by Peter Nealen
Hancock raised an eyebrow. “Ciela?” he asked.
The man just nodded. “You can thank Contralmirante Huerta later,” he said. Without another word, he turned and walked away. A couple of the Marines stood there and watched the Blackhearts for a moment, then followed.
“Who the hell is this Dalca chick?” Santelli muttered from the back of the shed. “And how the hell did Huerta get this shit moving so fast?”
“I don’t know,” Hancock said. “But for the moment, I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth. If the Mexican Marines are going to look the other way while we get out, then let’s not overstay our welcome.” He looked down at Tanaka’s bloody corpse. “We’ll take turns carrying Alex,” he said. “We’re not leaving him behind.”
***
Hart had been dozing in his chair next to the single bed in the Hermenegildo Galeana’s tiny sickbay. Brannigan himself had been in and out, but looked up, his hand resting on his FN-45 under the covers at his side, as a pair of Mexican Marines appeared in the hatchway.
“Don,” he hissed. Hart’s head snapped up, and he almost pointed his M6 at the two men entering sickbay. Neither one of them had a P90, though; they were only carrying their sidearms, and those were holstered. They were otherwise kitted up, except for their helmets and balaclavas.
“Coronel Brannigan, you need to come with us,” the taller Mexican Marine said. “Orders from Contralmirante Huerta.”
Hart looked at him, then looked back at the Mexican Marines, his hands flexing on his M6. Brannigan, even through the haze of pain, could see that Hart wasn’t sure how to handle this.
Hell, I’m not sure how to handle this. I trust these guys about as far as I can throw them.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“We need to get you off the ship before she enters port, Coronel,” the Marine said respectfully. “Contralmirante Huerta is not certain that he can protect you otherwise. Arrangements have been made to have you picked up.” The man spread his hands. “I do not know what your arrangement with the Contralmirante was, and it is not my business to ask. I only follow orders.”
Hart was still looking a little shaky. From some of the outbursts he’d seen, Brannigan wasn’t entirely sure how the man was going to react if he decided that their oft-discussed paranoia was legit. On the one hand, if they really were being marched off to be shot in the head and dumped to the sharks, then a bit of a flip-out might be warranted. Just keep it together, Don.
He sat up and swung his legs out of bed. He nearly passed out with the effort; he was in a dizzying amount of pain. Hancock and Santelli had flatly refused to allow the Mexican corpsman near him, and he’d refused painkillers, both out of distrust of the Mexican drugs and a desire to try to stay as clear as possible while they were still in harm’s way. And even on board an ostensibly friendly vessel, Brannigan considered them to be in harm’s way. The Hermenegildo Galeana could turn into enemy territory in an eyeblink if Huerta decided to make it that way.
“Give me a hand, Don,” he rasped, as he tucked the FN-45 in his belt. He just barely saw the Mexican Marine’s eyes flicker as he saw it. The Marines hadn’t known that he was still armed.
Hart helped him off the gurney, getting a shoulder under his armpit and supporting him as he slowly, painfully, stood up, his head swimming. “Okay, Señor,” he said to the Mexican Marine. “Lead on.”
The man just nodded, stuck his head out the hatchway, looked both ways, then beckoned and stepped out into the passageway.
Both Marines acted like a protection detail as they threaded their way through the Hermenegildo Galeana, heading for the aft decks. The one who had done all the talking led the way, checking each open hatch and intersection before waving them through. Brannigan thought he was starting to get the idea.
The Marines didn’t trust that the sailors would keep their mouths shut. Or at least, Huerta didn’t. Possibly he didn’t trust all of his Marines, either. This little bit of skullduggery was as much to cover Huerta’s ass as it was to get them off the ship safely. Let someone leak the fact that American mercenaries had been involved in the Tourmaline-Delta incident, and aboard a Mexican Navy frigate, and all hell would break loose, if Huerta had been telling the truth about the political aspects. He’d be disgraced, and his family would probably suffer for it.
Not that they’d suffer the same way they would if they had, say, crossed a cartel. But they would lose influence, and to an aristocratic Mexican family, that could be almost as bad.
Brannigan wasn’t particularly sympathetic to the loss of political clout; he’d known too many officers with the same sort of mindset. Granted, few of them would have stuck their necks out nearly as far as Huerta already had, but there were a lot of men already dead who had suffered far worse than Huerta would face, even if this little affair saw the light of day.
The Marines checked the aft deck, then moved out, beckoning Hart and Brannigan to follow. They made a beeline for the stern, where a life-raft had already been inflated, and immediately began prepping it for launch.
Looking around as they hobbled across the deck, Brannigan saw that the Hermenildo Galeana was still in the bay. Chiquilà lay off to the starboard side, Holbox to port. It was early afternoon, but there weren’t many boats in view; the frigate’s presence seemed to be deterring most of the locals from going out on the water.
As they approached, the Marines lowered the boat off the side and into the water. One of them lowered a chain ladder down to where the life-raft was bobbing slightly on the faint swell inside the bay, and clambered down to hold it close by the side of the ship. The lead Marine reached over and helped Hart and Brannigan onto the ladder. Brannigan went first, followed by Hart, who was almost as stiff and clumsy getting down the ladder as his commander, with his prosthetic. As soon as both of them were aboard, the first Marine clambered quickly up the ladder and onto the deck.
There was no outboard, but there were paddles lying on the deck inside the raft. It might have been all that they could spare without too many questions being asked. It could also simply be all they were willing to offer.
“Vaya con Dios,” the first Marine said. He sounded sincere. He pointed toward Holbox. “Your pickup will be over there. It will not approach until you are well away from the ship. I’m sorry that you have to row, but that is the way it is.”
Hart was muttering about how messed up it was, but Brannigan just waved his thanks, and took up a paddle.
“Sir, should you be doing that?” Hart asked.
“You see any oarlocks on this thing, Don?” Brannigan asked. “If I pass out, just splash some seawater on me.”
The two men started paddling, slowly and painfully, gradually pulling away from the frigate. Brannigan felt like a bug on a plate; there was no way a lookout wasn’t going to see them. He also had no idea whether paddling was even going to work; he didn’t know what time it was, or whether the tide was coming in or going out.
But they started to open the gap, and more rapidly than he’d expected. The tide must have been in their favor; it was possible, however unlikely, that the Marines had timed their drop-off to make sure of it. Either way, he was thankful.
Paddling was agony. His chest wound was a pit of fire, pulling open with every stroke, and it hurt to breathe. Several times he simply had to stop, letting them drift on the faint current of the outgoing tide.
It felt like an eternity, but was probably less than an hour, judging by the position of the sun, when a yacht pulled alongside. It didn’t look much different from the various yachts and sailboats that had been tied up alongside the pier at Chiquilà. But there was a familiar, and very female, figure standing in the bow as it came closer.
“Fancy meeting you here, John,” Erika Dalca called down. “Would you care for a ride?”
Epilogue
It was raining as they lowered Alex Tanaka’s coffin into the ground. Just like at Aziz’ funeral, and Doc Villareal’s before it, the Blackhearts were gathered
near the back rows of mourners, their faces blank, most of them with their hands clasped in front of them.
Brannigan was still in a wheelchair, though he chafed at it. He could walk; he was just under strict instructions not to go far on his own while the hole in his chest healed. He’d been lucky; that kind of wound had been the death knell for many men before him.
All eyes watched the casket as it was ratcheted down into the grave. Most of them had attended Aziz’ funeral out of a sense of duty; he’d been one of theirs, no matter what kind of a pain in the ass he had been. Some made themselves remember the things he had done, like going alone into Khadarkh City. That had taken guts, no matter how many other times he’d disappointed them.
But losing Tanaka had hurt, almost as bad as losing Doc. He probably had never realized it, but he’d become something of a little brother to all of them. Not only because of his age, but because he hadn’t had the experience that the rest of them did. He’d had heart, though, he’d learned quickly, and he’d been plenty competent as a soldier without having the Special Operations background that many of them shared. They’d had as much confidence in him as they had with any of the rest of the Blackhearts, whether he’d been able to see it or not.
Hart was weeping openly. Brannigan glanced over at him, then traded a look with Hancock. Hancock nodded ever so slightly. They’d have to keep an eye on Hart for a while. They all mourned Tanaka, but it was clear that Hart had already started hitting the bottle pretty hard as part of his grieving process.
Chavez was standing behind Brannigan’s wheelchair. As the preacher finished the service, and the mourners started dispersing, Brannigan turned to look up at him.
“Anything new?” he asked quietly. The rest of the Blackhearts turned away from the grave to gather around. The graveyard was a private enough place to have this discussion.
“Nothing,” Chavez replied. “Every claim of responsibility has been a false flag. The Mexicans aren’t talking to anybody, not even Van Zandt. Huerta’s been ‘unavailable’ for days.”
“Hope he doesn’t get in too much trouble for helping us out,” Santelli commented. “He wasn’t a bad guy.”
“I think he’s keeping his head down for a while,” Chavez said. “He needs to let the dust settle and the rumors of gringos running around with guns die down. But even so, the Mexican government is refusing to share any intel.”
“Probably because they don’t have any, either,” Hancock growled.
“Probably,” Chavez agreed. “Especially considering that most of the bodies got blown to charred chunks.”
“There were those two in the shed,” Childress pointed out. “Unless they blew those up, too.”
Chavez shrugged. “No idea.”
“What it all boils down to is that somebody managed a wide-reaching, highly-coordinated terrorist attack, all without leaving any definite fingerprints on it,” Brannigan said grimly.
“Exactly,” Chavez said. “It doesn’t smell like jihadis; they can’t keep their mouths shut even when they do stage an attack.” He shook his head. “Some people are thinking the Russians. Chaos and disruption is definitely their style. And they’ll deny, deny, deny if called on it.”
“Maybe,” Brannigan said. “There’s a worse possibility, though.”
“What’s that?” Chavez asked.
“Somebody new,” Flanagan said, before Brannigan could answer. “Somebody nobody’s ever heard of, who’s been watching and learning for a while.”
“If that’s the case,” Chavez said into the sudden silence, “we’re going to have to do some serious digging.” He looked down at Brannigan. “Are you guys going to be up for it, after you finish recovering?”
“That could take a few months,” Brannigan said with a wince. “But I’m sure that if something pops up sooner, Roger can handle it.”
Hancock blinked. All eyes turned to him for a moment, but nobody gainsaid the Colonel. There were just a few nods.
“But yeah,” Brannigan continued, as if he hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary. “Consider us on call if something comes up that might lead us to these bastards. We’ve got some scores to settle.”
***
The room looked like just about every other corporate conference room in the developed world. Half-paneled walls, sound-absorbent ceiling tiles, faux-leather chairs around a gray, lozenge-shaped table on a blue-gray carpet that felt too thin. A single TV hung on the wall, though it was currently dark.
Four people were gathered around the table, looking at the printouts in front of them.
The portly, gray-haired man leaned back in his chair, pushing the papers away. “Well, that was a disaster,” he said.
“Was it?” asked the middle-aged blond woman.
“It was a good dry run,” said the third man. He looked positively ancient compared to the other three, with longer, snow-white hair. Heavy bags hung beneath rheumy eyes. “It proved that we could conduct a dispersed operation, using multiple proxies, coordinated down to the hour, and leave no traces that the authorities could pick up on. I’d call that a win, not a disaster.”
“We lost the entire direct-action team we sent to Matamoros,” the gray-haired man protested.
“They were expendable from the outset,” the ancient replied. “It isn’t the first team that Flint has broken, and it won’t be the last. At least he survived. He’ll be building a new team within the week. And we succeeded in the other main objective of the operation; there are a lot of people running scared. The governments involved are all loudly proclaiming that they know exactly what happened and who was responsible, but the fact of the matter is, except for those within those governments whom we own, none of them have the faintest idea. And when it happens again, the authority of those governments will be further eroded.”
There was a pause. The fourth person at the table, an older woman with hatchet features and a short haircut, had still said nothing.
“This isn’t just about creating instability,” the blond woman said.
“Of course not, but that instability is a vital part of the plan’s opening stages,” the ancient said calmly. “Trust me; this has all been in the works for a very, very long time. This is the long game, my friends. I fully expect that I will not live to see the plan come to fruition. Have patience.
“All will go our way, in the end. History is on our side.”
Look for more hard-hitting action soon, in:
BRANNIGAN’S BLACKHEARTS #4
FROZEN CONFLICT
Transnistria. A breakaway republic on the eastern border of Moldova, and a bolt-hole for notorious black-market arms dealer Eugen Codreanu. Except that it’s suddenly turned from safe haven to prison for the man who was once rumored to be dealing in ex-Soviet backpack nukes.
A shadow facilitator reaches out to John Brannigan, former Marine Colonel turned mercenary. The job: get Codreanu out of Transnistria, out from under the noses of the thousands of Russian peacekeepers swarming around the breakaway republic. The hook: Codreanu might have information about the terrorist operation in the Gulf of Mexico a few months before. The catch: there might be someone else trying to beat them to the punch. The terrorists who seized the Tourmaline-Delta platform in the Gulf of Mexico might be trying to tie up loose ends. And firefights in Transnistria could have wide-ranging consequences.
It’s a race against time in Eastern Europe. And Brannigan’s Blackhearts might be going up against the Russian Bear to accomplish this mission.
AuthoR’s Note
Thank you for reading this third chapter in the Brannigan’s Blackhearts series. Suffice it to say, we haven’t seen the last of Flint or his shadowy group of murderers. I hope you’ll continue to come along for the ride.
To keep up-to-date, I hope that you’ll sign up for my newsletter—you get a free American Praetorians novella, Drawing the Line, when you do.
If you’ve enjoyed this novel, I hope that you’ll go leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews matter a
lot to independent authors, so I appreciate the effort.
If you’d like to connect, I have a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/PeteNealenAuthor. You can also contact me, or just read my musings and occasional samples on the blog, at https://www.americanpraetorians.com. I look forward to hearing from you.
Also By Peter Nealen
The Maelstrom Rising Series
Escalation
Holding Action
Crimson Star
Strategic Assets
Fortress Doctrine
SPOTREPS – A Maelstrom Rising Anthology
The Brannigan’s Blackhearts Universe
Kill Yuan
The Colonel Has A Plan (Online Short)
Fury in the Gulf
Burmese Crossfire
Enemy Unidentified
Frozen Conflict
High Desert Vengeance
Doctors of Death
Kill or Capture
Enemy of My Enemy
The American Praetorians Series
Drawing the Line: An American Praetorians Story (Novella)
Task Force Desperate
Hunting in the Shadows
Alone and Unafraid
The Devil You Don’t Know
Lex Talionis
The Jed Horn Supernatural Thriller Series
Nightmares
A Silver Cross and a Winchester
The Walker on the Hills
The Canyon of the Lost (Novelette)
Older and Fouler Things
