Chapter 4
Kasha checked the time. “Dave will be calling in soon. And I need to see how Bullard is.”
Brandon nodded and followed her into the ER room off the main war room. After noting Bullard’s vitals on a clipboard, she watched over her boss. He showed no signs of coming out of his drugged stupor. She wanted to get him home, but he’d been very specific about not changing the flight schedule. She hated that. That left the onus on her to follow his instructions, but, if things went bad, she didn’t want something to happen to him because she couldn’t decide for herself. Her phone rang as she sat at Bullard’s side. She set it up for a video conference again. “Hey, Dave. Right on time.”
“How is he?” Dave’s total focus was on the unconscious man on the stretcher.
“No change so far, yet his vitals remain strong. Which is good, right?”
Dave nodded. “I would think so.”
“Although we did find needle marks on the inside of his elbow, where he was injected with drugs. Nothing else would explain his state.”
“The trouble is, we don’t know what drugs were used or how much was given him or if it was just one drug or a cocktail. All those details matter.”
“Right. And we haven’t even gotten Bullard into a warm bath, as our search for medical supplies ended when we found an armed intruder, who Brandon killed in self-defense. And now we probably shouldn’t move Bullard from the central war room to any bathtub in this place. Although his body is no longer as chilled.”
Dave sighed. “I’m sending the plane early. The pilot will be there around 4:00 a.m.”
Fourteen hours to go. She grinned. “Perfect.”
“I see the five of you. Where are the others?”
“Merk and Harrison are surveying the area. Keeping watch.”
“Do you think you’re under attack?”
“Not yet, but we suspect it’s coming.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure what’s going on with the mercs in town, but remember the trouble we had before you and I left Bullard alone here? It’s quite possible something is brewing locally. Maybe nobody wanted Bullard to have the place.”
“Or maybe somebody was using the place and wants their base back,” Brandon added. “The squatter’s computer equipment, even if not up to our caliber, would be expensive to replace for a small faction far away from any cities and tech companies. Or they could want the information they have stored on it.”
“Who knows what else is here that they left behind,” Kasha said. “And we’ve had too many interruptions to inventory the place properly.”
“As a stronghold, it’s a nice setup,” Dave said. “I can send a team of men if you need them.”
“We should plan to leave a team here until Bullard is healthy and a full security system is properly installed here.”
“Okay, I’ll send four men on the plane.” He smirked. “I know just who to send.”
“That’s a good idea. Send some rations for them too. It looks like the kitchen has been cleaned out.”
“Of course it has.” Dave’s voice was resigned. “It seems like we’re always up against renegades and thieves.”
“We could’ve gone anywhere in the world, but this is where Bullard wanted to be.”
“I think it was more a case of the rules were a whole lot less restricted there,” Dave said drily.
“True enough.” She hung up to find Brandon waiting for her, one eyebrow raised, and Stone nearby.
“Dave’s sending the plane a little earlier, depending on the weather conditions. He doesn’t like the drug’s effect on Bullard.”
Brandon checked Bullard’s pulse. “The problem is, they could have given him a horse tranquilizer, and he’ll be knocked out for days.”
“Dave’s also sending more men. They’ll stay here to protect the property when we leave.”
“That’s a good idea, with evidence of a squatter, long before we had to kill that armed intruder. I think a rebel group was using the holding. When it was sold, they probably didn’t know it until Bullard showed up. In which case, they probably want to retrieve their equipment.” Brandon turned and stepped to the open doorway to look at all the computers in the war room. “Is this all Bullard’s equipment?”
She nodded. “We set this up when we arrived. The squatter’s equipment is in the side room where that guy surprised us.”
He pivoted to face her and said, “In that case I want to take a really good look at what they have in there.”
With Tahlia and Stone standing watch beside Bullard, Kasha walked with Brandon to the nearby room. “We stored it all in here because we didn’t know where else to put it or who it belonged to. Since we bought the property, everything legally belonged to us when we took over, but it was also supposed to be basically empty so …”
He nodded and didn’t say anything. She turned on the light and pointed out the boxes, crates, monitors and laptops.
He shook his head. “This could be something they’d be after. Or the data stored therein. They’ll come back after this gear. What about the armory? Was it fully loaded too when Bullard bought the place, when he took possession of this property?”
She frowned. “Some of it was here. Bullard was crowing over the older guns.”
Brandon nodded. “That’s more likely what this is about. The trouble is, we don’t know how many men are coming to reclaim their property.” He went to a laptop, turned it on and then pulled out two more from the stack and turned them on. “Let’s see what they’re up to.”
“Do you think we should?”
“We definitely should,” he said quietly. “We don’t know what kind of an illegal operation they were running here. But, if it’s big news, it could also be extremely bad news.”
She stood at his side as he searched through the laptops.
“None of these are password-protected. There’s all kinds of data, and none of their search histories have been cleared. They probably had no idea they would lose control over their base of operation.”
“Well, they should have. It wasn’t theirs to keep.” She laughed. “They knew they didn’t own this property.”
“There are a lot of deserted buildings in this country, lending itself to the squatter’s mentality.”
“That doesn’t make it theirs.” She considered the massive amount of money tied up even in the older equipment here and realized he was probably right. Somebody was running an illegal operation from here. “What if that’s what the mercenaries were actually doing? Maybe they were just using Bullard’s call for hired help as a cover for their presence in town. Maybe they were in the area already because they’ve been living here. In Bullard’s new holding.”
“Anything’s possible.” But Brandon’s voice had an absentminded tone to it.
She leaned over his shoulder to look at the Excel document he had up. “What is that?”
“Arms sales.”
She took a step back and said, “What?”
He didn’t even turn to look at her. “We need to see if the squatters are the ones selling the weapons and to who. Because, if they are, they’ll not only come back but they’ll come back in full force, and they’ll blow this place to shit to take it over.”
“They just want their stuff back though,” she said quickly. “Right?”
“Sure. But they’ll also want possession of the place again. I highly doubt too many places have this much potential to store huge caches of inventory and men, plus would work so perfectly for what their needs would entail, like a defensive post out in the middle of nowhere with little interference from locals or authorities. Which is exactly why Bullard wanted it. He’s the one who bought and paid for it, so it’s his. However, not only do we have to protect him but we have to get him back on his feet so he can find a way to make peace with whoever was living here. Or take them out.”
He motioned toward the sealed boxes and crates on the sides of the room. “We need to open up some of those and look inside. Let’s figure out exactly what is here.”
She said, “We should also check the floor-to-ceiling locked cabinets in the garage. We never did open them, because, well, we just didn’t have time.”
He lifted his gaze and pinned her in place. “What locked cabinets?”
She gave him a small smile. “Come with me.”
He stepped away from the laptops and said, “Let’s go.”
She moved quickly to the garage. On the left was a wall of cabinets. A new lock was on one of the large double doors. He examined it and pulled out some tool from his back pocket. Within seconds he had the lock open.
She shook her head. “You did that a little too quickly for my liking.”
“We picked up all kinds of skills in the military,” he said. He removed the lock and slowly propped open the large doors. They both stood and stared. Shelves and shelves of semiautomatic weapons.
“Oh, shit,” she said, her hands on the top of her head. “I don’t think Bullard knew about this.”
Two other doors were padlocked, but the locks were older. Brandon opened them and found the entire wall was full of various weapons. “Well, the only good thing is, we won’t be short on artillery. But it also means, whoever’s missing all this equipment will do an awful lot to get it back.”
Merk walked in, took one look and whistled. “What the hell is this?”
Brandon explained. “This is bigger trouble than we were expecting.”
“Is this all of it?”
“No,” Brandon snapped. “In the room where we ran into the shooter is all the computer equipment Bullard found when he took possession of the property. He stored it all together there. I found at least three laptops and an Excel document with arms sales before we got sidetracked into checking out these cabinets. But those laptops were out in the open in that storage room on the first floor. No telling what we’ll find when we open up the sealed boxes and crates in that room.” With a shake of his head, he added, “Plus I took three keys off the armed intruder. Gave them to Stone. They might be the keys to the three padlocks I just picked to find all these weapons.”
“Harrison and I came down for a short break and sent Stone alone up on the rooftop for now. But we need two men up there at all times. Stone can check into the key situation on his next break, but I’m pretty sure the armed intruder’s keys will fit each of these locks.”
“So we’ve got trouble.” Kasha asked, “The question is, what are we supposed to do about it?”
Merk shook his head. “Let’s lock these up again, make sure the garage is secured, so it’s harder for intruders to get in. Then let’s finish checking out that room with the squatter’s laptops.”
They locked up everything, glanced around to see if anything else was hidden here and walked out, locking the interior door behind them.
Back in the computer storage room, Brandon showed Merk the laptops and the Excel document. Harrison awaited them in the war room but moved to stand equidistant between Bullard and the storage room so Harrison could hear their discussion.
Once Merk realized Brandon was correct, Merk said, “Let’s see exactly what’s going on here.” They went through the boxes and moved them off several wooden crates underneath. “Were these here originally?” he asked Kasha.
“It is one of the reasons Bullard wanted to put the rest of the stuff in here. He figured it was all left behind by the same people. He was trying to keep it all separate from his stuff.”
A crowbar was off to the side. Merk picked it up and popped open the lid of a crate to find it full of hand grenades. He squatted and studied the markings on the case. “This is military grade.” He turned to look at Brandon. “This isn’t just an arms deal. This is somebody loading for war.”
Kasha shook her head. “It looks like a lot. But it’s not a lot for a full-fledged war.”
“Maybe not,” Merk said. “But what about all those?”
She spun around to see the crates lining the back wall from floor to ceiling. She hadn’t considered what might be inside them. If they were full of grenades, more weapons … She could feel the color draining from her face. “Who do we call?”
“Levi,” Merk said. “We need to know what to do with all this.”
“We keep it, for now,” Brandon replied. “Like Bullard would say, the sale was as is. Everything on the grounds is his. The trouble is, we have to make sure the people who bought all these toys aren’t coming back, expecting to do a late pickup.”
“You know they’re on their way,” Merk said. “We’ve already had proof of that in the village. The question is, are those mercenaries part of the team coming in, or were they serious about looking for work and might be on our side?” Merk shook his head, already dialing his phone. “I’ll relieve Harrison, send him up to help Stone.” He stepped out of the room.
Brandon could hear Merk’s voice in the background. He stood and stared at the crates. “This is huge. A lot of money is tied up in this equipment.”
“Nobody’ll let this kind of money go. I can’t imagine what they were trying to do with all this except sell it,” Kasha said.
“Or use it themselves and overthrow the government,” Brandon offered. “That seems to be a common theme in countries over here. Alternatively, selling it would bring in a lot of cash. On the open market, the stuff’s worth millions.”
“Right, so do we call the military and have these collected, or do we contact the villagers and provide them a way to protect themselves from the mercs, or do we keep it?” Kasha asked.
“For the most part, what we have to do is protect it,” Brandon said. “What we don’t want is to let all this firepower get into the hands of a rebel group.”
“I can’t say I really want the local government to have it either,” Kasha said. “They haven’t been in power longer than half a minute. There are more coups and ousted governments around this area than anything else. Of course, it’s not just in Benin. It’s everywhere. Large and small countries are being overthrown on a regular basis.”
Brandon shrugged. “It’s the same in many parts of the world.” He opened several cardboard boxes to find monitors. “Did you pack these up?”
She shook her head. “Bullard and a couple guys and I would have looked into all the unsealed boxes just to confirm it wasn’t Bullard’s equipment before moving it all here. But we didn’t fully unpack the boxes to inspect everything that could be in each one. After all, if we found an old wired mouse and its 8”x10” mouse pad on top of the box, we knew this was someone else’s used computer parts, not something Bullard brought with him. So I just put stuff back into the boxes we had pulled from them.”
“That makes sense. And you had no idea who was here before you took possession of the property?”
She shook her head. “No. There was no one here to hand over possession. We were given the keys through the property brokers.”
“And that didn’t raise any alarms?”
She frowned. “Of course it did. Bullard contacted the agent, and he said he was here six months ago, and it was completely empty. Since whoever was here was squatting, they forfeited all their rights.”
Brandon looked at her and said, “We should ask Tahlia a few more questions than we have so far.”
“Do you really think she has anything to do with this?”
“I’m damn sure she knows a whole lot more than she’s letting on.”
*
Brandon considered how many toys he’d brought with him for this job. They were the latest and best versus the equipment he’d found here in this computer storage room. Although a lot of equipment was gathered here, it looked old and outdated to him. And would have looked really old to Bullard as well. All he’d cared about was getting set up. He could imagine Bullard setting up his latest and greatest command center, like a boy with a brand-new toy. Honestly, if this was his place, Brandon would be over the moon. It was an incredible stronghold. But one still had to brush out all the spiders before one set up shop.
And, in this case, the spiders had fangs, as Bullard had found out. He should’ve come in with a full-on team and swept the area, cleaned it all out and made sure the neighborhood was fully aware of who was now in power at the stronghold. This was Africa. And the more undeveloped part.
Brandon knew, once Bullard was back on his feet, that issue would be taken care of in no time. If there was one thing Bullard knew how to do, it was handling opposition and making friends as needed in nearby villages. But, until then, Brandon and the guys had to make sure Bullard was okay. Brandon himself was all about stepping forward with guns in hand to protect Bullard’s property, but that wasn’t necessarily the best way forward long-term.
Brandon didn’t have a ton of political skill; he was much more a knock-’em-down, settle-it-with-a-fistfight type of a guy. He had very little patience for thieves and squatters and mercs and kidnappers. He understood needing a place to sleep against the cold. But the mercs had attempted to turn this property into an arms dealership, funding a civil war maybe. That would not go down well with Bullard, once he woke up.
Until then Brandon was on the spot right now, and that meant he’d do what he could to protect Bullard and his people and his property—even using the stockpile of guns and ammo here, no matter how old. He turned to look at Bullard, hating to see the big man down. Bullard was a man in his prime, used to being in a position of power and control. Everything Brandon had heard and read about Bullard said he would use power with a soft but stern hand.
That Brandon could admire. But, in the meantime, he was more than a little worried about the oncoming night. He sat down at the laptop, glanced at the time—4:10 p.m.—and then at Kasha. “I suggest you talk to Tahlia while there are no men around. See if you can get any information out of her.”
Kasha nodded and stepped out. He watched her leave. Her loyalty was something he could also admire. At the same time, he hoped it wasn’t misplaced. He didn’t want her to be susceptible to people like Tahlia. He hoped the older cook was exactly what she appeared to be.
He had seen some twisted things in his life. The one thing he knew about all those rebel soldiers out there, they all had moms. As soon as that family relationship popped up, those moms defended, lied, cheated and stole for their sons.
He shook his head, returned his attention to one of the laptops, bringing up an internet browser and checking the history.
It made for fascinating reading. Government rules, laws, regulations, locations and GPS coordinates. It looked like the discussion was all about a sale and its delivery. Brandon wondered if maybe somebody should be out there intercepting that proposed sale. If the money had already been paid, then a lot of people would be pissed off if the delivery wasn’t completed.
That was another reason the upcoming night would be a little more dangerous than usual. They didn’t want anybody to make it in as far as this location. Bullard was still unconscious. That made him an easy target. They had to look after three people, if they counted Kasha. And, in his mind, he counted Kasha. She’d be mad if she knew what he was thinking right now. She was strapped with two pistols, but she was still female. He knew it was archaic, but his mentality said he still needed to keep an eye out for the women and children.
She was all woman—lean, curvy and intelligent. There was nothing to not like. As a package, she had a slightly exotic air to her with that dark hair complemented by her fairer skin. Her voice had a wonderful accent. He didn’t know how many languages she spoke, but he suspected several. The Arabic just flew off her lips in an easy tumble of the language. He didn’t understand a word she said to the cook. He hated that. He sat back and thought about how his mind worked. His years in the military hadn’t given him a rosy-hued view of life.
He’d spent way too much time dealing with governments, either falling down or being propped up, only to fall again under another coup a few weeks later. Then there were his tours in Afghanistan. Eye-opening experiences. He’d traveled most of the world. But it wasn’t like he got to travel in the daylight.
Everything was undercover, in the dark of night. He’d been air-dropped out of planes many times for clandestine landings. He had yet to go to most of the countries as a tourist. He saw shaky governments and poor economic scenarios—armies more on the take than not. Most people saw the acres of plantations and tourist attractions and the beautiful blue waters surrounding the countries.
He hadn’t been blessed with that viewpoint.
He checked a couple email programs just in case whoever had been using the laptop had left himself logged in. Sure enough, as Brandon clicked around, a screen opened to show an inbox. He checked the name, didn’t recognize it, but took a picture with his phone. Then he scanned the emails. Just in case he lost possession of the machine, he took photographs of every one. He was right in thinking this was an arms-dealing operation.
There were multiple discussions on prices, orders, shipments and supplies. Delivery arrangements had been made for the following morning.
Yet the gunrunners couldn’t make the delivery as Bullard’s team had been here the past week and now Levi’s team was sitting on the arms. Looking through the emails, Brandon confirmed the gunrunners had already been paid. That just added to the pressure. They’d have to come after the weapons soon.
He hopped to his feet, grabbed the laptop and raced out to the others. Merk was just getting off the phone. He looked up and said, “I’ve updated Levi, Ice and Dave. Then Levi and Ice got their heads together, made some calls. It’s been a phonefest out here. What did you find?”
“Proof of an arms deal Monday morning. Tomorrow. We have bank accounts. We have names. We have locations.” He flipped the laptop around to show the open inbox.
Merk’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, shit. We need to send this to Ice.”
“And Dave,” Kasha said. “He can make a decision about what we’ll do. This is Bullard’s property.”
“Between them and Kasha,” Brandon said, “they can reach a mutual decision on Bullard’s behalf. But, in the meantime, we need to defend this place, and we’ll be outnumbered for sure.” Brandon shook his head. “The gunrunners have been paid. They need to get the weapons in order to make that delivery tomorrow. That means they’ll be here tonight.”
From that moment on there was nothing but organized chaos. Phone calls, emails, images being sent back and forth. The big wall screen in the war room was opened to the GPS location of Bullard’s newest holding and the surrounding area. Brandon looked at Merk and said, “I’ll get Harrison and Stone. We need them in on this.”
Merk nodded. “You do that. And fast. We don’t have much time. It’ll be dark soon. They’ll come then.”
“I know. We could sure use those four additional men Dave is sending us right now. Not later when our flight comes in.”
With a hard look between them, Brandon headed off to find Harrison and Stone. He found Stone first on the rooftop walkway.
Stone took one look at Brandon’s face and asked, “What’s up?”
“Lots. Also a change of plans. The flight’s coming earlier with four additional men but probably not soon enough. We are caught up in the middle of some prepaid weapons deal going down first thing tomorrow. I have a suspicion we’ll be under attack very soon.”
Stone said, “Go bring Harrison up to speed and take him down below. I’ll be fine here.”
Brandon found Harrison standing watch on the opposite side of the roof and explained the situation. Still talking, they walked downstairs to the big central war room.
“Keeping the owner drugged as a captive to pull off an arms’ deal out of his newly purchased property,” Harrison said quietly, “we’ve certainly seen worse atrocities.” They passed the entrance to the war room to head to the ER where everybody was gathered to be closer to Bullard.
They looked down at Bullard, covered with blankets, still unconscious on a stretcher. Brandon reached out a hand, checking his pulse. It was slow and steady.
“I hate to see him like this,” Merk said.
“Have you known him long?” Brandon asked.
“On and off for years. He’s a good man. He runs a team equivalent to Levi’s. The fact that this happened to him just makes me angry.”
Harrison said, “He was looking at an empty property, not expecting to get caught up in a civil war event with arms dealers.”
The others nodded.
“Doesn’t change the fact that’s exactly what happened,” Merk added.
Brandon turned to head toward Kasha who was clicking away on a keyboard. He looked at the monitor above her and asked, “Is that the location of the weapons deal?”
“I also found a couple other locations in the emails. I’m mapping them out to see exactly what we’re looking at.”
“Anybody hear back from Levi yet?” Brandon asked the group.
Merk nodded. “He’s on it. So is Dave. They’ve decided to contact the local government, hard to do on a Sunday evening. Apparently the one currently in power is decent. They’re looking for, and have been trying to flush out, several rebel groups hiding in the area. They think this might be one of them.”
“Are the local authorities sending reinforcements?” Brandon asked. “I hope we won’t need them, particularly when we’re as well armed as we are. But the gunrunners might be happy to bring down the entire building on top of us rather than get caught.”
“That won’t allow them to retrieve the goods though.” Merk smiled. “We have a military unit en route coming via land, so, in this isolated terrain, I don’t expect them for another three hours at the soonest—hopefully a little after 9:00 p.m. Our return plane with four additional men is coming in an hour earlier if the pilot can swing it, but that still puts him getting here about 3:00 a.m. I suspect that’ll be too late to help us. Bullard will be sorry he missed all the fun too.”
“So will Levi, I imagine,” Brandon said. “Seems like everybody wants a piece of the action.”
“So very true,” Kasha said. “I’ve never seen men more willing to go to war than Bullard and his group.”
“Has this ever happened before?”
“Yes. I’ve been with him for five years. I’ve seen a lot during that time. We thought this would be a perfect location.”
“If you think about it, it still is. Nothing has changed that. It’s still very much Bullard style.” Brandon turned to look at Kasha. “Were you planning to move here?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m returning to the US. I promised my family. My mom …” She shrugged. “Not just that but it’s time …”
“It’d be hard to find another job like Bullard’s.”
“I know, right? He pays extremely well. I’ve really appreciated it. But maybe in a way he paid too well,” she said on a laugh. “I can actually afford to go home now.”
“You can always ask Levi for a job. I know they’re talking about opening up a California office.”
She looked up, interest in her eyes. “I’ve thought about it. Ice and I have talked about it even. Although I’m not sure I’d want to stay in the same field.”
“You could do something that had nothing to do with all this murder and mayhem,” Brandon said. “It’s not for everyone.”
“My idea of total bliss is to have ten acres for myself somewhere,” she said with a big smile. “It seems like, no matter where I turn, there are too many people around. And not always the good guys.”
Brandon nodded. “Many of us have that same need for space and isolation. That’s why Bullard builds his big holdings. They’re his. He can keep everybody outside the gate. The only ones allowed in are the ones he lets in.”
Just then Bullard released a heavy sigh.
Kasha leaned down and said, “Bullard, can you hear me?”
And damn if the big man didn’t open his eyes.