by T L Yeager
5
Maracaibo, Venezuela
Thirty miles from the staging warehouse, Fazul and the boarding party were hidden in the shadows of an open-sided marina building. Some prayed. Others waited impatiently. Those with eyes open could see the outline of the yacht Contagious framing its lit windows.
The vessel had been in port for two months. She’d been given a fresh coat of paint and had her electronics upgraded with the latest technology.
Their earpieces crackled open. “You’re a go… Repeat. Message received. You are cleared to proceed.” Fazul was surprised by his brother. The speech had been ridiculous, but for once, Anas sounded like a leader of men.
Fazul led the team forward. They climbed a plank and stepped aboard through an open gate at the rear of the yacht. His knock on the salon door was answered by the captain.
“Good evening, Captain. Dr. Mattos has commissioned my firm to perform an independent audit of this magnificent yacht. It’s to be completed before you depart for your shakeout cruise.” Fazul proffered his hand.
The captain squinted with the conviction of a man who didn’t appreciate surprises. “I wasn’t made aware of this.” He looked over Fazul’s shoulder at the other men now stepping aboard. “Let me—“
Fazul cut him off. “May we come in, Captain? Let us sit and review the audit plan with you. Such a significant investment has been made and the doctor wants to exercise the utmost caution. I assure you this decision is late breaking and the delay to your schedule will be minimal.”
Without waiting for an answer, Fazul stepped into the luxurious salon. The captain’s confusion was enough that he retreated instinctively, their neatly pressed suits helping to dull his reservations.
“But I—“ The captain hesitated. Fazul sensed that confusion was an emotion to which he was unaccustomed. It no longer mattered.
The yacht’s crew took a collective step back as the other five men poured through the open door at the back of the main salon. They spread out into a semi-circle, un-slinging the Russian made Vityaz submachine guns hidden beneath their suit jackets.
The click of a pistol hammer at the front of the room turned the crew’s heads. Their confusion grew as one of their own leveled a gun in commune with the intruders.
Fazul smiled at the sight of Ilan moving to action. Strategically planting him in the boat’s crew had been Fazul’s idea—a brilliant one. Ilan had been hired shortly after the Contagious was brought to dry dock for upgrades. The chef had mysteriously disappeared; Fazul killed him with a bullet to the temple, just a day after they made landfall. Ilan was overqualified for the job and the unending list of praise from fictitious references won him the replacement position easily.
“I am sorry, comrades, but we are taking control,” said Ilan. “You are a party to terror, my friends.”
The captain raised his arms without thinking. Two of the others did the same.
“This is an outrage,” said the captain.
Fazul cleared his throat to regain the room. “Please, Captain. Not as much as a single word, or I will be forced to take your life. We have no time for disruption.” The captain looked poised to counter but Fazul pointed the Makarov pistol at his forehead. He stepped forward and pressed the end of the steel silencer against the captain’s skull.
“Which of the crew will be joining us, Ilan?” Fazul stared into the captain’s eyes as he spoke.
“We only need the captain and the engineer.” Ilan swung his micro-sized pistol in the direction of a gaunt man standing to Fazul’s left.
Fazul looked up, scanning the room. “Very well. For now, take them all below and secure them in the forward quarters.” The captain leaned back as if preparing to join his crew. The concentric rings of the pistol’s barrel were imprinted on his forehead.
“You stay here,” said Fazul, motioning with the pistol. Then he announced to the room, “If everyone cooperates, there will be no harm. Resist, and the response will be a bullet.”
The yacht’s steward stood up from a sofa in the center of the room where he had been sitting uncomfortably since the team entered. A man of the people, his life had no doubt been all about service. His natural reaction to conflict was to mediate the situation. He couldn’t help himself.
“Excuse me.“
The room was quiet. Fazul pivoted the Makarov. “Actions louder than words, my brothers.” He pulled the trigger and the pistol huffed what sounded like a blow dart from the end of the thick suppressor. The hollow point round broke into nine different pieces of lead on the way through the steward’s skull. The fragments spread out, each carving a hole ten times their diameter through his brain tissues before lodging in bone at the rear.
Brain function persisted long enough to initiate a step back, absorbing the energy transferred from the bullet. Then his neural circuitry failed. With his muscles no longer receiving signals from the brain he collapsed to the side, falling on the arm of a loveseat and rolling to the floor face up.
The sous chef screamed. Hassan pivoted the weapon once again.
“Scream again!” he yelled. She covered her mouth, her eyes bulging with fear. “Go now, before more examples are required.” Hassan could feel vessels at his temples thumping with blood.
As the remaining crew members were led below, Hassan offered a seat to the captain. “Captain Timmin, you will be taking my crew to the island of Aruba. There is absolutely no room for error on your part. Ilan and the other members of our team are capable of taking control. You are expendable. Your execution will be stayed until you make a mistake. No mistake and you remain alive. Those alive at the end of this action will be released. I will now give you the opportunity to ask a single question.” With hands on knees, Hassan leaned close, again casting a cold glare into the captain’s eyes. “This is your opportunity, Captain.”
The silence seemed to grip the captain by the neck. A tight vise of paralyzing fear that strangled any words he was considering.
“No questions?” Hassan grinned. “Smart man.”
6
Ashton, Maryland
“Shoulda knocked off after the first scotch.” The dull ache in Maddie’s frontal lobe had greeted her in unison with the alarm claxon on her phone. Her eyes were slow to focus in the predawn. “Nothing like getting up at zero-dark-thirty on a vacation day.”
As much as she enjoyed whiskey, she hated the hangover. All she had to do was drink some water and no hangover, but you get into the whiskey and forget. She lay there remembering how she developed a taste for it by accident. With the exception of Aruba’s Balashi, Maddie wasn’t big on carbonated beverages—no beer, no soda, no seltzer or tonic. It made her feel too full. She didn’t mind the taste of wine, but Jarheads weren’t big on vino. What they were big on was beer and whiskey – Jack Daniels and Jim Beam, to be exact. She hadn’t tried good whiskey until after her last tour. Ross had seen pictures where she had a bottle of Beam in her hand. When she got back, he bought her a bottle of the good stuff.
“Only the best for a hero,” he said. Maddie gave him a punch to the gut, then, after he recovered, they shared a glass that hooked them both.
Maddie rubbed her head then pushed herself up to an elbow. She got up and headed for the door. The scent of freshly brewed coffee was just making its way to the top of the stairs. Why settle for bankers’ hours when you can work government hours? she thought.
Propelled by the promise of caffeine and loathing the prospects for the day, she made her way down the stairs. The passport agency was open from 8 until 3. Seven hours in the core of the day was convenient for no one, of course. And oh, by the way, you probably had to be in line around an hour early to give yourself the best shot of getting a passport same day. That’s what the posts online indicated. Imagine having all your shit in order and still getting screwed because you thought it might be okay to arrive when the agency opened for business. Sorry ma’am, you missed the un-posted cutoff for same-day service because you didn’t stand outside in the cold
with your baby before we opened. Please come back tomorrow. She’d be the first mother to go postal with a baby in her arms.
She stirred the cream down into the bottom of her mug and reviewed the handwritten itinerary she’d made for the morning. 5am: Coffee. 5:20: shower done. 5:30-6: Charlotte up and bottle. 6am: departure. She felt like a psychopathic mother. What the hell is wrong with me? she thought. She usually shot from the hip, plans came together, they jelled, the day happened. She was never this meticulous since leaving the Corps. She woke at various times every morning, despising routine after years of regimentation. Apparently, bureaucracy brought out her hidden anal-retentive side.
Coffee in hand, she turned for the stairs to head back up. “Soldier on.” The words emerged as a moaned. Her legs were still heavy with sleep as she climbed the stairs. “Soldier on, my ass.”
Fourteen minutes later a gossamer layer of steam hung in the bathroom as she leaned in toward the mirror. She lifted her chin and dabbed at red mark on her neck. A zit, maybe. In her mind, she imagined an extraordinary snaking line in front of the passport agency. The scowling souls each sneaking a peek at Charlotte in her arms before looking away, feeling like they’d have to offer their place in line or some form of assistance if they engaged too long. People always felt more compelled to help when there was a baby involved.
The most insane line she’d ever experienced was at Disney. They spent a week in San Diego visiting Chuckles before he moved back east for his job at the Pentagon. They drove north to Anaheim one morning for a day at Disneyland. Izzy was into everything Frozen. You might have thought Anna and Elsa were permanent family fixtures.
Madeline read that you should get to the gates before they opened and run to the princess meet-and-greet line as quickly as possible. As she read it, Maddie had felt a phantom chest cold brewing. She despised the ridiculous complexity and competitiveness—all to secure a voucher for a meet-and-greet with a couple of teenage girls dressed in princess outfits. The whole concept was more than just a little fucked up, and yet everyone did it.
Once inside the Disney gates, she hurried ahead of Ross and the girls. She had to stop and ask for directions twice but still arrived nine minutes after the park gates opened. The term line was not fitting for the nose to tail humans she encountered. They all seemed to smirk as Maddie passed toward the back; relishing every parent they beat to their prized position. Any time she thought about a line since then, all she could see were the smug smirks of those damn parents.
Glints of light caught her eye in the mirror. Over her shoulder the neighbor’s house had three hundred and sixty degrees of accent lighting. They burned lights like they owned the electric company. The power button on the radio filled the room with a voice reading a school closing list. Maddie lifted her chin again and dabbed the cover-up a second time, the glints over her shoulder still winking at her like tinsel on a Christmas tree.
“Talbot County schools are two hours late. Washington County schools are closed. Wicomico County schools are opening two hours late. And that’s it for now, but stay tuned this morning. The freezing rain has made a mess across the state and we expect the cancellations and delays will be piling up faster than the ice. We’ll keep you up-to-date here on WKLA. Speaking of ice, let’s go to Marty Drone to get the latest.”
“Thanks, Jerry. Yeah, the overnight wreaked havoc across the state. Temperatures, humidity and the timing of the precipitation were just right for a classic mid-winter, mid-Atlantic freezing rain mess.”
Maddie stared through her image in the mirror. She knew there was a chance of freezing rain, but the report she’d read said they weren’t expecting it to be too bad.
“Remember that freezing rain is different than sleet,” the weatherman continued. “Sleet is frozen precipitation. Freezing rain falls as liquid and freezes on contact. It coats everything in a layer of ice. We’ve got a tenth of an inch on average across the state. You’ll be waking up to Mother Nature’s idea of a bad joke.” Marty Drone’s laugh seemed somehow sinister, like it took effort to not be happy reporting shitty weather. “It’s like an ice rink out there, so be careful.”
A young female squeal followed as Marty finished. Maddie looked down at the radio.
“It tried to take me out this morning when I was scraping the windshield.” Kate, the young intern on the radio show, bubbled with energy. Her cutesy voice could barely wait for Marty Drone to finish his thought.
Tanya, the show host, laughed. “You youngin’s almost seem like you enjoy braving the bad weather. Did you scrape the whole windshield or just make one of those little peepholes in the ice?”
Kate laughed again. “The peephole.”
“Uh-huh… Figured as much,” said Tanya.
“But… After a couple of blocks, I pulled over and did more, including the side windows.” Kate giggled again, excited about her admission.
Maddie raised her eyebrows and shook her head. That’s the kind of shit she’d be contending with this morning.
“Yup. You have to love those folks that just scrape the little hole,” Tanya said, laughing. “Good thing you got out and finished the job. Seriously, though, it’s days like this that make me thankful for a garage. Thank goodness for simple pleasures.”
Maddie gathered her wet hair and pulled it forward over her shoulder. She picked up the hairbrush, running to through on her way to the window.
The evergreen boughs of the mature cypress trees lining the driveway drooped from the weight of the ice. The asphalt was littered with small branches dropped from the River Birch. It was a weak tree that seemed to shed its unneeded twigs like a husky dropping fur in the spring. Every surface glistened—trashcan tops, the tops of the lights next to the garage, the blacktop itself, all shining, winking, challenging Maddie to come out.
“Why not?!” Maddie yelled. “Goddamn ice storm. Izzy’s missing the real Frozen.” She slapped the cold glass of the window. “Looks slipperier than PAM on linoleum,” she said with a chuckle as she turned away from the window.
The comment sparked her memory of the infamous bathroom incident. There was nothing Maddie liked more than springing a practical joke. Ross gave her a tough time for playing tricks on Izzy, but one of her best mother-daughter jokes was freezing her morning cereal. She’d put the cheerios and milk in the bowl and stuck it in the freezer overnight, then snuck it out in the morning and set it down in front of Izzy. The poor girl would proceed to clank away with the spoon before looking up with a wry smile and saying, “Mommy!” It always set a fun tone for the day.
In the Corps, especially overseas, she was a notorious joker who rarely ever got caught and refused to admit responsibility even when she was at fault. She routinely used her software engineering education to up the prank ante. Hacking fellow Marine computers for fun was a favorite pastime. She’d load software that would lead them to believe they had emailed porn to the division general or a goodbye letter to their girl explaining how they were going AWOL for a seductive local peasant who lived in the mountains.
On her first tour to Iraq there was a three-day span where they lost four men. They were rolled back from the front and a depressive coma fell over the group—the perfect time for a practical joke, as far as Maddie was concerned.
She woke up before dawn and set a wi-fi webcam up in the men’s bathroom, along with a Dewalt radio they had in the barracks. She tuned in WJAR, the Marine channel on the base radio network. She kept the volume low until she had it set. Then she turned the power off, cranked the volume to maximum and set it to come on at 4:50 A.M. using a Christmas light timer. 4:50 was also known as AC/DC reveille, thanks to a sadistic Marine show host who was addicted to waking up to the heavy metal lightning.
As Maddie made her way out of the bathroom, she coated the floor with cooking spray. A bottle in each hand, she backed out, ass first, then tip-toed to her private bunk room, one of the major benefits of being a woman in a combat unit. She slipped back under the covers and waited.
Wh
en the timer clicked on, the building shook with distorted bass. The screams and guitars from AC/DC reverberated down the hall. The men in the barracks were on their feet within seconds.
The man closest to the chaos was one Jerome Lee, also known as “Chuckles.” A Texan with skin like midnight and a brawny composition that made people stare, Chuckles was a frequent target for Maddie. On this occasion, he wasn’t specifically targeted, but Maddie had a hunch he might be the victim. His bunk was closest to the bathroom.
Chuckles was an all-star football player—a running back who walked away from a Baylor degree subsidized by his athletic prowess. He woke up one morning and decided he wanted to be a Marine, simple as that. He quit school and joined up. The majority of his free time was dedicated to lifting insane amounts of weight in the gym.
“What the fuck?” he yelled as he threw open the bathroom door. On the video, he cocked his head and stared at the radio with blithe aggression before he took the fateful step. No amount of hours in the gym could help a person look graceful eating shit on a floor covered in cooking lubricant. He fell three times on his way to the radio, which he proceeded to smash against the tile wall and scatter across the room. Then he flailed a fourth time in an ill-fated attempt to stop another fall to the floor. He crawled from the room, screaming.
“Guuuunt!! You’re dead, Gunt! I’m going to fucking kill you, Gunt.”
“What the hell’s going on?’ Maddie asked when Chuckles came in. She couldn’t hold the smile that wanted out at the corner of her mouth.
“You’re the hardest working son-of-a-bitch prankster.” Chuckles looked down; reflections on his massive bare chest revealed the spots on his body that absorbed the impact of the falls. He shook his head. “The Mad Gunt strikes again... Only you could pull that shit off. You son-of-a-bitch.” As he said it, he laid a punch on Maddie’s shoulder that felt like a truckload of bricks.
