C James

Me???? Why blame me!!?!? If one or both of them die, it won't be me who killed them... it'd be Bridget. If Bridget wanted to find Atlantis, she could easily do so. As we've seen, Bridget has access to credit-card use data, and Trevor used a credit card in Gitmo. Now, to find out where in Gitmo Atlantis is, that's the easiest thing in the world. Just sail into the bay in a ship flying anything other than a US flag. The bay is an international waterway, due to the Cuban port inland (so ships transiting don't need US permission, or even to contact US authorities - they just sail on through). One of the odder sights in the cold war was Soviet warships cruising through a US naval base, just a couple of dozen yards from the docked US warships. . So Bridget (or any of her henchmen), at the helm of Sea Witch (or any other non-US-flagged boat) doesn't need trickery or subterfuge or high-tech; she can just sail on in, no problem, no questions asked. And where Atlantis is moored is, like everywhere else on the bay, less than a mile from the shipping channel and easily visible. At worst, she'd need binoculars to be sure. See? Nothing to worry about. True, there are several possible targets areas... it might be any one, or more than one. CJ

Thompson Majesty is an old ship, and as a guess, I'd say maintenance has been neglected. I've been on her once, many years ago, when she was the Norwegian Majesty on NCL lines. She was also the ship hit by a rogue wave in the Med in 2010. It's fairly common for a ship to lower at least a few of its boats. The small fast runabouts are used for drills, emergencies, etc, and the larger ones that hold a couple of hundred people are often used for tendering people to and from the ship in ports that the ship can't dock in. If a week goes by without lowering a boat, I'd be surprised.

By closing to the fenceline in US uniforms, they avoided giving Camp Leatherneck time to go on alert. Just about anywhere can be hit hard with a smaller force if tactical surprise is achieved. I'm sure GITMO has indeed thought of the issue of an attack by multiple small boats, just as Camp Leatherneck surely thought of Taliban in US uniforms (the Taliban have used that trick before). But how do you defend against either one? By defense in depth, which is why Camp Delta at Gitmo has multiple barriers. They aren't just to keep the terrorists in, but to keep others out. It mean any attacker is going to need a lot of time to overrun it, and would need a lot of forces. That's a lot different from a raid like the Taliban did, or what Bridget would need to do. Plus, attacking US forces directly would provoke a direct US response, and surely Bridget's cartel remembers the US deploying Delta Force and a few other assets to take down Pablo Escobar and the MEdalin cartel. That took years, but it's not the kind of attention a cartel wants. However... why engage US forces at all? Race in, blast Atlantis to dust, and race out. To do that, they'd pretty much need to get into the base (into the bay) without raising an alarm. So, this is only a worry if there's an easy way to do that. But is there? Well, yes, they can get within a mile of Atlantis without raising any notice at all, and that puts them under a minute attack positions, without raising any notice at all. The means is mentioned in the chapter, though I'm wondering who can spot it. But, it being there could be just a coincidence. Thanks! Hrmm, Gitmo is one possibility (and one fraught with peril), but there are others. The honeymoon is a two-part event. Originally, they wanted to sail off on Atlantis. However, Lisa's father and others nixed the idea of Atlantis coming anywhere near the wedding, and Joel's grandfather gave Lisa and Joel a resort stay for the first week of their honeymoon. They aren't even telling Lisa and Joel where it is, so they are keeping it very secret indeed. Trevor and Shane plan to pick them up there for a couple of weeks in Gitmo. True, they might be on alert... but does that mean they could stop an asymetric attack on something (Atlantis) that isn't inside a defense perimeter? Maybe, maybe not. The way it's shaping up, it's looking like Trevor and Shane are in a bit of a fix... there's really nowhere they can hide for long. But, I can say this; we're already in August, 2007, in this chapter, and the story ends before September begins. (I've been saying for a long time that the story ends in August, 2007... and unlike my inability to estimate chapters, this one I've been totally sure of since day one). Fighters vs speedboats. Hrmm. That would not be easy, not at all. The only weapons fighters would have that could do the job would be guns. I can't think of any other air-to-ground weapons that could hit a radically maneuvering speedboat most of the time. Even if we assume fighters loaded for air-to-ground, Hellfire requires a laser spotter to be held on the target. Maverick is TV guided. Hitting a violently maneuvering target would not be easy. NAval fighters would have it harder; harpoon would be useless. If the speedboat had radar on, a HARM (anti-radiation missile) might do the trick, but it';s not made to go after a moving target. Attack helicopters would be a far better choice to go after speedboats, but there weren't any of those based in Gitmo then (or now). Same with fighters, though fighters could fly in within two hours. The rival cartels would care (for proof, look at the causes of the violence in Mexico; war between the cartels, triggered by much the same sort of thing; one cartel targeting another through intermediaries). What they could do about it, however, depends on many things. It is indeed in two places. Jamaica is one, Gitmo is the other, after Jamaica. My guess... versatile. Though, we do know, via Trevor's remarks to Joel after Trevor had his one night stand in Italy, that Trevor is at least often a top. However, we've also seen that Trevor and Shane like to do other things besides anal, so... anyone's guess is as good as mine. Bridget is... just not a nice person, sometimes. BTW, I can't recall if I've released the next chapter title yet... It's "'Till Death do them Part".

Bridget is a very skilled manipulator and tactician. She's also very skilled at misdirection. At this point, we don't know what she's up to... but there are clues. Interestingly, and perhaps coincidentally, a high speed attack by a large swarm of armed speedboats has been found, per numerous war games, to be an enormous threat to Gitmo and other bases. It's not an easy threat to defend against if they take you by surprise. On the other hand, doing so would provoke an extremely energetic all-out response from the US, and the cartel has been shown to be cautious when it comes to bringing too much attention to itself. Is it something Bridget would try? We don't know. If she did try and struck by surprise, could RPG-armed speedboats race in blast Atlantis to dust before the Base's defenders even got up to speed? It's an interesting tactical puzzle. By doctrine, the forces at any base, in response to in incursive attack, rally at critical base infrastructure (barracks, communication, etc). It takes time to get the defenses up; even a base in a combat zone won't have all that many armed defenders at their posts. As a case in point, the Taliban recently hit the largest base in Afghanistan, breached the perimeter, entered the base, caused the largest US airframe loss since Vietnam, and were only countered by a scratch force of Marines, two of whom died in the fighting. Camp Leatherneck had over 14,000 troops at the time. This happened just a few months ago. How many Taliban attacked the base? 15. They got close by wearing US. Uniforms, then blew their way in with satchel charges and RPGs. The base was taken by surprise, and only that Marine scratch force prevented far greater casualties. Guantanamo is well defended, but nowhere near to the level of Camp Leatherneck. So, could it be done with the capabilities Bridget has shown? She'd just need to have her task force race in, take out Atlantis, and race out, not engage the ground forces. I'd say she'd have a high probability of success if she took them by surprise. So the question is, not can she, but would she? BTW, I almost called this chapter "Love will find a way". Bridget has neatly solved the biggest danger to her; that the tape will cause the cartel to kill her. She's shown herself as too powerful for that, and that was without the help of her allies at the table or the first among equals. That's why she asked them to stay out of it; she wanted to show her opponents that even alone, she is too much to take on. Wasn't it nice to see some romance in the story?

Chapter 150: The End is Nigh (Here's a link to google maps, centered on the areas in the chapter, which can be zoomed and moved around, because I know some of you are like me and love to follow along and see the areas on the story.) However, please note that the google maps portrayal of the boundaries of the US Base is NOT accurate, so here's a link to a base map. It was little more than a smudge on the horizon, a few grayish-green peaks of distant mountains, but it was a welcome respite

The End is Nigh is up! Happy December 67th, 2012! After this chapter we have 2 chapters and an epilogue. I'm working on the final two now. That's why I haven't been around much; I have to get these right. Posted 67th December 2012 - 9:50 PM

About five minutes until the chapter... and I'll try to avoid the Doritos.

Lisa's mother is still alive, though Lisa hates her. Stacy (Bridget's daughter) is mentioned as dead in narration though a very long way back. The narrator cannot lie. If the narrator says something, it is true, unless it's something along the lines of stating a charachter's opinion. Such as "Joel thought the head gasket looked fine." That would not mean it's a fact, though if the line read, "the head gasket was fine" then it's fact. True! The narrative appeared in "Dead Man's Hand" and was, If the contents are revealed, all of those responsible will be forever marked for death (by the cartel). Not just Bridget, but the entire cartel. And that's narration, so it is true. Would handing over to tape to the authorities be revealing it? Yes. Is hearing the audio knowledge of the contents? Yes. But, Trevor and Shane are ALREADY marked for death, so this is nothing to worry about. Now some bad news; the earliest the chapter will appear is Tuesday (I usually post it Monday night, right about now, but can't)

Gitmo is about as safe a place as they can be. Their problem is there aren't any truly safe places they can be for long. Yep, but they got it fixed. Still, as you know, such things might indicate other rigging issues, and Atlantis has taken a pounding. BTW, in Melbourne, we saw them get bolt cutters. A wise sailor always prepares for such things. The ending is coming... in fact, the next chapter is called "The End is Nigh". And yep, nowhere is safe. And for Trevor and Shane, thanks to all the publicity they've had, they don't have the option of taking on new identities - you can't do that when you're famous. It's just a little hint of tension. It'll be closer to December 78th, 2012. That line about Bridget's fears being unfounded was narration. That's one less risk for Bridget. ************* I'll answer more of the posts in the thread tomorrow. For now, I'll announce the next chapter; "The End is Nigh."

Thanks!!! Some people hate the history, local info, geography, etc, but a lot love them, and I'm amongst the latter.

I see your point... but he's a pro, with a job to do. He's trying all he can to save them, but if the worst happens, he wants that deposition - which may help avenge them. Things sure are looking dark for Trevor and Shane.

The chapter is now up, thanks to AJ, who is part of GA's tech support team. Thank you AJ!!!!! BTW, the above post lists yesterday's time and date, due to me making the post last night. I marked it invisible once I encountered the formatting issue. (That's why it says Dec 59th, not December 60th on the official timestamp) CJ

The new chapter, Countdown to Doomsday, isn;t published yet (though might be any time now). The sidebar chapter announcement doesn't work quite right at the moment. It might be linking to the older chapter for some users. The first line of Countdown to Doomsday is, "The Argentine patrol boat had briefly spotted Atlantis on radar"

I've tried Wordpad, and Open Office. I've tried saving from them, opening in Firefox and IE, and pasting, and also opening GA in IE (I usually use Firefox). I can't get it to paste in without totally wrecking the format (there is a known bug that our techs are working to fix, that began with the upgrade a couple of days ago). Now, while I stand resolutely behind my calendar and Aussie maths, when it comes to technical issues, never underestimate my capacity for bungling. It may be a bug issue, but the workaround seems to work for some people. Therefor, I suspect I'm doing something wrong. It's being worked on (and so is the GA editor) so hopefully the chapter will be up soon.

I can't get the video to play (I'll try it again later... CNN has a video display that my system often doesn't like, and sometimes insists on the whole vid being loaded first, and right now my internet connection is at dialup speeds)) but, a goat taking on a reporter seems like a good idea in general to me.

Chapter 149: Countdown to Doomsday (Here's a link to google maps, centered on the areas in the chapter, which can be zoomed and moved around, because I know some of you are like me and love to follow along and see the areas on the story.) The Argentine patrol boat had briefly spotted Atlantis on radar when in the Beagle, exactly as Trevor had intended. The patrol boat had sped southeast on what she assumed to be Atlantis’s course, until reaching the Chilean border in the center of the ch

I just tried, and that mangles it too. It is mangled in notepad, then mangled in GA stories. However, it's mangled in a different way; the right margin issue is gone. I'll play around with it and see if I can make it work... Thanks! Update; I played around some more, but it's still mangled after saving in notepad. The paragraph breaks are gone, the italics are gone, the carriage returns are gone, and there are weird gaps in lines. I tried Wordpad, which saves it fine, but it still has the original problem in GA stories if I do it that way. Another update: I can't paste it into a forum post without the same mangling, so it's not just GA stories.

Tonight's chapter isn't up yet as I'm having posting problems. As soon as I figure out how to fix them, I'll get the chapter up. I've tried pasting it in from word the regular way, and also saving as filtered HTML and opening with firefox to past it in, but the formatting gets screwed up badly. This may be due to a possible bug issue GA's software might be having, or it may be due to my very screwy (at the moment) ISP, or it might be due to me bungling it. (the most likely reason is the latter). Sorry for the delay, I'll do what I can. Update: I've tried using IE instead of Firefox, no difference. I'm going to try this with a different PC.

Countdown to Doomsday is up! Happy December 59th, 2012! After this chapter (Chapter N9), we have 2 chapters and an epilogue. The End is Nigh. And, as I promised, we'll get it all done before we reach 100 chapters in this story, and before the end of 2012. And of course, entirely cliffhanger-free. Posted 59 December 2012 - 10:50 PM

Trust me, I've been there: there are no cliffs at Cape Horn. There are plenty of towering vertical rock faces plunging precipitously into the sea, but no cliffs...

I've got to rush off to post the chapter, (internet connection has been down except briefly for hours) I'll return to this thread... that's a good point on the haggis recipe. It was a clue to the pressure tank (the hiding place of the tape) but it may have been more. If so, we don't know -yet. However... its meaning may be obvious; a weapon to use against Bridget and the cartel; haggis! It's far harder to legally import haggis into the US than it is anthrax, bubonic plague, or all manner of chemical and bio weapons (you need permission, which is stunningly easy to get.) But haggis... that's been under absolute ban since the 70's, no exceptions. Therefor, obviously, haggis is far worse than weaponized anthrax.

Trust me, I've been there: there are no cliffs at Cape Horn. There are plenty of towering vertical rock faces plunging precipitously into the sea, but no cliffs...

Hello and welcome to the forum!!! Don't listen to some of the rumors around here... I would never, ever use a cliffhanger. I wouldn't even know how. You've raised a very good point; communications. The good guys were absolutely handicapped by this, especially in the beginning. (it was, to a huge degree, the cause of Trevor's flight from Florida). It's gotten less over time, to the point where they are sharing most everything (it takes time to build trust). As for the bad guys, they have their issues too; Bridget has secrets from most everyone, though she's been far better at cooperating when it comes to trying to kill Trevor and Shane. But absolutely, the good guys have often been chasing their tails while the other side is far better informed. Organizational futility indeed. Ahhem! There was no cliffhanger!! The binoculars thing may well be very minor compared to having a patrol boat and an Orion chasing after Atlantis. BTW, the Orion could use its radar to look into Chillian territory without coming into their territory itself. ;=) How would Chile respond? Good question!!! One one hand, they may not be overly fond of Argentina, but Atlantis has entered their internal waterways without permission. (Atlantis didn't need permission to enter the Beagle - it's an international waterway. Murray Channel isn't.) So... they won't be happy about the patrol boat, but they may not be happy about Atlantis, either. Good sleuthing. There is indeed a Chilean naval station (a tiny one, mainly an observation post) just a few hundred yards from Cape Horn, usually staffed by one officer and two enlisted. It was one of them that told me that the sounds the wind makes on the memorial were unintentional. (the walkway up from the arrival beach goes right by the base). Argentina is, unfortunately (especially for Argentinians) afflicted by severe corruption, and not just in the government (though that's the root cause). I've been there on a cruise a couple of times, but I also stayed a few weeks ashore (Like my recent trip to Italy; if I'm flying all that way anyway, I'm going to do more than just a cruise, I'm going to spend a few weeks ashore). Cab drivers, clerks, and even a hotel manager tried the old counting scam on me, and that was just one of the ways they tried to rip me off (it happened a lot - one day in Buenos Ares it was three different tries in one day). My experience was not unusual. This also happened up at Iguazu falls, and a few other places in the north. In general, the more 'tourist destination" a place, is, the worse it is for that. I was traveling on my own, mainly by car, so I saw all sorts of places, good and bad. However, once out of the tourist destinations, it's much better. For example, Ushuaia; when I was there, it was basically crime-free except for government graft. Nobody even bothered locking up. Yet in Buenos Ares, they even have a luggage wrapping service at the airport; they wrap your suitcase in several layers of cellophane for a fee. This is done by a lot of passengers. The reason is to stop baggage handlers rifling through your luggage and stealing; it's so commonplace that they need the service. They also need it (but don't have it) at a heck of a lot of hotels. I also spent a couple of weeks in Chile, and the difference was astounding. It's not free of trouble, but it's less by an order of magnitude or more. If I go back to South America, I'd want to spend a few weeks in Chile, but not Argentina (except for Ushuaia).

I wouldn't worry that they need to elude the patrol boat OR the Orion. They'll more likely need to deal with both. Exactly!! They aren't alone, which has got to be a comfort in such a lonely place. Most cats are superb boats, but, they are not ideal for violent seas. Like every design of boat, they have their strengths and weaknesses. Don't worry though.. the weather isn't the greatest danger to them, not by a longshot. You forgot Xaveir and his team of killers, whom we last saw inbound for Ushuaia. So, there are lots of possibilities. Thanks!! Oh, there's some history in the coming chapter, though not quite as much. It's plot-relevant, plus it contains at least two things that I don't think can be found anywhere on the internet, and one not even in books. It's too late to alter the plot... The story ends in August, 2007, and it's already June. The "end of the world" is referred to by Shane; some people cal that region that. It's also an allusion to that memorial, which bears this (in Spanish) on it's base; I, the albatross that awaits at the end of the world... I am the forgotten soul of the sailors lost, rounding Cape Horn from all the seas of the world. But die they did not in the fierce waves, for today towards eternity, in my wings they soar, in the last crevice of the Antarctic winds. Incidentally, a detail that I could not fit into the story is that the albatross sculpture sings. In strong winds (very common there) it has a deep tone, almost like a pipe organ note, only several, and continuously changing. It is an intensely mournful sound, yet apparently it was an unplanned effect. BTW, the long walkways and stairs to it are mainly not paved, unlike the ones in the pic. A few feet further back and they are wood, and I'll warn anyone who goes there; they are sometimes loose. Don't worry, what's the worst that could happen? They are between a rock and a hard place. The "False hopes" were Gonzalez, who had believed until then that that tape alone might be able to take down Bridget. The "end of the World" is Cape Horn That radar plane might prove a problem, but what could go wrong? International waters won't stop Argentina; it, like many nations, will persue and stop in international waters.

But... I'm a mountain goat (I live in the high mountains of northern Arizona)... and contrary to malicious myths and faked evidence, , a mountain goat would never have anything to do with a cliff (or a cliffhanger!) Nor any sort of a precipice... But I never, ever use cliffhangers!! Cheese of mass destruction.