In another two days, the CV-22 was ready to go, Lucky mocked me.  

“Darling, do you want me to find you a parachute?”

If she wanted to please me, she could find me a ticket home to Saint Louis.  I’d have been almost as happy with a trip to Potomac.  She had me in her carry-on, and I surveyed the crew on the aircraft as it arrived.

Because I’m no mathematician, I’m unsure if it had more than 24 guys on it.  The doomed Russians hogged a lot of space, but I doubt we amounted to more than a squad and a team.  Aside from Mr Clean, nobody seemed to be carrying anything heavy than a carbine with a grenade launcher.  

Luck scratched my head.  Given the desire to frame the Russians, everybody carried Russian rifles.  You’d think any moron could tell we were coming in on an Osprey, but nobody on board thought anybody on the ground with al Shabab would go by anything other than markings.  

As the pilot powered the engines up, I felt a lurch as we lifted off the deck. Lucky clutched me tight and cooed, “It’s okay, sweetie.”  When I looked out the aircraft’s door, I saw the vastness of the Indian Ocean.  Even with the gain in altitude, the plan was hot and sticky.  We were headed northwest.  

Lucky liked facts.  I had to hear them.  So, I learnt the aircraft was cruising along at about 300 mph.  To raise my spirits, she told me when we reached the area to deposit the stealth bomb, we only had to hop a short distance to a fuel depot a team of stealthy Chinese had set up for this purpose.  We’d have plenty of fuel to head on to Kampala after checking the lethality of the coming blast.  

The CV-22 would head off to Niger and probably take a refueling in flight on the way as if I cared.  She told me she had us on a first-class flight from Kampala to Amsterdam.  I liked the idea of Amsterdam

To entice me further, Lucky said she had booked a suite at Hotel 27.  We’d be feasting at Bougainville Restaurant and having drinks at Hotel 27’s gorgeous bar.  The gourmand-me thought it all lovely, provided we were not lying dead and festering in Somalia when we should have arrived in A-dam.

Now that the CV-22 was flying towards the Somalia coast at good speed.  I knew the plan was to have the ship about 200 miles after the coast.  On we rushed.

Danny and Saul relaxed by playing chess.  Saul was the better player.  Danny liked bold aggressive sacrifices.  Had they been better players, I guess it would have reminded a chess aficionado of Petrosian playing the even inventive, aggressive Tal.  Oddly, it was the conservative Petrosian who was a legend at 5-minute chess.  Lucky forbid me to play.  She knew I loved to gamble when playing Go or Chess.  It’s unfortunate that I’m a lousy player at both games.  I think my mathematical limits are a hindrance.  For example, counting is hard.   Lucky started grumbling she had no idea how many men she had to threaten to kill to get my Go and Chess debts covered.

I just thought to myself, “Could it really be that many?”

Once Lucky got over her grievances about my gambling addiction, she pulled out a pack of cards.  In no time, she was running a 5-card stud poker game.  She was taking all the money the commandos willing to play had.  Lucky complained that it was a waste of her time to play with poor men. She had a happy memory of cleaning out Lord Caligula during a game at Monte Carlo.  She had made a small fortune wiping out royals at a casino in Menton.  

After 40 or so minutes in the air, I noticed we were crossing the Somalia coast.    It was dusk.  Within a half hour, the Osprey was doing a night flight.  I, obedient to the conditions, fell asleep.  Besides, what’s the use of being awake when Lucky won’t let me play Go or Chess for me?

I was seeing red lights in the cabin when I awoke.  The guys were fiddling with their carbines.  The General was given more booze.  He was as drunk as Sam Houston on a bender. 

At first, I assumed Lucky wished to help the General clear his head.  She walked him to the door, suggesting he look down to get a sense of the lay of the land.  Before he sensed what she had in store for him, she had unhooked him from his tether.  Whilst he was giving her a puzzled look over his shoulder, she was giving him a stiff push in the back and a strong knee to the buttock.  

The General headed to earth. He did scream “Почему?”

In case you know no Russian, that means: why?   And it’s a rather good question if you ask me.  Lucky muttered, “Because you’re worthless alive.”  Until then, I hadn’t noticed how the guy resembled Willy Loman without life insurance.

Now that the general had deplaned, the CV-22 headed down.  Lucky, perhaps being kind, instructed the pilot not to land on the corpse.  

No sooner had the Osprey touched down then Danny hopped out cradling an AK-74M.  Some commandos began dragging the 5 Russian prisoners off the Osprey.  As the Russians were untied, Danny would fire rounds into them as they staggered away. The first Russian took two rounds to the face.  The second took 4 rounds to the chest.  Another guy got a round that hit him in the back.  His lung collapsed. 

In a short while, they were dead at varying distances frp, the aircraft.  Danny tossed a few grenades in the vicinity to make it look more authentic, and commandos created plenty of footprints in the desert sand.  

During the shooting, the bot rolled off the Osprey with the stealth bomb in tow.  

Meanwhile, a commando returned to Saul.  Saul then had an announcement.

  “One of my guys told me he had to do a silent kill on a sentry.  What a sad world it is that even in a godforsaken place like this, somebody bothers to post a sentry almost 5 miles from their camp. “

Lucky got busy with the bot.  She also checked the stealth bomb, being a natural genius with munitions.  When she pronounced the system good to go, I heard the CV-22 engines revving up. Everybody was getting onto the aircraft.

Then I noticed my razor-sharp danger detection alarm was sounding.  I was responding to small arms fire.  I stayed low, but the space about the CV-22 was hot.  Everybody was onboard except for me.  How could I let that happen?  I should have been first!

Above I heard Lucky screaming to put the bird back down.  “Crockett is still on the ground”. Imagine, gentle reader, my rage when some scoundrel safe in his seat shouted, “Fuck Crockett.”  

I realised now I was in a scene straight from Last of the Mohicans.  Instead of Daniel Day Lewis, I heard Lucky scream, “Stay alive, darling, and I will find you.”   The CV went up and headed southwest to safety and its refueling site.

Everything considered I still had advantages.  I am nearly black in the dark.  Advantage one: Invisibility.  I am preternaturally quiet when my life is on the line if detected.  Advantage two: stealth.  What’s more, the Ice-10 Bomb could kill me with a blast, but the wise scientists at Munitions Galore had created Ice-10 so that it didn’t kill cats. Cat blood, as I understood the matter, was too hot to make Ice-10 dangerous to us.  Advantage 3: Biological Immunity.   

I now needed a place safe from the blast.  I didn’t want to wait long to find it.  First, I didn’t know when the bomb would blow.  Second, the al-Shabaab boogers were coming on fast and firing furiously.  I saw a nice-sized ravine dead ahead.  I jumped into it.  Advantage 4: Kitty dexterity and Advantage 5: Fall survivability.  Down I went, for a long time.  “Ouch”. 

Above the firing continued.  Then came a loud, loud ka-boom.

And then there was silence.

I had stayed alive.  She would find me.