Chapter 20
Gone Fishing
The yacht was big enough to cut through the ocean smoothly making it easy to sleep, but by early evening everyone had gotten a few hours sleep and were back to work. It would take us until morning to reach the Panama Canal, so I asked that everyone stay on task looking for information and that we would meet later to map out our next steps.
I was still debating with myself on whether to ask the Army to step in and rescue our SA members now, or to leave them there until we dealt with the bridge situation. Since I couldn’t justify the risk of an early attack on the bridge, I decided we were just going to have to leave them there for now and pray they had not been harmed.
Since Meea and Marty weren’t needed to help set up and monitor the surveillance equipment on the bridge, they must have gone to the galley to speak with the chef. I followed behind hoping to find something to eat before trying to catch a few winks of sleep for myself.
I caught up with Marty and Meea as they hit the galley door.
“Hello,” Meea said in a friendly tone, padding around the stove to shake hands with the chef.
I was hoping the cook spoke English since he looked, very French. He was sporting a big handle bar mustache and tall droopy chef’s hat. He was even wearing a monogrammed apron that said ‘Chef’s make it HOTTER!’ over his white shirt and pants. He was a funny looking little man, but the kitchen did smell wonderful.
By the stunned look on his face and the lack of response, I think Meea should have covered up the bikini if she wanted a coherent reply from him.
She repeated herself trying not to notice his awkwardness. “Hello, do you speak English?”
“Excuse me, yes of course, how may I service you, I mean help you, no, what I mean is, what can I get for you lovely lady.” Finding a smidge of composure, he bowed slightly.
Marty couldn’t watch the bumbling any more and spoke up. “Yes. Hello. We’re going to go fishing and wanted to know what your specialty was so we could get you some fresh fish for dinner.”
“You’re going to just catch the exact kind of fish I request? Really now.” The chef laughed, like we were joking.
“Yes, we will. You tell us what fish you want and how many and well bring them down for you to prepare.” Meea said pleasantly, holding the chefs gaze.
“Oh, of course, how foolish of me…” the cook had a sarcastic look on his face and then decided to be even more sarcastic with his reply.
“Get me eight 10 to 15 pound Mai Mai to be smoked for our first course, and also bring me two ocean catfish for a side dish, and also bring me 15 small barracuda for our main course. I’ll need these in less than an hour in order to have them all prepared properly for dinner of course.” He smiled smugly.
Meea looked a bit miffed by the cook’s attitude, but she told me earlier she was in the mood for fish, so I knew she was going to get fish.
I needed some sleep bad, but I wasn’t missing this for the world. I wanted to see how Meea was going to get the fish he wanted, which I knew somehow, she would!
Then I wanted to see the look on the cook’s face, when he got exactly what he’d asked for. I learned eating miles of obstacle course dust, you never ever doubt Meea Suntree.
“Come on, Marty. Let’s go to the lower deck.” Meea said.
I continued to tag along not saying a word. Since Meea was kind of pissed off, I didn’t want any of that anger to be directed toward me.
Meea stood at the lower deck railing and stared into the ocean a few minutes. Then out of the blue… no pun intended, was a small school of very large tuna, swimming to the surface and right along side the boat.
Marty shot Meea a questioning look, as if to ask, now what.
“Get me a big one!” Meea barked to Marty who was still looking a bit lost.
“I wasn’t prepared for this, Meea… help me here, Wilson. Grab that hook off the wall.” Marty said pointing to one of those poles with a hook on the end used to fish people in life preservers out of the water.
Marty started to reach over the side to get as close to the swimming tuna as possible. He pushed his energy around one of the big ones but was only able to get it pulled to the side of the boat and half way out of the water. That was the most weight I’d ever seen Marty lift with his kinetic energy. I swung the hook down at the big fish and got him secured from underneath. With one huge pull from Marty and me we managed to haul the hundred and fifty pound tuna over the railing of the boat. I stabbed it once with the end of the pole to kill it.
“So what the hell are we going to do with that Meea, that’s not what the cook asked for?” Marty said trying to catch his breath.
“We’re feeding more than just people on this boat you know. I have a two hundred and twenty pound tiger to keep happy.”
“Oh yeah, good idea Meea. Sorry.” Marty said giving me quick look.
Meea turned back to look over the side again and pulled up a school of Mai Mai, which Marty had no trouble pulling in, once Meea pointed out the perfect ones for dinner.
Twenty minutes later Marty and Meea carried in two baskets of the exact type and size fish the cook had asked for and sat them on the prep table in the galley.
“How… how did you do that?” The chef stuttered out shuffling through the basket of fish, triple checking he had gotten his order filled to perfection.
I was right, the look on the chef’s face was priceless, and well worth the sleep I had forfeited.
The chef was staring at the man sized tuna I dragged in that was slumped over in the corner. “What… do you expect me to do with that?” The chef squawked pointing to the tuna.
“I’ll take care of that.” Meea replied with a sheepish smile. “KOBE!”
The tiger came bounding through the galley door like the ship was on fire, a large growl rumbled from his chest. The chef, fearing for his life jumped backward across the prep table and into the sink landing with a splash. The tiger slipping on the hard floor, his paws not finding purchase hit the counter with a thud, and without hesitation leaped immediately onto the tuna. The cat looked back at the chef and growled again, letting him know the tuna was spoken for.
“Don’t bother him while he eats and you’ll be fine. I’ll tell him to leave your fish alone.” Meea mused.
“You’ll tell him what?” The cook’s voice whimpered out.
We all laughed as we walked out.
“I’m going to get some sleep.” I said kissing Meea softly.
“I’ll wake you later for dinner.” Meea promised.
I hope this tuna smell will come off...
Meea let me sleep through dinner, knowing that I needed it. She did however wake me later with a large tray of food in her hands and in plenty of time for our strategy meeting. The food looked delicious and so did Meea in her new swimsuit. Defiantly not a hard choice for this leader to make…
We arrived at the meeting quite a few minutes late. I brought the tray of food I hadn’t touched with me. Maybe I’d get a chance to eat something now that Meea and I were in public. Meea traced small hearts on my back with her fingernail during the meeting. I looked at it as a test of my ability to focus under extreme distraction.
“When will we hit the coast outside Presidio, Steven?” I asked.
“In two days at approximately 1:00 P.M. given a one and a half hour deviation for crossing the Panama Canal.”
“Good. Tony, what else were you able to dig up.”
“I have satellite photos of the entire maintenance complex in the Bahamas.” Tony said as he pinned the pictures to a large white board that was now set up in the back of the living room, right above where Kobe had chosen to catnap.
Melissa was sitting on the floor in the gap between Kobe’s front and hind legs, using him as a backrest while she played with some dolls Stacy had thought to bring along for her.
“I also found the van purchases you ask me to look for.” Tony pointed out.
“What vans
are we looking for?” Chels ask.
I swallowed a quick bite and continued. “Let me explain what I believe we’re up against. Southway Air needs to ensure that the bridge cannot be rebuilt quickly, because that would negate the profits made by the ferries. Steven has studied the blue prints on the bridge construction and located the critical structural points. Each of these points would need to be taken out to successfully drop the bridge for and extended period of time. Each critical area can be hit in one of four ways. The first is, from the air. Which I do not believe will happen since the Air Force as the air space all around the bridge closely patrolled. The second is, by setting charges to the main columns. I don’t see this working because of the time it would take to set up. The bridge is monitored by too many cameras and regular patrols to make this possible. That leaves us with methods three and four. We need too have both of these last two possibilities covered up tight.
“And the vans…?” Chels asked again, slightly miffed I didn’t start by answering her question.
“I am getting to that, I promise, Chels. They sent a two-fold attack against us last night, right, by sea and by land. We were probably presumed to be an easy target too. That makes it a pretty good bet they’d use at least two waves of attach against their main target, the bridge.
Rachel walked over to study a blown up photo of the Golden gate bridge we had taped up to the sidewall. “So what are options three and four Wilson, and how do we stop them.”
“Option three would be the most straight forward, they drive four vans filled with explosives up to the main four columns and set them off. That’s where the vans come in, Chels. The trick for them will be how do they get their drivers to safety and explode the vans before the vans are spotted. The fourth option is they drive by in boats under the bridge and hit the columns with rockets or leave the boats full of explosives at the column and then detonate them.”
“And the how we stop them part, how does that go…?” Chels ask as she sat up stretching, smiling now that she knew about the vans.
“Yeah, we still have to come up with most of that part. And we’ll also have to coordinate the rescue of the three SA teams to happen almost at the exact same time.”
“What are we going to do for fun next week then? Marty questioned, getting the group to laugh.
“Here’s the small part I have worked out so far. We brought four automatic guns to hook up under the bridge to help us stop a boat attack, if there is one. There are cameras located under the bridge that are now used to measure the heights of ships passing under the bridge. Is that right, Steven?”
“Yes, that’s absolutely correct my good man.” Steven replied, using an English accent.
“Tony, will be able to hack into those cameras and monitor the waterway under the bridge. We’ll also add remote controls on the guns so we can operate them remotely from anywhere. You can swing all that right, Tony?”
“Yea, none of that will be a problem. Piece of cake.” Tony replied.
“Meea can bring in whales and sharks or anything else she wants to help stop any other water attacks.”
“What else do you have on the vans, Tony?” Meea asked.
“There were four new cargo van’s ordered by the Southway main office yesterday. That’s all I really know. Oh, and I know the dealership they’ll come from. Gonzalez motors on the corner of Lexington and Grove in San Fran.”
“We’ll have to find the vans and gather more evidence to prove that the Airways are behind this, we still need some hard evidence. Just buying ferries and cargo vans is no crime, not yet anyway. Any questions so far?”
Everyone was wearing down again and in need of a good nights sleep. No one wanted to joke or make fun of anything I just said so I knew they were reaching their limits.
“Let’s push on for one more hour then we should all get some sleep.” I said as everyone stretched and tried to refocus.
“When we get close to San Fran, Meea, Stacy, and Rachel can go to the car lot to find out what they can about the vans, the name of who bought them, where there going, anything you can get. I’ll call ahead for a helicopter to pick us up a few miles off the coast when we get close.”
“Us?” Meea questioned smiling at me.
I’m sure hoping I was including myself in her day at the car lot trip.
“Tony, Marty and I will drop you girls off as its getting dark and then we will head over to the bridge to get the cameras and guns set up. I’m hoping the bridge isn’t under surveillance yet.
“How about a plan to rescue the SA teams.” Chels asked studying the whiteboard while Tony taped up more photos.
“Do you have a live shot of this area, Tony?” Chels asked pointing to a group of small huts toward the back of the complex. The huts looked a bit like bunk houses that would have been used by fishermen a long time ago.
“I can bring you right down on any spot in the complex. Come and have a look.”
Rachel joined Chels to look over Tony’s back at the monitors he was using.
“Right there. That hut.” Rachel pointed to one of the monitors. Tony zoomed down to within 30 yards.
“How’s that?”
“That’s it!” The twin’s voice said in unison.
“That’s what, girls?” I felt my heart pounding against the inside of my chest.
“There are a lot of people in that hut.” Rachel said.
“Yeah, like way too many to be normal.” Chels added.
“How do you know?”
“We can see the heat coming out from the glass windows… its summer in the Bahamas, so were pretty sure they aren’t running the fireplace, Duh. The girls giggled.
Since I still had a confused look on my face the girls trudged on with the explanation.
“If you put a dozen people in that shack they would raise the temperature inside with their body heat enough to change the heat pattern coming from the windows. Get it?”
“Sure, sometimes it just takes longer than others. Tony, we need to monitor that hut, to see if anyone comes in or out, and what if anything is taken in or out.”
“You mean like food and water to keep twelve people alive, that sort of stuff?”
“Yeah, and also if twelve maintenance men come out after bunking together, or what ever other reason twelve anonymous people might be doing in that little hut. We just need to confirm the odds of that being our twelve people. I don’t want to rescue a book club holding a meeting about the Twilight book series.”
Melissa was pulling on Kobe’s fur to pull her self up. She came wobbling over to Meea with her hands up. She didn’t have the smooth glide to her walk like normal, and she made Meea bend down this time to pick her up. She normally flies into the air with no effort and attaches easily to your hip. Meea looked over at me to mouth the words… “She’s tired.”
“Story, Meya… peez.” Melissa whispered.
Meea looked panicked all of a sudden, as Melissa words sank in. “I forgot the b-o-o-k when we packed up.” Meea said, wincing.
Steven walked over and held out his hands for Melissa. “How about I tell you the princess story tonight Melissa?”
“K.” Melissa held out her arms for Steven to take her.
Steven looked at Meea and winked. “Photographic memory works on kid’s books too.”