Nor had he emerged from the thatch roofed structure during the second day. At their observation post, Davies and the rest of the team started brain storming out a few plans of attack. The first, one none of them really wanted to do, involved infiltrating the village at 4AM and seizing The Captain from the bungalow. They would then move to one of the pirate's sharp bowed skiffs and exfiltrate to their extraction point further down the river. They knew that at the very least the boats were fueled up; they had observed the pirates filling them back up upon returning from whatever errands they had been on.
They had to be ready to leave at a moments notice, and that worked in the commandos favor.
The second plan--one that didn't involve them having to potentially fight an entire village of murderers and thieves—had them moving to a new spot along the river, with Patton magically observing the village in as discrete a way as he could manage. When The Captain bid his lover farewell and the yacht moved away from the village, the commandos would be waiting, veiled and hidden by Patton's arcane talents. Chancy, but less risky than the first.
On the second night, an opportunity presented itself that made the first two plans unnecessary.
Bouchard woke the rest of them at eleven in the evening. There was some kind of celebration or party going on in the village proper around a bonfire, and apparently The Ambassador and The Captain had decided they should have a little shindig of their own.
Escorted by their guards, the two had come back to the yacht and gone to the upper deck. The guards helped set up a table (with real linens, no less), chairs, and candles. Various dishes were brought up from the village. So as the pirates were cavorting in the village, the two lovers had a candlelight dinner above it all on the yacht. Through night imaging systems, the commandos watched. Frank smirked in the dark as he could see them laughing at some joke. The Captain then scooped up some bit of food from his bowl with chopsticks and fed it to a delighted Ambassador.
“Jesus. Like normal people,” he grunted sourly.
“You expect them to maybe kick puppies over the side or eat babies, lad?” Stewart sounded grimly amused. Frank didn't shrug or shake his head, instead continuing to watch, keeping the scopes reticule just above The Captain's obscuring hat.
“Naw, Mags. It's just...I dunno. Lotta awful shit has come t' light from the Phoenicians over th' past two years. Guess it's weird seein' him an' th' Dragon gal carryin' on like...well, like normal people.”
Several more moments passed in silence before Stewart answered him.
“You ever read 'Ordinary Men' by Christopher Browning, Frank?”
“No?”
“I think you ought.”
“You can discuss a book club later,” said Davies roughly, and they quieted once more.
As the wild party in the village started to slowly fade as the bonfire burned lower, so too did the mood change on the yacht. The guards were dismissed, and the arm band wearing crew went down off the boat to the pontoon docks, smoking and chatting amongst themselves. At the table, the candles were extinguished. That didn't hamper the ability of the ex ARTEMIS operatives to observe.
Next to Frank, Stewart made a noise of embarrassment as she watched the Ambassador slowly climb on top of the Captain, straddling him firmly in his chair as he helped her remove her clothes.
“Well, this is awkward.”
Patton stifled a chuckle from his hiding spot.
“Really? Monsters, terrorists, the undead...and this is what is going to make you uncomfortable?”
“I'm not a bloody pervert like you are, Mister 'Occult Pornography is an Emerging Art Form.'”
“If not for the fact all her retainers are right there on the dock,” interjected Bouchard in a deadpan voice, “this would be the perfect time. You know. Catch him with his pants down.”
Despite the gravity of their mission, all, even Davies, chuckled at this.
“Bloody Christ, you lot. Try to pretend to be professionals.”
Hours later, the Dragon and the Phoenician finished their roof top extracurriculars, lying side by side. Right around 3AM, however, the Ambassador slipped from her sleeping lovers embrace, dressed, and descended to the dock. Before the astonished eyes of the team, she collected her guards with a curt gesture and the whole group left the docks.
They didn't go back to the bungalow. They went deeper into the jungle, passing from sight and leaving the village without its most heavily armed personnel. On the yacht, all was quiet. In the village, nothing stirred, though they could see a few pirates sleeping off the festivities on the ground in places.
“Did...she just do what I think she just did?” Patton sounded incredulous, as well he might.
“If what you think she just did is leave the Captain completely open to us, then yes, she did. What the fucking hell?” Davies voice was rough and perplexed in the darkness.
“Almost like she wants him to get snatched,” muttered Frank as he tried to find any sign of the departed Ambassador and her retinue.
“Anyone says something about a bloody model, I'll shove this grenade launcher up your arse,” grumbled Stewart under her breath.
It was difficult to deny what they were seeing, however. As seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into a half hour without her return, the sense that she somehow knew someone was out there and was giving up the Captain to them increased. Finally, Davies made the decision.
“We don't know if he's going to stay another full day, and we don't know if we're going to get as good a chance as this. The cutthroats in the village are stoned, drunk or unconscious—or all three—and the Ambassador has taken all her guards out of the area. We go now...and this is how we're going to do it.”
The yacht guard, suit long discarded and his dress shirt unbuttoned at the chest, looked over the railing at the stern of the ship. Murky water rippled in the light of the crescent moon above. The guard hadn't expected to find anything. Thanks to the machinations of the Dragon, patrols of any kind from Malaysian or even Indonesian authorities were rare. And while his captain had rivals, especially within the ranks of the Phoenicians, none ever came to bother him here.
Sweeping his MP5 back up, the man started to walk back towards the bow. This was honestly some of the easiest work he'd ever had in the service of the Phoenicians. Still, spending this much time not on the open seas—or under them—made him nervous. The Phoenicians were at their best in the ocean, not plying muddy rivers like wannabe sailors in a brown-water navy. He sighed, pausing to give a glance over the starboard side railing. His boss would feast and boink the Malay woman for a few days, then they could get back to the ocean where they belonged.
The guard never heard the man climb up the railing at the aft and move behind him. A heartbeat later, one shot from a suppressed pistol went in the back of the guards head, exiting through his nose. The corpse was caught and secured by his killer, and lowered slowly to the deck. This Phoenician was never going to make it back to the ocean.
“One down,” hissed Bouchard over the radio.
Frank, still lying prone on the bank opposite the village, had watched as Bouchard pulled himself up the rear of the boat with painstaking slowness, not making a single sound. Davies and Patton followed, moving slowly as well. Not far from the yacht, Stewart emerged from the river, crawling aboard a skiff like a crocodile. As the assault team started to move along the yacht, the rugby playing Scot loosened the line mooring the skiff to the pontoon dock. Wearing a night vision monocular that was the mirror image of those used by the assault team, Stewart then clambered onto the dock itself, taking cover behind some tarp covered crates.
Panning his weapon back along the yacht, Frank spotted another of the Captains men exit the cabin, making for the middle deck. Giving the team a whispered warning, Frank centered the reticule of the night sight on the man's chin. The guard was seemingly out for a late night smoke, and stopped at the railing to light up. Just a few feet below him, Davies, Patton and Bouchard crouched in the shadows.
“My shot?” Frank's finger tapped the trigger guard of his SR-25, ready to utilize the precision rifle.
Davies tapped his push to talk button twice, not daring to speak with the guard just above him. Click, click.
Yes.
Frank squeezed the trigger until there was no more slack, then took a breath. The guard took a long draw off his cigarette, Uzi hanging on a sling at this side. Frank exhaled, and made the final squeeze. A single, anima enhanced shot leaped from the suppressed muzzle of the weapon. Shot through the bridge of his nose, the guard toppled from the railing—and was caught by Davies and Bouchard. With this corpse gently lowered as well, the three moved quickly up to the cabin.
Through shades of black and green, Frank could see that the Captain was still sound asleep on the roof, face turned away. Of course. Finally without that damn hat, and Frank still couldn't see his face.
Bouchard led the team inside, pistol braced in front of him in a two-handed grip. Thanks to the monocular hanging in front of his eye, he could see in the cabin even though it was only lit by moonlight and starlight drifting in through the windows. A third guard slept in a chair, a half empty bottle of some kind of drink near sitting near his foot. His pistol was holstered.
Bouchard shot him twice in the chest anyway. The suppressed pistol snap-hissed softly, and the man slumped dead, never knowing how he came to die.
As they approached the set of stairs leading up to the roof, Davies growled a warning to Frank into his throat mic.
“Badger, Mastiff. One hostile unaccounted for. Believe he's below. Eyes open. Redcap, be ready with our ride.”
Hustling up the stairs, Patton and Bouchard sprang upon the Captain, deeply asleep from a combination of good food, alcohol, and sex. He managed to rise up half a foot before Patton placed a hand on his chest and spoke a single word. Or unword, more accurately. The Captain flopped back down, the charm seizing up his joints while Bouchard threw a sack over his head. Davies watched the village through his monocular, CAR-15 tight into his shoulder, glancing towards his subordinates as they flex-cuffed the Phoenician and hauled him to his feet.
Where was the last guard, wondered Frank as he swept the rifle over the deck. Where the hell was he?
Trepidation growing, Frank saw the team lug their prisoner down the stairs, go through the cabin, and
exit onto the lower deck, moving purposefully but quietly to the gangplank. Maybe the last guard was just going to politely stay asleep wherever he was in the bowels of the ship. It'd be nice for things to go completely their way for once.
Stewart left her position by the crates and dropped down into the skiff, starting the motor as the assault team and their human cargo moved closer. The motor sounded impossibly loud in the early morning gloom. Movement drawing his eye, Frank snapped the rifle back towards the village as a trio of pirates staggered out of the trees where they had been amusing themselves all night. Seeing only furtive shadows in the moonlight, they paused comically. One then brought up a heavy revolver, his besotted brain still knowing something was wrong.
As a reward, Frank put an anima infused round through him. As he toppled over dying, he still managed to squeeze the trigger anyway. A resounded boom rippled through the village as the .357 went off.
Patton and Davies dropped the other two with a precise group of shots from their carbines. These were not suppressed, however, and now the village resounded with the angry crack-pops of gunfire. Bouchard muscled the Captain into the skiff as Stewart shouted for the others to get aboard. No point in whispering now.
Throughout the village, pirates, mercenaries and thieves tried to rouse themselves, confused and bewildered. A hard looking woman with a sawed off shotgun and a yellow arm-band emerged from a hut, then dropped a heartbeat later as Frank blew out her eye. Some of the Ambassadors guards were still in the village, it seemed.
Davies and Patton kept heads down with a flurry of shots, then finally boarded the skiff. Stewart turned the boat towards the opposite bank, and the skiff powered away from the docks. Frank picked up his rifle, folding its bipod as he splashed loudly into the river. As the skiff pulled close, Frank could feel the hair on the back of his neck go up as Patton let loose another spell, flinging a soccer ball sized orb of fire at the village, with exploded with a throaty whump.
Rifle across his chest, Frank flopped awkwardly into the skiff. Stewart paused only to let loose a single grenade from her under-barrel launcher. The round exploded inside the village near the bonfire where a large concentration of pirates were attempting to wake up and get organized. The thermobaric round put an emphatic end to that endeavor.
Putting the rifle down next to her, Stewart then concentrated on piloting the skiff, and the team raced away from the burning village.
An hour later, they had been picked up by the seaplane sent to fetch them and were headed back towards Riau. It was then they had an opportunity to see the face of their target in the light.
“Rohit fucking Patel. Can you believe it?” Davies spoke to Frank using their radio over the drone of the Sea Otter's engines.
Frank and Davies were seated just behind the cockpit. Locked away in the cargo section was Captain Patel, guarded by Stewart and Bouchard. Patton was taking the opportunity to rest and recharge. Before taking off the hood for a look, they'd turned on bright flashlights, keeping Patel from seeing who they were. They'd taken care not to speak in his presence, given he very well might recognize their voices.
“Actually...yeah. Lotta things make more sense now. Like how th' hell th' Hall knew so much about him.” Frank's sniper rifle was packed up, and he sagged in his seat, arms folded across his broad chest.
“Mmm. Stolt. New director, pressure from the Hall to prove the worth of ART...of whatever they're called now. Patel was the quickest option to give the Hall something to work with. Especially since his little band of Purples was no longer contracted with no-longer-ARTEMIS. Also explains why they didn't want to give his name.”
“Given some of us had worked alongside the guy? Yeah, no shit.” Frank's face, still painted in camouflage colors, twisted as he frowned.
“Don't like it?” Davies cocked his head over at Frank.
“Yeah...no...fuck, I dunno. Fought alongside him. He's a Phoenician, I get it, they're th' bad guys...I dunno, Davies. Kinda fuckin' weird it's him. I don't think I'd give it a second thought if it was someone else.”
“I know what you mean, boyo. But that was the job, and we did the job.” In his earpiece, Davies voice had a tone that suggested Frank just let it be. Shrugging heavily, Frank changed the subject for the moment.
“Still wonderin' about th' Dragon lady's play.”
“Indeed. The Dragon is supposed to be more subtle than that. At least that's what they like to say.”
“Wonder how this is gonna affect her standing with the pirates 'round there?”
“Oh, I don't know. There were a few arm band wearing thugs we shot up. Enough to show she sustained some losses, wasn't responsible for what happened. Somehow I imagine she'll sail out of that just fine. I'm wondering more what we should think about the fact the Dragon apparently wanted us to get him.”
Frank looked back in the red-lit cabin, towards the door that led to the cargo area. He thought of the smooth talking, handsome pirate who had charmed so many. Well. It was doubtful he was going to sweet talk his way out of a Templar dungeon.
“Well. The Hall will decide what to do about all this. Hopefully this little trip improves our standing with the bloody bureaucrats. I'd like out of that cell sooner than late.”
Frank nodded slightly at Davies, resting his chin on his chest as he thought.
It had been the job. They'd done the job. The Order needed information to unravel the schemes of the Phoenicians. Patel was a Phoenician. It was all so very tidy.
Despite this, Frank couldn't sleep on his way back to London.
((For more from these characters, see: "Contingencies" and "Old Dogs, New Tricks" which are both available on this forum. For more on Rohit Patel and his mercenaries, see "Ignorance is Bliss," also on this forum))
