Guns for Hire - Script Eighteen
Arajuno 4.48pm - 12/06/2015
Stretching, Skinpin unfolded out of the hummer & was an instant hit with the village kids as he randomly dished out a pocketful of small change as well as a bumper bag of Cola Cubes,
"Chill Gonzales, their only kids" muttered Mariusz as Gonzales tried to stop a couple of over enthusiastic hopefuls from exploring the innards of the truck.
Leaving the others to sort out the kit Vrasten wandered across & into the shack who's broken neon pink sign proclaimed it to be Arajuno's finest bar & hostel, inside a half dozen local Quechua sipped chilled beer whilst watching basque pelota on a flickering screen plasma screen. On a separate table, a couple, possibly US college back packers, swigged Coke completely failing to understand why the locals could possibly want to watch a non US sport.
Glancing
around Vrasten found himself accosted by a wrinkled & behatted old woman
who effortlessly shooed Vrasten towards the ramshackle bar, despite the benefit
of Vrasten's language chip he struggled to understand the the old woman's constant
chatter however gradually he got the gist of what she was asking, nodding in
comprehension Vrasten agreed to her offer of bed & board for three nights
for the princely sum of $85 a night between the five of them.
Back out side the untrusting Gonzales declined the room negotiated by Vrasten, preferring to sleep within the clammy confines of the hummer although he appreciated the cold beer proffered by Vrasten.
Leaving Gonzales to keep watch on the hummer the others hauled their kit up to hostels first floor rooms,
"Jesus, Vrasten" moaned Alex looking around the sparse rooms "Remind me to let you handle all the sleeping arrangements in future, yeah"
Later, somewhat begrudgingly, Alex conceded that the old prunes unleavened bread, stew & roasted Opossum was pretty bloody good if not a bit on the spicey side.
Arajuno 4.58pm - 12/06/2015
Scowling at the kids milling around the truck Gonzales missed the approach of the two back packers Vrasten had mentioned earlier, hearing a polite cough behind him Gonzales evicted a belligerent chicken that was trying to roost on the hummer's back seat before turning to face the college kids,
"Good a fternoon sir, we wondered, that's me & Stace, if you & your friends weren't planning on being around too long, & if it wasn't to much trouble, whether we could bum a lift as far as Puyo, not meaning any offense to the people here sir, there pretty accommodating & all that but there's a limit to how many days you can eat possum pie"
Appreciating the couples dilemma Gonzales agreed to giving them a lift out of Arajuno albeit not for a couple of days.
Arajuno 6.18pm - 12/06/2015
Eventually even Mariusz had to decline further helpings of the marsupial kebab & spiced stew & belching his approval towards their grinning host cracked the top of another icy cold beer.
Conscious that the clock was ticking Alex suggested they should make the most of the austral summer night & at the very least make a perimeter reconnaissance of SCC's Jatun Sacha Biological Field Station, reluctantly nodding in acknowledgment the others retrieved secured side arms, torches & back packs from the hummer, Gonzales, quietly added timers & detonators as well as a couple of pounds of Semtex to his back pack just in case. . . .
Skinpin, feeling pretty wasted, declined the evenings frivolities & having privately noted the smile of a certain chikita suggested he could best use his time checking out a couple of the Quechua who looked like a medic's skills wouldn't go amiss suggesting this might encourage future collaboration.
As the evening sun caressed the waters of the river Arajuno the men of Quechua & a good few of the women & children gathered in & around the village's one & only TV set on the ground floor of the hostel, as their numbers grew Alex, Mariusz, Vrasten & Gonzales, watched by a couple of kids & a stick chasing dog, slipped out of Arajuno on foot & headed into the jungle keeping parallel to the JSBFS track.
Jatun
Sacha Biological Field Station, Arajuno
9.13pm - 12/06/2015
Some three
hours later Alex, who'd taken point, raised her hand to call a halt however
all four of them could clearly see the field station lights through the trees
as well as hear the quiet refrain of Joni Mitchell's "I Think I Understand"
above the background hum of insecta.
Momentarilary keeping hidden within the fauna around the field station Gonzales watched whilst Alex & Vrasten worked thier way away towards the river around the research stations perimeter before setting off in the opposite direction, crossing some half dozen tracks leading uphill away from the river he crept towards a isolated shipping container adjacent to the river from which a feint hum emanated. Mariusz, allowing the other three to recon the station took up position approximately half way around its perimeter from where, should things go tits up, gave him a reasonable position to lay down covering fire.
For several hours all four surveyed the late evening movements of the field station, several times station personnel were seen moving between the various buildings & one fella, possibly a mechanic, struggled to carry an outboard from a RHIB tied up against the floating pontoon into what was guessed as being a boat shed/workshop.
An hour or so passed midnight, & several lights seeming to have been left switched on, the four station personnel seen so far, had headed off on foot up three of the six tracks leading uphill away from the station, confident that the station was now deserted Alex, Vrasten & Gonzales moved in to investigate closer, Mariusz, ever cautious, remained on watch from under the trees.
Alex
& Vrasten headed for the largest of the two main buildings, both were timber
single storey structures probably dating back to the field stations previous
incarnation. Whilst Vrasten watched her back Alex slipped through the unlocked
door to the rear of the building quickly establishing that it was the field
stations kitchen/canteen & common room.
To the rear of the building was a walk in chiller & freezer unit, inside the well stocked cold store were several pallets of cold beer, smiling Alex helped herself to several cans being careful to scribble a signature on the cooks stock check.
With
Alex safely inside Vrasten eased around the front of the building taking up
a central position where he could cover those areas of the station hidden from
Mariusz.
Gonzales, moving quickly towards the river, confirmed that the twenty foot steel container held the stations silent running generators, stacked to the river side of the container were some twenty or so fifty-six gallon barrels of Chooch as well as a larger fuel tank piped up to feed the generators, confident that he was alone Gonzales scrapped out the dirt beneath the edge of the fuel tank & rigged up a half brick of Semtex to a remote, covering it back over with dirt Gonzales was happy it would pass all but the closet of inspections. Heading around the container Gonzales made for the nearest building which he'd assumed to be a the boat shed/workshop, as he neared the shed he heard several plopping noises coming from the dark tank like structures across the clearing however seeing Vrasten in position beside the main building he ignored the noises for the moment & continued as was.
Waiting for Alex to reappear Vrasten gave the two jeeps & 4WD 7T truck parked nearby the once over, all three looked well cared for however what really caught his eye was the tilt wing turbo prop aircraft sat on the helipad adjacent to the main building, whilst no air jockey even Vrasten could tell it was one hell of an expensive piece of kit.
Inside the common room, which took up approximately half the building, Alex poked around the various shelves, tables & cupboards, all were littered with scientific journals, newspapers & magazines, her eye however was caught by a line of photographs on a wall mounted notice board, instantly she recognised a couple of the faces from the base personnel seen earlier, quickly she photographed all those displayed, eleven in total, & made a note of the names written on the reverse side, satisfied that the building had nothing more to give Alex joined Vrasten outside & headed for the larger of the remaining structures on the other side of the compound.
Gonzales emerged from the boat shed cum workshop & skirted the pontoon, the workshop was pretty well equipped, lathe, pillar drill, oxy-acetalyne etc but other than a ratty old hunting rifle & scope hung above one of the benches there was nothing out of the ordinary as far as Gonzales was concerned. Giving the moored RHIB the once over Gonzales saw Alex emerge from the largest building &, joined by Vrasten, head across the clearing, prior to joining them however he headed for the tanks from which he'd earlier heard strange noises.
Checking out the windows of the second building Vrasten & Alex quickly established that it contained office cum lab facilities & was unoccupied however before looking to gain entry they skirted to its rear to check out what the smaller units behind it were, moments later it was established that the smaller ISO unit contained water purification plant & that the small timber shack was a shower block, satisfied that all was clear they stepped back to the front of the lab building & tried the doors, they were unlocked, with a quick look towards Mariusz to check all was clear they entered the buildings lobby.
Gonzales crept up to the first of the two circular tanks & peered over the edge, the tank, chest high, was filled with murky water to roughly half its height with a mud bank & rocks above the water line to one side, watching, Gonzales could see some kind of small amphibious like creatures darting into the water startled by his presence, muttering under his breath as to what the fuck they were, Gonzales checked out the second tank, sure enough it was pretty much the same, unsure what to make of it he headed across to join Vrasten & Alex.
Inside the lab offices Vrasten & Alex were struggling, so far the facility appeared to be exactly what it purported to be, the desks were littered with biological journals & reference texts although none of the site data records seemed to refer to anybody listed as base personal by name.
Gonzales stepped lightly up the steps & pushed through the door to join Vrasten & Alex, as he described what lay out side he glanced around the walls of the lab,
Mudskippers, right, yeah, I knew that, cute"
Hoping
for a break they fired up the lab PC's however all were frustratingly password
protected until however they entered what was clearly DeAbreu's office, on the
wall was a photograph of DeAbreu with several suits stood outside an office
block whose signage acclaimed it to be the world headquarters of the Shore Chemical
Company, opposite the desk were a couple of battered filing cabinets as well
as a locked glass fronted cabinet containing a couple of pistols & a shotgun,
of immediate interest however was a lap top on the desk which when investigated
was live. Whilst Vrasten did his best to interrogate the lap top Alex &
Gonzales rummaged through the desk drawers & the unlocked filing cabinets,
whilst they found the key to the gun cabinet there again seemed to be a complete
lack of details relating to what was actually carried out at the research center
as well a complete absence of any personnel records, health & safety files
or for that matter anything relating to the death of Melody Uzzit & Gary
Triador.
"This is just so full of shit" blurted Vrasten "I mean, its just to fuckin' perfect, I know what I'm talking about, fourteen years putting scum behind bars, it stinks, its gotta be some sort of cover up"
Arajuno 10.04am - 13/06/2015
Gathered in the hostel bar Mariusz updated Skinpin on what they had, or in fact not, found the previous evening at JSBFS whilst the hostels patron fussed around serving hot home baked flat bread & coffee, in turn Skinpin, who'd been up & about early doors, said he'd another chat with the two back packers who'd bummed the promise of a lift out of Gonzales,
"Turns out after wandering down there the other day some fella by the name of Netuno offered them a days diving, the girl, Stacey, nice ass don't ya think, majored in river ecology, suppose that's why they headed down to this shit hole, anyway their story backs up what you found last night, seems the mudskippers in the river round here suffer some peculiar regenerative abnormalities, makes em' interesting to any one who gives a fuck about such things "
Arajuno 10.13am - 13/06/2015
As Alex finished off the manjar she raised the topic at the front of all their thoughts,
"This feels like its going nowhere fast, we're already 24 hrs in, the clock's ticking & apart from DeAbreu's so clean she shits flowers we don't know shit"
Gonzales, drawing circles in the dust with his foot, looked up,
"That tiltrotor they've got, its a hell of a piece of kit, sure would like to give it a try, maybe we should think about liberating it"
The conversation was cut short however as the sound of a vehicle drawing up out front caught their attention, a few moments later a young bloke entered the bar shouting for help bringing supplies in to the hostel,
"Its Netuno Anvaro" muttered Alex under her breath recognising him from his photo.
Taking the initiative Vrasten & Mariusz lent a hand bringing in the remaining box's from the jeep parked out front, Skinpin, never one to miss a chance started chatting with the girl sat behind the wheel of the jeep whilst Alex spoke with Netuno, ten minutes later as the jeep pulled away heading for Puyo, Alex smiled & waved in answer to Netuno's raised hand having coherced the Aussie technician in to afternoons diving the following day..
Twenty or so minutes later however it was concluded that if they were going to make any sense of this crap & meet the flight deadline they couldn't wait another day sat on their arse in Arajuno, action was required, grinning Gonzales stood up from the table,
"I'll get the detonators then shall I ?"