OVERCOMING OBSTACLES - THE STORM

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES - THE STORM

The storm-tossed boat bravely tried to weather the storm. It was rocking and rolling with every pitch of the waves which threatened to overturn it. The bottom of the boat was filled with water, capsizing and tossing the occupants into the salty brine was a distinct possibility. The Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat, however, was designed for superior stability despite its lightweight construction. RHIBs were frequently used in military operations, therefore the specs required high-performance capabilities from the craft. Its high speed and high buoyancy in extreme weather made it virtually unsinkable. That being said, there was always the thought and the possibility that the occupants of the boat might not have the same capabilities as the boat itself.

The crew hung on valiantly to their seats as the captain of the boat tried to navigate through the storm to the awaiting beach.  Upon reaching the shore they leapt from the boat and each holding an edge of the boat, carried it to where the trees lined the edge of the sand. They strained to keep the lightweight boat from being ripped out of their hands and sailing away with the gale-force winds. The leader made a motion with his hand and they pivoted the RHIB so that the prow was turned nose out facing the water, providing them with a faster exit if needed. At last, the boat was secured in the bushes. The wind and rain quickly wiped the sand free of footsteps and the low branches obliterating any sign that someone had traversed the beach and secured a boat.

 The wind howled through the pines and branches rubbing other branches made an eerie grinding sound.  The waves pummeled violently against the shore, their crash discordant with the thunder that roared overhead. Lightning spiked around them, producing a cacophony.  The zig-zag trail of lightning lit the dark sky momentarily revealing the sodden occupants on the beach. A strange organic smell saturated the area as the electricity in the air emitted a noxious ozone smell.

 The leader gave a sign and his team reached into their packs for the infrared night-vision goggles that they had packed. The leader was an expert at strategies and planning; it was his job to foresee any conceivable emergency and provide a contingency plan that might be needed to facilitate their mission. During their pre-mission briefing, he had alerted his team to every possible eventuality that they might face, although each one knew that they must also expect the unexpected. Sometimes you just had to wing it. In many of their cases, improvising was the name of the game.

He motioned for his team to fall in behind him; they used an old game trail to traverse the area for the first part of their trek. Animals were creatures of habit and used the same route to go down to the water to drink. Smaller animals would follow in the footsteps of their larger cousins and after years the trails had become travel-worn and relatively easy to navigate. He wasn’t sure how far the game trails led. They had used high-resolution camera-equipped drones.  New high-grade military technology took a lot of the slogging effort out of reconnaissance missions. Why send a team to do a recon mission when you can send a droid?

Densel was a seasoned veteran who had led many missions in the past. His success rate was staggering, based on his ability to strategize and execute his missions with little or no loss of life. None knew better than Denzel the value of life and he never left a man behind. It was every soldier's creed, yes, but it was a creed he stood by, lived by, and would die by if need be. He had carried out fallen comrades through some of the toughest hellholes in the world, Muscles straining, blood flowing, backs almost breaking with the effort sometimes,  but he would give his all to see that his entire team made it back and received the medical help that they needed. Denzel had been named after his parent's favourite celebrity and had grown up feeling it was his duty to live up to his namesake. Some said he even looked like the real Denzel, tall, dark, and handsome. He always felt his name made him larger than in real life. He excelled at everything, academics, and sports, and had stellar leadership qualities. Whatever endeavor he attempted to do, it was always done with aplomb, no matter what the situation, Denzel was always cool, calm, and collected. These characteristics had seen him through many nasty situations.

When they came to a fork in the trail, Denzel motioned to his second in command; Little Bear was a warrior, an honest-to-God Ojibway warrior, and his hair was dark and long. In his downtime, he wore a breechcloth or doeskin pants with fringes and buckskin moccasins. He would paint his face with war paint and go hunting in the woods, praying and giving thanks for the life of the deer he would hunt. Little Bear was nothing like his name, he was tall, towering well over six feet, and muscular. Denzel could attest to his weight as he had carried him over his shoulder for miles when Little Bear had taken a bullet in the chest on a previous mission several years ago. Little Bear, or Blaze as he liked to be called due to his innate ability to blaze a trail through any jungle either tropical or frozen wasteland, had a distinct knack for finding the best routes to their destination. Unerring routes forged from some mystical or perhaps almost-magical unerring ability to find his way from point A to point B. He claimed it was a gift from his mighty ancestors.

 Blaze had a strong connection to his Native or Indigenous forefathers. He always claimed that when people asked him the politically correct terminology for his heritage,  be it ‘Native, or First Nations, or Indigenous, or Indian,’ he would hold up his hand in the age-old way his people had been characterized and thump his chest and say in a deep booming voice. “ Ugh! How! Me Injun, Kemo Sabe.” Blaze loved to use the stereotypical,   point of view based on many old Hollywood-style movies and TV shows.  These films were made many years before the Enlightenment came about. He loved to be politically incorrect, and somewhat controversial and thoroughly enjoyed the shock value that he was creating.  Denzel was his best friend and blood brother but sometimes Denzel could not understand the depth of Blaze's emotions and the reasons behind his actions.

 The team finally came to a fork in the trail and Denzel motioned Blaze forward from his position in the rear of the group. Without hesitation, Blaze stepped forward and took the path to the right. The trail looked less traveled and after a few moments, it appeared to be going on an uphill climb.

Denzel fell back to the  4th position in the line, directly behind his newest and smallest team member, her name was Megan, She was tall, slender yet well-muscled for a woman. Up until Megan's arrival he had never had a female member on his team. At first, he was reluctant but Megan had quickly become a valued member of his team. She was a martial arts expert, and he did mean expert. She was proficient in Karate, Jujitsu, Judo, and Taekwondo. She held a 9th-degree black belt in Taekwondo and was a Kwan Jang Nim or Grand Master. What she lacked in brute strength she made up for in speed, flexibility, and a kick-butt attitude. She had fought and persevered with men more than half her size and weight.  When she had first joined the team, the men had tried to cosset her and keep her out of harm's way; they soon came to recognize her awesome power and tenacious spirit. Her skill and personality were a force to be reckoned with. She also had some medical training that had served her and her team members well in certain situations that they had run into. Denzel found that he did not mind his tail-end position in the line hiking along the old game trail; it offered him very close proximity to Megan’s, shall we say, charms or better yet assets. 

 As they headed up the incline. He shook his head and thought to himself “I need to focus on the  tail in front of me, I mean on the trail in front of me.” Getting personally involved with a member of your team was a definite No, No. He had difficulty thinking of her as one of the guys though. A lot of difficulty.

The fourth member of the team was Jacque, a French Canadian; he was tall and lean and had that certain little, “Joie de vivre.“ attitude. He enjoyed life to the fullest and always said that with such a dangerous job he had to make each day count. Never was this exuberance for life more clearly seen than when he was pistol-whipping a man or twisting their neck, but all in the name of serving his country of course. After all his actions were sanctioned by the government were they not? All in all, though Denzel, Jacque was a bit of a strange duck. At times when they were out in public, he often pretended that he did not understand English as was the way of many French Canadians. When out to lunch with the team he would pretend to the wait staff that he did not speak or understand English and sit back and laugh internally as they struggled to understand him. Just give him a poutine and he will be happy was the group's instructions to the servers. It was sad but true that Jacque was addicted to the french fries, cheese curds, and slathered in hot gravy. Jacque was invaluable when they worked overseas. He was totally fluent in many languages and had substantial knowledge of several more languages.

At last, they reached the top of the bluffs,  for the last few hundred feet, Blaze had used a machete that he kept strapped to his backpack. The game trail had run out at a small clearing and the way to their destination was a mess of tangled vines and branches.

 The compound was located on a hill surrounded by tall trees that must have been several hundred years old. It could not be seen from the water nor the land around it. Only from the air could its location be pinpointed. It was located in the Belcher Island Archipelagos, a group of over fifteen hundred islands in Hudson’s Bay, Canada. It was in the far True North where almost all the islands were uninhabited due to the extreme weather conditions. Only a handful of mostly Inuit or Indigenous people lived on some of the islands. The compound was not large compared to many of the compounds and fortresses that the team had breached but it was rumoured to be well fortified. The agency mole had been able to extract some information and given them a floor plan of the building, as well as its location. Their agency had been searching for its location for many months before the mole infiltrated the group.

 Before the team even made it to the fence surrounding the compound, Denzel and Blaze had disabled the perimeter fence alarms.  

 The compound was heavily fortified. Chain link fences were topped with barbed wire and razor wire, to make matters worse, it was also electrified. The high fence created not only a physical barrier but a psychological deterrent as well. Lights throughout the yard swung wildly from their chains, set in motion by the blowing winds. The rain was pelting down,  through the forest trail they had been somewhat sheltered from the wind and rain by the dense canopy of trees which acted somewhat like a leaky umbrella,  but the buffer zone between the fence and the forest was fully exposed to the elements.

 Approaching the fence, Denzel pulled a small flashlight-sized device from his cargo pants pocket and proceeded to cut the fence like it was a hot knife sliding through butter. He folded the fence back and held it as the members of his team passed through. As a group, they ran silently to a door near the rear of the long building.

Denzel nodded at Blaze, who picked up a hefty branch and sent it spiraling through the air like a javelin. It took out one of the main spotlights lighting the compound. He picked up another and flung it with the same result, taking out yet another swinging light.

 Megan turned to Blaze,“ Who are you?” she asked, her jaw dropping in awe.”

“Luke Skywalker. It's just like Beggars Canyon, back home, “ paraphrases Blaze sacrilegiously.

Megan, usually the more serious one in the group, turned her head, trying not to show her laughter.

 Jacque swung the rifle up in his arms, “I could have taken that out with my rifle,” said Jacque, feeling a little jealous of the praise that Blaze had just earned with Megan.

“Yeah and everyone inside that compound would have come running,” said Denzel. “There might be a storm that muffles much of the sound, but believe me those guys in there are not deaf or dumb. Great job taking out those lights Blaze.”

 They ran across the compound towards the rear of the building, by the back door was a small structure that consisted of half a dozen cement cinder blocks holding up an old sheet of chipboard that was resting precariously on top. A small half-hearted growl was followed by a whine. Jacque who was the closest shone a small flashlight into the structure. 

“Get back, “ he shouted over a clap of thunder. “It's a wolf.” He drew his Glock and aimed at the doorway of the shelter. Blaze did a Karate chop down on the gun seconds before it fired.

“What the…?” started Jacque.

“ Don’t shoot,  he’s just scared. Scared of the storm. It’s not a wolf,” Blaze crouched down in front of the pitiful shelter. and spoke in a language as old as the hills, as old as the waters, a language learned at the knees of his elders. The dog's tail could be heard thumping vigorously on the floor of his dwelling. Blaze fondled the head of the dog and crooned to it in a language only understood by him and the dog. He chanted quietly and rubbed the huge head. He reached with one hand into his backpack and offered something to the dog.

“How did you know it was a dog,” asked Megan,” it does look like a wolf.”

“It's a Husky. The Innuit people use them as sled dogs,” assured Blaze.

“Come on, we got to keep moving.”  we’ve had so many obstacles getting in our way with this mission. We’re getting behind schedule.”

 Blaze gave one more pat on the head, one more word of assurance, and straightened. “Lead on Kemo Sabe.”

*****************************************************

 They sat around the table at their favourite restaurant. The debriefing at headquarters had gone quickly and smoothly, their mission was just the extraction from, in this case, a canister of something dangerous and deadly, and the higher-ups were now in charge of the rest of the operation. The head honchos gave their orders, they complied with those orders and then merely awaited the next mission. Jacque sat back in his chair, sipping his fine wine, Megan toyed with the lemon meringue pie crust on her plate, Blaze stared at the ceiling prognosticating about missions to come and Denzel watched as the waitress hustled around the room in her tight little yoga pants and top. His cell bleeped and he reached into his pocket to retrieve it., he glanced at it for a moment then smiled, “ It’s Command. We’re on.  The Bahamas this time.

“ Well Kemo Sabe,  my trusted friend, I hope there is no tropical storm this trip,” said Blaze.

They hustled out the door.