by Mark Romang
Skimming across the Atchafalaya River in a Boston Whaler at a shade under twenty knots, Creedy stood to one side of Boatswain’s Mate Marquis Dalton and scanned the Berwick-Morgan City Harbor through binoculars, searching for a catamaran trawler dubbed the Sea Maiden. The vessel was supposed to be docked in slip twelve. But he didn’t see it among any of the other boats, and this struck him as odd. Like a pickpocket at a nudist colony, a catamaran trawler should stick out like a sore thumb alongside traditional v-hulled boats.
“Sir, I think I see it,” an excited voice behind him said. The voice belonged to Petty Officer First Class Ryan Lubanski. “She’s headed south into the Intracoastal Waterway.”
Creedy looked to where Lubanski pointed. He spotted a likely vessel, and then returned the binoculars to his face. The binoculars were among the most powerful made, and he could easily read the name painted on the catamaran. “Well, I’ll be a sailor’s uncle. She’s headed back to the Gulf. Good eyes, Lubanski.” Creedy touched his coxswain’s shoulder. “You know what to do, Marquis. Go get her.”
“Coming up!” Dalton warned as he pushed the throttle, opening up the twin 175 hp Evinrude outboard motors. In no time the twenty-five-foot TPSB bounded across Berwick Bay at forty knots. They closed the distance rapidly; moving to within thirty yards of the Sea Maiden’s portside before cutting power.
Lieutenant Creedy raised a bullhorn up to his mouth. “Attention, Sea Maiden. This is the U.S. Coast Guard. Heave-to immediately and prepare to be boarded.” With bated breath, Creedy waited for the catamaran to slow. He didn’t expect it to comply. Most drug traffickers rarely drop anchor until warning shots are fired. And sure enough, just as he expected, the catamaran continued its southern tack.
“Attention, Sea Maiden. This is the U.S. Coast Guard. Heave-to immediately and prepare to be boarded.” Lieutenant Creedy repeated, only more sternly this time. But just like before, the catamaran made no effort to yield. “Okay, Lubanski, I guess they’re not listening. Fire some warning shots over her bow,” Creedy instructed his gunner’s mate.
“Roger that, sir. It’ll be my pleasure.” The petty officer moved up to the forward gun near the bow and grabbed the M2HB’s twin grips. Lubanski depressed the v-shaped trigger and fired four sets of warning shots from the .50 caliber machine gun, each set consisting of three shells. This impressive display would cause most peace loving individuals to wet their pants. But there was always an exception.
This time they were able to raise a response. The Sea Maiden cut power and slowed to an idle. The three Coastguardsmen intently watched a small man scurry out the boat’s pilothouse and frantically wave a white towel.
Creedy let out his breath. He wanted to believe he’d allowed himself to get worked up over nothing. But doubt stabbed hard at his insides. Could it really be this easy? “Okay, Marquis, move us in close so we can tie on to the catamaran.”
“Yes, sir. Nice and easy as she goes,” the bosun replied. Creedy couldn’t be happier about Dalton serving as his coxswain. Dalton’s experience at drug interdiction and his seamanship skills were second to none. But Dalton had barely moved the Boston Whaler ten yards when the man waving the white towel suddenly pulled at a nearby tarp. A mounted machine gun came into view.
With amazing swiftness, the drug smuggler turned the tables and opened up on them. Creedy couldn’t believe how fast the situation soured.
In hindsight, he should have asked Dalton to approach the Sea Maiden nose first. His small misstep in judgment exposed their entire portside to the fusillade. Luckily, inexperience and the harsh recoil of the heavy caliber machine gun hindered the drug smuggler’s accuracy. Geysers mushroomed up about ten feet in front of the Whaler’s portside.
“Get us out of here, Marquis!” Lt. Creedy bellowed.
Entering his twelfth year of reserve service with the Coast Guard, Marquis Dalton had already begun an evasive maneuver. Peeling off to the east, the Boston Whaler surged powerfully away on its new course. Unfortunately, the enemy’s aim improved dramatically. Fifty-caliber shells slammed into the Whaler’s stern, opening big holes in its fiberglass skin. Worse, more shells struck both outboard motors, disabling them. They became sitting ducks.
“Lubanski! Switch to the starboard M60 and take this guy out!” Creedy ordered, referring to the 7.62 mm machine gun mounted between the Whaler’s port and starboard sides. But the young petty officer didn’t respond to Creedy’s instruction.
“Lubanski, hop to it. Get your six to the M60, pronto!” Creedy shouted to his frozen-in-place gunner’s mate. “Lubanski!” Creedy lunged into the bow and grabbed the Polish-American’s shoulder. He started to turn the petty officer, but recoiled when he saw the left side of Lubanski’s head was missing.
There’s no time for mourning in a firefight. Staying alive is priority one.
Creedy rose up and grabbed the M60. He swung the swivel-mounted machine gun toward the shooter. Even though he and Dalton were being strafed by artillery fire, he hesitated to fire back. He needed to determine if non-combatants were topside the Sea Maiden. But he saw no federal agents, just the shooter, and could only assume they were being detained below decks.
Another shooter ran up and joined the diminutive man firing the .50 caliber machine gun. This individual fired an AK, and sprayed an extended barrage at them, somehow missing everything. Creedy concentrated on the little guy, the one who killed Lubanski. Creedy depressed the M60’s trigger, his adrenaline pulsing in rhythm with 7.62mm rounds escaping at 100 rounds per minute. “Chuga-chuga-chuga,” the M60 roared.
Creedy watched the armor piercing rounds chew up the Sea Maiden’s deck, forging a destructive path ending at the belly of the man who took Lubanski’s life. The shooter folded in half like an accordion, then toppled over onto the deck, his torso separating from his legs.
“That was for you, Lubanski,” Creedy muttered, already turning his attention back to the other gunman, the one firing the handheld machine gun. But Creedy couldn’t find him. Apparently he’d taken cover after watching his friend get guillotined.
The lull in gunfire allowed Creedy an opportunity to call for help. “Switch places with me, Marquis. I have to radio Command.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the bosun said, leaving the wheel to move behind the smoking M60.
“Sting ray to base. Come in, over.”
“I copy, Sting ray. Go ahead, over,” crackled the voice of Captain Jim Harrington back at the Marine Safety Office in Morgan City.
“Where’s my helicopter support, Captain? We are dead in the water and taking heavy fire. I repeat: both engines are inoperable. And my gunner is dead, over.”
“What’s your location, Lieutenant?”
Before Creedy could answer his captain the man with the handheld machine gun streaked over to his fallen comrade and replaced him behind the .50 caliber machine gun. Once again gunfire between the Sea Maiden and the Boston Whaler shattered the tranquil waterway.
“You can’t miss us. We’re about a nautical mile southwest of the I-90 Bridge. We really need a chopper, sir. The enemy is heavily armed, over.”
“Hang in there, Lieutenant. An MH-90 is in the air. They’ll be there in less than five. I’ll also put another Whaler in the water, over.”
“Roger that, Captain. We’ll be waiting.”
Chapter 45
A proficient sniper never fires their rifle until they’re convinced their bullet will enter the kill zone. Salvador Monzon religiously adhered to this tried and true rule. He performed this mantra even now, going through his last check-downs for the second time. His unwavering pre-shot ritual bordered on obsessive/compulsive behavior. And if pressed, he would admit that not all his ritual is necessary. But Monzon hated to alter his routine. His ritual always worked. So he didn’t see a need to change it up.
The ritual began once he positioned his rifle securely on his shooting rest. Depending upon how soon his human target arrived, vision and breathing calisthenics came next and could take up to a half-hour to
complete. But if for some reason his target showed up unexpectedly, Monzon would skip the ritual and trust his marksmanship to see him through.
But no matter what, on every shoot he wore his MP3 player and listened to classical music. The expressive music had a way of relaxing him completely, wooing his tormented soul to a peaceful hideaway, a secret sanctuary where everything is sublime and innocuous. Any nervousness he may have about taking the shot dissipates when the string and horn sections begin their first movement.
At his apartment at Carlos Zaplata’s estate, Monzon kept an extensive classical music collection, ranging from famous composers to obscure ones. But on a shoot, he narrowed his play list substantially, preferring to listen to symphonies by Felix Mendelssohn and Anton Bruckner, or even Czech composer Antonin Dvorak on occasion. But today, barricaded in the Sea Maiden’s pilothouse, Franz Schubert’s symphony no. 8 in B minor gently vibrated his eardrums. Schubert’s composition is entitled Unfinished because it only contains two of what are traditionally four contrasting movements.
Monzon felt he shared common ground with the Austrian composer. He too composed classical music, and he too had an unfinished symphony he’d been struggling to finish. Composed in secret, Monzon only worked on it when he left Zaplata’s hacienda to take his annual two week vacation at a small hillside villa in Tuscany.
Now that he knew he would likely be killed or captured today, it was a certainty he would never finish it. A true pity the world would never hear its expressive melody and unique combinations of tone and color. But he had no one to blame but himself for that.
Thirteen years ago when he’d first started working for Zaplata as a groundskeeper, he knew he was throwing his lot in with a dangerous man. But even foreknowledge failed to stop him as it should have. He had been so impoverished back then--a starving music student struggling to pay his tuition and living expenses. So when Zaplata’s job offer came up he jumped at the chance for employment. Looking back now, he found it difficult to believe he so readily relinquished his musical aspirations to become, of all things, an assassin. He traded piano keys for sniper rifles. And he did it willingly. I’m a monster now, a coldblooded killer.
As Schubert’s symphony flirted with symphonic perfection and danced across the lush meadows making up his listening ear, Monzon shook off his melancholy and settled once again behind his riflescope. He had already fired a shot into the Coast Guard vessel’s .50 caliber machine gun, disabling it. He now aligned his scope’s crosshairs on the coastguardsman manning the starboard-mounted machine gun.
It was an easy shot. Too easy. At this ridiculous range the American’s upper chest completely filled the riflescope. Monzon could even study the insignia on the gunner’s uniform in great detail. Yet it would do him no good to fire at the man’s chest. He undoubtedly wore a Kevlar vest. So Monzon moved his gun slightly upward until his scope’s crosshairs centered on the Coastguardsman’s head. Yet Monzon’s index finger still wavered over the trigger.
It wasn’t as if he were suddenly feeling merciful towards the American. He had long ago learned to extinguish the killing qualms, and had even grown to enjoy terminating people. His hesitation simply stemmed from not wanting his last shot to be child’s play. He considered himself the best shooter in the world. And just like an Olympian who lives and trains to compete against the world’s best athletes, Monzon yearned to be challenged. Nailing an impossible shot brought contentment to his tortured soul. It made him feel alive.
A rare smile softened his leathery face. An idea sparked in his mind. The thought expanded quickly as the idea took shape, brightening the cosmos covering his sociopathic brain. Killing the Coastguardsman and disabling the machine gun with a single shot fell more in line with his superlative talent.
Predicting the ricocheting bullet’s flight would be quite tricky and imprecise at best. But he wouldn’t let anything deter him. Taking into account the wind speed and elevation, as well as the Sea Maiden’s rocking motion; Monzon once again moved his riflescope’s crosshairs onto the gunner’s machine gun, settling for good onto the weapon’s receiver cover which protected the all-important feed tray.
Monzon tamped down his excitement. He forced himself to relax. Hurrying a shot ensures the target a chance at evasion. In a matter of seconds he slowed his pulse rate to a torpid forty-two beats per minute. He visualized the 7.62mm round tunneling through flesh and organs, crushing bone and gristle as it left the target’s lifeless body. Finally, as Schubert’s symphony soared to a crescendo, Monzon found the conditions to be to his liking.
The time to kill arrived.
He pulled the trigger.
Chapter 46
The stinging sensation caused Boatswain’s Mate Marquis Dalton to instinctively grab at his neck. A moment later blood gushed from his carotid artery like water from a busted pipe. His legs went limp and the wounded bosun sprawled backward into his CO. Both men tumbled to the Boston Whaler’s floor, with Dalton landing in Lieutenant Creedy’s lap.
Creedy cradled Dalton’s head with one hand, while his other hand applied pressure to Dalton’s ruptured artery. Blood squirted everywhere. And Creedy quickly deduced the wound to Dalton was a fatal one. But he wasn’t about to tell his friend that.
“Hang on, Marquis. It’s okay. The wound isn’t that bad. I’ve seen worse,” Creedy lied to his friend, hoping a positive suggestion would pull him through somehow. In the midst of chaos, surrealism slapped Creedy in the face. He felt like he’d been transported into a war movie, into a scene where a grunt holds his dying buddy and tells him he’s going to be okay, when everybody in the viewing audience knows the fallen soldier has but a few moments to live.
Dalton looked up at Creedy. Pain twisted his face. “You played baseball in high school, didn’t you, Lieutenant?” he gasped, his voice wet with blood.
“Yeah, Marquis, I did. But you shouldn’t talk. Save your energy.”
“I heard you were a hot pitching prospect. The Twins drafted you. They liked your split-fingered fastball.”
“That was a long time ago.”
Dalton grabbed Creedy’s collar, his grip surprisingly strong for a dying man. “My boy…he pitches too. He’s got a nice curve and a fair sinker, but doesn’t have enough gas on his fastball. He just needs one more pitch. Promise me one thing, Lieutenant…”
“Sure, Marquis, anything you want.”
“Teach my son how to throw a splitter.”
“You’re going to be fine, Marquis,” Creedy protested. “A chopper will be here at any moment to airlift you to a hospital. When you’re better I’ll show you how to pitch it, and then you can teach it to your boy.”
Dalton coughed and shook his head. “I’m dying, sir,” he panted. “I won’t be…around. So promise me. You’ll show him that pitch…won’t you?”
Creedy fought back tears. “Yeah, Marquis, I’ll show him. I promise.”
Dalton’s mouth contorted into a bloody smile. His eyelids fluttered, and then his ebony eyes rolled up into his head.
Stunned by the tragic developments, Creedy numbly crawled out from beneath Dalton’s lifeless body. He could scarcely believe that two of his men had died within minutes of each other. Their deaths punched him in his solar plexus. He could hardly breathe. Watching his compatriots--who were more like friends than subordinates--take their last breath made him realize just how dangerous his profession could be.
Throughout history, defending freedom came at a steep cost. Millions of lives were lost for causes not always laudable. Yet experiencing this sacrifice firsthand didn’t make it any easier to swallow. Awash with emotion, Creedy lunged for the M60 and angrily swung the machine gun thirty degrees to his left and then to his right, searching for the person responsible for gunning down his men.
Creedy soon spotted a likely offender--the deckhand loading another ammo belt into the .50 caliber machine gun mounted aboard the Sea Maiden. Creedy pointed his M60 at the shooter and depressed the trigger, confident he would mow down the gunman
with little effort. But to his dismay the gun wouldn’t fire.
And then Creedy noticed the mangled receiver cover and realized the gun would never fire. It was about this time that the .50 caliber machine gun aboard the Sea Maiden pounded the Boston Whaler with at least a dozen rounds. Water poured into the Whaler from multiple gashes in its hull.
Scrambling for cover, Creedy bailed over the side of the boat and into the river. The pernicious .50 caliber gun spat its deadly destruction without letup. Creedy disappeared underneath the surface. From a safe depth he forced himself to rationally assess his downward-spiraling circumstances.
Something about the singular shot that killed Marquis Dalton didn’t add up. The kill shot couldn’t have come from the big .50 caliber machine gun. Its report sounded considerably less thunderous and more in line with a big game rifle-- a 7.62 mm round if the lieutenant was to make a guess. A common sniper round used by armies and assassins the world over.
The thought of a sniper lying in wait made the hair on Creedy’s neck crackle. A long-range rifle aimed from a secret location strikes fear in every soldier’s heart. During his pre-op briefing, Creedy had been educated on the backgrounds of Carlos Zaplata’s henchmen and learned that Salvador Monzon is among the world’s greatest sharpshooters.
Desiring a better vantage point, Creedy surfaced and swam to the Whaler’s stern and hid himself behind the Whaler’s Evinrude motors. In the movies a bullet to a gas tank causes a billowing fireball. But Creedy accepted the risk, no matter how unlikely, if it afforded him an opportunity to locate the sniper.
Creedy lifted the binoculars hanging from his neck up to his cinereous eyes and began to scan the Sea Maiden’s topside. There wasn’t time for a thorough search. The trawler’s engines had come back to life. He only scanned what he considered likely hiding places on the trawler’s deck. What he hoped to spot were scope reflections caused by the late afternoon sun peeking out from behind clouds.
