Chapter 14

Disclaimer: Nope still don't own the Hardy boys or Harry Potter or even supernatural for that matter!

"Hey you two" Alex hollered in Joe's direction pulling his attention back to the moment "help the other guys with loading the weapons. Come on what are you staring at? Get working" he barked. "And here we thought we were going on a vacation" Mike uttered under his breath eliciting a smile from Joe. "Vacation…right. Do we even know what those are?" Joe added under his breath as he joined the others and put his hand to the crates to be loaded.

Once the crates were loaded the men got into the aircraft and Joe immediately looked for the agents. His eyes rested briefly on the agents who had been stowed right at the back of the aircraft with their own guard. Averting his eyes quickly he took his seat and hoped that Alex would give some indication of where they were headed so that Frank could pick it up.

After a few tense moments he heaved a sigh of relief as Alex did just that and for once Joe was happy to have lady luck on his side. He distinctly heard Alex's words to the pilot "Our final stop is Varun airfield near Danum Valley. The first destination is however an airfield outside Afghanistan where we change aircrafts". "Danum valley huh?" Joe muttered to himself ensuring that Frank would get it on the other side.

Frank did get it on the other side. The minute the words were uttered he got together his act. "Gear up team. We got our location" he said looking at the determined faces before him and at the proud aircraft in front of him. The aircraft was a big one almost on the lines of a commercial liner and Frank could easily make the whole distance on it.

But since the final destination was an island and could be accessed only by a small aircraft Frank plotted a course for Jakarta instead opting for a brief stopover in Vietnam. Borneo was practically the other end of the world and a straight flight would tire them all out completely. He just hoped nothing happened in Afghanistan where Alex's charter was stopping over.

If something went wrong in Afghanistan the whole thing would be completely screwed and Joe would be stranded on his own. Well he would have Mike but that hardly helped under the circumstance.

Their final leg from Jakarta to Danum valley would be a small charter taken when needed and with the diplomatic immunity the aircraft carried he would be there when Joe landed. The plan was set and Frank was in the air along with his copilot within the hour.

"Really, what is the need to have their base at the other end of the world?" Mike muttered under his breath to Joe. Joe raised an eyebrow "comes with the territory of villainy didn't you know? Can't make anything easy for poor troopers like us" he quipped back equally quietly.

"Flights bore the hell out of me" Mike muttered as he pulled out headphones and plugged into his phone for some music. Joe did the same on his end and soon they were talking and swapping music trying to while away time on the long haul.

The next many hours were spent with various members sleeping on and off but the agents were always under watch. There was even a time when Joe was deputed to watch them but he was never the only one. Besides, there was nothing he could do flying many miles over sea. Anything he could do would be after reaching Borneo and so he played his part as part of the gang and left it at that. There was no need to tip his hand prematurely especially when locked on an aircraft.

When they touched down at a small airfield outside Afghanistan they were met by gun toting individuals who arrived in big vehicles. As Alex shook hands with them the group was ushered into the vehicles and led to a house where they were told they could rest and regroup for the rest of the journey. They were given some of the local fare to eat and thankfully there were some rooms in the house where they could have some privacy.

Joe and Mike cornered one of the rooms and collapsed onto the rickety cots for some much needed rest. The agents were sequestered in the drawing room with one of the men guarding them. At one point even Mike and Joe were drafted for guard duty but what could they do in Afghanistan of all places and it was no use giving false hope. So Joe kept to being nice and got through his shift in one piece and then thankfully it was time to go again. He would be happier to be near Frank on any day.

The second leg of the journey was done in a larger almost commercial aircraft which made Joe wonder about this gang. Clearly the group had pull in Afghanistan but if they were so influential in Afghanistan why go to Borneo at all? And then he realized that the political situation in Afghanistan was much more volatile than Indonesia and the United States government would be less influential in the far off country. Afghanistan on the other hand had attracted enough attention from the big apple in the past. It made a kind of twisted political sense but that was about it and it left Joe feeling that he really should have paid more attention to world geography. Political science too he amended in his head.

As the hours passed day became close to night and the terrain changed from sea to island to thick forest and more islands. It was pretty much early morning somewhere in the range of four am when they landed in yet another private airfield. Really, how many airfields do these people rent? Joe wondered. There seemed to be some serious money involved which was not exactly surprising come to think of it. Not when their products were drugs and guns and their target market was the whole world.

Landing in the wee hours however didn't exempt the crew from work as they once again hauled the weapons and loaded them onto the bus for the final destination. Joe sat feeling every second of the travel as the bus threaded its way through thick jungles and finally pulled in front of a wooden cabin.

Getting down from the bus both Joe and Mike tried to get a feel of where they were but the pervading darkness didn't give them a clear idea. All that they could make out was this was a camp in the middle of the forest with one big cabin and three or four other smaller ones scattered within a one mile radius.

Joe looked around and cringed, this was the middle of nowhere in the middle of nowhere. He had no clue how Frank would ever find this place or how he was going to get the agents out of this. It made getting Intel the first order of priority. At this point he was not even sure that Frank was within hearing distance from the chip. He just hoped that the GPS he had turned on his phone would be enough to lead Frank on.

Frank on the other hand had reached his destination way ahead of Joe and set up base in Jakarta. He had already chartered a small aircraft to take him to Danum valley airfield and he had his camping equipment to set up at the fringe of the forest. By ten in the morning he had taxied into Danum valley, transferred into a small bus and ridden to the forest zone. For the first time since the journey started he had time to set up his equipment along with the monitor that would link him to Joe's chip. One of the other team members was sitting with the other monitor linking to Mike.

But it was not until almost mid-morning the next day that the monitors came alive and the GPS pinged on from Joe's phone. "Yes! That's what I was waiting for. Good boy Joe" Frank whooped clenching his fist and immediately pulled up a map of the surrounding area. Images started forming on the scene and Frank got the first glimpse of a wooden cabin in the middle of a multitude of trees. Checking the GPS it became apparent that it was not as far off as it appeared. It was within a five mile radius and Frank quickly triangulated the area on the map feeling much better now that he had a fair idea of where his brother was.

Looking at the image he could see bustling activity as many men carried crates including Mike from the vehicles to the cabin and from the way the images shifted it was obvious that Joe was doing the same. He took a good look at the environment and noted that only one cabin was big and three others situated close by were smaller and men both local and white milled about at various points. All of them appeared armed and of the thug variety. Almost all were dressed in army fatigues and Frank surmised that it was as good a camouflage as any.

And then the scene moved indoors and what he saw shook him from the inside. Shoved to the side of the drawing room were two individuals seated side by side looking disheveled and distinctly tied up with a man standing guard over them. "Holy crap! I believe we have just found our agents" he called out as the rest of the team rushed over for a look. "yay!" one of the men whooped as another quipped "so now that we know the agents are here, what do we do? Break in and bust the operation?"

Frank mulled over the situation and shook his head "not just yet. Look at the number of men there and for all we know there might be many more we have not seen. We need Intel first so that we can plan for a course of action. For now we wait until Joe connects" he said.

Joe for his part was doing exactly that. He joined the men as they were all given food and tried to make small talk with them. He waited for an opening and timed it so that he walked to the food table when some of the other thugs did the same. In fact more than thugs these guys screamed mercenary as camouflage seemed to be the choice of clothing. Or it was just to blend in with the terrain in case of a getaway for all he knew.

"Hi" Joe said to one such guy as he picked up a plate in his hand "I'm Alan" he introduced himself. The man looked at him skeptically "Jack" he replied and made no further attempt at speech. The man's accent was American and Joe was thankful for that, now if only the man was more talkative.

"This seems far out…how long have you been here?" Joe asked hoping the man would be in a sharing mood. The man gave a dry chuckle and Joe made a reassessment of the man. He seemed to be not so bad at close quarters. "Seems far out yeah but it's really not" the man replied "You will see or maybe not. Depends on how long you are here. If you hang around a few months like I have you can see how beautiful the place is".

"I am here for only a few days but I would like to see around. I mean we have delivered the crates here and I don't know if there is any more work than that. So what am I going to do? At least I can sightsee a bit considering I have travelled all this distance and the fact that I might possibly never come to this country again in my life." Joe said as the man looked at him appraisingly.

"Fine kid, tell you what. Eat, pitch your tent, don't worry you will be given one and then find me. I will show you around the camp for a beginning" the man offered. Joe whooped internally, finally lady luck was turning in his favor. "Sure I will do that" Joe promised and started piling his plate with foods that he actually recognized. At other times he would have let his experimental side loose but not now. He could not afford to mess up his system in any way.

The man noticed what Joe was doing and smirked "I was the same initially but you should try the local stuff. It tickles the spice buds" he advised. Joe grinned back and nodded to acknowledge the statement before wandering back to Mike. Mike had a plate of his own and Joe noticed that he had had the guts to try some of the new things and casually stuck up a conversation. He filled him on his conversation while Mike filled him on his side of things.

"It's not too big a camp and apparently people like us keep flying in and out. There are a couple of bigwigs here with whom Alex will be holed up. I am assuming we can suss out a few more things when we go round this place" Mike said as Joe tersely nodded. "The sooner we get out of here the better. I will know more after my field trip with that guy" he muttered under his breath as Mike agreed with an "amen. I will try to do my own digging and see if I can get any other info".

As the man mentioned they were given a tent and shown a spot to pitch it. They were told that they could use any of the cabins for restroom and shower purposes and once that was done Joe went in search of Jack. He found Jack in a group of five men who were breaking open the crates to check the weaponry. On seeing Joe the man detached himself from the group and walked towards him.

"Ready for the tour?" he asked and Joe eagerly nodded. The man gestured for Joe to walk with him and explained as they did so. "It's not a very big camp. There are about fifty of us here and there are ten cabins. The cabins are very rudimentary and basically used only to sleep at night mostly. During the day we hang around getting on with our work. Sometimes we head into town when we need a change of pace".

"Oh, there is a town nearby?" Joe asked with genuine surprise not really expecting something like that. "Yes there is, don't imagine anything like the States but it's a good town. What you have to remember is that this is basically an island which one tends to forget when we don't actually see the water. And it's not a big island either so even if you get lost you can wander back at some point" the man added.

"Nice, but don't you miss home?" Joe asked and the man shrugged. "This is like an overseas assignment that's all and it pays well. Got no complaints there" he admitted. As they walked and talked the man pointed out the cabins and tents and also introduced him to some other people they met on the way.

Looking at them Joe realized that the men stationed here were all much older than him probably in their thirties if not more. They were also all involved in doing some work or the other. Weapons were laid out in the open and some crates with drugs were being opened as well. The men all seemed to be shrouded in their own security so much so that they did not feel the need to hide. It made Joe wonder as to how difficult it was going to be to get the agents out. These guys seemed in a clichéd way thick as thieves and supremely confident of themselves.

"So, say if I want to go see the town which direction should I head in?" Joe asked casually. "You have to get permission from your boss first laddie before you can take a step out of here. It is a tight ship out here and we cannot afford any leaks" the man cautioned. "Of course that goes without saying. I understand" Joe accepted immediately.

By the time they had gone over the entire camp Joe had the faint stirrings of a plan in his mind. Clearly he had to break the agents out and it had to be done at night. He had to also establish a rendezvous point where Frank could pick him up. The plan etched in mind he hung around until the other man was called into work and Joe tagged along to help. "You can help with stacking the weapons" Jack offered and Joe followed his lead his mind still going over options.

That night over dinner he quickly filled Mike in on what was brewing in his mind. Mike for his part had a disturbing bit of news to share. "We have to bust them out for sure. The agents are brought here for a reason Joe. They are left here to disappear. They do not want the bodies surfacing anywhere in America. Herehell..if we didn't stumble onto this who would think to look at the opposite end of the world?" he said somberly.

"Tonight then, that's when we will make a move. Alex did say that we will be here for only a few days. I will get in touch with Frank from the restroom. You can keep watch outside. Meet me outside in half an hour" Joe said and Mike nodded to show that his assent.

Half an hour later Joe was in the bathroom while Mike stood guard outside. Frank picked up the call on the first ring "Joe?" he breathed into the receiver. "Yeah it's me…listen Frank, I know you must have gotten all that happened. Just tell me where I should rendezvous when I break out the agents" Joe replied keeping it terse.

"Way ahead of you bro. If you look at your location on the map you will see a small clearing about five miles to the east. The clearing is big enough for me to land a small aircraft and I will also mobilize a local team to take out that camp. Just stay safe and be careful until then" Frank cautioned.

Joe nodded to himself "you know I can move only after the camp retires for the night. I will probably reach the spot somewhere around two in the morning or so. Will that be okay?". "Yes that will be fine because I will be there much earlier" Frank affirmed leaving Joe to disconnect the call. He then took a look at the map and saw the clearing that Frank had noticed. It was close enough and big enough, he just had to get there in one piece.

Author notes: Thank you all for the support you give by way of nice reviews. I know I missed updating last week but we were down with a viral fever which was thankfully the older variety and not the dreaded c! But it did set me back a bit but I am back on track now and hopefully I can take this story to it's home run soon. Do keep reading and please do keep reviewing. It spurs me on to push myself just a little bit more.

Thanks and take care! Stay safe!