Tintin's Entourage: Operation Tropico
Belgium boarder, 1963
Close to the border with Germany was an underground complex which had been commissioned by the Belgium government, its purpose was to house the Entourage's members and to act as their headquarters. Beneath a farm barn in the middle of an empty field was pathway that led down to the base entrance of the base, there were a collection of cars, vans and other vehicles which were used by the task force. An unusual aspect of the Headquarters design were the extremely large doorways, this was a feature that allowed a certain member of the task force to move freely throughout the underground compound.
Within the briefing room of the complex all the members of the Entourage had gathered for the briefing for the latest mission. It had been one year since their first deployment; now after forty seven successful missions with zero casualties the individuals had become a strong and well-functioning team. The meeting room had ample space allowing with one long table with chairs facing a projector screen, allowing the group to get a full mission briefing and to discuss strategies after deployment.
Tintin (with Snowy by his side), Haddock, Jack, Top-cat and Mr Knuckles were all around the table waiting for the latest briefing. Since Knuckles was too large and heavy to sit on a normal chair, as a result he simply sat down on the ground at the end of the table while still being tall enough to sit around it. Down one side of the table was Haddock and Jack and on the other was Tintin and Top-cat. All members were remembering previous missions while waiting for Tenenbaum to arrive and brief them.
"Any bets on what this mission will be?" Top-cat asked.
Jack took out a cigarette out from a packet, placed it in his mouth and lit it with his thumb before saying, "I tell you this, it better not be another lame investigation. I'm gonna say it now, going through the Bronx night after nights trying to find leads on a mob boss called Sonny then no thank you. For gad sakes I never dug up so many dead bodies in my life, last time I do anything like that".
"Kid you don't know nothing," Haddock commented, "I remember when we had to do some investigations on the Thule society; I was the first one into that god forsaken castle. I still have nightmares over what I saw in their dungeons".
"You should have seen some of Starlin's Gulags," Top-cat added, "One night in those and you'd never sleep again".
The door to the briefing room opened and two people walked through, Tenenbaum was the first person and the second one was a stranger. The second was a man in his late thirties dressed in an army uniform, on the left sleeve of his jacket was a patch of the American flag beneath the emblem of the 5th Special Forces. He had a head of brown hair with streak of grey down the fringe, a sign that his youth was slowly fading. Across the jacket on his left side were three medals, the first was the American Bronze star, the second was the American Silver star and the third was the Distinguished Service Medal. This highly detailed uniform showed people that the man before them was a veteran of the American army, a man who was willing to put his life on the line in the name of his country.
"Good morning gentlemen," Tenenbaum said as she went to stand beside the projector scree.
The soldier who had entered the room with her stood on the other side of the projector screen; he stood with his hands behind his back awaiting for when he would be introduced. The lights in the room went dark and light was shined onto the screen. The first image on the screen was a birds-eye view photograph of an island in the Caribbean peninsula.
"Gentlemen," Tenenbaum said, "This is the island of Tropico in the Caribbean, it is twenty miles east of Cuba and is the furthest island vithin the peninsula. As you may all be away, five years ago the nation was under the control of the Republic of Tropico, this however ended after the coup by General Carlos Santana in Nineteen fifty six".
The picture then changed to showing a general of Latin American decent standing on a balcony looking down on a crowd. He had a thick black bushy beard around his mouth and large reflective sun glasses over his eyes, his uniform was a dark grey covered with medals and ribbons. Something about him seemed wrong yet that feeling was only founded if you stared at this man when you looked at those glasses. Tenenbaum took out a small retractable metal pointer and tapped the screen, "This is the General addressing the crowd after he assumed control of the island and declared martial law, since then, crime and liberty has been non-existent within the island nation".
"So if this general has been ruling the island for half a decade," Tintin said, "What exactly does he have to do with us?"
The image changed to a tactical map of the island within the peninsula, Tropico was in the far corner with a series of other island named St. Helena, St. Pata, Isla de la Aro and a few others just before Cuba. Tenenbaum pointed toward the Tropico Island which had been coloured in a dark grey, "From reports in the country, Carlos has begun a mass recruitment drive as vell as mass producing weapons and ships. Vithin one year our experts predict Carlos will be able to overthrow neighbouring Caribbean governments and install puppet governments in their place, then Carlos vill become ruler of the entire Caribbean peninsula within two year. After that, Carlos vill be able to launch an invasion of Cuba, something if vorld vill not be content on seeing".
Tintin took a quick glance at the soldier in the room then looked back to Tenenbaum, "Allies of the Red, White and Blue I take it?"
The soldier by the side of the projector stepped forwards and stood at the head of the table. He stood proudly with his arms by either side as he looked around the table and said, "You could say that yes. I am Major John Hannibal Smith of the 5th Special Forces, first company. I am here as a representative of the United States in both political and military matters. Now as you may be aware Cuba is currently allied with the USSR, if an invasion from Tropico went ahead it would allow the Soviets to invade the Caribbean and create a permanent presence close to the United States. If that were to happen, the president could not guarantee peace with the Russians. Because of that impending threat my government appealed to the Entourage for assistance, to add to that my government have asked that I be posted to the Entourage for the mission".
Tintin looked at him with a look of shock, "I was not informed of a new addition to the team?"
Tenenbaum quickly intervened, "Major Smith vill not be in command, he vill simply be a member of the team".
Hannibal approached Tintin, "I can assure you, I won't make you look bad in front of your squad".
The confident attitude encouraged Tintin, as he looked around he saw other members of his team he saw they felt a little uneasy but had no complaints they wanted to share. Although it had not been common for an allied government posting a representative on a service team it was not unheard of, in some cases during the war the Allies used members of the French resistance to assist in missions behind enemy lines. With no further questions Tintin looked past Hannibal and toward Tenenbaum before asking, "So when do we leave?"
SS Unicorn, Atlantic ocean, 1963
The waves of the ice cold waters thrashed against the hull of the Unicorn as the vessel sailed through the Atlantic, a light shroud of rainclouds filled the sky for hundreds of miles in either direction pouring out water thick and fast like a never ending waterfall. Inside the ship's mess hall Tintin, Snowy, Top-cat and Jack all sat around a metal table with no one else around. Tintin sat at one of the tables with Snowy on his lap as he read through espionage reports about Tropico. Jack and Top-cat at another table playing go fish with an old deck of cards Jack brought from one of the crewmen.
"You got any fives?" Jack asked.
"Nope," Top-cat replied, "Go fish".
The door to the mess hall creaked before slowly opening; Hannibal walked through the doorway and took off his beret before closing the door behind him. Top-cat took a quick glance at the officer before focusing back on his current game trying to avoid drawing the major's attention. Hannibal took a chair from another table then moved it over to the card game before sitting down and asking, "Hey fellas, you playing Texas hold out?"
"Go fish," Jack replied.
"Don't suppose you fellas could deal me in?"
Top-cat put down his cards and looked at Hannibal sternly, "No".
Hannibal leaned back in his chair with realisation of what caused Top-cat's attitude, he reached into his jacket pocket and took out a cigarette and box of matches. He placed the cigarette in his mouth but just before he opened the box for a match, Jack reached his hand across the table and pointed his finger top toward the cigarette. His fingertip started to glow a bright orange moments before a spark to two jumped through the air and lit the tip; the sparks weren't enough to cause a raging inferno but was strong enough to have the same effect of a match. Hannibal then put the match box away and took a deep breath before stating, "Thanks kid, I forgot you could do that".
"A lot of things you guys in Washington seem to forget about," Top-cat mumbled.
The major looked toward Top-cat before puffing out a cloud of smoke through his nose, "I understand you're resentment toward our government due to your experiences, I read your file on my journey to Brussels. I have to tell you, the missions the company sent you on were surprising".
"The agents who conducted my mission debriefing were even more surprised at the fact I came back at all,"
"I also read the reports about your partner, agent Felix; the two of you pulled off some risky stuff,"
Jack shuffled the deck of cards, "You never said you had a partner when you were in the CIA".
Top-cat placed his cards down on the table, "The Company sent me out on missions all the time and after the end of the war they didn't really need me. They never said it but I could tell they didn't need me, since forty six they kept sending me on the most dangerous missions they could set up. But I proved myself by coming back every time wanting more dangerous ones".
"I read the reports on those missions," Hannibal said, "The records include your 'antics' during the civil war in Greece, feeding the Burmese government false information regarding rebel activates and even the intelligence reports from Pyongyang after the Red Army marched in".
Top-cat leaned back in his chair and looked at Hannibal with a smirk, "I got up to a lot more Major, I can tell you that".
"Those were the reports I were allowed to read; I nearly got discharged from the army when I laid eyes on the chunk of reports regarding your activates in Russia".
Jack stopped shuffling his cards and Tintin stopped reading his mission briefing; they turned their attention toward the talking cat say in the chair. Simply knowing their team mate had been beyond East Germany had peaked their interest; the reporter let his dog jumped down his lap before dragging his chair away from his table and toward the one where everyone else were sitting around.
Jack put the deck of cards back on the metal worktop, "You mentioned something about Russia during our mission to Sudan".
Top-cat gently tapped his paw tips on the table top in a nervous state, "Oh….yer, might have said something along those lines".
"So what did you get up to?" Tintin asked.
The nervous tapping got faster while he didn't make eye contact, "Hey Fellas, what is this a court room? I mean it when I tell you this, I can' talk about it!"
Hannibal placed the cigarette between his fingertips before turning toward the other two men around the table, "So you two ever seen combat before?"
Jack laughed to himself, "I've had my fair share".
"I nearly died a couple of times in the most bizarre cases," Tintin commented.
"Like what?"
The former agent of the CIA paused his thinking; he lost focus on the present and instead let his mind wonder. He though to what he was doing twenty years ago. He remembered the long cold nights he spent with his partner monitoring activates on the eastern front during the war. He remembered the two of them huddling around a small fire one night while a blizzard raged, he remembered sitting with Felix in an abandoned house in the middle of a winter wasteland. He remembered the two of them monitored the Red army at Leningrad and after the Panzers retreated they followed them, after chasing them for two miles west the snow started to fall and by then they lost their tracks. As the temperature dropped quickly the two took shelter in an old house in an abandoned village, once they started a small fire they spend the night trying to survive.
"So many I can't really remember but I will say two words," Top cat said, "Hard days; when you're a field agent behind enemy lines things aren't as glamorous as those movies make it out to be. Two days in occupied territory you end up covered in mud, low on supplies and every day you spend out there you lose a little more moral each day that passes".
Jack nodded toward Top-cat in a sign of respect, "I'm sure the guys in the White House deeply appreciated your services".
"They had a funny way of showing it," Top-cat replied so quietly he might just as well be whispering to himself.
Tropico city, Republic of Tropico, 1963
As the sun sat at its highest point the sky it's heat was projected down on the island of Tropico, the scorching heat was common in the all the islands in the Caribbean. In the capital city of Tropico was Victory Square, the central hub of Tropico city and the headquarters of the Santana Regime. At the centre of the square just next to the ministry was the presidential palace; at the entrance were two stationed soldiers with a collection of healthy plants either side of the doorway and two statues of the nation's leader on the corner of the palace grounds.
Inside the palace on the third floor was the presidential study, a room with cloth flooring made from a dark green and finely carves elm woodwork for the bookshelves that took up the wall space. By the wall facing the door to the room was a large desk with a large Tropican flag draped down the wall behind the chair beneath the desk. Sitting at the desk working through paper work was the president of the nation; he was man in his late forties dressed in a military uniform of a grey colouring. Across the left side of the jacket was a large collection of medals and ribbons, most of which had been awarded to himself when he was installed as president. Across his chin was a beard so large and thick it looked as if a storm cloud had flown down from the sky and attached itself to the general's face and even joined into his sideburns to connect to his hair. Covering his eyes were a pair of large reflective sunglasses with an orange tint, a local legend among the people of Tropico was that the general didn't have eyes in his head and underneath were two empty holes in his head.
The president sat behind his desk reading through paper work given to him in the meeting with his ministers only half an hour ago, most of them were from the minister of defence while one or two were from his health minister and some arrest warrants that were signed by his chief of police that needed his approval. As he was in the middle of reading a military report the general was interrupted by a knock at the door, hearing the knock the general stopped what he was doing and looked up toward the doorway.
"Come in," The general said.
The door to the study opened, a soldier simply poked his head around the side of the door almost as if he were terrified to come in at all.
"Señor presidente," the soldier said, "You have a phone call waiting on one".
The general rolled his eyes before reaching for his pen, "Sargento Edwardo I am a very busy man, tell the caller I am busy and instruct them to call me tomorrow".
"The caller says he is a your 'friend from Munich',"
The general suddenly jolted his hand in a flicker of panic sending his pen flying out of his hand, he knew who was the phone but had no idea what he wanted. The general patted himself down before clearing his throat in an effort to calm down then saying, "Very well, patch him through".
The soldier nodded before leaving the room and closing the door behind him; the general slowly leaned back in his chair before reaching for the top draw on the left side of the desk. Reaching into the draw, the general took out an aged rotary dial telephone painted black. Lifting the handset off from the switch hook the general moved the item closer to his face then spoke down the transmitter, "Hola"
At first there was no response but instead the general heard the sound of paper being torn apart in the back ground moment before a voice spoke back, "Carlos, it has been three veeks already. Your men have been digging for three veeks and they start to slow down, I need more men".
Carlos suddenly lent forward on his chair then rested his elbows on his desk, "What? Mi amigo, do you have any idea how hard it was to get you the men you already have not to mention how I disposed of their bodies after they dropped dead from exhaustion?"
"I am also the von that is providing your secret police vith the training they need to supress rebel activity," the voice replied, "If you vish to remain as 'President' of Tropico then you shall do as I have asked".
The phone suddenly went dead; with the echo of static from the cancelled call Carlos lowered the phone before slumping back into his chair. With a deep exhale and profound frustration he simply laid still and slowly closed his eyes.
SS Unicorn,Caribbean Sea, 1963
The Unicorn bobbed up and down upon the water, spending five days travelling by sea the ship and its crew arrived close to its destination. Under the cover of night the ship sailed toward Tropico at a slow speed, The Entourage had gathered on the top deck ready to be deployed. By the side of the ship was a large inflatable lifeboat, this large grey device had been specially made to accommodate all members of the Entourage, including Mr Knuckles. Tintin looked over the side of the ship and down upon the life raft below, he contemplated the idea of having only a thin rubber textile between him and the waters of the ocean. Top-cat looked over the side and could feel his stomach turning, the idea of travelling across the sea in this small craft made him feel unconfutable.
"Captain," Top-cat said as he turned to Haddock, "If that raft bursts and I drown, I'm gonna come back as a ghost and haunt your ass for the rest of your life".
Haddock pulled on the mooring line to see if it was secure, "Good! I always liked your company"
Tintin looked down on the raft with Snowy under his arm, he moved closer to the side of the boat where the rope ladder hung leading down to the inflatable vessel. He turned back to the group and said, "Alright this is what will happen, we'll land on the western side of the island. Once on land we'll have to drag the raft inland and hide it within 'cala libration', more commonly known as Liberation cove. Once we're on the island cala libration will be our field HQ and from there we'll be given a briefing by Major Smith. Let's move out!"
Mr Knuckles was the first to move, using his giant mechanical arms to lift himself up he climbed over the side of the vessel and down the side to the raft. When his feet stood upon the raft there was a brief moment of pause, the Entourage watched to see if the vessel would support the weight of this metallic giant. As the small boat swayed briefly it seemed to then bob back up to its normal height, seeing this reassured the group in the feeling that if it could carry Mr Knuckles' weight then it could hold theirs. Tintin was then the first to climb down, with his small dog under his arm he managed to make it all the way down to the raft, once there he placed his canine companion on the bottom of the raft and stood ready to help with loading the supplies. As members of the Entourage began to climb down the rope ladder, crewmen from the Unicorn used a basket on a rope to lower down a few crates down to the raft which would be needed for the mission. When the last of the group were on the raft and they had loaded the last crate, Tintin went to the other end of the raft and turned on the electric motor engine. At a firm and strong speed the raft moved away from the side of the ship, with Tintin steering the small vessel toward its destination he focused on getting there rather than looking around at the scenery. Haddock took a position at the front of the raft while looking through a pair of binoculars; his main priority was to make sure the way was clear and to warn the group of enemy vessels seeing them. The rest of the group sat in the middle of the vessel between the supplies and Mr Knuckles, out of all of them only Snowy and Top-cat had the freedom to move around a lot without tipping the raft over.
Jack looked over the side of the raft; he could see the waves rise and fall again and again in a style of repetitive destruction. The water was a light grey and he couldn't even see more than a foot beneath the surface. Old memories began to resurface; Jack remembered travelling deep beneath the ocean to an impossible place, a place where the great were not confined by the weak. For a very brief moment Jack saw something, he could see a faded light deep in the water and it almost looked like a neon sign. This moment was brought to a sudden end when Major Hannibal asked him, "Something wrong Mr Ryan?"
Jack suddenly stopped looking over the side, he turned toward the major with a look of bemusement, "Sorry Major, my mind was far from here".
Jack then looked back over the side of the ship and nothing in the water, he didn't know if what he saw was real or if he had simply imagined it, Jack didn't want to draw attention to himself so he simply dismissed the event, rested his head against the side of the raft and closed his eyes to gain some rest.
Hannibal looked toward Tintin, "You've got a good team. Reminds me of my own,"
"You are a major," Tintin replied, "I mean you must have more than six men under your command in the army".
Hannibal showed a smug smile on his face, "Not exactly, see, I have a small four man team under my command in Vietnam. When I was assigned to this mission they were given a lengthy amount of time off. Those men are some of the best in the army, I wouldn't trade them for any command Washington could give me and I'm sure they wouldn't want to leave either".
"So are you some sort of Commando squad?"
"No, we're more of an alpha unit but I want a better name for it,"
Tintin thought of a qurky idea, "You could call yourselves the A-team"
Hannibal's face lit up with inspiration, "Now that's a good name, how come I never thought of that?"
"Sometimes the best ideas are the ones you don't normally think of,"
Haddock looked through the binoculars; all he could see was heavy rain fall for nearly a mile. In the very far distance he could see a something that looked like a rock of some kind, as they moved closer Haddock could see a cliff face and a coast line. At that moment he raised his left hand and said, "Tropico dead ahead, approximately seven hundred meters enclosing!"
Tintin and the rest of the group looked ahead, they could barely see what Haddock could see yet they trusted his judgement. Tintin then turned toward Hannibal, "Get ready major, this'll be one dangerous mission"
To be Continued…..