~ * ~ * ~ * ~
It was another beautiful morning in sunny, warm Jamaica. I stood with my coffee cup in hand watching the Sea Hawk, our helicopter disappear into the distance with our departing guests. Glancing at my watch I saw that our meeting wouldn’t start for another hour. I still had a phone call to make to Senator Donaldson. I might as well get it over with, I thought to myself as I walked to the operations center and my office.
The Senator picked his phone up on the second ring. “Senator, this is Rick Chambers. We met with Mr. Wilcox yesterday and we agreed to take on the mission.”
“That’s excellent! How soon do you expect to be able to start out?” the Senator asked.
“Not for several weeks, maybe as long as two months. We still have a lot to do before we’re fully operational. Among other things we need to mount the air defense system on the Sea Eagle,” I hinted.
“Oh yes that, I had a feeling you’d accept the mission and have already ordered it delivered to you. Do you have a pier on your island a ship can dock at?”
“Yes sir, brand spanking new. The Sea Eagle is moored to it right now,” I answered.
“I had a Fast Frigate leave Pensacola Naval Base with it just this morning. They should be at your location sometime tomorrow.”
“The system comes complete with missiles and all?” I asked to make sure we had a complete system.
“I even threw in the radar unit and computer equipment needed to operate the system. It has 16 missiles preloaded into the pod. If you need additional missiles we can arrange for you to buy them at our cost when you need them. After all your group is a military asset of our government.”
“Thank you Senator, it was nice to be able to do business with you again,” I told him.
“I hope you’re successful Rick. It could change the political landscape of the entire region down there.”
“We’ll do everything humanly possible to complete the mission for Brydon, you can count on that,” I said ending the phone call.