Welch put a palm across his mouth and drummed his fingers against his left cheek. "All right," he agreed. "The price seems reasonable, even if we don't need all of the equipment. I'll have my boss make the transfer-you do have an account you want the money sent to, yes?-later today.
"Now what about the other materiel?"
"All the small arms and smaller items I have or can get. But for the armored cars I'm going to have to go to South Africa. And Israel."
"South Africa I can see," Welch said. "I've been told they had a huge stockpile of the things. But why Israel?"
Inning cocked his head to one side. "There's a company in Tel Aviv that more or less specializes in rebuilding armored cars, especially Panhard AMLs and the South African version, the Eland."
"I don't think we have the time to move the things to Israel, get them built, then move them to Brazil, in time to train crews."
"Good point," Inning agreed. "Israel first then. We'll steal them and then fix them in South Africa before sending them on to Brazil. Or maybe even fix them up at sea on the way."
Victor closed his eyes for a moment, in deep concentration. When he opened them he wrote a series of words, in English, on a piece of paper. He then drew a simplistic map below the word. "This is your code phrase, and how to find the church. I suggest your people go in during the daytime. Night would be more suspicious in a place like that than day. They can move the cache at night. I will notify the priest."
"What if your cache doesn't have what the team needs?" Welch asked.
"Then I can't help you in time," Victor answered. "What's there is what's available within a reasonable time. Still, I think your people will be pleasantly surprised."
At that Konstantin snorted. "Oh, I imagine. Except for the food, of course. Once they sniff that swill they'll wonder why we didn't get rid of the reds long before we did."
Which earned him another dirty look from Victor.
D-111, Paldiski, Estonia
It had been about a four hour trip, Helsinki to Paldiski. And that was without really straining the engines for more than was required to test them and the hull. Even at that, the time zone change made it only a three hour time difference.
Biggus Dickus Thornton was singing something about a "three hour tour" as he twisted the patrol boat's tail hard aport to ease it into the completely unguarded small harbor west of the town. They'd considered naming the boat after President Kennedy, what with PT-109 and all, but since that one sank, it was perhaps a bad omen. Calling it the Mary Jo Kopeckne had similar issues. But since one person, and a close relative of President Kennedy, to boot, had proven well night unsinkable, in any sense, the PT boat now bore upon its stern the name, The Drunken Bastard, or Bastard for shorts.
High gray cliffs arose on the right, towering over questionable docks with a few fishermen seated on them. Biggus Dickus cut power and eased in to the docks. One of his team members, a short, dark sort named Michael Antoniewicz, nicknamed by his team mates "Eeyore" because he could carry a house on his back and would sink into the earth before bending under the strain, leapt across the water, rope in hand, to tie the boat off.
There was a gray haired, heavily bearded, cassocked priest there waiting at the dock, as well. The priest walked over and said something in Russian to Antoniewicz. The sailor just shrugged. Despite the Eastern European name, he had not a word of Russian or any other Slavic language.
Pointing at Biggus, Eeyore said, in English, "See him. He has what you need."
The priest held up thumb and forefinger a couple of millimeters apart and said, "I spik leetle Englizh." Then he shrugged, himself, and went to stand by the boat from which Biggus jumped with the grace of a much younger man.
"Father Pavel?" Biggus asked.
The priest nodded as if solemnity was in his very nature.
"Victor sends, ‘Saturn-Concert-Bagration.'"
The priest nodded again and said, "You come." He then turned and began to lead the group up the crumbling stairs that led up the cliffs and toward the town.
"Simmons, guard the boat," Biggus ordered the biggest and meanest looking of his crew, barring only himself.
"With what?"
"With your dick. And, while we're gone, get us an update on the position and schedule of the George Galloway."
At Pakri street the group turned away from the sea. Off in the distance was a white painted, stone church tower. "Lut'eran," Father Pavel said, pointing. Biggus' eyes glanced left and right continuously, not searching for threats, but in wonder at the nearly complete ruin of a naval town. There were apartment buildings, crumbling, not just empty of people but empty of wooden doors and glass windows as well. On the plus side, off to the east, there were at least eight power-generating windmills in sight.
"My name is Ozymandias," the chief whispered, despite the windmills. A few modern artifacts couldn't overcome the wreck of the city. Biggus' eyes glanced at a hand painted sign, in both Cyrillic and Latin letters. "Welcome to Hell," said the bottom half of the sign, in English. "I believe it," Biggus agreed. Below that, someone had added "Gays." Thornton couldn't imagine, Why the hell should they be worrying about gays, given everything else?
"You know, Chief," Antoniewicz said, "it's odd. I haven't seen a cop yet."
"What's to steal?" Biggus answered, reasonably.
"My truck if not keep gun," Father Pavel answered.
The stash turned out to be hidden under the crumbling concrete of a ruined building next to Saint George's Orthodox Church. The church, itself, was one of the very few buildings they'd seen since arrival that was not a complete and utter wreck. The Lutheran church was another. Biggus commented on that to Father Pavel.
"Victor generous," the priest answered. "Finns . . . Swedes more generous to own peeples." He pointed with a finger at a particular section of concrete chunks and said, "You move this. Bring out material. I get truck."
"You heard the man, boys," Biggus said.
Eeyore looked down at the mass. "How the fuck do we move all this shit?"
"The usual way, Michael," the chief answered. "One piece at a time."
By nightfall, the team of former SEALs was standing in a concrete lined excavation that led into the basement of the collapsed building near the church. A large and solid looking metal door barred the way in. Pavel produced a key for the massive lock on the door and opened it. Inside was a single metal shipping container. The priest also had a key for the lock on that.
When the double corrugated doors were opened, Antoniewicz was the first to speak. "Holy shit!" he said.
"I not know vhat inside," Father Pavel said. "Not vant know, eit'er. I go. You load truck. I drive to boat once you load. T'en you unload, t'en you go."
The chief answered, "Thanks, Father." Then, turning to Antoniewicz, he said, "Eeyore, you keep inventory. And the rest of us, let's get to work."
D-110, Paldiski, Estonia
The sun was just illuminating the sea to the north and west. The boat was still in the shadows, though distancing itself from the cliffs.
"I still can't believe this shit," Eeyore said, over the thrum of the engines. "How the fuck did he know exactly what we'd need?"
"He didn't," Biggus said. "There's all kinds of shit we don't need. And if you think I'm going to trust my life to ex-Soviet scuba gear, you're insane. Your life, maybe. Mine? Never.
"No," the chief continued, "Victor didn't know. He just put in everything that might be useful to a naval op, that he could get and stuff into a twenty foot container. Still, we have what we need. Set course for Londonderry. Three quarters speed."