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“Patch, Brady could the two of you head on over to the air port and pick Rusty up? He just called me and said he’s here and needs a ride,” I said walking into our meeting.
“Sure LT. we’re on it,” Patch said getting up and walking out with his coffee cup in hand.
“LT, can you buy us each one of those boats for Christmas?” Bill asked.
“At a little more than $350,000 each I’ll hop right on that one Bill,” I said laughing. “I’d have to go and find another treasure to pay for it.”
“Let’s get to business,” I said as I grabbed a cup of coffee. “It should be a short meeting this morning.”
“Sam, how is the helicopter refit coming along?”
“We have the brackets made to mount the FLIR and gun on. I need to cut a couple of holes in the underside of the helicopter and weld them to the helicopters skeleton. Then I need to patch the fiberglass up around the two supports.”
Brian jumped in, “I have the electronics mounted inside the cabin of the Sea Hawk. I had to mount it in front of the copilot because of the amount of space it took. There just wasn’t the room to mount it by the pilot. Once Sam gets the FLIR and gun mounted it should be fairly simple to hook them up to the electronics. Then we still need to change out the joystick too in order to be able to fire our weapons.”
“Can you finish it up today?” I asked the two.
“I don’t know, what do you think Brian?” Sam asked his teammate.
“It’s all going to depend on the joystick. Does Rusty have it with him? What kinds of hoops are we going to have to jump thru to make it work for our needs? We can’t answer that question until the joystick is in our hands and we have a chance to look it over.”
I nodded my head in agreement. “We’ll just have to wait to find out. Let me know as soon as you have the answers for me guys.”
“Chief, are we ready to mount the missile system?” I asked my second in command.
This is the way the team is set up. I run the field operations and the chief is my second in command. My brother Chris is in charge of all of the administrative stuff that goes along with running the operation. Danny is the captain of the Sea Eagle with Karen in charge of our sick bay both on the ship and here in the operations center. Doc is the medic in the field.
“They’ll be done with the welding within the hour. The barge and crane are in position to receive the missile system. The Gatling guns are mounted in their gun bays. We need to get Chief York’s technician here to help with the set-up of both the guns and missile pod and I need Sam to help design the enclosures around the guns to keep the salt spray off of them.”
“Has he contacted the man he wants to hire for the job yet?” I asked the chief.
“He should be here tomorrow sometime. He lives in Iowa. The chief said he just needed to take care of a couple of things and then he’d be right down.”
“Okay good. Danny, are the other projects on the Sea Eagle coming along alright?”
“The galley and mess hall are ready to start serving meals. All of the cabins have been refitted to sleep two instead of just one. The berthing compartments have all of the bunks installed along with the needed storage lockers for personal gear. The lounge areas and heads still need to be finished. They should be done today or tomorrow. Are we going to be able to mount a sonar dome on the bottom of the Sea Eagle without dry docking her?”
“I don’t know Danny. I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t know if it gets bolted on or welded on. If it’s welded maybe we can get it welded underwater. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“That’s all of the information that I have for you right now Rick,” Danny said ending his report.
“Are all of the cabins on the Sea Eagle spoken for Danny?” I asked as an afterthought.
“No, we have three that are not assigned to anyone yet. Why do you ask?”
“As team leaders I’d like to see Red Dog and Chief York assigned to one of them. The same goes on shore Chris. Assign the two of them one of our extra housing units. Their teams will be in the berthing compartments on board ship and in the housing dorms when on the island.”
“I’ll take care of it, no problem,” my brother answered.
“I’ll make sure to take care of the arrangements on the Sea Eagle too Rick,” Danny agreed.
“Do you have anything to report Chris?”
“Lots and lots of bills have been paid. Our new cigarette boat is just the latest in a long line of them. I paid the power company over a million dollars for running the power over to our island. I just paid the monthly construction bill on the island infrastructure. That includes this building, all of our homes, the machine shop and the final bills on the lagoon and docks.”
“Are we still within budget?” I asked.
“Yeah, no problem, we asked for ten million from each of our team members as start-up money. That comes to 130 million dollars. We are still very comfortable with our financial situation. I see no problem what so ever with operating expenses. We’re in really good shape financially.”
“Let’s go back to what we asked for this Christmas LT,” Sam laughed.
“Sam, he said we were comfortable. He didn’t say we could go crazy now did he?” I laughed back.
“Does anyone have anything else to discuss? Is there anything you need us to get from Rusty that I don’t know about?”
“LT. what about those pirate bodies in the cavern? They’re stinking to high heaven. If we plan on using that space as a secure storage area anytime soon something is going to have to be done about them,” the chief reminded me.
“I’ll get someone to bury them in the cavern. They’re going to need a mask in order to breathe. There should be an area soft enough to dig in down there. I promised Captain Jack that the cavern would be the resting place of his bones and I’ll be damned if I’ll let them be moved from there.”
“I got to say LT. You are a man of your word,” Doc threw in shaking his head.
“Are you volunteering to do the burying Doc?” I asked with a devilish little grin on my face.
“Nope, I’m a man of medicine. I heal the body so it doesn’t need to be buried. That’s the wrong end of the spectrum for me to be involved in.”
“Doc those weren’t rubber bullets you’ve been firing all these years,” Dave said. “You’ve done your share of burying.”
“No Dave you’re wrong. I’ve done my share of killing. I leave them lay where they fall. I only heal my friends, you may want to keep that in mind when you’re trying to hurt my tender feelings,” Doc said sniffling dramatically.
“Ha your tender feelings you say? That isn’t what was fragile the last time when you fell off of that chandelier and landed on your ass!” Brian laughed.
“This tropical air does it wonders,” Doc said rubbing his back side. “It aches something fierce in cold wet weather.”
“Okay guys let’s get our minds back on the meeting,” I said with a grin.
“We still need to have the entrance to the cavern concreted shut and we need to make an opening to it thru the new machine shop,” the chief reminded me.
“Chris, check and see if you can find anyone who mines on the island. I think they’ll have to dynamite the rock to make an opening.”
“They might be able to do it with jackhammers Rick. It’ll probably depend on how far they have to go to get to the cavern.”
“Karen, were you able to sort thru the medical supplies and are we fully equipped for our needs?” I asked my future wife.
“I need to order more. In some instances we have enough for the island but didn’t realize we had to double the order so we’d have a supply on the Sea Eagle.”
“Give Chris your list when it’s ready and he’ll get everything you need.”
“I’d like Doc to look the list over before Chris orders anything. Maybe he’ll see something I’ve missed. Like I told you before I don’t know everything we need in order to treat battle injuries, Doc does.”
“Doc, right after the meeting you want to get together with Karen and go over everything in the sick bay?”
“Sure I’ll be happy to try to steal her away from you LT,” Doc said mischievously.
“You don’t have a chance Doc,” I said laughing. “Karen likes her men with two good cheeks.”
The room erupted in laughter and cat calls aimed at Doc.
“He’s right Doc, you just don’t fit the bill,” Karen laughed getting in her shot.
“Now hold on just a second there!” Doc said trying to get the upper hand again.
“Too late Doc the meeting is over,” I said grinning at him. “You’ll just have to turn the other cheek!”
“Yeah Doc always remember to put your best cheek forward,” the chief laughed.
“That did it, any of you come to me with a splinter or something serious like that will just have to wait until my feelings are all patched up and better. By that time it’ll probably be festering and I’ll probably have to take your arm off at the elbow,” Doc grinned at his friends good naturedly knowing he’d lost this battle.
“Come with me Doc and I’ll patch your ego up. I’ll make it good as new again,” Karen said as she left the room.
“I don’t think the bandage will be big enough for his ego Karen,” Scott called out to be heard over the laughing team.
“I’ll add ego sized band aids to the shopping list,” Karen called from the hallway.
“Chief, we have a helicopter to meet,” I said following Karen out of the room.
Our shopping list was going to be long and expensive. As I’ve said time and time again. I wouldn’t put any amount of money ahead of my team’s safety. By the end of the day Rusty was going to be a very happy man.