Doctors of Death

by Peter Nealen

  Turning away, his earnest expression fell from his face, leaving only a blank, steely look that had made many an officer or senior NCO blink over the years.

  It was time to go hunting.

  ***

  “So, what have we got?” Santelli asked. They were gathered in a Motel 6 room, except for Gomez, who was still en route.

  Hancock had printed out the photos he’d gotten from Officer Martinez and had them spread on the bed. The group of Blackhearts and Old Fogeys was gathered around, looking down at them and the street map of the local residential area.

  “We’ve got three tangos, plus however many in the van,” Hancock said grimly. “All appear to be in their late-twenties, early thirties. This one has an identifying tattoo on his forearm.” He pointed to the one who was sporting what looked very much like a unit crest tattoo, with a beret-wearing skull.

  “They all look like Americans,” Javakhishvili said.

  “They might be,” Santelli said, glancing at Hancock.

  “Same assholes we ran into in Transnistria?” Javakhishvili wondered.

  “They seem like the most likely candidates,” Hancock agreed. “Which begs the question of how they found us.”

  “They’re connected,” Santelli said. “We already knew that much. They never would have been able to pull off what they have, with the equipment they’ve used, otherwise.”

  “Would somebody like to enlighten the rest of us?” Kirk asked, his arms folded. Burgess was looking down at the photos, a curious look on his face.

  “You remember the terror attacks a while back, that came in a cluster across the Southwest?” Hancock asked. “Where the terrorists then went and took over an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico?”

  “Of course,” Kirk said. “It was the biggest attack since 9/11. Everybody heard about it. The only reason it’s faded, except for more pain-in-the-ass security theater, is that nobody really knows who was behind it. The Mexican Marines didn’t take any prisoners.”

  “Well, there’s a little more to it than that,” Santelli said. “The Mexican Marines didn’t do much, except get two teams wiped out trying to get to the platform. We were the first ones aboard.”

  That got some reactions, both from the new guys and the Old Fogeys. “No shit?” Ian asked.

  “No shit,” Hancock replied. “And that doesn’t leave this room.”

  “Also no shit,” Kirk replied. “Herc said something about Transnistria?”

  “We went there a few months later,” Hancock said. “Specifically going after an arms dealer who supposedly had something to do with supporting these assholes when they set the attack up. They got to him first, but we managed to get some info out of him before he died.”

  “Anything come of it?” Burgess asked.

  “Not so far,” Hancock said. “The company he fingered strangely folded shortly thereafter, and the staff and directors have either disappeared or mysteriously died.”

  “Convenient,” Kirk said. “So, you think this is the same bunch?”

  “It fits the profile,” Hancock said. “They’re professional, they look a lot like Western SOF troops, and they went after a guy who got maimed in Transnistria. The coincidences are too thick.”

  “They’re not all Americans, either,” Santelli said. “Joe said he heard a couple of them speaking French.”

  “Canadian terrorists?” Burgess asked, cracking a bit of a grin.

  Hancock snorted. But it was a little funny, and it broke some of the tension.

  “Do we have any intel on their possible whereabouts at all?” Santelli asked.

  “Apparently they haven’t crossed any of the roadblocks,” Hancock said. He pointed to the black box sitting next to the TV, which was occasionally squawking with code-laden chatter. “I’ve been keeping the scanner on since I got here.” He lowered his hand and indicated the street map. “So, we’ve got a fifty-mile radius. I’m not going to lie; that’s a big zone for seven guys.”

  “Then we narrow it down,” Kirk said. “If these guys are pros, then they’ll have already picked a spot to go to ground. They’ve got a paraplegic on their hands. They won’t be able to get far if they have to go through the woods. They’ve got to stick to the roads. And those are being watched.”

  “They might have ditched the van, changed vehicles,” Javakhishvili suggested. “It’s what I’d do, just as soon as I got off the X.”

  But Hancock shook his head. “Like Kirk said, the van is a target. And nobody’s found it yet. Sure, there’s a lot of woods in between subdivisions here, but the cops are pissed. If it was out there, they’d probably have found it already. Which means, yeah. They probably have it stashed in a garage somewhere.”

  “Assuming that they didn’t stash it in a garage and take the other vehicle being stored there,” Burgess pointed out.

  “It’s possible,” Hancock allowed. “But there are only so many contingencies we can correct for. If they’re outside the cordon, they’re gone until we see Sam Childress getting executed on the internet.”

  That sobered everyone. It also made the task at hand look a little more impossible.

  Every other job that Brannigan’s Blackhearts had undertaken had involved a lot more intel. Even when they’d gone after the Espino-Gallo family in New Mexico and Chihuahua, they’d had more to go on. In the densely populated countryside of Northern Virginia, finding four or five men and a paraplegic who didn’t want to be found felt a lot like searching for a needle in a haystack.

  Especially since they couldn’t exactly canvass the neighborhoods. They weren’t cops. And the cops would probably take an unhealthy interest if they found out that parties unknown were conducting their own unauthorized search for the missing kidnappers.

  “Again, we gotta narrow it down,” Santelli said. “They’ve got to have a place where they can hole up, somewhere the cops aren’t likely to look.”

  “They’re cop-killers,” Kirk pointed out. “Where aren’t the cops going to look?”

  “Even the cops have limited resources, and they’re going to have to prioritize,” Hancock replied. “I’m sure our targets know that, too, and will take advantage accordingly.” He frowned down at the map. “Who knows this area?”

  “I do,” Ian said. He didn’t look like much, being in his late sixties, his jowly face looking perpetually tired, his gut hanging over his belt. But Ben Drake had selected him, so there had to be more to him than a fat old man with some heavy work in his past. “What are you looking for?”

  “High-rent neighborhoods,” Hancock said. “Places where strangers aren’t necessarily out of place, but that the cops are probably going to put pretty far down on their list of places to look.”

  “Hmm.” Ian stared at the street map, then pointed. “Here, here, and here,” he said. “This one might have changed a bit; I haven’t been around there in a couple years, and these subdivisions shift like crazy. But if I was going to look for anything that matches your criteria, it would be those three neighborhoods.”

  “All right, then,” Hancock said. He looked around the room. “The clock’s ticking. I don’t know how long Sam has to live, but we’ve got to assume that his life expectancy started dropping as soon as they dragged him out of that hospital. I’d prefer it if we ran recon in pairs, but we’re going to have to go solo.” He started assigning zones to each man. “I’m starting a group text by cell phone; it’s going to be the quickest and easiest way to coordinate everybody. Keep your eyes and ears open. You know what to look for, but don’t get caught breaking and entering just because you got a bad feeling. Sit tight and call for backup.

  “One other thing.” His face was hard and his eyes burned with what had been described as a “basilisk stare.” “There’s another reason that we’ve got a limited time window. The cops are looking for these guys. I want to find them first. We take care of our own.” That had been set as a precedent for Brannigan’s Blackhearts in New Mexico. “And I want one of these cocksuckers alive. If the c
ops get him, if they take him alive, they won’t get shit out of him. I will.”

  No one in the room doubted that he was dead serious.

  ***

  “I still think this is bullshit,” Troll said.

  “Well, it’s a good thing I don’t give a flying fuck what you think,” Flint replied without looking up from the laptop on the table. He had a police scanner app running, along with half a dozen other monitoring systems that he’d tapped into.

  “Seriously?” Troll demanded. “We brought him here? These people call the cops if they see a Mexican, or even somebody with a deep tan. If any of them start to think that there’s something off, they’ll have the fucking SWAT team kicking in that door in minutes. And if you think they won’t get a response fast, you’re stupid. They’re rich. They’ve probably got an entire precinct just sitting by, waiting on the call from these assholes. It doesn’t help that fucking Knocker looks like a refugee from the fucking Mongols.” Knocker did stand out a bit, between his tats, his longish hair, and very biker-ish handlebar.

  “Well, if you keep your ugly faces out of sight, don’t drive the van that’s got a huge bullseye on its side for a while, and just be patient, it won’t give the neighbors any reason to worry, now, will it?” Flint retorted, finally looking up to glare at him. “You fucks are the biggest pussies I’ve ever seen. Quit worrying and maintain security. Clearly, you’re too stupid to be read in.”

  “Why are we just sitting here, anyway?” Troll asked. “We bring him in, stick him in the basement, and then, what? Watch TV?”

  Flint looked at him like he was an idiot, which he was pretty sure he was. “You don’t know shit about interrogation, do you? You don’t start right off by hooking a car battery to his nuts. You gotta let him stew for a while. Let the anticipation build. Anticipation is worse than reality, every time. The longer it goes on, the more it’s gonna wear on him. And that will weaken him. Especially since we ripped out his IVs, so he doesn’t have any pain meds. That’s going to start getting to him soon.” His lip curled in disgust. “Clearly, none of you have a clue, so how about you shut the fuck up and let me handle this?”

  Troll visibly bit back a retort, and Flint stared at him as he turned away and peered out through the curtains. Flint had killed his own teammates before, and Troll knew it. And he also knew that Flint was faster than he was, presuming he wasn’t already holding a pistol under the table.

  Which he was. Flint was always ready to kill anybody. It was part of what made him the successful problem-solver that he was.

  He turned back to the computer. So far, so good. The cops were combing their perimeter, but they were assuming that the cop-killers from the hospital were going to run for it. They weren’t even considering that they’d gone to ground less than five miles away. They were safe. As long as these retards the Board had saddled him with again didn’t fuck it up.

  He smiled grimly as he considered the paraplegic in the basement. He’d have his answers soon enough. And then he’d take these interfering bastards apart for good. Because there was one thing he was sure of. When he started working that Childress cat over, the kid was going to sing like a canary. He’d give up his own mother by the time Flint was done with him.

  Flint was a man of many skills.

  Chapter 12

  Brannigan was deep in the intel materials that Price had provided when the radio nearby squawked, “Vulture, vulture, vulture.”

  He looked up at the same time Flanagan did. “What’s that?” he asked.

  Price was already on his feet. “One of the boys spotted a drone. Hopefully it’s just passing by at a distance. If it gets too close…” He was already heading out through the flap.

  Brannigan grabbed his rifle from where it was leaning against the table and followed, right on Flanagan’s heels. The others had already staged outside, staying with the vehicles, watchful and alert. None of them were sure if they could trust Price and his people yet. Brannigan was getting a good idea from the last hour’s reading that Price was telling the truth; there was too much information in those files to have been made up out of whole cloth. But that didn’t mean he trusted Price’s motives or his stated goals. The man had too checkered a rep. He simply didn’t have enough information, at least not enough that he knew wasn’t colored by political and economic axes to grind.

  But that could come later.

  The sun was still bright in the cloudless sky as he came out of the dimness of the tent, squinting against the glare. Price was several paces ahead of him, heading for one of the fighting positions.

  “Talk to me, Max,” Price said.

  The big, pale-skinned guy with the high-pitched voice pointed. “Still about six klicks out,” he said. “But it looks like it’s coming this way.”

  Price lifted the binoculars hanging around his neck and peered at it. “Hard to tell,” he muttered.

  “It’s one of theirs,” Max said. “I recognize the profile.”

  “You think you recognize the profile,” Price said. “It’s still a long way off for that. We don’t want to knock down the wrong drone; it could draw too much attention.”

  But Max had his rifle in his shoulder, braced on a sandbag, peering through his combat optic. “If we wait too much longer, we’re gonna be blown,” he said. “And we can’t exactly pack up and move before it’s on top of us this time.”

  Price was still peering through the binoculars, his face hard. He lowered them, staring toward the glinting speck that Brannigan could now see in the sky, and then handed them to Brannigan. “Take a look,” he said.

  Brannigan accepted them and looked, after first glancing over his shoulder to make sure that the Blackhearts were still watching their hosts as much as they were the perimeter. He could see this being a distraction, something shiny to hold their attention while a double-cross happened.

  This mercenary business was making him downright paranoid.

  It took him a second to find the drone in the binos. He peered at it carefully, squinting slightly as he took in what he was looking at.

  It was painted a light tan above, blending into a light blue-gray below. That was a military paint scheme if ever he’d seen one.

  It was also shaped differently from any UAV he’d ever seen. The fuselage was a flattened lozenge shape, with rounded delta wings and what looked like jet engines. It didn’t look like it should be flying as slowly as it was, until he saw that the jets were variable thrust; it was a miniature, unmanned jump jet.

  “That look familiar to you?” Price asked.

  Brannigan lowered the binos, frowning. “Never seen anything like it before,” he answered.

  Price nodded grimly. “Par for the course. Take the shot, Max.”

  Somewhat to Brannigan’s surprise, the burly man put his rifle down and reached into an equipment case, coming out with a bulky, sci-fi-looking device with three smooth, boxy prongs out front and a pistol grip in back. He shouldered the awkward looking weapon, pointed it, fiddled with a dial on the side, and then settled in and pressed the trigger.

  There was no report, no bang-whoosh of a SAM launch. In fact, the device didn’t seem to do anything at all. Except that the drone suddenly wobbled, then started to descend toward the ground, apparently in free-flight, no longer controlled. Max followed it down with the weird-looking device. Brannigan followed the last hundred meters of its descent with the binos, and saw it crash in the scrub about two kilometers distant.

  “Well, that tears it,” Price said. “Pack it up! We’ve got about thirty minutes to be away from here!”

  “Is that what I think it is?” Brannigan asked, looking at the strange device as Max hastily packed it back in its equipment case.

  “It’s a development on the Droneshield anti-drone gun, yes,” Price said. “This one’s a little more high-powered; we wouldn’t have been able to jam that one otherwise. The original was rated for quadrotors, little things that are commercially available. This one is more military grade.” He nodd
ed toward the distant crash site. “Just like that thing.”

  “I’ve been out of the loop for a little while,” Brannigan said, “but I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen that design listed in any national military inventory.”

  “That’s because it’s not,” Price said. “We’ve seen one before.” He glanced at Brannigan meaningfully. “It was sitting on a pad in the Humanity Front’s camp.”

  Brannigan looked him in the eye. Price certainly seemed sincere. But he’d met men like him before, those with the kind of ambition that led to building private armies, who could lie to your face and never bat an eye. “You’re working really hard to convince me that they’re the bad guys.”

  Price snorted. “That’s because they are,” he said. “Every bit as much as Al Qaeda, the IRGC, or the Chinese Communist Party. Stick around. You’ll be convinced soon enough.” He stared hard at Brannigan. “We have to get away from here fast,” he said. “But there’s imagery of that drone right next to those carefully sealed, air-conditioned trailers I told you about. I’ll show you.” He took a deep breath and blew it out forcefully. “I know what people say about me. But I’m a patriot, just like you. Do I have my own interests? Of course. It’s a global world, and if you don’t play the global game you get stepped on. My own government’s sold me out more times than I can count. They’ve hunted me for doing the right thing. They’ve charged my contractors as criminals for defending themselves. You’re damned right I play by my own rules. It’s the only way to survive. But this isn’t a power play. I’ve done my damnedest to hunt terrorists on my terms and the US government’s terms all over the damned world. And if I’m right, and these assholes really are the same ones who killed hundreds of people across the Southwest? Do you really want to walk away from that because the news media says I’m a wannabe warlord?”

  He and Brannigan stared at each other for a moment, while their respective teams watched the perimeter and each other. Flanagan was standing just to Brannigan’s left, his L1A1 in both hands, his finger flat alongside the trigger guard. Brannigan didn’t have to look to know that Joe was a split second from snapping that rifle up and putting a 7.62mm round through Price if he twitched wrong.