Cyclops Conspiracy: An Adam Weldon Thriller

by William McGinnis

  Intrigued, Adam watched the mega yacht maneuver and jockey for position in the white-capped waves and blustery wind 300 yards out from the mole. Suddenly, the mammoth boat pointed its stern to shore, dropped its massive anchor, and, with anchor chain rattling out in a fast and furious roar, it came racing backward toward a narrow slot between two other similar-sized yachts—on which uniformed crews stood poised at the ready with giant, three-foot-diameter, hand-held fenders. The mega yacht came flying straight back into the narrow slot. By using side thrusters, it slid right down the middle, leaving exactly the same space, about four feet, between it and the boats on either side. It stopped in perfect position to toss out stern lines and drop its stern gangplank centered on the three-foot-wide concrete walkway clearly there for this purpose.

  Noticing the same boat, Tripnee pointed to the name, “Galel, means ‘Wave of Allah.’”

  “Are you seeing this?” Adam asked Sophia over their comms. “Something about Galel is ringing my alarm bells. See if you can get some drones aboard and keep an eye on her crew.”

  As the sun set, Adam and Tripnee retreated to an outdoor café at the land end of the mole where they could survey the scene without being noticed. To stay in character with their disguises—and also because they were starving—they ordered gyro sandwiches and beer.

  Tripnee said, “Roxanna’s clever, all right. She had good reason to think we’d never look for her in the middle of this flotilla. And even now that we’ve found her, we can’t very well blow them to smithereens or even initiate a firefight with so many innocent people jammed together close by.”

  “True, to a degree,” Sophia said, speaking over their earpieces. “However, I’ve got enough drones inside and around all three boats—Tad, Lila, and Galel—to identify terrorists, direct your fire, and minimize collateral damage.”

  “To get these last two nukes,” Adam said, “we’ll have to take some risks. But a big question is: What’s Roxanna cooked up?”

  “Did you see that?” Tripnee asked. “That little Yoda-like guy with big eyes and ears we saw back on Deniz just walked from Galel over toward Tad and Lila. What’s his name?”

  “Abdul Kareem Aziz,” Adam said. “He’s Yoda-like, all right. I wonder if he’s the captain of Galel. Very interesting, indeed.”

  As twilight descended into a pitch-black moonless night, Adam mulled things over, trying to see every angle. Then he outlined a plan.

  Tripnee and Adam returned to the nearby corner of the marina where their skiff, hidden in dark shadow, bobbed in the harbor’s tiny, ever-present wave chop. Adam ducked under the tarp to pull on his wetsuit, fins, rebreather, underwater night-vision goggles, and two very full fanny packs.

  Meanwhile, Tripnee slid her arms through the shoulder straps of her Barrett M82 carrying case, which, with the rifle stock folded, looked like a big, long backpack. Peering out from under the tarp, Adam found himself, as he often did, admiring his sweetheart’s toughness. Carrying an M82 with ammo was normally the job of two men in the U.S. Army, but this amazing woman did it alone, without complaint, with a spring in her step.

  Tripnee walked up several steep back streets, entered the biggest, highest building overlooking Idra harbor, and began climbing stairs to the rooftop.

  Adam slid into the water, adjusted his rebreather, and checked his wrist tracker. A dizzying variety of boat hulls slid by above him. All around, in every direction, countless anchor chains and pieces of ancient junk formed a tangled, disorienting maze. Where the heck was he? Was his wrist tracker homing in on the beacon?

  Even as he squeezed and contorted his way through this labyrinth, a part of his mind pondered Roxanna’s submarine. No way could a sub, even a small one, get through here. And wouldn’t a sub have to surface in order to transfer the nukes on board?

  Finally, Adam reached the beacon. He then located Tad and Lila’s sleek hulls. He surfaced under the overhanging bow of a boat several boats away.

  * * *

  As she neared roof level, Tripnee paused to catch her breath. Then, very slowly, with a silenced Beretta Pico in each hand, she elbowed open the door which gave onto the roof. Ah-ha. Just as she’d thought. The terrorists were indeed on high alert, covering their bases. Two sentries lay prone at the edge of the roof. Each with his head poking over the lip, looking down on the marina with night-vision goggles. Each with an AK-47 at his side.

  One of the men, sensing motion behind him, turned, bringing up his rifle. Without hesitation, Tripnee put a bullet in his head, and another in the head of the man beside him. Psst, psst. Then, pro that she was, she put a second slug in each skull. Psst, psst.

  Rapidly, she chained the door shut she’d just come through and dragged the two bodies around behind a brick chimney. This done, she laid out and assembled her M82, and, instead of the spot occupied by the terrorists, she took up an even better position, one overlooking not only the entire harbor but also a broad swath of the sea outside the harbor.

  * * *

  “I’m in position,” Adam’s voice crackled quietly over their coms. “Thirty feet from targets. What’s everyone’s status?”

  “I’m also in position,” Tripnee reported. “They had two snipers up here. Both now dead. These perps are on high alert.”

  “Good going,” Adam whispered. “Are you okay?”

  “Doing fine. Although I could use a sherpa to carry my rifle.”

  Sophia’s voice rattled through the static, “These guys really are on alert. They’ve got sentries everywhere. It’s as though they expect us. Tripnee, I’ll fly drones up to watch your back. Adam, be careful.”

  “What’s going on aboard Tad and Lila?” Adam whispered.

  “They’re pretending to party. Trying to maintain their cover. But even from here they look totally lame. The fact is they’re jumpy and constantly looking around.”

  “Hmmm. Any portholes or hatches open?”

  “None.”

  “Empty cabins?”

  “As far as I can tell, none.”

  “Where are the sentries?”

  “All over the place,” Sophia answered. “Above and below deck on all three boats. And on neighboring boats. Judging from the bulges under their clothes, they’re heavily armed.”

  “They’re expecting something.”

  “Or just taking no chances with their last remaining nukes.”

  “Something’s fishy.”

  “Something’s definitely not right.”

  Chapter 30

  Idra Harbor

  O kay, things are dicey. Nothing new about that.

  Adam’s cans of knockout gas weren’t going to be of much use. And the old sneak aboard and shoot ’em one-by-one wasn’t going to work either. Well, it just so happened that he still had a few tricks up his sleeve, a few little game-changing gifts to deliver.

  Adam submerged with as much stealth as he could muster, dropped to the harbor floor, inched along the junky bottom, and then rose straight up directly beneath the 80-foot terrorist karavoskara, Tad, formerly the Al-Gazi. Floating with his face inches from the hull, thankful his rebreather emitted no bubbles to give away his presence, he pulled out an improvised explosive device the size of a paperback thriller novel. Fanatical Islamists weren’t the only ones who knew how to use these babies. He peeled off the plastic backing sheet to expose soft stickum and pressed the IED onto the hull. He figured three would do the job, one near the bow, another amidships, a third near the stern. Then he repeated the process, placing three more bombs along the hull of Lila, formerly The Crescent Moon. Nice, beautiful, sweet, good little bombs. Just right for sinking boats without harming the neighbors.

  Adam then worked his way out from under the harbor flotilla and swam underwater around to the mega yacht, Galel, outside the mole. Using much bigger charges, he spaced four bombs along the bottom of its broad, 150-foot-long hull.

  As he stuck the last IED in place, what do you know? He found himself looking at the underside of a small submarine about 35-feet i
n length fitted into an underwater indentation scooped from the bottom of the mega yacht. Hidden from the surface, this submarine bay would allow the sub to come and go undetected. Unbelievable. Since when did a bunch of terrorists have equipment like this? Yet there it was, as big as life within arm’s reach, faintly glowing in his underwater night-vision goggles.

  He reached deep into his fanny pack and drew out two more IEDs and stuck them onto the sub. Then he pulled out a can of underwater super-sticky expanding foam. Taking care not to miss a single one, he swam around and plugged all the through-hull ports—the intakes and exhausts—of both the sub and its mother ship, thereby shutting off all engine cooling: with no water circulation to cool them, the ship and sub engines would rapidly overheat and seize up. Neither Galel nor the sub would be motoring very far anytime soon.

  Adam swam underwater back into and across the harbor and pulled himself into the skiff. He peeled off his swim gear, toweled off, and pulled on bulletproof armor—then arrayed himself again in the blond wig and loose, goofy sailor outfit. Next, after checking in with and getting a green light from Tripnee and Sophia, he put on a backpack and grabbed a very special duffle, both heavy. Then he sauntered out along the mole back to the 65-foot ketch, Patriot, whose owners had been so friendly.

  Chapter 31

  Patriot

  A dam had a good feeling about these people, whose names turned out to be Dave and Marge. Adam asked if the three of them could go below and have a private conversation. Figuring the best way to win their cooperation was to be completely open, Adam outlined the situation, emphasized what was at stake, and then made them an offer.

  “With your permission, I’d like to rent your boat for one night, tonight. Starting right now.”

  He plopped the duffle bag on the salon table, opened its lengthwise zipper and revealed bundle upon bundle of hundred-dollar bills. The thing was chock full of bundles.

  “There’s a million and a half dollars in this bag. More than enough to cover any damage. And it’ll even buy you an entire new boat or two if it should come to that. I’ll do my best to keep the damage to a minimum. Regardless of what happens, the money’s yours to keep for the one night’s rent. I’m asking this of you—and making this offer—because millions of lives are at stake. What do you say?”

  There was a reason Adam had had a good feeling about this sweet couple. Their response was heart-warming. Dave and Marge talked quietly for a while, then, as Marge stood beside him, tearing up, trembling but trying to look brave, Dave turned to Adam, and said, “How about I stay with you? I think you’re going to need some backup. I don’t look like much, but I was a grunt in ’Nam.”

  “That’s one beautiful offer, Dave. But my team and I have a plan, and the best thing right now is for you and Marge to take this money, leave right now and go check into a resort away from here, maybe the one on Mandraki Bay. And, by the way, you look great.”

  Marge let out a huge sigh, wiping away tears.

  If these were the sort of people he, Tripnee, and Sophia were struggling to save from nuclear annihilation, they were clearly worth it. And failure was not an option.

  While music, laughter, and yelling spilled out from various parties around the marina, Adam relaxed in the cockpit of Patriot, giving Dave and Marge time to exit the area. So far so good. Dave and Marge’s boat was directly between Tad and Lila, which were in the center of the harbor flotilla, and Galel, which was moored outside the mole. Anyone going from Tad or Lila toward Galel, especially if they were in a hurry, was likely to cross Patriot’s deck or a boat nearby.

  Patriot had a central cockpit nestled between cabins fore and aft, creating a foxhole feeling. Adam stood on the companionway steps, his head just showing, a fully loaded, silenced Glock in each hand, and peered through a multi-boat thicket of masts, dodgers, and rigging toward Tad and Lila. Soon, he hoped, these two boats were going down. But not fast. Not all at once. They needed to sink slowly. Slowly enough for the terrorists to have time—if the nukes were on board—to grab them and bring them this way toward Patriot.

  He pulled out the IED remote detonator, punched in a password and awakened the device. There’s an understood rule in chess that says: Whenever possible, force your opponent to move in ways that disrupt his plans and benefit you. So, how about a series of boat sinkings to flush out the nukes? Let’s see what plays out on this real-life chessboard.

  Adam pushed a button. Then another. A distinct but muffled denotation on Tad and one on Lila rumbled through the night, cutting through the marina music and party chatter. Soon the music stopped. Then yelling and screaming spread through the flotilla.

  “There’s definitely commotion,” Sophia said over his earpiece. “They’re scrambling to figure out what hit ’em.”

  Time to up the pressure. Adam hit two more buttons, and heard two more muffled explosions.

  “Both boats are taking on water,” Sophia said. “This is beautiful. Adam, you’re a genius.”

  “Watch that,” Tripnee said. “He’s my genius.”

  “Focus,” Adam said. “Focus.”

  Time to finish them off. Adam set off the third IED on each boat. Two more distinct explosions, but sounding even more muffled, no doubt because both boats were already knee-deep or maybe waist-deep in sea water.

  “Roxanna’s coming up out of Tad,” Sophia said. “She’s got a nuke and an Uzi and is wearing body armor. And now she has three people around her with AK-47s.”

  “Whoa. A guy just popped up out of Lila. It’s Aziz. With a nuke. Interesting, he’s handing off the nuke to big-shouldered Sahiba.”

  Adam saw movement through the forest of masts and shrouds, but couldn’t make out details.

  “Roxanna and Sahiba with nukes. Surrounded by guys with AK-47s. Headed your way.”

  Adam saw them coming. A tight phalanx of armed men all moving as a unit. How did they get organized so fast?

  Moving across the sailboats, each terrorist had to do a fair amount of dodging around and over boat railings, shrouds, boat paraphernalia, and drunken sailors. But overall, they moved in unison as a group. If Adam started shooting and they returned fire together en masse, he wouldn’t last five seconds.

  Then heads started popping. Bodies dropped. The group’s tight organization—the very fact they moved in formation—set them apart, separated them from the surrounding dazed and boozed-up civilians. This allowed Tripnee to identify them and blow their heads off one-by-one.

  What a great girlfriend.

  Adam’s two Glocks also opened up, dropping one, two, three. As heads exploded, one startled bystander downwind and down range of a suddenly headless terrorist found herself splattered from eye level to knee level in a fine spray of bone, tissue, and blood.

  As heads continued to explode, the phalanx faltered. After six or seven terrorists dropped in their tracks, it dawned on the others that being in this formation was hazardous to their health. So, the phalanx broke up, its members scattering.

  Abandoned, the small, wiry Roxanna screamed with rage. Exposed, she and Sahiba, who was big but nimble, moved even faster, dodging, jumping, running, leaping—all while gripping their heavy nuclear suitcases.

  As soon as Adam caught sight of Roxanna, he whipped a Glock toward her. High time to put this one down once and for all. In the split second before he released a bullet, an oblivious sailor bumbled into his line of fire. This poor guy, a minute later, got slammed by big Sahiba, pitching him into the water.

  Okay, then. Seizing the moment, Adam put a slug into Sahiba’s broad forehead. Then he scanned for Roxanna. Where was she? There. Ducking down to grab Sahiba’s nuke. Again, Adam swung the gun toward her, zeroing in, tension already on the trigger.

  But at that instant, bullets hit Adam from behind. Down, down, down he went, and almost out. Reeling and disoriented, he struggled to his feet and looked back. Three men on the stern deck of Galel blasted away with AK-47s—two firing at him, the other up at Tripnee. Thank God, he and Tripnee wore body
armor.

  Chapter 32

  Galel

  A dam ducked down and grabbed his remote-controller. Time to put an end to this bullshit. He jabbed a series of buttons. Instantly, explosions ripped the air. Kaboom. Kaboom. Kaboom. Kaboom. Galel jumped and shook. Then settled deeper and deeper into the water. Galel and its sub were going down fast.

  Now Roxanna and her crew would have no place to go and would be caught out in a crossfire. He and Tripnee could cut them down and recover those precious, deadly, diabolical weapons. Well, at least that was the plan.

  But even as Galel’s crew clambered off its gangplank fleeing their sinking ship, Roxanna slipped past them and ran forward along the deck, which was nearly awash.

  * * *

  The hail of bullets coming up from Galel forced Tripnee to duck and stay down. Then came the beautiful explosions. Adam sure knew how to blow things up. What a boyfriend.

  Tripnee risked peering over the roof’s edge, sighting through her M82’s powerful night-vision scope. Far below, everything was moving in a blur. Roxanna ran through deepening water and jumped into a small powerboat mounted on the bow deck of Galel. The next moment, the bow of Galel disappeared below the waves, and the powerboat floated free and raced away.

  “Adam,” Tripnee yelled into their earpiece coms, “that Roxanna bitch just launched a speedboat off the bow of Galel.”

  Right then, talk about amazing, a hundred yards out from the mole, what the fuck. There, breaching the surface, was a real submarine. Not a miniature sub. But an actual, World War II-style military submarine. The conning tower was already out of the water, and the long, sleek, black hull—maybe a hundred-and-twenty feet long—was coming into view, water pouring off it. Roxanna powered around to the far side of the conning tower, taking cover where Tripnee couldn’t get off a shot.