A Deeper Blue

by John Ringo

  "You got a problem with any of this, LT, you just take your beer and go to the other room," Adams said.

  "Actually," Himes said, "I was hoping I could go along. I haven't done an entry in a few months but I figure it's like riding a bicycle . . . ."

  The Best Western was just north of the long stretch of marsh that separated the keys from the Florida mainland. Near the turn-off for Everglades National Park and convenient to the Keys, it was often packed on weekends.

  At four o'clock in the morning on a Wednesday, the parking lot was nearly deserted. There was a large moving truck parked towards the back and a few tourist cars.

  Vanner had elected to not even lay in a physical bug; they could get plenty of take from a laser mike. The laser bounced off the window of the room and reflected in tune with sound waves. By reading the vibration of the window, everything said in the room could be monitored. He'd put in a connection to the hotel phones as well and with Al-Sabat's voice print, which they already had, they could filter for all the other calls out of the hotel. They'd also pinpointed his satellite phone.

  The target had left twice, once to go to a local convenience store and the second time to the nearby Golden Corral for dinner. He had participated in a number of conversations, including some to overseas numbers, during the evening, up until one AM when his light finally went off. Most of them, with the exception of a call to his mother, had dealt with moving, buying and selling various goods. All of them could have been codes but, if so, Sabat would soon be explaining that.

  "You two stay back and take security," Adams repeated as the Ford Expedition started. "I don't know why you talked me into this."

  "Because you like my stunning good looks," Vanner said, grinning. He was, for once, all suited up, MP-5, balaclava and all. You could see his grin right through the mask.

  "Because I've done this sort of thing before," Himes added.

  "I've got plenty of shooters," Adams said. "You just do the door, then swing back."

  "Got it," Himes said, cocking the shotgun.

  The Expedition pulled to a stop and he unassed, charging the door. He could hear the assault team stacking up behind him so he pointed the shotgun at the lock and pulled the trigger.

  The round was a breaching round, a standard twelve-gauge shotgun shell but with a projectile that was a frangible powdered metal slug that would destroy the lock but not over penetrate or result in dangerous fragments to the shooter. The round worked as advertised, destroying the lock and permitting Himes to open the door with one swift kick.

  He rolled to the side, pointed outwards, and cocked the shotgun, ejecting the spent breacher and load a livie, then he took a knee.

  There was a sound of brief struggle inside and he turned to the side.

  "Never done this before?" he asked the intel specialist.

  "Not for real," Vanner replied. "I . . ." His eyes flew wide as the doors of the moving van rolled up and a similarly armed and armored group started to pile out.

  "FREEZE! POLICE!" the leader of the tac team yelled. "Drop your weapons and get down. NOW!"

  "Wait, we're with—" Vanner said, puzzled by something about the man's words, just as the first round cracked into his chest.

  At the sound of the shouting, Adams turned to the door and saw the tac team running across the parking lot. He also saw them shoot Vanner and Himes, which was all he needed. Fucking cops don't just shoot people down who have their hands up. Besides, most cops, even in Miami, don't have accents.

  He took a position alongside the door, not that it gave any sort of cover, and began returning fire, taking two of the tac team down with two shots. Suddenly, the three Keldara shooters were by his side and it turned into a general melee.

  Adams rolled through the door, taking cover behind some tourist's Taurus, then popped up, getting two more.

  The tac team was taking cover around the cars as well so he took it to them, running to the rear of the Taurus and spotting another. Tango down.

  The Keldara had spread out from the room as well and they swept right.

  But neither group had noticed one of the shooters huddled alongside a minivan. The man stood up, aimed his AR-15 and fired five rounds at the master chief.

  Adams felt the hit, like a punch in his side, and spun sideways, firing one-handed into the tac team member.

  The man flew back, a 5.56mm hole in the center of his browridge.

  "Master Chief," Vil said, running over to where Adams was slumped against the Taurus.

  "We need to unass," Adams gasped. He was hit pretty bad but he was still functional. He'd been hit before. Not this bad, but he could still function. "Go to the air field we landed at. Get into the cars and go. Don't speed."

  "Vanner is hit badly," Arvidas said. "I think Lieutenant Himes is dead."

  "Fuck," Adams said. "We got to go."

  "Fuck."

  Nielson rubbed his forehead angrily.

  "Did they at least get Sabat?"

  "According to the colonel I spoke to they are sure it's not Sabat at all," Vil said miserably. "Sabat is reported to have been at an office in Yemen for the last week. And we recovered documents from the room. They are . . . I guess you would call it a script. And he had a modifier so that his voice was similar."

  "It was a trap," Nielson said.

  "Yes," Vil replied. "We are at the airbase in the town of Homestead. All of us. We have been given quarters and are . . . we are told not to leave. The master sergeant is at the hospital here, Sergeant Vanner is in another in Miami.

  "Colonel, the man said one other thing. I think that this attack was supposed to get the Kildar."

  "Yeah, well, I'll let him think about that one," Nielson said. "In about two minutes."

  "What now?" Mike yelled.

  "Open the door."

  Nielson strode in, his face twitching, and stood in front of Mike, arms crossed.

  "Open the God-damned plate," Nielson said.

  "If that's all you've got, get the hell out."

  "Open the GOD-DAMNED PLATE YOU WHINY ASSED BITCH! Is that good enough for you?"

  "Fuck you," Mike snarled. "Fuck you, fuck Adams, fuck you all!"

  "Just open the plate, Mike," Nielson said, calmly. "Then I'll tell you why I'm asking."

  Mike looked at him for a moment, then hit the solenoid, raising the plate.

  Nielson spun in place and considered the painting for a long time.

  "It's good."

  "Yeah, it is. Cost enough."

  "The lips are all wrong, though."

  "Yes, they are."

  "The team liaison is dead. Vanner is critical. Adams is shot up."

  Nielson spun in place again, arms still crossed.

  "How?" Mike asked hoarsely.

  "A trap," Nielson replied. "One meant to catch you."

  Mike stood up very slowly and walked to the painting. He touched the shoulder of the girl, lightly, then turned.

  "Call Chief D'Allaird. You know the Dragon?"

  "Yeah, I know the Dragon."

  "Paint it black."

  Chapter Four

  "The good news is that if it's coming in on anything other than a freighter, we've got some time."

  Admiral Ryan had to admit that was true. The storm wasn't a tropical storm or hurricane; those came later in the year. But it was a late winter cold front that had damned near the same effects. The wind howled, the rain poured, lightning flashed and there were small boat advisories all up and down the coast.

  "Some good news for a change," Ryan said, leaning against the wall of the room.

  If only that damned SEAL had told them! They would have cross-checked Sabat's movements and figured out it couldn't be him. If they'd picked up the data these Keldara characters had, it would have been an obvious ruse.

  On the other hand, he'd looked at the data they were given and knew it wasn't all on their shoulders. Sabat was clearly shown on everyone else's data as being in Yemen. The Keldara weren't given the full update. Which ha
d been pointed out to him, in very small words, by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He wasn't sure why DC thought these guys walked on water, but . . .

  Then there was the third point. The guy posing as Sabat had waltzed straight through every system designed to detect people just like him. And the Keldara had turned him up in less than three hours. Turned him up while their chief was in a meeting and snatched the supposed terrorist, successfully, despite being attacked from behind in a planned assault.

  The Keldara hadn't fucked up, he had. As the Chairman was also good enough to point out. He'd chosen to give them the filtered database. But was he just supposed to hand over everything to these damned people?

  "Sir, can I ask something?" the DEA rep asked.

  "Sure."

  "Why are you standing here?"

  "I was told to expect a high-level delegate," the admiral said. "I was told that he'd be arriving by this door. And flying in."

  "No planes," the DEA rep continued, looking out the door of the terminal. "The big guys can barely get out of Miami-Dade. No helos. Not for a couple of days."

  The words had barely gotten out of his mouth when the sound of rotors could be heard through the storm.

  "What the fuck is that?"

  There was music, too. A slow beat and a man singing.

  "Warren Zevon, I believe," the admiral said, shaking his head as a black Hind dropped out of the storm. "The Envoy."

  The Hind didn't bother with the marked helo-pad, instead dropping by the terminal with bare clearance for the rotors. As a piece of driving on a clear day it would have been impressive. With the storm it was amazing.

  As a fork of lightning rippled the horizon, the door of the bird slid open and a man in casual clothes, slacks, polo shirt, nice shoes, got out in the driving rain. If he noticed that it was pouring, it was not apparent. He was medium height with a heavy build and brown hair that flowed onto his forehead in the storm. He strode through the downpour, not bothering to duck the rotors, straight up to the door.

  "You Ryan?" the man said.

  "Admiral Ryan, yes," the admiral said, straightening up. "And you are?"

  "You can call me the Kildar," the man said, turning to the DEA rep, his head tracking like a turret. "Who are you?"

  "Bob Johnson," the DEA rep said, sticking out his hand. "What kind of a name is Kildar?"

  "The kind that will cut your fucking hand off if you don't pull it back," Mike said, tracking back to the admiral. "I read the report on this clusterfuck on the bird over. If you fuck with me I will have you chipping paint the next morning. In Diego Garcia. Are we clear?"

  "Clear," the admiral said, his jaw flexing.

  "You are going to open Harmony and every other base you've got, fully," Mike continued. "But my top intel guy is in a coma in the hospital so I need an intel spec familiar with your systems and DEA's and FBI's and every other fucking acronym. I need her by tomorrow. Somebody who is not PC and doesn't give a fuck what happens to terrorists. Tell her to take a plane to Nassau, send her data to me, pic, name, the whole deal. This time don't leave anything out. I'll take over from there."

  "Her?" Ryan asked, raising his eyebrows.

  "All my intel people but one are women," Mike said. "The one is in the hospital. I'm not going to explain to some cockhound know-it-all to sit the fuck down. Her. Tomorrow. In Nassau." He spun on his heel and headed back out into the storm.

  "Where are you going?" the DEA rep asked sharply. "The command center is here."

  "I'm going where you dick-brains can't fuck my op up," Mike said, pausing but not turning around. "Your job from here on out is to give me intel. I'll take it from there."

  Mike walked in the hospital room and shook his head.

  "You grow 'em up, you let 'em wear shoes . . ."

  "Hey, Boss," Adams said, wincing. "I'm good. Get these canker merchants to let me go." He was wheezing as he said it.

  "You've got GSWs to the upper chest," Mike pointed out. "That's not something you just up and walk away from. Not even you, Master Chief."

  "You see Vanner?" Adams said, looking away.

  "Yeah," Mike said. "Still in ICU. Doc says he's probably going to make it. But he's unconscious, still. Not a coma they tell me, just sleeping. I told the doc I could wake him up if he wanted me to. They didn't think it was very funny. But I need him back at work."

  "I can work," Adams said, flexing his jaw. "If you still want me."

  "I was stressed," Mike said, walking over and sitting on the bed. "I'd like to have you back. You okay with coming back?"

  "I'm good," the master chief said, looking away. "Sorry about what I said."

  "Not an issue," Mike replied. "I'd heard the crybaby line before, by the way. From the team chief. Right before I told him to shove it up his ass. But I've had a long time to think about it, too . . ."

  "I was wrong to say it," Adams said. "Whatever you are, you're not a crybaby."

  "Wrong," Mike said. "From his perspective, from yours, I am. Want to hear the rest?"

  "This crybaby time?" Adams said. "Because I could cry a fucking bucket. I really fucked up."

  "No, you didn't," Mike said. "I did. I sent you out on something that I knew was over your head. That's my fuck-up, Chuck. And that's what this is about. You got your thinking cap on, Master Chief?"

  "Go," Adams said.

  "What's a crybaby?" Mike asked. "I never shed a tear on the teams. Never whined. Never quit. But there was something different about me. I didn't fit in. It came across to the team chief as soft and in a way it is. You're always asking how come I can make the girls happy. That's part of it, too. You starting to get a feeling, here?"

  "When you were talking about stalking," Adams said, nodding. "Something about feeling the other guy."

  "It's called empathy," Mike said. "But it's more than that. It's a . . . feel for a situation. I don't know if the alarm bells would have gone off on that op or not, but they have from time to time. You remember how I was so heavy on ammo for the raid on the last op?"

  "Too much for what we were doing," Adams said, nodding. "Especially since we had to hump it all in."

  "I knew that it was going to go to hell," Mike said. "Not how bad, but I knew it was going to go to hell. It's a sense, not just when things are right in front of me but broader. It's one of the reasons I can command well, too. I can sense the needs of the guys, sometimes before they even know they're there. But having that sense . . . it makes me soft. Soft like an M & M. Crunchy on the outside with a softy candy inside. Not much breaks that shell, but . . ."

  "When it breaks," Adams said.

  "Yep," Mike said, standing up and heading to the door. "One difference. When it breaks, then reforms, well, there's a good side and a bad side. Good side is, there ain't much crybaby there, now. Bad side . . . there ain't much of anything at all."

  Lieutenant Britney Harder watched, fascinated, as the Lynx helo dropped towards the broad deck of the yacht.

  The entire transfer had been interesting. First she'd received a call to report to the SOCOM commander. Not his office, the general. There she'd been handed tickets and told to wear civilian clothes. She was going to Nassau and that was all the general either knew or was going to tell her.

  At first she'd been pissed. There was a major op going down right next door in Miami. She'd only caught pieces of it, it wasn't in her compartment, but it was big. Sooner or later she was going to get in. And she knew the op involved fucking muj. Britney seriously wanted a piece of anything that hurt Islamic terrorists. She had scores to settle.

  But she hadn't been drawn in and, honestly, she probably wouldn't be. She'd drawn the South American shop, the Narc Shop as they put it. There was a low probability that she'd have a chance to do anything about the fucking muj. So flying to the Bahamas wasn't all bad.

  When she'd arrived at the airport, though, she hadn't known where to go. When a man walked up and looked her up and down she'd assumed he was just more obvious than normal.

  Br
itney Harder was 5'5" tall with long, curly, blonde hair, a deeply cleft chin and a gorgeous if underendowed figure. She also had an issue with guys just examining her at close range. She'd gotten over having issues with guys, period, but she still didn't care for jerks who couldn't keep their eyes in their heads.

  "Can I help you?" she'd snapped.

  "Lieutenant Harder?" the man had said. Accent. Balkans or Russian. Slavic derivation, anyway.