named Buck briefed us.”
Noah nodded his head in agreement, “I think the inmates are running the asylum. I didn’t turn them down though. What I did do is shoot them a real hefty price per trip. I am probably a little more used to these requests than you are. Essentially what they want us to do is hop in our plane, spend a month heading off a revolution or starting one. I am not sure which. They can’t send in troops, so they want us to set things up. I can show them how to cover the price and I can cover my end. What do you think?”
“Well the flying will probably work, but it is a lot of risk. I know they own the company, so I’m not worried about the time we will need with the plane. I need to talk to the others to see if they will go along.” Noah leaned against the wall thinking about the odds while Frank slipped into the bathroom to wash his hands and face. A smile came across Noah’s face, “Think of a real hefty payday and triple it. Let’s see how desperate they are. It might as well pay us.” Frank gave a thoughtful nod.
“Let’s get the other Franks and see what they think.”
They remained quiet until they got to the last room. All five men found seats in the last room. The pilot reviewed his briefing with the others. He finished with Noah’s comments. The four Franks kicked around family demands. The engineer and the relief were divorced. After they discussed needs, wants and wishes, they finally agreed to make the runs and came up with a dollar figure. It was three thousand each per run. Noah sat through the discussions without comment.
“Double it. Remember it is two round trips per run. They may try to talk you down, or they may just buy it.” The pilot went back down the hall to his room. Frank knocked on the adjoining door, and Buck, his briefing officer, opened the door. Creed was standing over his shoulder. Frank told him the arrangements that the quartet wanted and the price. Buck Smiled thinly and told him he would think it over.
As Frank left Creed asked, “Could you send Noah
back this way.”
“Sure thing,” Frank said as he headed back to the others.
“Hey Noah, Creed wants to see you down in his room.” Frank said as he walked in the room. “He sounded really pissed. He thinks that you are double dealing him. I believe that he wants you to sell us out.”
Noah expected this was accurate. “I’ll meet you guys down in the restaurant in about fifteen minutes. I don’t think it will take much more than that.”
He walked down the hall to Creed’s room and knocked on the door. The door flew open. Creed stood in the center of the entry with a menacing look on his face. Noah just stood in the hall unimpressed.
“Are you going to invite me in or are we going to discuss this out here in the hall? There are recorders in the room, so you might as well get this on tape.” Creed gave him an icy wave in.
“Just what in the fuck are you pulling? You told those fly boys exactly what the story was.”
“Those fly boys have their asses hanging out by a mile right next to mine,” Noah smiled. “Relax, I will show you how to cover this without even asking for funds. All you have to do is wholesale the payment for the guns. Do this and you can pay for all of the goodies, including the surplus drilling equipment that you are peddling to the Russians for first line technology. You should realize a profit of about 250,000 dollars. You can also send some of the payment to Russia to help pay for the rest of the arms which are new but second or third generation. After the first delivery, this could be a self-sustaining operation. Who knows we may find that we have a wholesaler in Russia.”
“Are you suggesting that I put the government in the drug business?” Creed slowly shook a finger in in Noah’s face.
“According to the script you are not the government, and nobody has approved anything. Do you even know what Mercury is?” Noah had offered the bait causing Creed to think about that for a minute, shaking his head no. Noah pressed, “Ask yourself if you really want to know the answer to that question.”
“Go get your dinner. I think you will have your answer before you finish,” he motioned toward the door as Noah headed down to the restaurant.
Noah walked into the restaurant as the quartet was being served their cocktails. He slowly pulled up his chair with downcast eyes. The men looked disappointed. Noah slowly lifted his eyes and smiled. “I think those crazy bastards are going to go for it.” A look of disbelief came over all four Franks.
“Let’s order we will have our answer soon. I tell you what. I’ll buy the dinner.”
The talk turned to lighter dinner conversation. When the plates were delivered conversation dropped to comments on the food. The plates were about half finished when Creed and Buck walked up to the table.
“Excuse me gentlemen, I need to ask Noah a quick question.” Noah started to get up. Creed motioned him to sit down.
“It appears that you are going to tell everybody the details anyway, so there is no point in any side conversations.” The four Franks smiled and nodded. Creed moved right to the heart of the matter. “Noah who is going to wholesale the deal?” Noah wordlessly tapped his chest to indicate that he would make all of the arrangements. “How will the funds be handled?”
“I will pay out the expenses and bring the proceeds to you,” Noah waved an open hand toward Creed and Buck “You need to control the final product. I need to cover expenses. Are we on?”
Creed was still upset, “All terms and conditions will be met.”
Noah looked at the pair of negotiators. “Have you gentlemen eaten yet? I think that the kitchen is still open. We are almost finished, but I would be happy to pick up the check.” They were eating at a large circular table and there was just enough room for two more chairs. Once the other plates were removed, there would be plenty of room.
“Sit down there is plenty of room at the table. We’ll just make sure the kitchen is open.”
The check came to a little over three hundred. Creed started to say something. Noah held up his hand to stop him.
“The scotch is cheaper in my room. Do you care for a night cap?” Creed nodded his assent.
Both men stood up and headed for the elevator. Creed started to say something. Noah again waved off any conversation. He held up his room key and pointed to it to indicate that there would be no conversation until they got to the room. He handed Creed the ice bucket when they got to Noah’s room. Creed walked into the room sitting down in the other chair by the table as Noah opened the bottle of Dewar’s.
“Let’s keep the bug between us. I wouldn’t want them to miss a word. That is why I wanted to come back here. I would rather talk to your bugs, than some stranger’s bugs.” He poured two glasses of scotch and lit a cigarette. It took Creed several seconds to collect himself.
“I thought it was a good bug. We didn’t bug the lamp. The whole lamp is a bug. How long did it take you to find it?”
“Oh! I checked before I left the room the first time.” He had not even looked. Noah expected the room to be bugged. The table just seemed to be one of the most logical places. Even if he had looked he probably wouldn’t have found it. Any record of their talks would not make any difference. It would be just as incriminating to Creed as it was to him. He took a drink walking over to the door opening it. Noah spoke into the air. “Buck, come on in and bring a glass. This is some good scotch. Go ahead and leave the recorder running. It won’t make any difference.”
Creed spoke into the air, “Do it Buck, we are not surprising anyone here.”
“You’ve done this before. I might as well shut down.” Buck said as he walked in the door.
“Don’t bother,” Noah replied calmly, “I am use to it. Clean up after I leave.” He handed the bottle to Buck.
The three men sat down to work out the details. Creed wanted to be sure that things would be covered in full. He hated dangling ends. “Noah are you sure that you can cover all of your promises?” Noah nodded in the affirmative and gave the thumbs up sign.
“All of my promises will be on time, in place and as stated. I will not give you the detailed answers you want. That is part of my security. Suffice it to say that if things go wrong, I am the one holding the bag. Here is another point. This whole operation is based on plausible deniability. Nobody wants to admit that the boys at the top have even the remotest connection to any of this cluster fuck.” Noah tapped his chest, “I will guarantee the end result. Everything else is something that you really do not want to know about. Do you?”
“Are you sure that you can deliver what you promised?” Creed was incredulous.
“Yes I am,” Noah said in a matter of fact voice. “I cannot guarantee the price. I don’t know the wholesale price of fresh produce. I am hoping to realize somewhere between 150 and 200 K net profit per run after expenses. I will pay the expenses, and you receive the net. You pick up the cash and deliver it to whomever you need to deliver it to. Of course if you prefer to do the expenses you can stick around and take care of business making the payouts. You did say that you worked for the NSA did you not?”
“There is one thing that I do not want and that’s a cluster fuck at the finish line,” Creed was sounding a little testy. He did not relish the idea of putting the government in the drug trade.
Noah was good at reading people. “What’s the matter you two? Why are you afraid of putting the government in the drug trade? Is that worse than running guns or over throwing a friendly government? Isn’t that what you are talking to me about? Most of what we are doing is against international law all over the world, so all that we are doing is adding one more transgression to the list.”
Buck looked at Creed. “His only connection with the government is that he pays his taxes. It’s not like we could put the rest of this on the news.”
Creed was warming up to the idea. He could think of at least three projects as well as this one that he could not request funding for. “Well there is no connection. We will run the first delivery and go from there.” The three men lifted t
heir glasses and took a drink as Noah made his final request.
“I will need a contact number for you before we leave and a line that I can reach you on twenty-four hours a day. We need to arrange a pickup in the Los Angeles area. We will just say we have a message from the Ark and give you the instructions. You pick up your end and never see anything other than the finish line and the cash.”
Noah saw the gleam in both sets of eyes. He did not know whether it was a load of cash for unauthorized missions or a source for personal retirement funds. It did not matter. He had struck the chord that would give him the freedom he needed. Now he could put the probability of success at eighty percent.
“Look I have an early morning. I’ll expect to hear from you before we takeoff.” Creed nodded his head in agreement.
“Let’s call it a night,” Creed said interrupting his thoughts. “Buck, will stop buy tomorrow to give you the contact information. I don’t think that I will see you again. I have other assignments.” Everybody drained their glasses and put them on the table. Buck and Creed went out the adjoining door with a wave. Both men were deep in thought about receiving a large amount of untraceable cash at the finish line.
Noah turned to repack his bag. He knew that he would not get much sleep. He needed a cold phone quick. Noah went downstairs to the lobby. He saw a cab sitting in the drive and hopped in. “To the airport quick as you can.” The driver threw the cab in gear. As the cab pulled off Noah pushed a twenty through the safety barrier. “Do me a favor. Call in the destination after we get there.”
The cabbie looked at the twenty on the seat, “You got it.” Within ten minutes the cab pulled up on the drop off level of the terminal. “That will be twelve dollars.” Noah handed the cabbie another twenty dollars and told the driver keep the change. He immediately went down to the passenger pickup level. Noah looked down the line and spotted a Best Western courtesy van waiting down the line. He started walking up to the driver and as he walked up to the van, he put on a bit of a stagger combing his hair against the grain with his hand and gently pulling on one sleeve. One of Noah’s talents was to be able to change his appearance on the fly. He could look like another person after taking a few steps.
