“My men have only just begun to fight back. I have four ships coming in. You do not know which one holds the merchandise. You can go to hell.” Shindo hung up.
Grainger looked at Robert with concern. “Shindo said that four ships are coming in. How are you going to figure out which one has the goods?”
Juan looked over at Eric. “You have the manifests. Isn’t it the Honolulu?”
Eric just sat for a moment deep in thought. “Most likely, although it wouldn’t have been too hard to switch the actual ship around when loading in China. This could become like some kind of grand shell game. It could be tricky getting the special pilot on the right ship.”
Grainger was clearly not pleased with that answer. “Shindo cannot be allowed to get away with this.”
Robert, who had been mostly silent, carefully interjected. “Shindo is closely tied to the Fairchild Group. Does it really matter which ship we hit? It would be best to target the right one, but if we hit the Honolulu, and it isn’t the right ship, Shindo will still be up the creek without a paddle.”
They all sat silent for a moment. Grainger, now smiling said, “Robert, you are absolutely right. Stick with the original plan. We will make Shindo eat his feces.”
DeMario, Pete, and Charlie rendezvoused at DeMario’s ‘Stang. First making sure that the coast was clear, DeMario opened the trunk. Pete and Charlie smiled. Pete reached in to the weapons case. “Knowing you DM, I half expect you to have a tactical nuke stashed in here.”
DeMario pulled the case out, set it on the ground, and opened it, revealing the UMP40 and the M4. “We will want a lot of firepower. I also brought some grenades.”
Pete fondled and caressed the UMP40. “About the only thing I don’t like about these are they are kind of hard to conceal. I do have my Glock 18 with several 33 round clips. It is a little more discrete.”
Charlie stood back watching. “I prefer the .40 caliber round vs. the 9 mm of the Glock 18. But you are right, that UMP is a bit in your face. It would draw a lot more attention than the Glock. But it is also a lot more intimidating to a bad guy staring into the barrel.”
The three homeless looking men loaded up with gear from their vehicles in preparation for their penetration into the dock area. They then returned to the dock area, pushing their shopping cart up to near the main gate, still disguised as three homeless. A line of trucks was queued at the gate. The guard checked the paper work of each truck and then waved them in, one at a time. The line of trucks were not brightly lit by the lights along the entrance, providing an opportunity for the three homeless to crawl up into the spaces beneath some of the cargo containers mounted on trailers, allowing them to get past the gate guard and begin their close reconnaissance and to disable the planted explosives.
Jorge walked into Shindo’s office at the helicopter terminal. Shindo sat at a desk pouring over paperwork. “Grainger’s guys are tougher than we thought. They are kicking our butts in the close fighting. Can we get a little more aggressive?”
Shindo looked up with a frown. “No. We don’t want to draw in the authorities. We have a lot of influence in high places, but if this gets too far out of hand, then we will blow our whole operation. Do you have the backup cover plan in place?”
“Yes, we have planted enough information to make this credibly look like a islamofacist terrorist attempt in case everything goes to hell.”
“Are the Yemeni and Saudi stooges here?”