Thanks MooKoo
Chapter 5
On a dark street somewhere in Manhattan, a car pulled up to a screeching halt outside of a respectable house. A man opened the door and furtively looked around before running quickly up to the door and knocking.
“Who’s there?”
“Agent Ryals? I need to talk to you. It has to do with drug smuggling.”
“Even though I’m off duty? Can’t you talk to the police or something…”
“No. This can’t wait. I think I’m being hunted. I can’t tell the police; I need to talk to you now.”
“Even though I was just sitting down to dinner and a nice quiet evening?”
“Yeah, it’s extremely urgent! I need to talk to you.”
“Ok, fine. Come on in.”
The door opened and the man walked into the house. It wasn’t exactly a large house; fairly plain. The man could tell Agent Ryals was not married. The agent gave him a seat.
“Now, what’s this about drug smuggling?”
“I used to work for a group of drug smugglers. The typical gang: they have a base somewhere in Africa, an area where they ship the drugs off to New York, people in New York who distributed the drugs, and then people who got “weapons” onto the boat and shipped them back to the base in Africa. I got into it a couple of years ago; I worked on this side of the operation, putting the “weapons” into the boats. I always wondered what the “weapons” were, but nobody wanted to tell me. Finally, it leaked to me that the so-called “weapons” were parts for nuclear bombs that they were assembling. They needed one more shipment before they could finish the bombs and use them. I never figured out what they were going to use the bombs on, but I figured it couldn’t be good. And then they found that I knew what was happening.”
“Ok…wait a second. You were working for a ring of drug smugglers, and yet when you learn that they’re assembling an atomic bomb, you get worried and try to vamoose?”
“I wasn’t really working with them. You see, I’m part of the CIA, and I was working undercover trying to figure out what they were doing.”
“Then why don’t I know about this? Why don’t you talk with someone higher up?”
“Because they think that I’m a traitor. They think I turned on them and went to work for them. But it was just a bluff.”
“How do I know that? How do I know you’re not just trying to lead me into a trap?”
“The only reason I didn’t come earlier was because I was being followed too closely then. I’m not now. I don’t know why; that’s why I came. I need somebody to tell me what’s going on with them.”
“I don’t know anything about them. As far as I know, most of the people in the CIA have been bribed or something to keep away from them.”
“Then we need to figure out what’s happening. But to continue with my story: I managed to get the last shipment before it was shipped and hid it. Only problem is, I don’t want them to figure out where it is. You see, the last shipment I stole wasn’t very big. It was only one medium sized box. I got away with the box, but I figured out I was being followed, so I dumped the box in some guy’s apartment. The people chasing me didn’t figure out where it was; I made sure the guy in the apartment knew about it and would keep it safe. I had to blindly trust that he wasn’t one of the enemy. I did make sure he didn’t see my face, just in case.”
“Do you remember the address of the apartment?”
“Yes, I do. Only, as I told you before, I couldn’t risk leading the enemy to the place where I thought the goods were until recently, when they stopped.”
“Ok, then why don’t we go check that out in the morning.”
“Ok. Here’s the address. I’ll meet you there at 10 AM tomorrow.”
“Alright. I’ll be there.”
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The helicopter ride was a long one. To me (Terry) it seemed to go on forever. Nobody ever talked. Either some of the other people tried to sleep, or they just stared out the window. Nobody really paid any attention to me. All I could see out the window was the ocean, stretching on for what seemed like forever. It was already late when we left; it soon grew even darker. Soon, we were flying in the night. Then, there seemed to be land ahead. The pilot spoke.
“Sir, we’re about an hour away from the base.”
“Very well. Notify the base that we’re close.”
“Yes sir.”
Something went wrong then. Something very wrong.
“Sir, something’s wrong, we’re loosing altitude…”
“Pull up then you idiot! You’re supposed to be some amazing pilot!”
The helicopter started descending rapidly. The blades on top slowed down and stopped. The ground rushed up at Terry.
“Engines are coming back on line…but it’s still too late.”
WHAM.
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It was getting late. It seemed like nothing would go right that day for Josiah. He was sitting with the rest of the crew from the helicopter, lying in some make-shift beds. A man came into the room.
“Excuse me, but I have some information for you all. We think we might have found the helicopter they got away in. Don’t get too hopeful though,” he said as Josiah started from his seat. “We’re not sure if it’s really them. A ship in the Atlantic spotted them not long ago. They were flying south east. From their direction, it looks like they might be heading for somewhere on the African coast. We’re sending another helicopter after them. I think they’re leaving in a couple of minutes, so if you want to go, hurry over to the runway.”
As the man left, Josiah began to get a little bit hopeful again. Maybe they could find them after all. He caught the helicopter before it left, hopped on, and strapped in for the flight.
“Welcome on board. Your name’s Josiah, right?”
“Yeah, thanks. Do you have any more information about where exactly the helicopter is going?”
“Not really. We’ve got them on our radar right now. I’ll show you after we take off. We’re over here, and then the helicopter is over here, not far from the African shore now.”
“Hey, did something happen? The dot just disappeared or something. It didn’t crash did it?”
“It might have. That’s the only reasonable explanation…unless it landed, but it couldn’t have landed so near the ocean; the pilot would be an idiot for doing that.”
“So it’s probably crashed, and probably everybody on board is dead.”
“Well, we can’t be sure. Can’t really tell from this radar what happened. We’ll just have to keep flying and hope we’re not too late.”
Too late. Always too late.