Thursday, November 2, 2017

Mind the J's and W's - Part 3

It was late at night, but way too hot to sleep even though he only wore a pair of boxers to bed under the light cotton sheets.  Patience was one thing he had learned over and over again with this job.  He had trained for Special Forces and liked taking care of problems right away.  When he had joined this group he had understood that sometimes he would be out in the field for months without being able to have the satisfaction of quick action and without contact to his superiors.  It had proven true more times than not, but this had been his longest stint in the field yet.  He contemplated the fowl mood he had been in all day as he stared at the ceiling.  Over the past couple of months he had seen some horrendous things, some of which he would never forget. 
He tried to change his train of thought and bring it back round to the business at hand.  The last time he had called his brother, as he had to call his contact, they had informed him that a friend would be meeting up with him to give him information on the group of operatives who were to be the people interested in purchasing the items his boss had for sale, mostly dirty bomb material.  They had taken time to set up and he knew it.  They had been in contact with his boss for the last two weeks.  Usman Khan was not an easy man to fool, and he was not stupid either. 
Once contacted, Streak would be fed some of the names of the group.  They would have to be damn good, both the agent that was going to contact him and the plant that was going to purchase the items.  This guy had sniffed out two other plants and promptly disposed of them.  He had been lucky to stay in the job this long.  The CIA had lost a couple of good men, but they hadn’t been good enough he thought leaning up on one arm on the bed as he grabbed for the carafe of water.  He had left the balcony doors open so that he could get something of the breeze that seemed to move as fast as the tortoises he had seen in Africa on one of his other assignments.  When there was a breeze in this hell hole there always seemed to be a good amount of dirt and sand that also came in with it, so much so sometimes that he would have to close the door just so that he wouldn’t feel as if he would be buried alive while he slept. 
The compound itself was located in a very dicey area of the northern part of Afghanistan although it would be considered a very safe area for terrorists.  The grounds themselves were very nice.  Once someone left the compound the poverty and the decline were apparent.  Add the gunrunners and other mafia types that ran rampant in the provinces of Kandahar and Hemland and it was amazing.  What was also amazing was the number of people that would help them for a pittance just to stay alive.  There were guards placed every twenty feet or so around the compound as well as in it, and they all had been equipped with the latest and greatest that there was to offer on the illegal arms market.  Night vision goggles were just the beginning.  Each AK had been equipped with laser scopes just in case a spray of bullets were not enough to disable the enemy and they felt like doing a little target practice.  They had been better equipped than any small army in any third world nation. 

Although he had been allowed relative freedom of movement they had watched him the entire time he had been outside of the compound.  He had gained some of Usman’s trust, but not enough.  Then again there was only one man Usman Khan trusted, Ata Errol.  That was how Streak had gotten involved so deep so fast.  The old adage of who you knew and not what you knew held even in this lowly business.  He had spent years building up this persona, Razz Crnobog, as a gun and weapons runner that would and could deal in anything that caused death and mayhem.  The man had become a legend working under all the major dealer’s radars.  Streak had made sure that the name Razz Crnobog had caught his attention a few times.  Razz had spoiled and stolen a few deals that Ata Errol had set up.  The last time he left a calling card that Errol couldn’t miss and his number.  He knew that signing him onto his team to get his skills and connections would be a coup.

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