Fair Odds

91.

With little fanfare the mission is launched. After another brief, this time on the three-step tactic of contact, offer and sell, from the cold call to the heat of live action, we take the first of many uncertain baby steps, what we hope to be the foot-strikes of freedom. 

Maria, now referred to as Her Majesty, is provided a secure laptop with the instructions to use her past Axis contacts to send an encrypted message to Mr Big. On the transmission end we would send the communication through a network of International routers making any attempt at tracking the source almost impossible. Maria, Her Majesty, would have her choice of words with the goal of establishing belief and credibility from the onset. To no one’s surprise she chose her boyfriend Cyrus as the recipient of the faux SOS. 

The message read: Bastards couldn’t keep the bird caged. Ready for work. Use encryption key ALICE8 when affirmative. 

And that was that. 

Waiting for the response, we prepped for departure, bags packed, gear loaded and spirits high. My communications with TOM again indicated a high level of probability that The Axis was in an active protocol. I considered their history of terrorism; the crude bombings of heavily trafficked public transportation hubs, suicide bombings inside places of worship, drone strikes and their most recent, and by far most sophisticated, hijacking of two Navy Phantoms along with the crippling of military and civilian radar systems to add a level of stealth previously considered impenetrable. As was my habit, I took pencil to paper and allowed my thoughts to transpose ideas from electrical impulses to elementary sketching, a graphic novel illustration in a free-form process. Upon completion of the ritual I took a quick break to stretch my legs and fill my coffee cup. 

What I saw upon return shook my spine. Vivid on paper, was an unmistakable pictorial indication of an army of motivated and experienced terrorist mercenaries, with a rap-sheet modus operandi  in ascending order of competence and success on the left side of the legal pad and seven names on the right side.

BOGART

SAUNDERS

DAVIS

DRYSDALE

CALAHAN

BROMDEN 

SATRIANO

The tingling in my spine indicated the blatant fact that we stand outnumbered, something we all knew going in, but this time the odds could be 100-1 against, we simply did not know. 

What we did know was that those seven were well trained, well prepared and superbly committed to mission success. I sat down, pawed my pencil and wrote:

FAIR ODDS.