A/N: This is the fourth chapter of Time Net and I hope all of you enjoy it. But please REVIEW; I really want to hear from you readers so please post your review. THANKS!
Disclaimer: Don't own Halo just using characters to entertain the masses.
Chapter 4
1611 hours, January 15, 2005
Plaza de la Revolucion
La Havana, Cuba
The man lowered his newspaper as he spotted the couple heading towards him. A native man played his acoustic guitar in a Cuban melody, spreading it over the plaza. Faded, old buildings surrounded the plaza as well as one or two portraits of Fidel Castro, its paint peeling off. In the shadows stood the communist guards, looking hard at the tourist passing by. The man with the newspaper lowered his sunglasses and looked the couple over. The women stuck out like a sore thumb being blond and tall. But the man next to her blended in perfectly, his dark skin and small stature went well with the other locals. The man put his newspaper down and walked towards a dark spot in the plaza, subtly alerting the couple to follow. The man leaned against the tall palm as the couple walked towards him. He nodded his head as they came close and the man nodded back. The all shook hands as the man led him to a 57' Chevy convertible and opened the passenger door for them. The car started with a forced clunk as they sped down the main street passing locals and guards.
"Don't speak until we leave the city and don't talk to the guards at the checkpoint," the man said with a cold voice. The couple nodded their head simultaneously in agreement to his terms. The car drifted passed the other streamlined cars, speeding ahead of the local peddler in their carts going around selling their wares. The buildings became less and less frequent and the traffic thinned out as they headed south towards the countryside. The woman looked around at rustic buildings and palm trees in a surreal stare. How did I get here? She thought to herself as she went through the events that led up to their journey to Cuba in her head. After she said that they needed more firepower, he instantly went to work. After calling a few favors they found out they could buy guns and mercenaries for cheap in Cuba. But the only problem was that American citizens were not allowed into Cuba without special papers, which took quite awhile to process in the Cuban bureaucracy. So they took a flight to Miami and there they rented a car, which they took to Key West. There they bought a boat with the money they brought with them, $550,000. Apparently Chris was rich after saving for ten years of pay and treasure he had found on digs, which will come in handy for the guns and the mercenaries. Using the boat they had purchase they secretly left the US and landed in Havana. Later they called one of Chris's 'friends' from the hotel to take them to the place where they sold the guns. Now they were in his car about to come up to a checkpoint that led out of the city.
"Not a word" said the man as they pulled up to the checkpoint. Two guards stood in front of the car while one came out of the guard box and had his clipboard in one hand and his AK-47 on his shoulder. A guard stood at attention on the other side of the car, holding his rifle awkwardly as he looked the car over.
"Hola senor" the man greeted in a smile
"Hello Sir, Where you going today," the guard said in broken English.
"I'm going to San Juan"
"Good sir, they have wonderful beaches" he said with official tone "I will need to see your papers if your going that far." The man's smile slightly faltered but quickly came back as he took something out of his pocket and handed it to the guard.
"This should more then cover it," he said with a charming grin. The guard looked at the money in his hand and leafed through it, he counted about 500 dollars. He twitched his mustache as he threw the money back at the man.
"How dare you try to bribe a government official," he spat distastefully "You're under arrest for bribery,"
"Should have kept the money," he muttered silently. Before the guard could react the man took out two Berretta pistols and shot the two guards on each side. He quickly put five bullets in each person, causing the two guards in front to shoot their AK-47's at the car. The car shuddered under the barrage of bullets, causing Elaine and Chris to dive for the floor. The man ducked but continued to shoot with precision, killing both guards instantly. The car raced away as the man floored it, leaving the mess he had caused behind.
"What was that!" Chris exclaimed. Panic was plastered all over his face as he looked back in horror at the mess the man left behind.
"It was a necessary evil," the man shrugged. He continued driving without saying word, the wind blowing into the car thought the now open windshield.
"What's your name?" Elaine asked suddenly. Chris gave her a strange look, his face caught in a 'what the hell' look.
"How can you ask that Elaine!" he screamed, throwing his arms up in astonishment. "Didn't you just see what that person did?"
"Like he said it was a necessary evil, it's best not to dwell on it," she turned around and faced Chris "I know you have never seen a person killed before and believe me that kind of freaked me out too but it's best not to think about it." Chris just sat back and looked out the window.
"To answer your question my name is Jay," the man said as he looked at Elaine in the eye. His eyes were a sharp sky blue, harden with the sight of war but for the first time in ten years they softened as they looked into her eyes. He quickly turned back around to face the road, aware of his few seconds of weakness. Elaine kept looking at Jay, as if he entranced her. Chris sighs as he looks out the window, noticing a blood red bird passing by.
The ocean glittered as the sunset on another perfect Caribbean day. The rain came instantly as the sun ducked away for another night. The rain poured down hard as a streamlined Chevy turned into the dirt road running parallel to the Caribbean Sea. The rain flowed thought the broken windshield wetting the passengers in the process. The car finally stopped at its destination, a seemingly abandoned group of old building that was right next to beach. The man opened the door and motioned for the passengers to follow him to a door. The man applied his hand on a panel next to the door, the panel glowed and the door wordlessly opened. The group entered into the dark corridor as the door slammed shut. They followed Jay into the dark elevator as the door shut and flowed down into the dark depths below.
"All clear," a voice said over the elevator's intercom
"What was that?" Chris asked
"We just passed an X ray machine and they confirmed that you don't have any weapons," Jay said crisply. The group grew silent as the elevator slid down into the deep, dark shaft. After an unknown amount of floors the elevator opened up into a comfortable, modern room. The room resembled a doctor's office, except for the fact that a computer desk was in the middle of the room. Pictures of the beach hung on the walls right next to the lighting fixture, which illuminated the room. Comfortable couches were also in the room but clearly the center of the room was the computer.
"This looks nice," Chris said as he jumped into the couch. Elaine sat next to Chris as Jay sat down at the computer desk, turning it on and waiting for it to boot up.
"So how does this work?" Elaine asked, as she stood right next to Jay.
"Back then we used to show everything in person but now we do everything by computer," Jay said. He clicked a few buttons on the computer and opened up the program that he was looking for
"Ok first things first, I need the down payment of Sixty thousand US dollars," Jay said facing the couple.
" Is Bank Account Transfer ok?" Elaine said professionally
"Sure just enter it into the computer," Jay said as he got the proper page for Elaine on the computer. Elaine quickly put the information into the computers, pushing the transfer button to Jay's approval.
"Excellent, if you didn't have the money I might have had to kill you," Jay chuckled; Chris had the feeling that he wasn't kidding about the killing part.
"Ok now that's done its time for the fun part," Jay said cheerfully. He quickly brought the main page back up and started typing.
"First you'll need to decide on what nationality you want your mercenaries to be,"
"Well we need to blend in with the natives in Egypt…" Elaine said.
"Egyptian mercenaries are not very reliable but mix some European mercenaries with them and you got yourself a killing machine," Jay said
"Who has the cheapest price?" Chris asked as he got off the couch and joined the group.
"Well the some British mercenaries are cheap nowadays. They're well trained and are usually very good leaders,"
"That's seems good," Chris declared as he faced Elaine "What do you think Elaine?" Elaine shuddered at the memory of her British highwayman.
"Sounds ok," Elaine responded reluctantly
"Good, ok now how much do you want? We're running a special on a platoon of mercenaries"
"How much does a platoon have?" Chris asked
"A platoon has about forty people," Jay said
"That exactly how much we wanted," Elaine interjected
"Ok now that we finished that, now we can decide on weaponry. We have a large variety of weapons, anything you want is yours."
"We need the upper hand so we need the best money can get," Chris said "We don't know what might come up but we need a versatile weapon."
"I think we might have just what you need," Jay said. He stood up and walked up to one of the painting on the wall, he took it off the wall and exposed a safe. He applied his finger on a scanner and punched in the code into the PIN pad. The safe opened and he quickly took out a case; he laid it on the table and opened the case to expose a sleek, powerful looking gun.
"Let me introduce you to the FN SCAR weapon, the newest and most innovative gun to ever come out of US production," Jay said while caressing the weapon.
"Whoa," both Elaine and Chris said.
"This weapon recently came out to the US Special Forces, it's totally revolutionary on the fact that it can use any ammo available, its less sensitive to fine sand, dust and any other fouling inside the receiver, and is very accurate to the teeth. I hope this is ok for your needs," he said hopefully
"Damm that's a good weapon," Elaine said as she marveled over it. Chris just stared at it, almost as if he was afraid of it.
"Want to test fire it?" Jay asked
"Yes oh yeah" Elaine said
"Cool, follow me then" Jay said. The couple followed Jay as he went through a side door to expose an indoor firing range; they walked up to the first station that showed a target at a medium distance.
"This is where our customers can try out the merchandise, here you can test out short, medium, and sniper ranges. This station is for medium ranged weapons, so you can try the SCAR here," Jay said as he took the gun out of the case and loaded it with a clip.
"So who wants to try it out first?" Jay asked.
"I will," Elaine exclaimed. Jay turned the safety off and handed the gun to Elaine's waiting hands.
"Have you ever fired a gun before? Because this gun has three modes of fire…" Jay said
"Yeah I've fired a gun before," Elaine interrupted as she kneeled down in order to fire accurately; she switched to burst mode and aimed carefully. The gun coughed softly as she pulled the trigger causing the head of the target to burst into pieces.
"Nice shot Elaine," Jay said. He walked over to the target and examined it, after a minute he picked up the target and replaced it with new one.
"Want to try Chris?" Jay said when he walked back to the station.
"Well I don't know…" Chris stammered.
"Come on Chris it's fun" Elaine interrupted
"Well ok, I guess…" Chris said uncertainly. Elaine handed the gun to Chris; he held it with uncertain hands as he tried to mimic Elaine. He kneeled down and aimed the weapon and fired. The bullets missed totally and hit the target at the next station.
"That was a nice try Chris," Elaine giggled. Chris hung his head low as he handed the weapon back to Jay.
"So what do you think?" Jay asked
"We'll take it." Elaine said
"Excellent, what do you want the other weapons to be?" Jay asked as they went back to the other room
"Just make them US army standard weapons," Elaine said
"Now we need some transport," Chris said
"We have a couple of Russian planes you can use " Jay said
"Can we leave in the morning?" Chris asked
"Sure, I'll tell my people to prepare everything." Jay said as he opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Champaign. " Let's celebrate the finished deal with some Champaign." He handed out glasses to Elaine and Chris as he held up the glass for a toast
"To us," Jay said
"To our good luck," Chris said merrily
"To time," Elaine said in a ominous voice