21/07/2024
My short stories to date
The Tohunga & Pakeha Priest
RE:NA
Aniwhaniwha
Got title for next years story already one of them is going to be a movie suuuurrrreely
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Tuma and his American counterpart, O’Brien, looked across at one another. Months of counter- intelligence was about to come down to these eight men on board the SH-60 Sea Hawk en route to a container ship carrying a nuclear bomb, sixty-five kilometers off the coast of New Zealand. The order had been given to neutralize the threat before the Rena arrived at its final destination, Auckland—New Zealand’s largest city and about to hold its biggest international event, the final of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, which was expected to attract an estimated global audience of two billion.
Tuma and his new friend, O’Brien, were on a mission to prevent one of the cleanest environments on the planet from becoming a radioactive wasteland. The only people in the developed world who were aware of the magnitude of what was happening were the personnel in three buildings: the White House, the Pentagon, and the US Embassy in Wellington—this last being where the prime minister of New Zealand and the defence minister of New Zealand had gathered.
Tuma was a former New Zealand SAS seasoned pro, but his country’s forces, although renowned for their skill level and bravery, did not have anything remotely like the sophistication and technology of the Seals.
The red light came on, signaling the drop zone was thirty seconds away. O’Brien reached over and checked Tuma’s kit and gave him a nod and smile. The Sea Hawk dropped the inflatable first, then like the well-oiled machines the Seals are, they stood off the chopper foot one by one and dropped into the wintery waters of the South Pacific, five kilometers from the target.
The icy cold water helped Tuma clear his mind and focus. For the others this might be a highly important operation, but for him it was his birthplace, his whānau, family, friends. It was everything he loved and failure was not an option.
O’Brien leaned over to lift him into the inflatable last. As they sped toward the stern of the 236-meter container ship, Tuma and the team removed their masks and turned night vision on. Except for the Seal team commander, who was steering the inflatable toward the dim light onboard the Rena, every man had an M4A1and an M11 SIG Sauer P228 along with a special backpack with radiation-protection kits, so they could disarm the nuke once the terrorists were neutralized.
The Rena was still moving at its maximum speed of 21 knots. The little inflatable was getting thrown around by the wash from the Rena’s massive 47,500 tonnes, every man holding on as tightly as he could.
As the commander steered the inflatable expertly within meters of the massive ship, the Seals’ No. 2 grabbed a device Tuma had only ever seen the day before as it was highly classified. It roared as the gas cartridge exploded, sending a grappling hook up and over the ship’s rail.
Tuma looked on in admiration at the skill and balance of the Navy Seal as he clicked the winch and twenty meters of steel ladder slid up the side of the container ship. Sea spray was making visibility incredibly difficult. O’Brien was to be the first up, followed by Tuma and then the other six Seals. The Seal team leader put the ten-second timer on to cut the inflatable’s motor, leaving it to be picked up later by crew on the USS John Paul Jones.
Once aboard the Rena, the eight men split into four teams of two. Tuma and O’Brien were to take control of the bridge, the Seal commander and the bomb specialist were tasked with locating and deactivating the bomb, while the other four men were to neutralize the terrorists and keep non- combatants in a safe, contained place—cable tied for their own and the entire mission’s safety.
Mission control directed all the operatives to go. Tuma had never had satellite directions before, but he instantly recognized the enormous advantage it gave over other special forces teams, like the New Zealand SAS he had been part of. The Seal commander led the way, followed by O’Brien, then Tuma, with the bomb specialist covering the rear.
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“Target at sixty-five feet,” the head-piece chirped. This was where it was going to get tricky. If someone held a gun, they would be neutralized. If not, they had to be taken quietly, gagged and bound.
The commander held his hand up for the other three men to pause. He signaled O’Brien forward. Tuma could see two men smoking ci******es and laughing at some unheard joke, seemingly without a care in the world. There was no way to approach them. It was the exact situation no one wanted: Were they terrorists or not?
Through the comms O’Brien said, “Let’s get Tuma to bang one of the containers so they can hear and we can see how they react.”
The Seal commander nodded, and Tuma went behind the closest container—about eight meters from the men—and banged the butt of his M4AI as hard as he could onto the container three times.
The two men stopped laughing, dropped their ci******es, reached down and picked up guns. They were dead within a fraction of a second of the Seal leader and O’Brien seeing the weapons.
“Two armed bogies down,” the Seal leader said into the mic, simultaneously notifying the other four Seals and the command ops that there were armed men on the deck of the container ship.
The intel was correct—and the mission was now live.
In the South Pacific nation of New Zealand, the country’s prime minister looked out the window of his security-detailed vehicle as he sped through the streets of Wellington on his way to the American embassy. Beside him were the heads of New Zealand’s Defence Force and the intelligence service, the SIS. Having been a highly successful banker for a merchant bank in New York, the New Zealand prime minister knew firsthand most Americans would not even know where New Zealand was.
Globally, New Zealand was the fifty-second largest economy in the world. The island nation, with a population of five million, made two hundred and forty billion New Zealand dollars annually, most of that from primary agriculture, fishing and tourism.
Historically, New Zealand—much like Australia, the United States of America and Canada—is mostly populated by refugees searching for a better way of life from that of Britain, plagued as it was by class-based society.
New Zealand had contributed a lot per capita to the first and second World Wars and had benefited from ANZUS, a strong military alliance with the United States and Australia. That was until the country declared itself nuclear-free in 1987, requiring ships entering its waters to declare whether they carried nuclear war-heads. Of course this policy—strategically and militarily—was not a concession the mighty United States would or could agree to.
From that point in time, especially under Republican presidents, trade and defence support had been affected. New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone was over four million square kilometers. With a navy consisting of nine vessels, an Air Force with forty-eight aircraft, none of which were fighter jets, and an army of fifteen thousand actually protecting that amount of land area was next to impossible. The truth of the matter was that New Zealand was economically and militarily vulnerable in the context of global security.
The prime minister’s vehicle passed through the outskirts of Wellington’s famed bars and clubs district, Courtenay Place, en route to the embassy. The bars and streets looked full as patrons spilled out looking for taxis home as the entertainment venues cashed in on the tourists there for the Rugby World Cup.
The New Zealand prime minister had been to the US embassy before, but the security was visibly different this time. As the prime minister, defence minister and the intelligence chief made their way to the US embassy’s secure communications room they were all in awe of the sophistication and gadgetry visible. The US ambassador, normally a chirpy diplomat, was incredibly somber and serious as he shook each of the three New Zealanders’ hands and motioned for them to take their seats, directing the prime minister to the head of the table.
Two screens immediately came to life. One looked like the inside of a helicopter with night vision, the other held the face of the president of the United States of America and a dozen men in uniform.
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“Good morning, John. Gentlemen.” POTUS flashed a brief smile as all three gentleman responded with “Good morning, Mr President.”
“Gentlemen, we have located the device, thanks to some great intel from O’Brien and your man Tuma. In recognition of the excellent work by these two, I gave permission for them to be on the chopper with Seal Team 5, as you can see on the other screen ... Prime Minister, as I briefed you during our golf game in Hawaii, our intelligence people had picked up chatter regarding a ‘huge blow against Satan and his minions’ at a significant event in the South Pacific. Apologies for having to bring you to our embassy, but the encryption we are using is highly advanced and we do not share it with any ally country.”
The three New Zealand officials nodded, acknowledging the sensitivity of it all.
“John, our eight men are en route to a container ship forty miles off the coast of Tauranga. We believe this ship has ten members of a Chechen terrorist group which arose from the ashes of the Second Chechen war with Russia. You’ll recall it started in 1999 and finally ended two years ago and that the Russians were extremely brutal to the Chechens. Our estimates show that over eighty thousand were killed, including women and children. It’s just a fact, gentlemen, that when you cause that much pain and suffering to a people, you spawn equal amounts of evil.”
A third screen lit up with a photograph of man. “Gentlemen, this is Asma Eliiza. His father was the lesser of the Islamic Separates who tried to take control of the Russian-backed Chechen government. His father was brutally executed in the Chechen capital, so Eliiza has sworn revenge on Russia and the West.”
“Why the West?” asked the prime minister.
“Because the West couldn’t, or wouldn’t, help. Unfortunately this is where it affects you, gentlemen. He will be on his super yacht moored in Auckland Harbour for the next three weeks to rendezvous with one of his closest oligarchs, who is a rugby fanatic.”
The three New Zealand politicians exchanged looks.
“Apologies for being so brief, gentlemen, but the operation is about to go live. John, we have all the chiefs of staff here. This is your country, so for the next hour I’m appointing you commander- in-chief. We will all advise you, but ultimately you will have control of our Seal team and what they do. I’ll pass you now to Major General Michaels who will brief you on the nuclear device.”
On screen, Major General Michaels stood and addressed everyone in his gravelly voice. “Gentlemen, we are dealing with a former Soviet-bloc nuclear device. It’s the equivalent of 0.3 kilotons in size. If detonated, it would produce a fireball, shockwaves and deadly radiation to everything within a six-mile radius. It would have a one hundred percent fatality rate. Over a distance of six by thirty miles, twenty-five percent of living people and other animals will die of cancer within twelve months. All habitats for agriculture, fishing, and other soil would be contaminated for two hundred years.”
The prime minister’s face flushed red, then turned deathly pale. “It’s OK ̧” said POTUS. “Welcome to my world.”
September 11, 2011
Tuma held his young nephew back. His dog had chased a pig into Blind Man’s Canyon. “Listen, boy, there’s no way out of there. See how my dogs are waiting out here in the clear? Another ten seconds and your pig is going to realize it’s cornered and is going to spin straight around running back this way, f**ken fast and angry. So get ready—and remember a little prayer to Io for the pig. Wait till the pig’s tired. I’ll say when—but you go lift up its front left leg and slide the knife straight in and cut down. Cut the arteries and it will bleed out quick, so less suffering for the pig. Which means better meat for us—ka pai?”
“Yes, Uncle.”
Right on cue, the boy let out a yelp as the pig came hoofing it through the scrub into the clearing. For a brief second, Tuma saw something like recognition in the pig’s eyes, as if it knew it had just fallen into a trap. Tuma’s dogs worked as one, each dog lunging in at ears or legs. There’s nothing quite like the shrieks of a pig when it’s in danger—it’s piercing. Silence came only after it lost enough blood to slip into unconsciousness and die.
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After tying the legs together to make a backpack out of the pig, Tuma helped slip it over his nephew’s back. “Mean, nephew!” Tuma said.
The whānau would heap praise on the young man tonight! A pig this size would yield thirty kilograms of meat, plus the bones would feed the whānau for a few days.
Once back home again, under Tuma’s careful instruction his nephew cleaned the pig carcass for hanging. Tuma’s ear turned toward the west as he heard the sound of an NH90 helicopter nearby.
“F**k off inside and tell your aunty I’m going up the top paddock to see some old workmates. She’ll know what I mean.”
Tuma hopped on his quad and sped up to the top paddock where he knew the chopper would land. His old platoon sergeant from the SAS jumped down with a tall Pākehā in civilian clothes. The sergeant looked into the cockpit, motioning the chopper pilot to switch off.
“Hey, Blue!” the sergeant said. This was Tuma’s nickname as he was half-Māori and half- Pākehā with blue eyes.
“Hey, Sarge,” Tuma said. “What the f**k are you doing here?” “We need you, bro.”
Tumatauenga Thornson Manunui was half Ngati Porou and half Irish Viking. Tuma was from Tolaga Bay, a small East Coast village in New Zealand. Tuma’s two grandfathers had met fighting at El Alamein during World War II: his father’s father in the 28th Battalion—New Zealand’s most decorated army unit, creating such a reputation that Germany’s General Rommel said “Give me the Māori battalion and I will conquer the world”— and his mother’s father in the 22nd Battalion.
Against the wishes of his parents and grandparents, Tuma followed his grandfathers’ footsteps into the New Zealand Army, quickly gaining entry into New Zealand’s elite SAS—which despite not having the technology of other special forces units had a very good reputation. Having served in overseas deployments to the Balkans and Iraq, Tuma looked set for a high-ranking career in his country’s military until the New Zealand Police raids on the Ureweras, where a lot of his father’s whānau lived. The raids were based on the same nonsensical “facts” as the “weapons of mass destruction” that were the basis for the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Tuma had walked away from his military career in protest at the unjustified treatment of his whānau. That was in 2007, four years ago. He had not seen his platoon sergeant since then.
Now, as Tuma looked across at the tall Pākehā standing beside his sergeant, the two operators knew one another at a glance. It was like seeing a kindred spirit. Tuma looked at the man. “Seal?”
“Yes, sir!” the man said, putting out his hand. “Zac O’Brien.”
Tuma shook hands as he looked back at his sergeant. “Whatever it is, I’m not interested.” Sarge spoke gravely. “This is bad, Tuma, about as bad as it gets. We have a credible intel that
there is going to be a devastating attack at the Rugby World Cup final in Auckland next month ...” “Oh f**ken bu****it, you c***s pulled that s**t in Iraq. No one is going to attack us, f**ken
half the world doesn’t even know we exist.”
“That may be true,” said O’Brien, “but next month your country is hosting one of the largest
sporting events in the world and unbeknown to almost everyone, Asma Eliiza and his filthy rich mates are going to be there on their super yacht, and that crazy Chechen motherf**ker will turn your country into Hiroshima just to get revenge on Putin.”
Tuma took the file and opened it. “Andre Petrov, aka Asma Eliiza,” he read.
O’Brien watched Tuma flick through the file. “So this guy’s father was the Chechen rebel leader. When the Russkies eventually won, he was beheaded live on Chechen TV as a warning to anyone who thought of starting a third Chechen rebellion. Petrov, aka Asma, was smuggled inside Russia to be a deep-cover agent from his early teens. This guy’s done it all in the Russian military. He was one of the very best Spetsnaz, then rose high in the military intelligence. Two months ago he slipped out of Russia with a 441 pound nuclear device with 0.3 kiloton payload, enough to kill everything within a eighteen mile radius. He’s not after you Kiwis. You’ll be collateral damage. He just wants Putin. Putin ordered the slaying of his father. We don’t know where the f**ker is ... we
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know he made it out of Europe with the nuclear device, but the only chatter our intel people have been able to get is that Rugby World Cup is ‘venue’ and the ‘code sign’ is ‘RE:NA.’”
“OK,” Tuma said. “You got me listening. What do you need me for?”
The sergeant looked back over the brief. “We believe he has sucked some gangs here in New Zealand into thinking they are helping smuggle in he**in from Afghanistan. Yes, he will have some for them, but ultimately they will be smuggling in a nuke.”
Tuma straight away knew where this was headed. For most Māori, the New Zealand government’s oppression of all things Māori in the sixties and seventies had driven a lot of whānau into gangs and crime to try and feed and protect their families. Tuma didn’t have any gang members on his mother’s side, but his dad’s side were pretty much involved in every different gang in New Zealand.
“OK, Sarge” Tuma said. “What’s the angle?”
“We want you to act as a go-between for O’Brien, who is a large co***ne dealer you knew from Iraq. You’re just helping your mate and making a little something on the side for yourself.”
Tuma burst out laughing. “No disrespect, O’Brien, those gangster motherf**kers will spot you for a pig straight away and you’ll get us both f**ken shallow graves.”
Both men started to talk over each other. Tuma held up his hand. “Listen, you don’t understand how clever and ruthless my people are, O’Brien. You’ve f**ked up already coming here in your chopper, so get back in and f**k off. I’ll think about it, but let me tell you this, O’Brien, Rommel didn’t say ‘Give me a battalion of Americans and I’ll conquer the world.’ He said it about us Māoris. So listen here ... you want to play the part of a big-time dealer, you better be able to handle copious amounts of p**s and smoke heaps of w**d, you better have a s**t-load of high-end co***ne and you better be able to f**k like a rattlesnake, ’cause they’ll test you every f**ken which way. So, before we talk about how clever you are, you and I are going to have a test night, so I can assess you myself, except for the f**king part—which will happen ... they will send one of their wāhine your way to suck your balls dry and see if she can spot a hole in your cover. Do I make myself clear?”
Both men nodded. The sergeant turned to the pilot and motioned him to start up. He ran to the chopper and came back with a satellite phone, passing it to Tuma. “Our numbers are in it.”
Tuma looked at O’Brien. “I’ll meet you in Hamilton in two days. Have cash and co***ne. I’ll bring the buds.”
“So you’re going to do it?” the sergeant asked.
“I’m going to fight for my f**ken people and country. I’m just not sure if he can,” Tuma said, pointing at O’Brien.
August, 2011
Andre Petrov, due to his reputation and FSB rank, had found the task of taking a nuclear bomb out of the high security storage area relatively easy. He had, over the past twenty years, strategically placed Chechen loyalists in key roles. He knew firsthand that all Russian ports had state-of-the-art nuclear radiation detectors. Getting the nuke onto a helicopter that flew at low-altitude to a small Russian airport went smoothly. Then it was loaded onto a private cargo plane and dropped by parachute into the Black Sea, where Petrov’s best hand-picked team retrieved it onto their sailing yacht.
As the Russian army was not aware of the missing yacht, Petrov was able to go ahead of the yacht as it left the Black Sea, flash his credentials and within twenty-four hours the yacht was off the coast of Athens.
From now on Andre Petrov no longer existed. He could, after twenty-two years, resume his true identity of Asma Eliiza, although for the next part of the mission, he and his men were Ukrainian mafia, smuggling two thousand kilograms of he**in aboard a Greek-registered container ship into New Zealand.
The signal Asma sent to his father’s brother in Chechnya—“RE:NA Satan Glow”—sent joyous hope throughout Chechnya, but alerted both the NSA and Russian intelligence that something was wrong. Within twenty-four hours, the Russian military knew they had a small nuclear device missing, as well as a high-ranking former Spetsnaz now-rogue FSB agent.
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The intelligence agencies of Russia and America had a secret pact to inform one another of nuclear devices unaccounted for, so every asset of both the formidable historical foes was taken up with locating it. Asma had planned everything meticulously from the moment he had heard Putin was to attend a sporting event in a small country in the South Pacific with a coastline far too large for their tiny military to cover, let alone protect. New Zealand had participated in the Infidel War in Afghanistan, so needed to be punished themselves.
The best way to smuggle anything was through the already-estimated drug-smuggling routes. All the stupid, fat Greek captain of the container ship knew was that he was getting two million cash to help smuggle he**in into a country—something he had done many times before. What he didn’t know was that Asma had made sure that he would also have x-ray machines and tanning beds for New Zealand. If any if radiation detectors picked up higher gamma rays they could be explained away by the radiation emitting machines.
The captain of the ship was easily manipulated by providing him with women and some of Asma’s he**in, so getting a lockable room down near the engines of the ship was easy. From here, Asma disconnected the bomb trigger and had his men encase the device in lead glass.
He would need just over an hour to dismantle the casing, insert the trigger, set the timer and then get at least fifty kilometers away.
Tuma walked into a hotel room in Hamilton. O’Brien closed the door. Behind him on the table was ten kilograms of high-grade co***ne, one hundred thousand in cash, and two G***k pistols with one hundred rounds.
Tuma looked at O’Brien and nodded his approval. “So far, so good, Seal!” For the next three hours, Tuma talked through how they would need to get rapid entry into the “kingpin world” of the New Zealand drug market to find someone who could give them intel on any Russian or Eastern European players who might be trying to enter the he**in scene.
“Right!” Tuma said. “I’m going to say a karakia. I’m going to ask Io and all my ancestors to protect us, forgive what we are going to have to do and guide us to protect our sacred whenua from such evil. E Rangi e papa, e te whānau tua whakatohia to koutou manaakitanga ki rotu i tenei mahi o matuu. Sky father and earth mother and the family of gods, infuse your blessings upon this work.”
Tuma opened one of the five bottles of 100 Jack Daniels he had brought with him. “Rack some lines up. From now till we neutralize these f**ken terrorists, we are disgruntled ex-military badasses who are out to make a quick earn and will f**k anyone up who gets in our way.”
For the next twenty-four hours, Tuma and O’Brien shared stories from their unique special forces missions and trainings: the pain, comradeship, deaths and near-death experiences, combined with Jack Daniels and co***ne, bonding them as only elite operators would know how.
Tuma had been a recluse since leaving the SAS and had lived a quiet life with his wife in the isolated East Coast town. Apart from seeing his gangster whānau at tangi, he had little contact with them. But both men knew that dirty girls were the spies for the gangsters, and so the call had gone out for five of them to party with them in the room. After tipping the girls five grand and having an o**y with them—with lines of coke, joints and copious bourbons—a bag of co***ne was strategically left out for one of the women to see.
“Hey, babe,” one of the women said to Tuma. “I’ve got a friend who would be keen to buy some of that.”
Over the next three weeks, Tuma and O’Brien gradually worked their way up the pecking order of the gangs in New Zealand, searching for someone who would know of any he**in quantities for trade. After countless lines, drinks and joints, they were set up with a deal in Tauranga in early October. Tuma’s former platoon sergeant was their liaison for the New Zealand SIS, who were working with their American counterparts to determine where the Chechens were with their nuke.
The sergeant walked into their motel room. It stank of w**d and perfume, and empty bottles of bourbon were scattered around. “Holly f**k, gentlemen, you look like s**t!”
Tuma looked at his former boss and said, “Yeah, well we have checked out vessels coming into Tauranga and you dumb f**ks thought RE:NA meant they would come in through Napier. Well RE:NA is actually Rena, a Greek-registered container ship arriving tonight!”
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“Holly f**k!” the sergeant said. “Great work, I’ve got to go.”
“We are going with you. We’re going to be on the intercept mission!” Tuma replied and
O’Brien nodded.
The sergeant knew Tuma well. “OK, but for f**k’s sake, get some sleep and clean up. If my
boss sees the pair of you right now, you will have no chance!”
The prime minister of New Zealand looked on at the live footage of the Seal team as they killed or bound men aboard the Rena. He had not signed up for this. Watching men die live was not something anyone sane would want to see.
Tuma and O’Brien had made it to the bridge and found the captain and first mate, both drunk and wasted. They now had command of this vessel—there was no way it would make it to port. Unmuffled gunfire rang out in their comms; the terrorists were alerted to their presence.
Asma woke up to the sound of gunfire. He sprang up and started running toward the engine room. If his mission was to fail, who would detonate the nuke and make a statement to the world for letting his Chechen people suffer under the hands of Russia?
The Seal team leader said to the Seals over comms: “Ship’s secured, no sign of Petrov.”
O’Brien looked at the captain. “You are smuggling a terrorist with a nuclear device on this
ship.”
The captain’s opiate-tinged eyes bulged. “No, no, I wouldn’t do that! He only had he**in,” he
explained, as though that was acceptable.
“Where is he?” O’Brien shrieked.
“He must be in his room, on the engine-room deck.”
“Can we get into it?” O’Brien asked.
“There’s no way. It’s through ten inches of steel,” the captain said.
“Show me the blueprints,” O’Brien commanded.
The prime minister and the president both looked at where the room was. “John, my people tell me it’ll take sixty minutes to arm the device. I’m going to confide in you that we have a submarine in the area. We can sink that ship now if you give me the order.”
The prime minister’s eyes were bulging as he looked at the defence minister. “They have a submarine in our waters!”
“Focus, John. If we torpedo that part of the ship, we can stop him from arming the nuke and contaminating your waters!”
“But how would I explain a nuclear submarine belonging to an ally in our waters?” the prime minister said, trying to keep calm.
Tuma had been studying the charts. He had dived many times here for kai moana and knew the waters well. “Prime Minister, there is another option. We are six kilometers from the Astrolabe Reef. The room Petrov is in is on starboard bow. The reef would tear that part of the ship open like a tin can!”
Everyone looked and waited for the prime minister to take this in and comment. He looked at his defence minister and intelligence chief. They both nodded. “It’s better than having a nuclear device detonate or a nuclear-powered submarine torpedo a vessel in New Zealand waters,” confirmed the defence minister.
The prime minister of a small, sparsely populated island nation in the South Pacific straightened his shoulders, then gave the order. “Crash the ship into the reef!”
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