Sabotage: A Reece Culver Thriller - Book 2

by Bryan Koepke

  “You know my name,” he said, liking the way it rolled off her lips. They were lips he’d begun staring at more and more. Succulent lips—all plump and pink, the kind he’d dreamed more than once during the last couple of days of kissing. It had been way, way too long since Julian had been with Mira, and now thanks to Alex she was gone. Taken away from him and put on some other ridiculous mission.

  “I heard Alex call you that. You know, he hates you. It’s only a matter of time before he slits your throat while you sleep,” she said, scowling.

  “Yeah, and the day after he slits my throat he’ll tie you spread eagle to the bed downstairs and rape you until you wish you were dead.”

  “That incompetent asshole? He’ll die trying,” she said, sounding tougher now than he’d ever heard. Julian knew she had seen the smoke too. There wasn’t any way she could avoid it. Each wave they bounced over took them closer to the burning wreckage and to her realization that the man or men who’d come to rescue her were dead or dying as their airplane burned

  It would be a lousy way to go, Julian thought. If they were lucky, the crash had knocked them unconscious.

  “It’s hard to love a dead man.”

  Chapter 82

  Reece felt all forward motion cease. His eyes were closed and he was floating in a dreamlike state. Something felt heavy against his back and his forehead felt cold. It was like he was in a cocoon being held by something bigger than himself. It was a good place to be, where everything was just right. An errant thought surfaced but was too troubling to give in to. He was warm and sleepy. Where he was, everything was good.

  The strong smell of gasoline grew slowly and he thought about the campfire he and the others had shared back at his cabin in Colorado. He missed Marie. She’d feel good right about now in his arms— her soft skin and tender way.

  “Gas! There’s gas in here on the floor!” someone yelled. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here!”

  Reece sniffed, still dreaming about Marie, but more aware. He took another breath through his mouth. It is gas and getting stronger. He peeled open his eyes. The windshield of the airplane was there, but couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing. There were black rocks and a sandy bottom, like the bottom of a lake. Where am I? His body felt weird and something was pulling him back almost as if he was in a spiderweb. Reece brought his hand to his face and felt something wet and cold. He took the hand away so it was in front of his eyes. Blood, but whose blood?

  The bottom of the lake was pleasing to him, but the smell of gas was getting caustic and he started coughing, fighting for breath.

  Reece grabbed the latch for his seat belt, pawing to get out.

  “Fire!”

  There was a face close to his. He could smell the stale breath of a man.

  “Haisley?” Reece said. “What are you doing here?”

  Then Reece noticed that the left side of the airplane was engulfed in flame. The side of his face was hot, and he wondered how long it would be before the window a foot from his left shoulder melted from the heat.

  The seat belt latch popped open and Reece slid out of the shoulder harness, aided by gravity, and fell onto the instrument panel below him. It hurt like hell, hitting the solid surface with his knees, but that could wait. He struggled over to Haisley and with a short wind-up slapped the man, trying to wake him up again. It worried Reece to see that the older man had been alert one minute screaming fire and out cold the next.

  “What the fuck did you do that for?” Haisley said in a low, ominous voice, still holding his eyes closed. He began to choke as he tried to breath the same foul vapor-laden air Reece was choking down.

  “Let me get your seat belt loose. We need to get the hell out of here before this baby goes up in a ball of fire.”

  Reece reached across and pushed open the side door of the Aero Commander. He got Haisley out of his seat belt and shoved him out the door. Reece started to follow and then stopped. Turning back, he grabbed the rifle and bullets from the rear of the Aero Commander. In case they had guests.

  “Take this stuff and set it over there on the beach,” Reece yelled as he handed items out the door. “I think we’ve still got a few minutes.”

  The last thing he grabbed was one of the scuba tanks and a black mesh bag that held the dive fins, an air regulator, and a weight belt. He was on autopilot at this point, not knowing what he needed or why, but just throwing things out the door. They were alone, stranded on a island in the middle of the ocean. Anything he could salvage from the airplane had a possible future use.

  Haisley tried to help, but with his bullet-riddled calf he wasn’t up for the task. He instinctively waved Haisley to go up on the beach since he wasn’t sure how long they had before the airplane became fully engulfed in flame and exploded.

  Reece made repeated trips down the hundred yards of beach, bringing an arm full of items each time. On the last trip, with the scuba tank in one arm and a crate loaded with food in the other, he found his friend sitting on a downed palm trunk with a look of pain on his face. A long trail of blood seeped down Haisley’s leg from under one of the bandages. That couldn’t be helped now. He reached for his hand and yanked the older man upward. “We need to get you moved down the beach too. It’s only a matter of time before the plane explodes.”

  “What if the guys on the boat see the smoke?” Haisley said as Reece helped him walk down the beach.

  “I’m hoping they see it. I want them to come.”

  Chapter 83

  Julian turned back from the helm of the big yacht. Marie was curled up in a ball, her legs still tied to the chair beneath, but her feet pulled up so that her knees where just below her chin. Long streams of tears ran from her eyes.

  “Where the hell is Alex?” Julian said.

  In the distance he could see a small island and a telltale plume of smoke rising from the opposite side. It was thick and black, and occasionally he could see a flicker of orange flame. He’d have to be careful when they got up close. The island was in a area of uncharted water, which meant he’d have no way of knowing of any hazards in the shallow waters. When he got there, he’d go it slow, or better yet, put Alex up on the bow with a hand-held two-way radio as a lookout.

  Julian heard someone coming, and Alex came up the steps.

  “You saw it too,” Alex said.

  “Yeah,” Julian said.

  “We got those fuckers.”

  “Looks that way, but with that nine-lived guy Reece Culver, we need to make certain that we took them out.”

  “You know. They have radios in that plane. I’m sure Reece called the authorities,” Marie said.

  Alex spun around, flinging his hand toward her head. She ducked just in time.

  “What the fuck is that about?” Julian yelled.

  “I’m tired of this bitch spouting off,” Alex said, moving up alongside Julian, who was sitting in the white leather captain’s chair.

  “We’re all tired. Untie her and get her back down to the forward cabin. Make certain you tie her up well—and don’t do anything else,” Julian shouted.

  “Who the fuck put you in charge? I hired you, and don’t you forget it,” Alex said before retreating to the rear of the deck and untying the ropes.

  They were close to the island now, and soon he’d be able to see what was left of the plane. He pulled back the throttles and the big boat settled down into the water as it came off plane. The bright screen on the dash showed the small island. It was half moon shaped with a rounded section facing the west. That’s probably where they tried to land the plane.

  Chapter 84

  Reece took an inventory of the items he’d unloaded from the plane. It had taken him a half hour of scouting around to find a place that he thought might serve their needs. They were camped out on the opposite end of the island behind a pile of black rocks. The rocks faced the north and west, making a good spot to take cover. Haisley was propped up against a large palm tree, where he’d been since Reece had finished
wrapping up his wounds with strips of clothing he’d taken out of one of the suitcases. He hoped that one of the mayday calls he’d made prior to their crash landing had gotten through, but that was a long shot. The last time he’d taken a look at the wide-angle view on the airplane’s GPS, it looked like they were still hundreds of miles east of Jamaica.

  An assassin was coming for them in a yacht and Reece still wasn’t sure facing off against him and Alex James was wise, but it might be his only option to get off this island.

  He looked down at the two weapons, a .22 caliber semi automatic rifle with a thousand rounds of ammunition, and the .357 magnum that he always brought along. The .22 would be the gun to use. With any luck he could get a head shot on the assassin.

  Reece didn’t like the idea of killing anyone, but taking this guy out would be justified. All he had to do was think of how Joseph Woodbine and Huston Briggs met their ends in that huge fireball of an explosion.

  “You hear that?” Haisley said, coming to life and pointing into the dense palm trees.

  “Sounds like a big boat,” Reece said. “It’s probably them.”

  “You got a plan?” Haisley said.

  “I do, but I have to finish providing us some shelter.”

  Reece hurried into the dense overgrowth near where he’d stacked the supplies from the airplane. In the distance he could hear a series of small explosions as flames over took the airplane, and he was glad he’d managed to get Haisley a good distance away from the crash site.

  The interior of the palm tree–covered island was cool. In his bare feet he was on the lookout for anything nasty that might make for an unpleasant step. He spotted a pile of old palm tree logs most likely taken down during some previous tropical storm. Reece latched onto the biggest one with both hands and gave it a tug. It was heavy, but came willingly as he pulled it over the sand covered rocks beneath his feet. The sound of the approaching boat was closer now.

  The log he was carrying got wedged on something, and as he urged it forward, it stopped dead and his arms slid along the rough bark. He walked back toward the sheared-off trunk and saw that it was stuck between two trees. Reece walked his end to the right a few paces and pulled, freeing the mighty timber. He thought about the fort he was planning to build, knowing that there’d be bullets flying their way sooner than later.

  He wanted to take out the two bad guys, but Marie was on that yacht and the last thing he wanted was to risk hitting her. Reece walked the log toward the base, wrapping his arms around the twelve-inch thick trunk, then dumped it where he’d put Haisley. He worked the log into place in front of the pile of black rocks and then moved one end up on top followed by the other.

  The big log made the perfect top joist for what was going to soon provide them shelter. They’d be able to stick the rifle of the .22 semi auto out from one of the holes between the top of the rocks while keeping their heads down and out of sight. A brisk wind blew, rattling the palm fronds, and then subsided. In the distance Reece heard the yacht and ran fast to take cover behind the rocks. At this point he needed every spare second to get ready. He thought about the rocks he’d flown over in the tiny bay when they’d crash-landed and knew they’d have to anchor the big boat offshore. That was good. The last thing he wanted was to have to play cat and mouse with a hired assassin on this tiny island.

  Chapter 85

  Julian spotted the remnants of the downed airplane at one end of the small beach as they passed the island on their port side. It had nosed over on impact just shy of the beach, and the left wing was pointing upward at a forty-five-degree angle. Smoke was pouring out of one of the engines and it looked abandoned, but he couldn’t be sure. Much of the airplane was scorched black, looking like it had been on fire for a long time.

  “Alex, do what I told you. Get those crates out onto the stern and stack them end-to-end in a line off the port side,” Julian said.

  “Yes sir, skipper,” Alex said, flipping him the bird.

  The engines idled and Julian let the momentum bring the rear end of the boat around so that they paralleled the small island. He wanted to drop anchor as close in as possible, but out from the line of dark coral he saw about fifty feet from the wreckage. From the top of the fly bridge, thirty feet above the water’s surface, he could see all the way down into the water, and with his polarized glasses he could make out the hazards on the bottom.

  Julian nudged the left engine forward, then quickly out of gear, bringing the bow around to the left. He pressed the button dropping the forward anchor, and waited for the boat to stabilize, remembering what he’d been taught about the anchor dropping fast. He guessed they were in no more than twenty feet of water. He eased the throttles backward, taking up the slack against the front anchor before pressing the rear anchor button. With the engines at idle, he waited for the yacht to settle and stared toward the palm tree peninsula. He knew on some level that Reece Culver was probably still alive lurking from behind one of those palm trees. This guy was a worthy opponent.

  What remained of the airplane was on the right end of the half-mile-long beach. Several outcroppings of black volcanic rock would make for a good hiding place. Julian reached for the cubbyhole in the bottom of the dash and removed his favorite military-issue binoculars before he reached over killing the engines. It was quiet except for the sloshing of water against the side of the big boat and the sound of Alex grunting two decks below as he fashioned a shooting platform for Julian.

  With the glasses to his eyes Julian focused on the airplane, then scanned for footprints on the beach. There were none. That Culver must have used a palm frond to wipe away any trace of them. If they’d left the plane, they were probably in the palms.

  Julian left his chair and went down to the deck below. Alex had done as told and lined up three of the big crates containing an assortment of fruits and vegetables they’d stocked up on earlier. The tops of the crates were a foot below the edge of the boat.

  He went into his cabin on the port side and grabbed the black plastic case where he’d stowed the Dragunov SVD, his prized sniper rifle.

  He listened to the quiet and heard the sound of someone crying. It wasn’t loud, more like sobbing with an occasional sniff. It was Marie. The forward cabin had windows just a couple of feet off the water line on each side of the bow. She’d seen the wreckage. Good.

  Chapter 86

  Reece crouched behind his homemade fort and watched the large yacht. It was parked bow to stern facing south. In the distance the sun was dropping toward the horizon, and he figured they had an hour or two of daylight at most. That was a good thing.

  Someone who looked an awful lot like Alex James was in the stern doing something. Another man, more formidable, with a bald head and a heavily muscled physique was standing nearby. Reece gritted his teeth as he stared at the man that had taken out his mountain cabin and almost cost him his life. I don’t know how, but you’re going to die.

  With the binoculars pressed to his eyes Reece peered out of a hole in the rock wall that separated he and Haisley from the bullets he knew would surely come. The assassin was lying down now on top of something. It wasn’t a table, but something like it. The man’s chin was propped against a rifle stock. The gun looked military issue with a cutout in the side of the rear stock.

  He was aiming toward the Aero Commander.

  “Pow, pow, pow!” three shots echoed in the distance.

  The assassin was shooting at the still smoldering wreckage of the airplane. Haisley, who was on his knees to the left of Reece, ducked cowering down into the sand.

  “He’s shooting at the plane,” Reece said, keeping his head down. “He doesn’t know where we are. Keep your head down and it’ll stay that way.”

  Reece had equipped his .22 semi automatic rifle with the scope. He knew he’d only have one chance to hit the guy, who was firing so expertly. Back home, prior to when he’d gone hunting in the Colorado mountains, he’d used a bore sighting tool, sand bags, and his weapon of choice i
n a shooting range. That wasn’t happening today.

  Earlier, he’d chosen one of the smaller palm logs on which to set the rifle. He aimed the barrel through a 4x4 inch hole at the top of the rocks. Closing his left eye, he pressed against the rifle scope with his right eye and saw the side of the Brilliant Blue. He thought about Marie, hidden somewhere within that big boat. One shot, and I’ll take out the threat.

  It was like being back on the rifle range at Aviano Air Base when he was in the Air Force. The Security Police trained regularly with guns to keep sharp in case the base was attacked. Something he thought would never happen, especially in Italy. Reece pushed the rear stock of the rifle to the left, pivoting the barrel to the right until it was aimed toward the assassin.

  “Haisley, use the binoculars. Stay down, but see if you can spot Alex James. Look for Marie too. Maybe you can see her in one of those port windows up front,” Reece said.

  He aimed the rifle toward the man in the stern.

  “Pow!” roared a shot toward the wreckage of their airplane.

  “I got him spotted,” Haisley said. “Oh, fuck. He’s got a pair of binoculars and he’s looking right at us.”

  Chapter 87

  “Julian, I see them,” Alex yelled from the fly bridge.

  “Yeah, where?”

  “To the north behind those rocks,” Alex cried as he ran down the stairs to the mid deck.

  “Keep your head down.”

  “Crack!” A shot rang out and struck the yacht a few inches in front of Julian, splintering the white fiberglass. He instinctively rolled to the right off the crates and landed facedown on the deck three feet below. The impact made his eyes water. The barrel of his weapon had collided with his forehead.

  “Motherfucker,” he said in a hushed voice. Julian rolled right, lying on his back and set the gun to his left as he brought his hand to his forehead. A bump quickly formed and the pain surfaced for the first time, rising beyond the adrenaline coursing though his veins. He was out of his element. Trying to shoot people on a godforsaken island from the back of a boat.