Not Quite a White Knight Vol. 05D

"You look good with a bit of tousle... not to mention that you know I have a helmet and a dive suit waiting. The maps are numbered with co-ordinates. I am going to run you around to shake any tails. Don't bother denying it, I saw the scoped rifle on the speedboat - those never work because waves make it impossible to aim from a small boat - and the fine classic Chevy wagon with the fat racing-grade tires and the hood scoop in the parking lot, you know it draws the eye, right? Your people are fools without discipline, they each had to show off. Besides, you would not let yourself get tailed while going to a meet someplace, would you?"

Her sniper on the boat had told her the same thing, the rifle was useless, but she insisted.

"You should know I hate this type of game."

"As do I, it is a waste of time for both of us, but this is life in the jungle. Sometimes it gives sunny days, and other times we get downpours on bad hair days. You could look at this as a sunny afternoon and be content, because before it is over you get to feel and see Darnel's end."

"Feel his end? Really? The way we talked? That is... WOW."

"Yes, if you choose he will be working out inside your snatch when he breathes his last. A once in a lifetime opportunity. Isn't that worth a sunny LA drive on a Saturday afternoon?"

She groused, buy admitted that with the prize she really wanted she was willing to play her part out. She also thought she had things covered.

-

When I set up the dock meeting I figured a copter or a fast boat were likely for anyone tailing Doria. So I drove her through some places inland where helicopters could not follow (LA has a LOT of airport zones). Since she might have a chase car or three as backup I added a few parking ramps with multiple exits. Last I put her in a Jeep for an off-road tour of an area where there are few roads and no cell reception. Her Chrysler could not get through the rough terrain in the off-road area. It was a great spot for my pre-positioned sniper to take out any visitors. AJ and his spotter were waiting.

She figured I would watch the spot where I told her to meet me, and I would call her on a cell phone. Her stingray would point to my cell if I was close enough to be in sight, then her guys could shoot away. She was half right, I called her cell but I was not calling from close by, I was several cell towers away at a heliport. (LA has a LOT of heliports.) So her people got nothing useful. Her stingray showed a bunch of targets, but none of them matched the moment I called her.

She actually had two chase cars besides the fast speedboat keeping an eye on her when we started, but her big surprise was in a pair of motel rooms nearby. She had put a few guys with rifles in them, working the crude eBay stingray she bought - she paid too much - to spot cellphones. If I had been physically able to see her, using the stingray her guys should have been able to see me and used their rifles. It was a good plan. The downside was her people were, to a man, lousy shots, but that was why she had two rooms full. As a last resort she had a second cell phone waiting in her car to go with the car's built-in tracking. It would not help either.

(Any cell phone is a radio sending out and getting back a signal, the bars you see show the cell tower signal back to the phone. To cell phones a stingray look like a cell towers, picking up on the cell phone radio signals. Any radio signal can be tracked if you know the frequency and have the correct antennas. Cell phones are designed to be short range, so if a stingray is close enough every powered-up phone close enough can be spotted. Unlike guns, booze and crazy fast cars, stingrays and cell phone blockers are not legal for the free and innocent people in the US to own. But you know, it is just radio stuff, Radio Shack still existed in 2008 and radio electronics is not like rocket science, nuclear science or organic chemistry to learn - it does not kill when you make a mistake and anyone with an average IQ can learn it if motivated. The frequencies and stuff is all public record, and computers can do a lot of the heavy lifting.)

First I had her drive northwest (losing the speedboat) to a couple of parking ramps, each with one entrance and multiple exits, they did the job of shedding the persistent follow cars. One driver got aggressive and met a large truck. Later I had her park her custom Chrysler in another parking ramp and moved the couple to an open Jeep TJ. Doria complained about her hair, but she was really upset about losing the Chrysler's tracker. She and Chiggs both kept their backup phones plus her gun at the car switch, so she played along. She figured he phone was her ace-in-the-hole, and Chiggs was with her, his muscles and her gun were her ways out. Plus, she really wanted the Darnel thing I promised, that desire screwed up her risk assessment.

Part of our deal to pay for her participation in this exercise was that Doria had to give me four gold bricks (roughly $120,000 at 2008 prices, although gold prices were trending down). She claimed this exhausted her "bug-out" stash. I watched through a fixed camera in the parking lot as Chiggs moved the two bags of bricks to the jeep. This told her that I was watching her, but she figured I could not watch the moving jeep.

After about five minutes of driving in the jeep she got very upset with me, cursing on my com. My guess is that she tried to use her backup cell phone and could not get any bars.

Well, she had the illegal stingray, but I had the illegal cell phone blocker in the jeep.

I said the com unit was all she needed. "You know, some folk say that a cell phone could give you cancer."

For the first time, while riding in an open jeep with 4 kilos of gold in the back seat, she felt exposed. She had good reason, I had two cars on her. She had a small gun in her purse, and Chiggs, but she figured on losing the gun before I was done with her. She would do the same if she could.

Just to make sure she stayed on plan I had Darnel say a word into the com so she could hear. That proof-of-life messed with her mind and made sure she would go on with the plan.

Now you might wonder why, when things started to go bad for Doria, she didn't back out. There were two good reasons. One was that, if I was an asshole who was going to blow the deal, then I already had her, I would have no reason to play her this far if that was my plan. Heck, I could have the jeep rigged to blow. I could capture her and the gold at any ambush point starting a block away from the motel rendezvous. Second, she was depending on her two chase cars (three counting the tracker) as protection. They were supposed to be a loose tail. She did not realize they were already gone.

Her other reason for playing ball was that she wanted Darnel and her reading of me after going this far was that I would give him to her. That meant more to her than daddy's gold.

Doria's dad was a kind of "go big or go home" type of guy. He had put up the gold as a loan expecting it would pay off with my head. If she backed off now Doria's rating with her father would go down a peg, she would be demoted to a sex toy and never get another big job. That was really no fun. She had to stick with me and hope that Chiggs would get a chance to bust heads if she used a code word, hopefully after Darnel had given her a thrill and was gone.

Her link to Chiggs was that BJ in the shower and the fuck in her bed this morning, plus past loyalty. She was sure that was enough, it always had been. The problem there was that Chiggs never saw an out before.

In total I ran them around for 90 minutes, it would have been twice that long on a weekday but I planned a route for Saturday traffic, hopping onto expressways and up back alleys, keeping them moving. Finally the Jeep pulled into a box canyon near the hills, a place with no cell reception.

The com units were designed for use by CIA-sponsored contractors in Bolivia, who lost them by accident when they were drunk and playing cards with guys who looked like regular Bolivian soldiers. Frequency agile, they had a range of 20 miles or so (farther if the right CIA satellite was overhead). The Patron's people brought them home at retirement. They were out-of-date for CIA work but they were loud and clear in LA dead spots.

The CIA had long forgotten that the pre-Y2K units even existed, and the frequency algorithm was long forgotten.

I told them to stop in the canyon. As soon as they saw the Huey incoming they got out and stripped to the skin.

As discussed, when the Huey landed near the Jeep, Doria and Chiggs were naked, standing on opposite sides of the Jeep. Corum and Irene - wearing US military uniforms and visored helmets - got out of the helicopter and approached with RF scanners. Outside of their sidearms and various knives Doria could not see any weapons, but she told Chiggs to be cool, the laser dot resting on her beautiful wide right nipple told her loud and clear that I had a good sniper on her. Once they were scanned, they were given jumpsuits and brought to the Huey along with the four gold bars Doria had promised to me as the only payment she could raise.

Doria was also allowed to bring her purse along. First Irene popped the magazine from the peashooter, put the bullets in a zip-lock bag and the mag in a second zip-lock. Once closed each pouch was glued with superglue. Irene liked to be sure.

Giving her the gun back was a big psychological move, it was worthless, but the act made her feel like she would have her clit's good time with Darnel and see tomorrow as long as she continued to play ball. Her daddy had always told her that all criminals play dirty, but that the dirtiest always won, and getting the gun back told her I was not that dirty.

Besides Irene and Corum plus me there was one other passenger they could see in the copter - the mass of muscle that was my uncle Qwit. He out-muscled Chiggs. There were also two pilots plus a surprise.

Once Doria settled into the Huey it marked the first time she, Darnel, and I were together. She did not see Darnel, since he was drugged, tied up and under a tarp in the back but still I had a good feeling about the moment.

No introductions were made when they boarded, Chiggs was not on the com circuit but I plugged Doria's helmet into mine.

"Nice to finally see your lovely face... and the rest," I said. "It really was a pleasure."

She put on a snarl and started to say that "she did not appreciate..." but stopped when she figured out it was a compliment and "shy" really was not a good fit for her, all things considered. I pointed out that she would have done the same to me if she could, plus she still had her gun and bullets in her purse, so I showed a degree of trust. I also assured her that her car was being watched, so it was safe as in her garage.

Well, this was LA, no car was really safe. But really nice homeless car is sometimes adopted to a good home. Maybe in Detroit, Marta would like the unique seating. To keep it safe I currently had it on a truck headed for a 49 garage.

I also mentioned that she and I were conspiring to kill her father, so her not knowing really was a better plan. She didn't like it, but she had to agree.

I did not mention her tails, even if they were a violation of our agreement. One of the drivers objected at a parking structure and was on his way to a hospital at that moment. His really fast '60s style Mustang (not original, it was a tube-frame fiberglass mockup in street disguise) was t-boned by an ugly garbage truck. Not pretty. The '89 Chevy wagon was too nice to damage, so it was gently pushed over one of those "shred your tires" things at the first parking ramp. In a natural response the fool driver tried to drive out, so all 4 expensive race tires were in shreds instead of just the front pair.

The car was not a good ride on just rims. He could call and pay for his own tow truck. Since there were four AK-47s and various other weapons charges in the immobilized car he was paying extra to get the car picked up by the Muellers ASAP.

She relaxed and admitted it was an interesting ride. Then she noticed the highways we were climbing over, we were headed Northwest. "Are we going to pass over my house?"

"No, a few miles away. North. After all, we have a hot date offshore."

She knew it would either be offshore or into the desert. "I hope we don't have to climb down a rope ladder." It was her first spontaneous honest comment to me. She didn't picture the copter landing on a 30 foot dive boat. I smiled.

I had rented the copter, it was flown by the best pilot and co-pilot we had in the extended family. Andri was a Cousin, as an infant he was left at a hospital and was raised in one of the Foxe orphanages in Spain. Today, 32 years later he worked in Valencia Spain for the European shipping company Bishop Foxe had started centuries ago. The co-pilot had a similar story, she was now his wife of 10 years. They were 100% legitimate in Europe and parts of Asia. As for the Western hemisphere? Not so much.

Hueys have large open passenger area, with room for 3 rows of seat behind the pilots. This one was divided, with two rows of seats facing each other separated from the back section of the cabin by what looked like a back wall. Darnel was stowed behind the removable wall in the back section where he was dreaming nicely. All my people had their helmet visors down and did not speak. Chiggs hated copters and was afraid to speak.

A well-known rule is that if kidnappers let you see their faces, you will not live. We kept our faces covered so Doria and Chiggs stayed relaxed.

Our destination was the freighter "Mark Matthew," a 100% legitimate freighter run by the Cousins that worked mostly on the Pacific Rim, including the arctic waters North and South. It is two grades below an icebreaker, but the hull is reinforced to handle ice, or anything else that got in the way. The freighter was waiting for us at Crenshaw Hole, a shark-infested spot off one of the channel islands. Red, who had special feelings about shark teeth, provided the names of some tagged big sharks and very specific GPS data for me. There was a good crowd of big fellows in the area for today's surprise sushi snack.

-

Crenshaw Hole (local nickname), Pacific Ocean

Between the mainland and a channel island.

As we approached Doria did not know what to make of the ship, I had told her dad that I moved a lot more cocaine than him, and ever since I said that they wondered how that could work. She pictured me with a 30 to 50 foot cabin cruiser or fast boat, but that was so Miami in the 1980s. Widespread us of helicopters made those methods obsolete. Neither Smith ever conceived of a ship like this, a working international freighter hundreds of feet long, but seeing the ship Doria suddenly realized that I might have told the truth.

Actually this ship never touched cocaine or anything illegal, it was more about custom delivery to the polar regions where most ships could not journey. They used cranes, commercial amphibians, and even had two teams of sled-dogs onboard for delivering the goods.

There was the standard squad of Foxe Marines aboard, reinforced today by some of my Colonial soldiers from LA.

The ship dropped anchor early this afternoon and immediately began chumming the water. They had filed paperwork to drop a junior college research project at the location so we were legit and on the Coast Guard records.

The plan was for Doria and Darnel to visit with Pacific sharks, the ones with gills and a bad attitude, it fit my sense of irony. Swimming with sharks? That was not a good option. In California there are a lot of people who talk about the ocean being the shark's home, and that we are just visitors. In this case, we were visitors who brought snacks.

A shark cage had been rigged for Doria, it was normally used for inspection of the hull. The cage was basically an eight foot tall tube of high-strength transparent plastic, drilled with a series of one-inch holes around the top and bottom to let water in. It would normally fit only one person with an air tank, but since Doria had come up with the gold to pay for a modification we had greatly increased the fun potential. This rendered the cage useless for normal operations, but the ship had a newer cage on board so that was not an issue.

Darnel had told me everything I asked, plus he wasn't looking so good. So I granted his last request for him to "go high." Since our last talk he was on a sustained drip of straight coke and very good pain killers. Soon we would add some Viagra, it would help for his final duty.

When I sketched the plan out to Gracie in Detroit she said it sounded good, and it was too bad that she could not be present for it. But with Chiggs in the picture I could not risk her presence, the guy can be a problem in tight spaces and at the time I had no idea of where his head was at.

Also, Gracie had to stay 100% legit for now, which meant not witnessing anything terrible.

I had promised Gracie an edited video but I cautioned her, some visual memories replay in the mind.

-

Doria had suggested something similar when we talked, and with 4 kilos of gold I agreed she bought a heightened experience we both agreed on. Everyone, including Darnel would find something nice with the plan - until they didn't. They were the Sunset Sharks after all, what could be better?

The sea was calm enough, Andri set us down light as a feather on the ship. The ship's crew strapped the copter down fast and tight like pros. When we were down the ship launched an large sturdy long range RC aircraft with a radio set to mimic the helicopter's transponder, so the nice folks in the Coast Guard saw the helicopter take a look then continue on. We were doing our part to reduce government paperwork.

(Yes, I know most people would forget that part, but it was important to keep the ship and rented copter looking legit to the folks at the Coast Guard. I mean, without that precaution some idiot bureaucratic-droid could inquire 'what was unusual today" and break the case. That would not do.)

When the Hueys door was opened halfway the crew directed Doria to a changing room where she picked out a wetsuit and a stylish thin air tank. Doria had some pool-based classes in diving and had been suited up in a Sea-World-type aquarium twice with pros to feed dolphins, swim with penguins, and pick out a lobster dinner for Daddy, but she had never been in the deep blue and was not a good swimmer.

I watched Doria's head carefully as she walked across the deck, the ship had upped anchor for the copter landing and was slowly coming around with the wind. As I watched Doria showed no awareness of direction, she only glanced at the dive cage and then moved straight to the door. Some folks have a need to know direction, but on a ship the size of a motel, turning at speed, local direction overrode that global sense. One channel island was barely in sight from the ships deck, for a swimmer it would be below the horizon. We were 45 minutes by helicopter from the mainland, and if you tried for the island you had to know where it was within a few degrees of angle. Plus the weather was overcast, so the sun was not visible to tell direction. She would never make it, even if I had not adjusted her chances. Well, her pretty face and fantastic body hid an ugly soul.

Chiggs was not so happy about being here, the ship was better than the copter (he had white-knuckled the entire trip) but he was still shaky, waiting for something to tilt. This ship wasn't going to do that. He was guided to a windowless room a level up. He really did not want to see what happened because if he acted wrong things would go bad for him.

-

Earlier, when I talked to Darnel at the safe house, he asked for a favor. I said nothing was going to change for his future, we both knew he was dead man talking, but he could ask. After all, he had saved me the time and effort of beating him bloody with the whips, and I had much worse planned for his ugly ass.