by John J. Rust
“Worn out? I’ll have you know endurance was a big part of being an Army Ranger. We’re conditioned to keep going even past the point of exhaustion.”
A huge grin formed on Karen’s face. “Lucky me.”
Rastun rolled her on her back. Their kissing grew fiercer. His lips moved along her shoulder, her neck, then to her breasts. Karen moaned in delight.
His cell phone rang again.
“Don’t answer it,” Karen pleaded.
“Sorry. It might be important.”
Karen let out a frustrated groan. “Damn soldiers and your ‘duty calls’ bullshit.”
Rastun kissed her cheek and picked up the phone. A jolt of surprise went through him when he saw the name on the display.
WENDELL H.
“What the hell?” He glanced at Karen, who traced a finger along his chest, then looked back at the phone.
This better be good.
He put the phone to his ear. “Geek?”
“A cheery good morning to you, Cap’n,” said Wendell “Geek” Hewitt.
“What the hell are you doing calling at seven in the morning?”
“What, no, ‘Good to hear from you, Sergeant?’ No, ‘Geek, what a pleasant surprise?’ No, ‘I’m glad you’re coming here to help us with the Point Pleasant Monster?’”
“What?” Rastun sat up straighter in bed.
“Colonel Lipeli called my boss at Aster Technologies last night, asked if we had any equipment that can take down a big, nasty, pissed-off sea monster. And, of course, we do. So they sent me up here with some pretty kick ass stuff.”
“Nice to know you still have my back.”
“I always will, Cap’n.”
“So where are you at now?”
“The Point Pleasant Marina,” Geek answered. “Just pulled in about five minutes ago. I had to do an all-nighter to pack and drive up here. So when can you get down here?”
Karen slid on top of him. She pressed her breasts against his chest and kissed his shoulder.
“In a little while.”
***
After another go-around in bed, Rastun and Karen showered, changed and headed to the lobby to check out.
“So who exactly is this Geek?” asked Karen.
“He was my senior NCO in the Rangers. Damn good man to have around when the you-know-what hits the fan.”
“Why do you call him Geek?”
Rastun gave her a sly grin. “You’ll see.”
After checking out, they got in Rastun’s car and drove to the marina. He saw a black Escalade SUV parked at the far corner of the parking lot. Next to it stood large, muscular man with close-cropped dark hair and black horn-rimmed glasses.
“That’s the Geek?” Karen leaned forward, mouth open in surprise.
“Yup.”
“I didn’t expect him to be so big.”
“Yeah, he’s got some size on him.”
“‘Some size?’” Karen turned to him with an incredulous look. “He’s built like a tank.”
Rastun parked next to the Escalade and got out. Geek stared at him, grinning, his large arms folded across his chest, arms that made Rastun’s look like spaghetti strands.
“Great to see you again, Geek.”
“Likewise, Cap’n.” They clasped hands and slapped one another on the back, Geek’s blow nearly knocking the wind out of Rastun.
“Look at you.” Geek shook his head. “You’re a civilian now and you still find ways to almost get yourself killed.”
“It wasn’t intentional, believe me. And this still beats being a rent-a-cop at a zoo.”
“Ha! If you really were just a rent-a-cop, you’d be getting crapped out a sea monster’s ass right now.”
“I could be getting crapped out a sea monster’s ass right now regardless of what I am,” said Rastun. “That was a damn close call we had last night.”
“Well, don’t worry. I brought some stuff to even the odds.” Geek looked to Karen. “New friend?”
“This is our expedition’s photographer, Karen Thatcher. Karen, this is former Sergeant First Class Wendell Hewitt, better known as the Geek.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said.
“Likewise, ma’am.” Geek shook her hand.
“Please, just Karen.”
“You got it.”
“So, what do you have for us?” asked Rastun.
“Let me show you.”
They gathered at the rear of the Escalade.
“Sweet ride, by the way,” said Rastun.
“Thanks, but it’s not mine, unfortunately. It belongs to Aster Technologies. It’s got some pretty cool bells and whistles. Nav system, real-time weather report, Bluetooth connection, GPS tracker, Kevlar lining in the doors, bullet-resistant glass.”
“Those last couple of things sound excessive,” said Karen.
“Not when you consider the kind of equipment Aster has.”
“What exactly does your company do?”
“Aster Technologies produces weapons and gear for soldiers and law enforcement personnel,” answered Geek. “I went to work for them as a field tester when I left the Army.”
He opened the rear hatch. Several dark cases filled the cargo hold. Geek pulled one out, set it on the ground and opened it.
“Whoa.” Rastun's eyes widened.
“Oh my God.” Karen gaped at the weapon in the case. “What the hell is that?”
“A USAS-12 semi-automatic shotgun.” Geek pointed his hand at the weapon, which resembled a bulked up M-16 rifle with a bigger barrel and longer clip. “One of the most kick-ass shotguns in the world.”
“You are the man.” Rastun slapped Geek on the back.
“Colonel Lipeli said you needed more firepower. I’d say this qualifies, especially with the ammo I brought. Aster gave me a ton of their sabot rounds.”
“Sabot?” Karen gave Geek a puzzled look.
“It’s a special round that fires an armor-piercing dart. I’ve fired those things through brick walls. Trust me, they’ll put down your sea monster.”
“If we have to,” said Rastun. “Remember, our main goal is to capture the Point Pleasant Monster alive.”
“I know, and I came prepared for that. I brought a bunch of flash-bang grenades to distract it or stun it, and we’ve got this.”
Geek retrieved another case and opened it.
“Behold. The Aster Model Seven dart launcher.”
Rastun examined the weapon. It had a suppressor on its thin barrel with a foregrip and a four-round cylinder. “Nice.”
"We designed it as a silent kill system for the special ops boys to take out enemy sentries. It’s got a built-in laser sight, too. Let me show you the darts.”
Geek removed a small metal box from the cargo area and opened it. It contained small glass cases with ten needles each. Eight had blue feathery tails. The other two had red tails.
“What’s the deal with the colors?”
“Very important you pay attention here.” Geek held out one of the cases. “The ones with blue tails are your standard tranq darts. The red ones you want to be very, very careful with. That silent kill system I was telling you about, this is what puts the ‘kill’ in it. Each dart is full of a toxin derived from a Golden Poison Frog."
“Oh my God.” Karen's jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”
“Holy shit, Geek. They’re one of deadliest animals on the planet. One drop of their toxin can kill a man like that.” Rastun snapped his fingers.
“Believe me, I know. I got lectured out the wazoo on these darts.”
“You did bring the antidote with you?” asked Karen.
“You bet. Standard procedure. But unless you have someone standing next to you with the injector right over your arm, you're pretty much fu—” Geek paused and stared at Karen. “Screwed. But we had to have something that works instantly. The special ops boys can't afford to have a sentry linger long.”
Rastun stared at the dart. “I’d say we’re much better prepared for round
two with the Point Pleasant Monster.” He turned to Geek. “Thanks, Geek. You stickin’ around?”
“Oh yeah. Aster considers this a field test, and they need a representative on hand to monitor it, so I’m here for the duration.”
“Well then, welcome to the wonderful world of monster hunting.”
FIFTEEN
“I think this is exactly what we’re looking for,” Piet said as he looked at the stubby boat bobbing in the water. He turned to the portly, balding man next to him on the pier. “You said you restored this yourself?”
“Yes I did,” replied Alan Murphy, a retired real estate broker and boat enthusiast. “It pretty much got trashed during Hurricane Sandy. It was due to be retired anyway, so the government put it up for auction. I got it for a bargain.”
Piet nodded and jumped onto the boat. He walked around the compact island, then to the stern. “How are the engines?” he asked, making a conscious effort to hide his accent.
“Brand new. They’re even better than the originals. I can get a max speed of twenty-eight knots.”
Piet stared from stern to bow. “This boat looks to be in good shape. But I’d like to take it out for a test before I make my final decision.”
“No problem,” said Murphy. “Let’s go.”
Murphy stepped onboard, as did a tall blond man with a firm body. Olef, a member of Piet’s mercenary team.
Not that Murphy had any idea they were mercenaries.
Murphy untied the boat from the pier and started the engine. He piloted it out to the middle of Long Island’s Great South Bay before letting Piet take the wheel. The boat plowed through the waves at a steady speed. Piet cut the wheel left and right, testing the maneuverability.
He steered the boat back to the pier. Murphy tied it up and turned back to him. “Handles well, doesn’t she?”
“She does.”
“Then I think you found a boat for your movie. So how about we talk price? I’m thinking an even hundred thousand.”
“That might be a little much for my producer. How about seventy thousand?”
Piet and Murphy haggled for another minute or so until they settled on a price of $88,000. After they shook on it, Piet took out his smart phone and began an electronic deposit from one of Gunderson’s shell companies into Murphy’s account.
“So what’s this movie about again?” asked Murphy.
“It’s about a group of treasure hunters.”
“Anyone famous in it?”
“We’re still in the middle of casting. We haven’t hired anyone yet.” Piet looked up from his phone. “All right. The money should be in your account now.”
Murphy took out his phone, tapped the screen a few times and nodded. “Eighty-eight thousand, all there.” He gave Piet the keys. “All yours. Pleasure doing business with you. Good luck with your movie.”
“The pleasure was mine, Mister Murphy. Thank you.”
With a parting smile, Murphy walked back to his house.
“We should kill him,” said Olef.
“That is unnecessary,” Piet told him.
“When did you become squeamish about killing?”
“It has nothing to do with being squeamish. Killing Murphy would not be practical.”
“Since when did you become practical about killing?”
Piet grinned. “Alan Murphy has friends and family. If we kill him and dump his body, they will call the police, who will investigate. We risk exposure if that happens. But if he is alive, he enjoys his money, thinks he really did sell this boat to some Hollywood people and no one is suspicious of us.”
He slapped Olef on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. When the time comes, we’ll do our fair share of killing.”
“I certainly hope so.”
Olef went back to the car while Piet got into the boat. He started it up and headed south toward New Jersey.
It was late afternoon when he reached the docks in Barnegat Township. Heinrich and Doern, the other two mercenaries in his team, waited for him on one of the ramps with a pick-up truck and boat trailer. Once the boat was secured to the trailer, Heinrich slowly walked around it.
“This is the boat you wanted, isn’t it?” Piet asked the Austrian.
“What? Oh yes.” Heinrich gazed at it with an appraising eye. “Yes, this is indeed a forty-one foot utility boat.”
“You doubted I’d be able to get it?”
“Nein. I didn’t doubt you, just the seller’s website. You know as well as I do you can’t trust everything on the internet.”
“Too true,” said Piet.
“He painted it gray, though. No matter. We have plenty of white and orange paint to turn it back into a Coast Guard vessel.”
“And the uniforms?”
“The first two sets should arrive at our P.O. box tomorrow,” Heinrich answered. “They’re the older blue working uniforms, not the current ones.”
“No matter. To most civilians, one Coast Guard uniform is the same as another. They won’t be able to tell the difference.”
“A real American Coast Guardsman would.”
“If they stop us,” said Piet. “Which I doubt they will. That’s the reason you wanted this particular boat, isn’t it? Authenticity?”
After his research on the U.S. Coast Guard, Heinrich had been insistent they get this boat from Alan Murphy. The 41-foot utility boat was being phased out, but enough remained in service that it wouldn’t raise suspicion from any actual Coast Guard crews they encountered.
Most importantly, it would allow Piet and his men to get close to the FUBI expedition should they capture the Point Pleasant Monster. Then that four million dollar bonus from Gunderson would be his.
And so would that photographer bitch.
SIXTEEN
Rastun knew he should have changed the channel before he sat down to lunch.
“Is the FUBI out of its element in the ocean?” the dark-haired male anchor asked. “That’s what some along the Jersey Shore are asking after nearly two weeks of fruitless searching for the Point Pleasant Monster. Here’s CNN’s Monica Lopez with more.”
“This is gonna be good,” Rastun muttered. He stared at the TV in Bold Fortune’s salon/conference room. Just a couple of days ago the press hailed him and Karen as heroes for driving off the monster. He doubted this story would be as glowing.
“Over the past year, the FUBI’s success at finding cryptids has been confined to land,” a female voice spoke over footage of a Bigfoot lumbering through the woods. “Field expeditions have discovered several Bigfoot colonies in California and the Pacific Northwest. But the fledgling organization may have met its match when it comes to creatures that live in the water. The FUBI has conducted unsuccessful searches for alleged monsters in Lake Champlain and Chesapeake Bay. Now they are engaged in their most important search ever, to find the Point Pleasant Monster. Five deaths have been attributed to this creature, including that of Temple University football star Glenn Flynn.”
Security camera footage of the monster on the boardwalk played while Lopez talked. “Despite the Point Pleasant Monster’s recent rampage along a Jersey Shore boardwalk, the FUBI expedition led by noted cryptozoologist Doctor Randy Ehrenberg has failed to capture the beast.”
A portly, balding man with glasses appeared on screen. The graphic identified him as Point Pleasant Borough Councilman Sean McKinney.
“It makes me wonder if the FUBI knew what it was doing assigning a guy who’s spent most of his time looking for Bigfoot to lead an expedition to find a sea monster,” McKinney said. “There have to be cryptozoologists that are more qualified than Doctor Ehrenberg. Maybe if they got one of them, they would have found this monster and we wouldn’t have tourists and residents leaving the town in droves.”
The screen showed a line of vehicles creeping across the bridge spanning the Manasquan River, heading out of Point Pleasant. The next image was of a deserted boardwalk.
“While initial reports of the Point Pleasant Monster had people flocki
ng to the Jersey Shore, the boardwalk attack is now driving them off. Officials with the Point Pleasant Chamber of Commerce estimate the number of tourists has dropped by more than sixty-five percent in the last week. That’s causing concern among boardwalk merchants who make most of their money this time of year.”
A skinny man with glasses and black ponytail appeared. Dave Ward, owner of Dave’s Best Boardwalk Dogs and Fries.
“That monster was actually good for business when it just stayed in the water,” he said. “But ever since it came on land, I’m lucky if I get ten customers during lunchtime. If this keeps up, how am I gonna put food on the table for my family? How am I gonna pay my bills? Why can’t the FUBI find something that big?”
A lithe woman with a heart-shaped face and long black hair appeared, holding a microphone. Monica Lopez in the flesh, Rastun presumed.
“FUBI Director Edward Lynch has told CNN that Doctor Ehrenberg has conducted searches for aquatic cryptids in the past. He also wants to remind everyone that the search area encompasses hundreds of square miles, which means the Point Pleasant Monster has plenty of places to hide. Still, that might not be much consolation to the numerous business owners whose livelihoods depend on the tourists the monster is now chasing away.”
Rastun glared at the TV, crushing his half-eaten roast beef and cheese sandwich between his fingers.
“Well, at least they did throw us a bone at the end,” said Geek, who sat to Rastun’s right.
“Not much of one. Typical stupid reporting, just like when we were over in Iraq. Making it look like we’re screwing up every single thing, but God forbid they offer any kind of solution.”
“I don’t know about that,” Hernandez chimed in. “It seemed like their solution was for us to leave.”
“That’s not a solution,” said Rastun. “That’s quitting.”
Karen looked at the TV, then to Rastun. “Well, I’m sure they’ll change their tune when we find the monster.”
“No, they’re more likely to bitch about why it took us so long to find it.”
“C’mon, Jack. Don’t let them get to you like that.” Karen patted his hand.
