Ethan kept his head on a swivel as he exited the truck. Though it looked like he was straightening his jacket, he had his hands where he was able to pull it back, and just had to move his strong hand across to grab the grip of his Sig. He did cut the perfect image of a bodyguard. As he took everything in, and saw no hints of danger he stepped out of the way so that Balalaika could exit the vehicle.
"Well, this is quite an impressive building for such a relatively young company. They either are not as clean as they try to make themselves out to be, or they truly know what they are doing. How do you read it, Mr. Haines," she had to admit that not calling him Mag was indeed wrong.
"Buildings don't mean a damn thing. Only results matter, Miss Vasilinov. Honestly, I see it as a way to make themselves appear much more profitable than they really are. I can see where it would be an advantage when dealing with men who never had to look down a rifle barrel, but it doesn't impress someone like me," Ethan found the alias a weird thing to say himself.
"Who cares, let's just get in there and get this over with. There are way too many people staring at my ass, and I really don't like it," Revy said as she and Rock approached from their vehicle.
"Boris, ty moy sekundant. Vasiliy tretiy. Gregor, Petr i Dmitriy ostayutsya so svoimi mashinami. (Boris, you're my second. Vassily is third. Gregor, Peter, and Dmitri stay with their vehicles.)," Ethan addressed the other men in the detail.
Boris replied sharply, "Da ser. U nas gruppa reagirovaniya v dvukh kvartalakh otsyuda. A takzhe dopolnitel'naya gruppa reagirovaniya na chetyre bloka. Lyubyye drugiye instruktsii na dannyy moment? (Yes sir. We have the response team two blocks away. As well as an additional response team four blocks. Any other instructions for now?)"
"Otritsatel'no, soberis'. (Negative, form up.)," Ethan gave the order.
As they moved inside they fell into a formation. Ethan was at Balalaika's immediate right. Boris was about twelve foot in front to the left, and Vassily was fifteen foot behind and to the left. It was a loose formation, looser than he would have typically run in a hot zone, but he wanted to at least seem generous to the building security. They approached the elevator and looked at the directory.
"So they only have one floor of the building. That makes much more sense than the entire building being theirs. Wait, it actually looks like they occupy the top floor, and the next two floors down. That is more than I would have expected," Rock said as he looked for the floor they needed.
"I believe that we are going to be on the nineteenth floor. That appears to be the executive offices, and I am to meet with the owner of the company. I agree though, they have a floor each for their executives, logistics, and operations divisions. It does seem rather extraneous for such a young company,' Balalaika looked questioningly as Boris pressed the button for the elevator.
"Regardless, Boris and Vassily go up with Rock and Revy. You and me will wait for Vassily to come down and give the clear signal, then we go up. We are still forty five minutes early, which is amazing. I always heard that Dallas traffic was murder," Ethan gave instructions for their ascension.
"God, let up some. Have you seen how many cameras are in here? They probably have this place so locked down that no one would try anything," Revy was still not comfortable in her role yet.
Ethan only shook his head, "Cameras only allow a reaction, they don't prevent anything from happening. We will see you in a couple of minutes if everything is clear."
As the four filed into the elevator and the door closed Balalaika turned to him, " Kogda ty nauchilsya govorit' po-russki? YA znayu, chto ty ne smog, kogda ya vstretil tebya v Afganistane. (When did you learn to speak Russian? I know that you couldn't when I met you in Afghanistan.)"
"YA dumal, chto eto budet polezno, kogda ya nachal rabotat' v Vostochnoy Yevrope. Mne bylo, navernoye, dvadtsat' odin. Dovodit obshcheye kolichestvo yazykov, kotorymi ya svobodno vladeyu, do trekh. Angliyskiy, ispanskiy i russkiy. (I thought that it would be useful when I started working in Eastern Europe. I think I was maybe twenty one. Brings the total of fluent languages I speak up to three. English, Spanish, and Russian.)," He replied.
"Nu, razve ty ne polna syurprizov. A pochemu vy otdayete prikazy po-russki? Navernyaka bylo by tak zhe prosto dat' ikh na angliyskom yazyke? (Well, aren't you just full of surprises. Why are you giving orders in Russian though? Surely it would have been just as easy to give them in English?)," she asked.
Ethan chuckled, "Potomu chto my zdes', navernoye, yedinstvennyye, kto govorit po-russki. Takim obrazom, nam ne nuzhno bespokoit'sya ob operatsionnoy bezopasnosti v lyuboy moment. (Because we are probably the only people here who can speak Russian. So we don't have to worry about operational security at any point.)"
They remained silent for the rest of the time until the elevator returned. When the door opened Vassily flipped Ethan the bird, and he ushered Balalaika into the elevator. They kept their silence as it moved to the required floor. It was thankfully not an awkward silence, but slightly uncomfortable. When they arrived and stepped out to meet up with the others, a gentleman approached Ethan.
"Miss Vasilinov, my name is Daniel Carteman. I hope it wouldn't be much of an imposition for me to take your head bodyguard to the side for a few moments. We need to confirm a few arrangements concerning your credentials, and then we will allow him to return," he asked politely.
It wasn't completely unexpected, so she simply nodded as a secretary arrived to lead them to the office where the meeting would be taking place. Ethan wasn't the most comfortable with the situation, but such things were not that uncommon with high profile individuals with diplomatic credentials.
"Mr. Carteman, I hope that we can get this over with quickly so I am not separated from my primary any longer than necessary," Ethan towered over the man, which usually inspired some degree of fear.
Daniel Carteman was much sterner than typical, "Of course, I believe Mr. Haines, we shall endeavor to be as brief as possible. Now everything arrived and was confirmed, however there were some concerns from the building's security office. They recorded you speaking Russian with your second and third, and there were mentions of response teams. I am hoping that it was simply an error that our translator had, and not something that could cause an issue. Can you confirm this?"
"There was no mistake. We have rapid response teams in place, for emergencies that me and my ground team cannot handle ourselves. Now, I do have to commend you for having someone on staff that speaks Russian, and to a degree they can give a live translation. Of course, your bringing this up instead of noting it, and leaving it alone, brings up the question of should I be prepared to call for them? Should I," now Ethan's demeanor was doing what his size had not accomplished.
"Miss Vasilinov, it is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Robert Coffey, and this is my wife, Delilah, and my daughter, Jennifer. I am sorry for having the arrangements changed on such short notice, but the man you were originally supposed to meet with, Mr. Hanning's, his wife suddenly went into the hospital unexpectantly, and I thought that it would be better if he dealt with that situation, and I take over the negotiations with a clearer head," the man somewhat shocked them initially.
He had been turned speaking to his wife as they entered, but upon turning the only thing they could see was an older version of Ethan. Not only older, but bigger and more powerful appearing. Boris was a couple inches shorter than Ethan, but didn't seem that much smaller with how much muscle mass he had. This man made Boris look small.
"It only bothered my head bodyguard momentarily. Which, I must apologize Mr. Coffey, but you took me off guard initially," Balalaika replied.
"Oh, if it is in reference to my size, that happens a lot. They hear CEO, and they imagine some scrawny old man. Now, old, I am getting there, but I don't think that I have ever been scrawny. Please, have a seat. Oh, I apologize, does your assistant need any accommodations, a certain type of chair, anything like that?"
"No he should be fine. As long as he isn't forced to bend forward or backwards to any degree. I must say, it wasn't your size. You actually hold a remarkable resemblance to Mr. Haines. You will see when he is able to join us. One of your employees needed to confirm a few items with him," she replied once again.
"Well Robert, that means there is another giant Irishman out there. Now you won't have to be alone in that," Mrs. Coffey joked.
The daughter wasn't amused, "Mother, that was rude. I apologize, she has, issues, controlling what she says at times. It's a result of something that occurred before I was born."
The giant chuckled before turning back to his guest, "Yes I apologize. I hadn't expected you quite this early, or it would have just been me meeting with you. I hope it isn't an imposition. Anyways, you are wanting a large scale contract concerning security for eight facilities in five countries in Southeast Asia. That is quite an interesting area for a Russian interest, however we do have licensing to operate in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Taiwan, and Java, so that won't be an issue. Now, do you have any documents giving requirements for each facility, and your licensing and authorizations to maintain private security for these facilities?"
Balalaika was appreciative for the pivot back to the point of the meeting, "Mr. Okajima, if you would not mind."
Revy opened the briefcase she was currently carrying and held it toward Rock so he could, clumsily, shuffle through the folders and draw out three, "These should be the required documents, sir."
Mr. Coffey took the documents and went around his desk to sit. He picked up a pair of reading glasses and started going over them carefully. While he did Revy looked around the office slightly bored, until she happened to notice a picture on a shelf next to where they were. She closed the briefcase and sat it down next to Rock as she stepped over to look at it a little closer. She couldn't guarantee it, because the picture had to have been more than twenty years old if could have been, but it looked like Ethan would have as a child, next to what appeared to be Mr. Coffey in a police uniform.
"Oh, that is a picture of my older brother, Caleb. He, disappeared a little more than a year before I was born. So I never got to meet him. My parents were, not in a great place, and him disappearing like he did, woke them up. They blamed themselves, for driving him to run away from home. It got them to clean up and make themselves better. I often dream that he is still alive, and I am going to get to meet him someday. I would love to know what kind of man he would have grown into," the girl, Jennifer said as she came over next to Revy.
"How long ago was that," Revy couldn't help but to think that it was way too much of a coincidence how this sounded.
"I was born in February of 1982, so, about sixteen or seventeen years ago. It really hit Father hard. He had been horribly abusive to him, even over the dumbest things. He drank, quite a bit, and after he cleaned up, he left the police force in Abilene, and started the original company just after I was born. In '86 he got his first contract in Canada, and it has been a success story since then. That said, I don't think that he has ever forgiven himself for how he acted. It makes him push harder to make sure that his people provide the absolute best services they can," she answered.
Revy couldn't believe it. Everything lined up perfectly, way too perfectly. It didn't even matter that Ethan said he was from Abilene. The last time she had seen a map with them on it, Dallas and Abilene weren't even two hundred miles away from each other, and she had said that Mr. Coffey had been a cop in Abilene. They could have easily moved, and it wouldn't really be that strange to move somewhere else after something that painful occurred. It had to be.
Revy quickly walked over to Balalaika and whispered to her, "We may have an issue. One that we had no way to know was coming."
"What would that be, Rebecca? Is it something that could cause a failure to the negotiations," she asked quietly.
Revy nodded, "I think these people are Ethan's family. His birth family. If so, it won't be a happy reunion when he walks through that door. He holds a serious fucked up amount of 'go fuck yourselves and die' for his parents."
"Oh, for the love of Lenin. That is the last thing we needed. How certain are you of this?"
"Very fucking sure. What the girl over there said about her parents. About how long ago the brother in the picture that looks like him as a child ran away. Not to mention Ethan's hometown is only about four hours away from here. We may be about to see a nuke go off when he walks through that door."
"Let's hope that his professionalism overrides his personal grudge," Balalaika was suddenly hating herself for having basically forcing him into this.
Revy grimaced, "Sis, I have a lot of respect for Ethan, but I know how he gets when he gets riled up. One thing I am afraid of, if he starts throwing punches with that man, he may not come out on top of it. Ethan is big, and brutal, butx that dude looks way tougher. Do you want me to have Vassily try to head him off?"
"No, I fear we will just have to hope you are wrong, and let it play out. It would raise some attention if he didn't join with us. Let Boris know to watch and try to stop him if it looks like he is about to start shooting," Balalaika was working hard trying to think of a way to salvage the worst possible case.
Mr. Coffey looked up, "Miss Vasilinov. I must say, I find the exact requests, interesting. Given the size of the contract you are requesting, I would need to impose a transfer window of around two years. I will need to increase my staffing to accommodate these facilities, however I see no reason that I should be unable to do it. Most likely I would only be able to take over one per quarter, starting within about a month of a signing. Are there any objections to those terms," he wrote a note down while he waited for an answer.
"That would be acceptable. I only need fully armed contingents at the two located in Vietnam, Da Nang and Haiphong. The others, I will leave up to the person assigned to leadership to determine the needs. I do ask? As far as armament, what level do you usually assign at the highest," was the reply.
"I tend to leave that to my operations team, however it fully depends on the possible threats. My people tend to be ex military. Mostly American, British, Canadian, and Irish. I do have some that come from former Soviet Bloc countries, which I may request be placed in charge of your facilities just for your convenience. All of them have training on most of their nations major small arms, and are cross trained once they are recruited. As far as types of weapons we issue. Our primary long arms are Colt AR15 platform rifles. I do have some Warsaw Pact weaponry in use for contracts active in Eastern Europe. Most of our contingents that have to have something heavier than side arms are issued M3A1 sub-machine guns. While they can use them, they are mostly a deterrent, and my standing orders are only in the most dire emergencies are they to use lethal force. Thankfully it has only been required a bare handful of times. Sentinel does make use of mobile support forces that can reinforce contracts in areas that are undergoing upheavals, or outright civil wars. Any other questions, or do you want to proceed on to cost negotiations," the explanation was thorough and well thought out, covering most bases that could have had additional questions.
"Do you require any logistical work on the behalf of your contracts, or do you handle that completely in house?"
"We are the full package. We maintain our own contracts with shipping companies and airlines for large scale movements of men and material. We also have a decent sized fleet of aircraft for moving forces and cargo at a moments notice. We also are planning to take possession of our first cargo ship next year. Amateurs talk tactics and strategy, masters talk logistics, and we plan to always be the masters of our AOs. The only times we have contracts provide any kind of support are for bodyguards, as the requirements for such are intrinsically different from facility security. I am sure that you have some knowledge of that given your employment of personal bodyguards yourself," Mr. Coffey was well considered, and did not leave much room for discussion.
"Indeed. However that does not address housing for your people. Do you have mobile barracks for onsite living, or contract off site housing," Balalaika was no stranger to these type of negotiations.
Mr. Coffey nodded, "Partially depends on the contract requirements. Do you prefer for them to remain onsite, in which case we do have prefabs that we can have put in place. Otherwise we will look for, and either acquire if it is a long term, or contract out for short term. It will add into the costs if we have to contract housing, but many facilities lack the necessary space to accommodate prefabs. We do stipulate in our contracts that housing fees may need to be renegotiated at irregular intervals based on staff requirements, and available housing for that staff. If we acquire we don't add that in, as when the contract ends we can either divest it, or redirect it into rental income."
"I see. Your company is very thorough in it's operations. Mr. Okajima. Can you give us the current contract rate that Services Titres Facilité Maginot current maintains with us," Balalaika turned to where Revy had returned to hold the open briefcase again as Rock took another folder from it.
"For total services of all facilities, they have a rate of four hundred and eighty seven million per year, and were giving a yearly renegotiation of five hundred and twenty three million per year. We are wanting to either maintain, or lower the costs as now. Our initial requesting is for four hundred and fifty five million," Rock said.
"Four hundred and fifty five million. Unfortunately that would only cover a baseline, and meet our costs. How many facilities would be able to accommodate onsite housing," Mr Coffey never let the easy going look leave his face.
"Five of the facilities are warehousing complexes with large cargo lots, and attached offices. Three are either free standing, or attached office complexes that offer no room for onsite housing. Both facilities that require total armed services are of the warehousing complexes," Rock answered stonefaced.
"That will help reduce costs. Are they located on port facilities, or inland. If all are inland it will increase our operating costs, and I can only give an initial of, four hundred and ninety million, which I know is slightly higher, but my people will have to eat, and diesel and trucks to move the food aren't free. I can set a rolling increase clause with quarterly payment for each facility as we take it over for the first two years doing, ninety eight million per facility, with additional cost factored in per facility as needed, and then negotiate a yearly contract cost at the end of the two years depending on what we observe per running costs," the man's size, was as impressive as his negotiation abilities.
It was a very tempting offer. It came out to a base of around three hundred and ninety two million per year, considerably under the current contract. The only issue that he saw, was that it wasn't a fixed cost. Though it could overrun depending on what costs they charged per facility, it could also come in far below.
Ultimately, it didn't matter at the moment as he was distracted by a smashing sound, and woman yelling the name Caleb loudly. Rock looked up to see Ethan standing at the open door, a look that was a mixture of utter shock, anger, and sheer rage painted on his face. He looked over at the Coffeys to see Mr. Coffey half standing with a look of disbelief on his face, and his wife looking like she was seeing a ghost. The daughter simply looked shocked and excited.
"How the fuck did this happen," were Ethan's words as he left the room, the door breaking from its hinges as he slammed it behind him.