“You really think we can do this with a bunch of kids in tow?” Gretchen whispered to Juan.
“I really do,” Juan said confidently, although his training hadn’t exactly prepared him for shepherding a flock of grade school children through a gun battle. But Juan agreed with Kula that worse would happen if they stayed here.
“Charges are set,” Murph said as he stood.
The three of them went into the hallway, where they met MacD, coming from his post in the anteroom. He gaped at the six hostages.
“Someone running a school in here?”
“Meet Erion Kula’s family,” Juan said. “Now, get your goggles on and snuff your lights. Kula, tell your family that we’re heading for the tower, but you’re not to move until Gretchen here says to.”
Kula nodded and spoke to his family in Albanian as they extinguished their flashlights. Two of the children cried out, but he and his aunt soothed them.
Juan checked to make sure Murph was set with the detonator. “We’re ready here, Linda,” he radioed. “Buzz Simaku with Gomez’s hornets.”
—
With the targets identified on the op center’s main viewer by red crosshairs, Linda nodded to Gomez. He pressed a button and three tiny drones were released from beneath the three observation drones hovering above the castle. The hornets were so small—only six inches in diameter—that they disappeared from view in moments.
Max, who was now manning his engineering station, had specially designed the hornet drones for remote attacks. They had only enough battery power for a short-duration flight, but they made up for a lack of range with the stingers they wielded. Each hornet carried six ounces of Composition B, the same explosive used in American M67 hand grenades.
The hornets weren’t flown manually. Once a target was selected, each hornet was directed by its carrier drone to its destination.
All three were heading straight for Simaku’s men outside the barracks door, with one specifically aimed at the men returning with lights and another centered on Simaku. A range finder on the view screen counted down the distance to target for each hornet.
When the hornets were seconds from hitting, Linda radioed to Juan, “Now!”
The back wall of the barracks blew out, showering the cars with stones and shattering windshields and windows.
At the sound of the explosion, an alert bodyguard launched himself at Simaku and knocked him to the ground just as the hornets hit. The view screen bloomed with three white flashes of destruction. Men and body parts went flying in all directions. Linda estimated that they’d taken out at least a third of Simaku’s men in that strike, which was the only one coming. They were now out of hornets.
She didn’t need to tell Juan to move. She could see him and MacD emerge through the blasted opening in the barracks with their night vision goggles on. Two mafiosi who hadn’t been killed in the explosions went down under Juan and MacD’s covering fire as eight more people stumbled through the blasthole and out of the barracks.
Linda recognized Gretchen and Murph, but she tilted her head in astonishment at what she saw on the view screen.
“Are those kids?” Max said, incredulous.
“I don’t think they’re hobbits,” Gomez replied.
Linda spotted movement by one of the towers at the castle’s entrance. “Chairman, you’ve got two men coming out of the nearest tower. They’re both carrying rifles.”
They must have been the men manning the gate controls. With the children behind the cover of the cars, Juan and MacD circled around and flanked the gunmen, who were focused on the chaos at the barracks entrance. Juan and MacD popped up from behind the Mercedes and each took out one of the men with a single shot.
Simaku’s men were quickly regrouping and were about to close in, now that they had picked up the remaining undamaged lights. Even though his forces were thinned, he still had at least twenty men at his disposal, more than enough to wipe out Juan’s team.
Juan herded his gaggle toward the tower, providing cover fire, along with MacD, as they went. The children screamed in terror but followed their father’s instructions to come with him. Though the aunt cringed at the gunfire, she remained stoic. When they reached the tower, MacD ducked inside. When they got the all clear from him, they followed him in.
Simaku split his men, sending half of them to follow Juan toward the tower, while he and the other half disappeared through a door in the wall near the main building.
“It looks like Simaku’s trying to trap you in a pincer movement,” Linda told Juan. “Stay low once you reach the top of the wall.”
“Affirmative,” Juan said. “Let me know when his men are by the cars.”
The men approached the cars cautiously, intending to use them as cover. Linda smiled grimly. Irony.
“Hit it,” she said.
A second later, the C-4 charges attached to the cars blew up one after the other. Linda was satisfied to see that most of the bad guys were taken out at the same time. The few who were still able to move spent their next moments extinguishing their flaming clothes.
With eight fiery cars illuminating the castle, lighting was no longer a problem.
Juan came out of the gate tower onto the top of the wall.
“You’re clear for the moment,” Linda said. The rest of them exited the tower and joined him.
“Where’s the cargo drone?” Juan asked.
Linda turned to Gomez, who was piloting the drone using his own screen.
“About to touch down, Chairman,” he said.
The cargo drone entered the view screen, backlit by the auto bonfire below. The drone was much larger than the observation quadcopters, with double the number of propellers but half the lifting power of the Oregon’s helicopter. Although it couldn’t carry passengers, it was tailor-made for delivering gear to inhospitable and dangerous locations.
It touched down atop the wall that Juan and the team had scaled from the sea. It stayed there for just a second and released its load, a container the size of a steamer trunk, before it rose back into the air.
Simaku and his men reached the top of the wall at the far end of the compound in time to see the cargo drone taking off. They unleashed a torrent of fire in its direction.
“I’m taking hits!” Gomez yelled.
“Get it back to the Oregon, if possible,” Linda said, “but keep those observation drones on station.”
Juan poked his head over the ocean-side wall and said, “Eddie isn’t here yet. Tell him we’re ready for our water taxi. Where are you?”
Linda checked the Oregon’s position. “Less than four miles out.”
“Get here as soon as you can. We might need our own cover fire once we get in the water.”
“Understood,” she said, and looked at Max. “How much reserve do we have left in the engines?”
“I can give you a bit more juice, but we won’t be able to maintain it for long without damaging them.”
She turned to Eric, who was at the helm. “Mr. Stone, push it to the limit.”
“Aye, ma’am,” Eric replied, and the Oregon trembled as the output of her magnetohydrodynamic engines churned over the redline.
—
Eddie knew they were late getting the RHIB back into the water, but they’d been busy. The spike strips had stopped the first two police cars to cross them. A truck behind the cars had swerved in time to avoid blowing out its tires and stopped to disgorge a dozen officers in full tactical gear. The officers were about to remove the strips when he, Linc, and Trono had opened fire to pin them down and stop them from reaching the castle.
Simaku’s backup might be late to the party, but the corrupt police were returning fire in disturbing quantity, if not accuracy. Eddie knew the Chairman didn’t have time for his team to get stuck in a prolonged gun battle.
“Smoke grenades out,”
Eddie ordered.
The three of them pulled the pins on their grenades and tossed them onto the road. The thick gray smoke obscured the vehicles’ headlights, creating an eerie fog punctuated by sporadic gunfire now that the police couldn’t see what they were shooting at.
“Come on,” Eddie said, and they left their ditch to scramble down the slope to the boat.
By the time they reached the rocks, the police had stopped firing altogether. Only their own heavy breathing and deadened footfalls pierced the misty silence.
Linc leaped onto the RHIB and took the helm, ready to start the engine the second the boat was in the water. Eddie took one side of the bow and Trono took the other to push it out. With a single heave, the boat slid into the sea.
Linc started the engine, and Eddie boosted Trono aboard. Trono reached down to help Eddie up but let go abruptly and emptied the rest of his magazine into someone on shore. The few rounds that the attacker was able to get off merely sliced into the water around them.
Trono yanked Eddie over the gunwale, who then took position next to him to repel any other assaults.
“I owe you one,” Eddie said.
“Are you kidding?” Trono replied. “I completely missed him.”
“You were supposed to. The Chairman wanted us to avoid killing cops, even crooked ones.”
Trono gave him a knowing grin. “Oh, right. I guess you do owe me.”
Linc wheeled the RHIB around to race toward the castle, and they were out of sight before any other policemen got a chance to practice their sharpshooting.
—
We’re trapped!” Erion Kula shouted. Simaku’s men were exchanging fire with Juan, MacD, and Gretchen as they crept along the top of the castle wall walkway. It was only a matter of time before Simaku could get into position to rush them. “How are we supposed to get out of here?”
“That is a good question,” Juan said between shots. “Murph, would you like to show him the answer?”
Murph, who had pulled the top off the container that the cargo drone had deposited, nodded and said, “With pleasure.”
He pushed it over to the edge of the wall, quickly clamped the container to the stone with a hammer and pitons, and then pulled its rip cord. A rush of gas began to inflate the contents of the container. In seconds, a yellow bag ballooned up and over the side of the wall.
The fabric continued to inflate until it was clear what the object was: an emergency slide, like the ones used to evacuate airplanes. Max had acquired it over a year before, not knowing what kind of escape they might use it for. Now they finally had a chance to put it to the test.
Ten seconds later, the slide was fully deployed. Murph looked over the edge.
“The end’s in the water,” he said.
“And Eddie?” Juan asked.
“I can hear the RHIB. Should be here in less than a minute.”
“Then it’s time to go.”
At that moment, the door to the tower burst open and two Mafia soldiers ran out. The children and Kula’s aunt shrieked and ran away from them and right into Juan and MacD’s line of sight, preventing them from firing on the men. Gretchen was the only one with a clear shot.
She took one down before he could fire, but the second was able to get off a three-round burst before she put two bullets in his chest. Then she sank to the ground and grasped her right thigh.
Juan left MacD to continue the fight with Simaku’s men and raced toward her. “Murph, check on Kula’s family!”
“We’re okay,” Kula called back. “They’re just frightened.”
Juan knelt down next to Gretchen, whose jaw was clenched in obvious pain. Blood oozed between the fingers clutching her leg.
“How bad?” Juan asked.
“You mean my reaction time?” she said through gritted teeth. “Apparently, rusty.”
Juan removed a strap from the slide container and prepared to wrap it around her leg. “I’d say it’s not bad for a desk jockey. We need to keep your blood loss to a minimum until we can get back to the Oregon. This will hurt a bit.”
“So did getting shot. Do it.”
He pulled it tight, eliciting little more than a guttural groan from Gretchen. She was still as tough as he remembered. He pulled her to her knees.
“Chairman, we need to go now!” Murph yelled. “Two of the rounds hit the slide. It’s starting to deflate.”
“Kula, you first with one of the kids,” Juan said.
“We can’t!” Kula protested.
“You want to stay up here?”
“But they can’t swim!”
“Doesn’t matter,” Juan said. “We can. Murph, take one of the kids and go.”
Murph picked up the oldest child and launched himself onto the slide, enveloping the boy in his arms, while Juan and the rest of them kept Simaku and his men pinned down.
Kula followed with another child, then Kula’s aunt with a third, and finally Gretchen took the hand of the last one, a girl no older than eight. Juan helped Gretchen get on the slide, as she winced through the pain, and watched them sail down the rapidly deflating slide. It wouldn’t be able to hold a person’s weight for long.
Simaku’s quickly approaching men made the decision for Juan. He and MacD emptied the rest of their magazines in that direction, threw the guns down, and dived onto the slide, Juan going last. Rounds ripped into the slide’s fabric behind him. Air whooshed out of ragged holes.
Juan had no way to slow himself, so he tucked his arms by his sides and hoped that his ride wouldn’t end up on the rocks. At the bottom, his boots plunged into the cold water of the Adriatic Sea. He surfaced to see the RHIB approaching the splashing group of adults and kids.
He looked up at the castle. The half-moon had risen, though it remained partially hidden by the clouds, providing meager illumination of the scene. The slide had completely deflated and rested against the stone wall like a crashed hot air balloon. On the battlements above, Simaku looked down at him with a wicked smile on his face. To either side, Mafia goons had their assault rifles ready to fire. Now Juan knew what it was like to be the fish in the barrel.
Simaku raised his hand, preparing to give the order to take them out, and all Juan could do was watch.
The Mafia leader never got to say another word. The battlement blew apart without warning, taking Simaku and his men with it. No one could have survived the explosion, as pieces of stone fell into the water around Juan. The remnants of the evacuation slide fluttered to the ground.
A few seconds later came the report of the Oregon’s 120mm cannon. Linda had closed the distance enough to get within the gun’s two-and-a-half-mile range and must have seen their predicament from the observation drones.
Eddie, Linc, and Trono arrived and scooped up the children first before pulling up the rest of the group. Linc yanked Juan into the boat with a single tug. Trono and Eddie were busy wrapping survival blankets around the children.
“You all right?” Linc said.
“One casualty,” Juan said. “Gretchen took one in the leg. Have Hux get the medical team ready to dig it out.”
“Aye, Chairman. We need to get out of here anyway. There’s an Albanian Coast Guard patrol boat headed our way.” He spun the wheel to head back to the Oregon and gunned the engine while radioing in that the ship should expect visitors.
“What are you going to do with us?” Kula sputtered through the water still streaming from his hair.
“We’ll take you back to our ship and get your kids cleaned up and fed while we have a chat with you. I have a lot of questions about your involvement with the Credit Condamine attack.”
“That wasn’t me. ShadowFoe was the one behind it.”
“Interpol thinks you’re ShadowFoe.”
“That’s what she wanted you to think.”
“She?”
�
�I’ve never met her, of course,” Kula said, “but I think ShadowFoe is a woman. And I’m going to help you find her.”
NINETEEN
By the time the coast guard arrived at Vlorë Castle, Erion Kula and his family were aboard the Oregon, the RHIB was stowed, and the ship had hightailed it out of the area. After making sure Kula’s children and aunt were given fresh clothes and a hot meal, Juan went down to the infirmary to check on Gretchen’s injury.
Julia Huxley, the ship’s Navy-trained chief medical officer, was applying a dressing to Gretchen’s thigh when he arrived in the sick bay. Despite having just attended to Gretchen’s bloody leg, Julia’s customary white lab coat remained spotless as it draped over her voluptuous curves. Her ponytail bobbed as she finished taping the gauze.
“How are you?” Juan asked Gretchen.
“Annoyed with myself. Ten years in the service and I never got shot.”
“Could have been worse. Has she been a good patient?” Juan asked Julia.
Julia smiled. “Could have been worse. She’s a tough one. Refused morphine, so I stuck her with a local anesthetic. The bullet hit the quadriceps, a lateral through and through. Luckily, the round didn’t tumble, so there was no serious damage, although it’s going to hurt like a mother when the anesthetic wears off.”
“Can she walk?”
“I wouldn’t recommend running any marathons for a few weeks, but she should be hobbling around just fine in a day or so.”
“A day or so?” Gretchen said. “I’m not waiting here that long. We have to interrogate Whyvern.” When she sat up, the cut-open flap of her pant leg flopped to the side. She looked down at her exposed leg and said, “Maybe I should get changed first.”
“Already took care of it,” Juan said, handing her a clean change of clothes and shoes that he had fetched from her cabin. She took them and ducked behind the curtain.
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