The Hunters

by Chris Kuzneski

  Cobb smiled. ‘You can tell me about that later. For now, let’s worry about getting out of here.’ He changed his focus to his earpiece. ‘McNutt, how we looking?’

  ‘Good enough for a threesome.’

  ‘Focus!’ Cobb demanded. ‘Are we clear?’

  ‘Not really,’ McNutt answered, ‘but the situation isn’t going to get better anytime soon. You should move now before it’s too late.’

  Cobb nodded at Sarah, who looked like a swimsuit model in her bra and panties. She reluctantly stuffed her catsuit in a trash barrel as they made their way onto the beach. Cobb put his arm around her shoulder to complete the look of two lovers headed for a late-night swim, but the only thing bulging in his shorts was a concealed pistol.

  * * *

  Koontz called for backup from the van while Callahan started his search for the two intruders. He knew he was taking a big risk by putting himself in the line of fire while his partner stayed behind, but Callahan saw this was a special opportunity. If they could prove through eyewitness testimony that Kozlov’s vault was filled with stolen art, then they could get the warrants they needed to search the mansion.

  In Callahan’s mind, that would be a career changer.

  No more vans. No more stakeouts. No more bullshit.

  He would finally get the respect he deserved.

  Oh, and Koontz might benefit, too.

  Callahan, who had several years of tactical experience and was an expert on Kozlov’s local infrastructure, realized only the dumbest thieves in the world would try to escape through the streets of Little Odessa where thousands of interlopers would be willing to help Kozlov. On the other hand, a smart criminal would head toward the beach where they could use the darkened waters of the Atlantic to slip away unnoticed.

  Running as fast as he could, Callahan dashed between Kozlov’s mansion and his neighboring guardhouse, hoping to spot the intruders before they reached the water. He had no idea who he was looking for, but he hoped someone would stand out.

  Unfortunately, that someone turned out to be him.

  9

  During combat situations, it is quite common for inexperienced personnel to make astoundingly stupid mistakes. Whether it’s the rush of adrenalin, the fear of death, or a combination of the two, new recruits have been known to do the dumbest things - the kind of errors that lead to casualties and bloodshed.

  It has been that way since the dawn of time.

  When Kozlov first sounded the alarm, word quickly spread through the ranks that two intruders had been spotted: one dressed in black, the other dressed in a suit. Eventually, other details emerged. The second suspect was a middle-aged white guy. Average build. Average height. And armed with a semi-automatic. Caution should be used when taking him out because the Feds were snooping around.

  Somehow that message was garbled along the way. Maybe it was lost in translation. Or maybe it was something else. Whatever the reason, the four guards on beach patrol heard the following: Use caution when taking out the Fed.

  He is the middle-aged white guy dressed in a black suit.

  Unfortunately for Callahan, that described him perfectly.

  He hoped to find the intruders on the beach, but quickly found himself in the crosshairs of half the Russian Army, who chased him with guns blazing.

  One moment he was the hunter.

  The next he was the prey.

  * * *

  Cobb and Sarah flinched when they heard the gunshots. They quickly realized that they weren’t the targets - but one of the FBI agents was.

  ‘Shit,’ they said in unison.

  In their former lives, both had served their country with pride. Cobb was an ex-soldier, and Sarah had worked for the CIA. At one time or another, each of them had benefited from outside assistance, so neither was willing to leave the agent in his time of need, even if it meant hindering their own escape.

  ‘McNutt,’ Cobb said to his sniper.

  ‘Already on it,’ McNutt assured him.

  Agent Callahan had no idea what he had stumbled into.

  Fortunately for him, McNutt had his back.

  He fired four times in rapid succession. The first three ripped through his targets’ knees, instantly dropping them to the ground. The fourth hit a guard in his ass cheek simply because McNutt was tired of shooting them in their knees. From this distance - with this rifle and this scope - he could have shot off a nipple if he had wanted to.

  Callahan seized the opportunity to hide, diving behind a red canoe that was upside down in the sand. He didn’t know who had shot the guards or why they were willing to rescue him, but he said a short prayer of thanks while keeping his head low.

  * * *

  The guards on the street heard the gunshots on the beach. A moment later, they heard the wails of men who had never taken a bullet.

  The sound was unmistakable.

  Like injured coyotes calling to their pack, the screams of the injured men were an announcement to the entire community. Their message was loud and clear: Everyone, come quick! They’re right here! Just follow the sound of my voice!

  The gunmen came in astonishing numbers.

  Cobb drew his pistol and turned toward Kozlov’s mansion. He couldn’t see them yet, but he knew the Russians were coming. They weren’t the most highly trained guards, but they were headstrong and dedicated to their cause. And there were dozens of them. He and Sarah crouched low, waiting for the inevitable firefight.

  ‘Get moving!’ McNutt demanded. ‘Get to the water behind me! You’ll be okay once your feet hit the surf.’

  Cobb argued. ‘We’ll never make it if we don’t slow them down. Without a show of force, they’ll—’

  ‘Just get to the water!’ McNutt shouted. ‘Let me worry about the show of force. You guys just turn and run.’

  Neither Cobb nor Sarah moved.

  McNutt kept shouting. ‘Do it now, or I’ll shoot you myself!’

  With that, Cobb and Sarah sprinted toward the water.

  As gunmen emerged on the beach, McNutt picked them off, one by one. Eventually they slowed down and hunkered behind garbage cans, sand dunes, and whatever else they could find to offer them protection from the hail of bullets.

  But the break was only momentary.

  They quickly realized they severely outnumbered the intruders, so they spread their troops out wide. McNutt tried to keep pace - sweeping his rifle from left to right and back again - but he couldn’t compete with the sheer numbers. It seemed that every man he shot was instantly replaced by another, who was equally willing to take a bullet. McNutt was happy to oblige, but his single-shot rifle limited his effectiveness.

  ‘Screw this,’ McNutt said. ‘I’m going to plan C.’

  Cobb glanced at Sarah. ‘Plan C? What’s plan C?’

  ‘No idea,’ she admitted.

  ‘Me, neither,’ Garcia said in their ears.

  McNutt pulled a flat controller from the pocket of his cargo shorts. It looked as if he had installed two rows of light switches in a small cigar box. ‘Plan B stands for beach bum. That plan ain’t working, so I’m moving to plan C.’

  ‘I say again,’ Cobb yelled as they ran past McNutt’s position, ‘what the hell is plan C?’

  McNutt smiled. ‘C stands for cars.’

  The sniper put his forearm against the first row of switches and flipped them all at once. A split second later, ten cars exploded in the neighborhood. Some of them had been parked near Kozlov’s mansion. Others had been parked on surrounding streets. All of them were now little more than twisted piles of burning fuel and melting metal.

  McNutt grinned like a mischievous kid.

  * * *

  One of the targeted cars was parked less than a hundred feet from the surveillance van. The explosion was so powerful it shattered the van’s bulletproof windows and knocked the surveillance feeds off the air.

  Koontz, who was calling for backup at the time of the blast, was thrown violently to the floor. He quickly scrambled for cover
in the corner of the van.

  ‘They’ve got missiles!’ he shouted into the phone. ‘The Russians have missiles! Someone call the President! We’re being invaded!’

  * * *

  Crouching in knee-deep water, Sarah could see flames shooting higher than the roofs that lined the beach. ‘Holy shit! What the hell was that?’

  ‘That,’ McNutt laughed, ‘was plan C.’

  Kozlov’s forces, once unified in their assault, were now thoroughly confused. Most of the gunmen retreated to the house. They knew protecting their boss was their first priority, and whatever this was - whether a diversionary tactic or the start of World War III - could be dealt with after they were sure that Kozlov was safe.

  However, a few hard-core assailants held firm in their pursuit of McNutt. He watched in amazement as they fired aimlessly toward him.

  ‘Persistent pricks,’ McNutt said under his breath before turning his attention to Cobb and Sarah. ‘You guys alright?’

  Cobb answered. ‘We’re fine. What about you?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I have one more surprise for these bastards.’

  ‘Do I want to know?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  Cobb glanced out into the water where two single-rider jet skis were anchored in the surf. He and Sarah would use them to flee the scene.

  ‘You’re sure you’re okay?’

  ‘I’m better than okay,’ McNutt bragged. Then, as if to prove a point, he fired one more shot at the guards. In the distance, one of them squealed in pain.

  Cobb nodded. ‘Nice shooting. See you soon.’

  ‘You got it, chief.’

  Whistling to himself, McNutt dismantled his rifle while Cobb and Sarah swam toward their jet skis. Once they were out of range, McNutt flipped the second row of switches on his controller. In a flash, a wall of flames rose from the sand. It stretched the entire length of the beach - Cobb, Sarah, McNutt, and Callahan on one side, the fleeing mob on the other. It was as if the coast had been hit with a strafing run of napalm. In reality, it was all the devices he had planted while he was pretending to look for treasure.

  McNutt cackled with glee as he jumped from the roof of the lifeguard shack. He jogged over to a nearby fence where he uncovered the motorcycle he had stored there hours before. He stowed his rifle in the saddlebags then climbed aboard his bike as if mounting a horse. He even patted its side while making horsy sounds.

  To complete his charade, McNutt tipped an imaginary cowboy hat toward Callahan, who was still trying to figure out why the mysterious stranger had saved his life. Then, before the Fed could see his face or try to question him, McNutt revved his bike’s accelerator and roared up the beach into the darkness.

  10

  Friday, August 24

  Fort Lauderdale, Florida

  The early-morning sun streamed into Terminal 1 at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The overworked air conditioner tried to compete, but it was fighting a losing battle. During the summer months, the local weather forecast rarely changed: temperature in the mid-nineties with a chance of afternoon thunderstorms. And when it did change, it was only because a hurricane was passing through.

  Needless to say, Cobb wasn’t thrilled about the locale.

  He had spent enough time in Iraq to be an expert on stifling heat, but there was something about the shirt-drenching humidity of Florida that really pissed him off. He was dressed comfortably - black T-shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers - yet he could already feel his clothes sticking to him as he strolled up the walkway.

  Of course, Cobb had no one to blame but himself. If he had used the first-class ticket that had been bought for him, his flight from LaGuardia wouldn’t have landed until later that afternoon. But due to his careful nature, he decided to fly in several hours early under an assumed name. And he wouldn’t be traveling from New York.

  This was his first chance to meet the man who had assembled the team for the job in Brighton Beach. Having passed that test with flying colors, Cobb had been summoned for a meeting with his new employer. Perhaps to discuss another job.

  Cobb planned to control the terms as much as possible.

  In the military, this kind of advance jaunt was known as a ‘rekky’ or ‘recce’, short for reconnaissance. As time went on, a rekky came to mean any preceding trip to scope out the locals, but originally it meant surveying a region to obtain information specifically regarding enemy troops.

  With that in mind, Cobb had used money from his personal stash to purchase the redeye ticket from Las Vegas, where he had been decompressing for the past few days. He spent the majority of the flight learning as much as he could about the airport and region from the mini-computer that was still laughably called a cell phone.

  Within minutes of takeoff, Cobb knew he’d be landing in Broward County, three miles southwest of Fort Lauderdale’s central business district and twenty-one miles north of Miami. Although his arrival in Florida would be well concealed - the airport was ranked the twenty-second busiest in the US and one of the fifty busiest airports in the world - he knew he had a full day of work ahead of him.

  Why couldn’t it have been Sarasota instead?

  If it had been, he could have checked out the much smaller airport in ten minutes and would have had plenty of time to grab a newspaper at Circle Books and an early lunch in Saint Armand’s Circle before his original flight had even landed. But here in Fort Lauderdale, he’d have to cover four terminals, six concourses, and fifty-seven gates. He’d even have to ‘look for a friend’ in three private airline clubs. Not bad for a place that was originally built on an abandoned nine-hole golf course.

  While deplaning, Cobb didn’t race ahead with all of the others. Instead, he stepped out of the crush of passengers and took a moment to get his bearings.

  ‘May I help you?’ someone said.

  Cobb wasn’t surprised by the question, but he was pleasantly surprised by the woman asking it. He turned to see an attractive ground attendant standing beside him at the line where the gate becomes the concourse. In the earliest morning light, her red hair was lustrous, and her green eyes sparkled. She looked professional but sexy in the blue skirt-suit and starched white shirt of the airline uniform.

  He read her nametag. It said TIFFANY.

  ‘I’m okay. Just trying to get my land legs.’

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘what brings you to Florida?’

  ‘Work,’ he answered. ‘Were you on this flight?’

  She nodded. ‘I worked the first-class cabin. I saw you through the curtain. You were the only one not sleeping.’

  ‘Who can sleep when he has three flight attendants all to himself?’

  ‘Three? There were only two in the rear cabin.’

  Cobb shrugged. ‘Math was never my strong suit.’

  In reality, his math skills were fine. He was simply testing her. He hadn’t noticed her on the flight, and he wanted to make sure that she had actually been on it.

  She laughed and handed him a business card with her cell phone number written on it. ‘Well, I’m stuck in town until tonight. If you’re bored or need some help with your land legs, just give me a call. Maybe I can show you a thing or two.’

  He took the card with a suspicious smile. It could be the layover loneliness that he knew all too well. Or it could be that his new employer had anticipated Cobb’s rekky and had sent Tiffany to meet him at the gate. Although it wasn’t likely, it was possible.

  Mercenaries survived by considering everything.

  ‘Thanks, Tiffany. Maybe I’ll give you a shout.’

  ‘Great,’ she said. ‘I hope you do.’

  Cobb moved away, cursing his luck. It would have been nice to get to know her better. On any other day, at any other time, he would have. But due to his circumstances, he had other things to worry about, including miles of reconnaissance before he circled back to the gate where he was ‘supposed’ to land that afternoon.

  In the next six hours, he had to eyeball all of
the escape routes and avenues of attack at that terminal. He wanted to watch the limos as they arrived out front. He wanted to look for men or women who might be watching his gate.

  His phone was programmed with facial recognition software that was linked to a database of domestic and foreign reps who hired American talent. To improve his odds of survival, it would help to know who hired him before he actually met the man.

  * * *

  Cobb was a shade over six feet tall. His hair was short and a lighter shade of brown, almost reddish in color. His handsome face was somewhere between triangular and oval. For some reason, people always told him that he looked like a racecar driver. He didn’t know what that meant, but he was assured it was a compliment.

  Of his features, what stood out the most were his eyes.

  They were gun-gray and piercing.

  They were so distinct that he was forced to wear colored contact lenses on missions for fear of recognition. In Brooklyn, they had been blue. Today, they were hazel. Just to be safe, he wore aviator sunglasses to hide his eyes completely.

  Cobb did a full circuit and saw nothing suspicious. So he planted himself on the periphery of Terminal 3, Concourse E to scope out the disembarking American Airlines passengers. No one there looked familiar or set off any mental alarms. If he was supposed to be seated next to a particular first-class passenger, no one caught his attention.

  Furthermore, he didn’t see Tiffany anywhere. He had been watching for her legs - since her red hair could have been a wig and the uniform could have been discarded - and listening for her voice. But she was nowhere to be found.

  Eventually, he trailed the passengers from ‘his’ plane to the baggage claim area. He stayed against the back wall, his eyes constantly moving as he tried to watch everyone. When the luggage conveyer clanked to life, he shifted his gaze toward the approaching travelers and spotted one person of interest. Not because he recognized her - he didn’t at first - but because she was staring at him.