The Mission

Everybody get in line and listen up. I want you fellas to get some shut-eye so we can all be up and ready to hump it at first light. We'll be traveling seven miles to the east over rugged terrain. Word has it we might be in for some heavy weather as well, so pack accordingly.

We'll have six men to a piano, and each of these pianos is worth more than $50,000, so I want to make good and damn sure that everyone in this room understands the importance of taking all the care and precaution necessary to insure the safe delivery of every single piano in our possession.

I don't need to tell you that nobody has ever carried a piano --let alone nine pianos-- over this mountain, and I'm not about to stand  here and sugarcoat the serious dangers and risks involved in this operation. Every one of you has endured months of grueling training, and I wouldn't send you out there if I didn't have absolute confidence in your ability to bring this difficult mission to a successful conclusion.

Our most recent intelligence suggests that we can expect fierce if sporadic resistance from the local guerrillas. These people resent the incursion of very expensive pianos into their territory; most of them have never seen a piano in their lives, and the value of these instruments is more than most of these folks will make in their lifetimes. We can expect them to give us everything they have. I don't want anyone going into this with a false sense of security just because these local characters don't have much more than rocks and sticks and old surplus Daisy rifles to defend themselves with.

I'll remind you that when the British tried to bring a piano over this mountain back in the 1950s --and this was one piano, mind you-- they were badly routed and the piano was destroyed and burned by the natives.

I expect nothing less than one hundred percent success from this mission. I want you to defend these pianos with everything at your disposal, and remember what they say about making an omelet. Be vigilant out there, and expect a tough battle.

And let's all keep in mind what we're up to here: these are poor, backwards people, and they've been drumming on rocks since the stone ages. They can't even begin to imagine the gift we're bringing them. We're gonna give these miserable savages music, and you can be damn sure that even if we have to shove it down their throats they're going to thank us for it one day.

Lights out, boys. Tomorrow morning let's make the folks back home proud.