Free Under Fire: The Admiral by Beyond the Page Publishing Page B

and those drugs arrive.
    The lieutenant looked over at Hunter and
nodded. “You tell her.” He focused on Ben. “You have to know that
you can’t repeat any of what’s being said here. Nothing.”
    “Yeah, I know. IRS audits, feed me to the
fish, or whatever it is you guys do.”
    “They’ll have to come in on the high tide,”
Hunter started. “The tributary is too shallow for a loaded boat to
get to the sub. They don’t come in tonight midnight, it will be
noon high tide tomorrow. Our intel says it’ll be tonight, which is
best for us. We can stay hidden and our boats can get closer
without being seen. It’ll take them a few hours to transfer the
goods to the sub. Once loaded the only way the sub can leave is on
the high tide at noon. We have plenty of time for the good guys to
get ships and boats to block the river and to get boots on the
ground and shut the fucking operation down.”
    “Same plan if it’s the next high tide?” Gemma
said.
    “Yes,” the lieutenant and Hunter said in
unison.
    “If it’s the next tide we’ll move you back
and settle you into a safe position. As long as you stay quiet and
do what we tell you, it should all be okay,” Vegas said. Hunter
looked from him to Gemma.
    “That part is not negotiable. You do what we
tell you.”
    Ben looked at Gemma who was doing her best to
hide her expression. Son-of-a-bitch she’d conned them slick as any
sideshow carney he’d ever seen. She got exactly what she wanted and
they thought it was their idea. The admiral had skills.
    “I understand completely, Lieutenant,” she
said in a deferential tone. He clamped his teeth together to stop
the smile. He was beginning to understand her. That presence he
couldn’t quite put his finger on before. She was so used to giving
orders. She probably had to choke them back when they talked. The
memory of her little survivor pilot routine forced him to put his
head down and scrub a hand over his mouth to hide a smile. How
would the SEALs have reacted to that one? Or even all her troops,
or sailors, or whatever they were called.
    “You have a problem with that, Doc?” Vegas
said.
    “Huh?”
    “I said, you have any problem doing what we
say?”
    “Me? Nooo. As long as I don’t get slammed
down on the ground and suffocated again I’m good.” And what was he
supposed to say? No, I want out of here and I want out of here
right now. The admiral would have smashed him herself.
    “What do we do now?” Ben said.
    “ We , as in you two, do exactly as you are instructed,” Vegas shot back. “No questions, no
ad-libbing. Do it the instant you are told. When this is over, I
don’t even want to see a scratch on either one of you.”
    “Sounds good to me,” Ben said, remembering
Gemma, the admiral , said almost the same thing to him.
    “We’re heading back before M&M and the
Suit think we’re chillin’ at a beachside bar.”
    “First we need to establish how we got
together,” Gemma said slowly and carefully. Vegas gave her a what do you have up your sleeve? look.
    “You mean get our story right,” Bambi said.
“For when we’re standing tall in front of some pencil pusher’s desk
getting our asses chewed.”
    “I won’t let that happen,” Gemma said
fiercely.
    “We can say we found you ,” Ben
said. “We were on the beach, saw the boats and helicopters and
headed your way.” Everyone turned to look at him. “What? If you
guys could hear us walking, we’d certainly be able to hear the
commotion you’d make taking down drug dealers. We can just hang
back for a while and do a golly-gee-whiz we’re saved routine.”
    “It would work,” Bambi said. “They don’t
question our word on how an op went down, and if the admiral backs
us up with that there won’t be a problem if we’re all on the same
page.”
    “Admiral?” Vegas said.
    Gemma narrowed her eyes to slits and looked
at Ben approvingly. “No falsifying an official report,” she said
slowly. “If it gets hairy, I take