Scorpion Strike

by John Gilstrap

“Tyler escaped,” Jonathan said, snapping to his feet. “I’m not sure where he escaped from, but he’s not where he’s supposed to be and the bad guys are going apeshit.”

  “What does ‘apeshit’ mean in the practical sense?”

  “It means lots of people coming after him. Ready to go give him a hand?”

  “You’ve got a plan?”

  The answer came to him in the form of another transmission from whoever the terrorist was who needed to learn how not to shout into the radio. The speed of electricity was not affected by shouting.

  “He stole a landscaper’s truck,” Jonathan reported. “That must mean that he’s back at the pool deck and plantation area. Let’s see if we can help.” He gave Gail a hand rising to her feet. “You up for a bit of a run?”

  “You lead and I’ll follow,” she said.

  “Just remember that the bad guys are on higher alert than they were,” Jonathan cautioned. “We don’t want to get sloppy.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t until he was moving that Tyler realized he had no idea where he was going. The words, anywhere but here, resonated like a chorus in his head. This place right here meant certain death, and that certainty became less certain with every bit of distance he put between himself and Alpha.

  It was time to break the rules. In Baker Sinise’s world, footpaths were not roads, and roads were not footpaths. Today, right now, that was all bullshit.

  As far as Tyler was concerned, if a surface was wide enough to allow this truck to pass, it was fair territory. He was going about twenty miles per hour when he crested the hill onto the path that led away from the pool. As he leaned over to shift into third, he tried his best to ignore the angry voices in the distance. He was in it, now. He’d entered live-or-die territory. Black or white, no room for gray.

  He’d reached the dogleg in the path that took him up the hill toward the first cluster of bungalows when he heard a heavy thock, thock, thock, which rippled through the steel frame of the truck, followed an instant later by the sound of gunshots.

  When he finished the turn, he was shielded from view from the pool by a massive magnolia tree and surrounding hedges. The shooting stopped. At least he thought it did. He’d bought himself some time.

  He stepped harder on the gas and the engine screamed. He knew it was time to shift again, but he also knew what he had planned up ahead, and he thought third gear was about the best place to be. He was headed to the golf course and beyond—the only place he could think of—and even the walking paths provided too circuitous a route. He was connecting two points the geometric way, via the shortest route—a straight line. A lot of very expensive decorative shrubbery was about to pay with its life.

  The four-foot row of flowers and shrubbery raced toward him and he pushed the truck even harder. Tyler figured he was doing nearly thirty miles per hour when he hit the shrub line, and the impact tossed him up out of his seat. He landed sideways in his seat and his bruises yelled in a rebellious symphony of pain.

  “Ow! Dammit!”

  He got his foot back on the gas and the tires spun in the dirt and the undergrowth. He saw shit flying into the air behind him and to the side, but he never let up. Then the tires found traction, and he launched out onto the cart path around the golf course. Far off to his right, he saw another vehicle and brief flashes of light before the thock of a bullet hit somewhere on the truck’s body.

  * * *

  “Those are gunshots,” Jonathan said. He pointed to the left. “I put them over there.” It was hard to tell with the acoustical tricks played by the open spaces.

  “That’s where the Plantation House is,” Gail said.

  They took off at a controlled jog. If Tyler was still alive, and he was in a vehicle, whatever running they did was going to be of marginal use. The kid was either coming their way and closing the distance quickly, or going the other way and opening the distance quickly. They’d know soon.

  More gunshots.

  “They sound closer to me,” Jonathan said. Maybe that was hope talking. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

  “There!” Gail said, pointing. “Isn’t that a landscaper’s truck?”

  All the way on the other side of the fairway, a flatbed truck barreled down the cart path, bouncing and yawing, on the edge of being out of control. Behind him by about fifty yards, a smaller, far more agile resort pickup truck was closing in. Whoever was in the passenger side of the pickup stuck a rifle out the window and fired.

  Jonathan brought his M4 to his shoulder and ripped a five-round burst at the pickup truck. The distance was too great and his sights were too uncalibrated. He saw two of the rounds hit the sidewall and another one hit the pavement behind the vehicle. He did his best to correct, but at this range—two hundred yards, give or take—what should have been an easy shot was rendered impossible when the weapon’s sights were bad.

  He cursed.

  Two seconds later, both vehicles were obscured from view by the rise of a fairway bunker.

  Jonathan took off at a run, chasing them. At least he knew the direction they were headed.

  * * *

  Now on hard pavement, the truck accelerated quickly. Within a few seconds, it was screaming down the cart path three times faster, five times faster than the course designer could have anticipated. Where the path narrowed, Tyler aimed for a clear spot in the middle. His mirrors tore branches from trees even as roots, which had erupted through the pavement, repeatedly bounced the vehicle into the air, and Tyler into the roof of the cab.

  Through his mirrors, he saw the other truck closing the distance. They’d fired a few shots at him, but they went wild. Now, he figured, they were waiting till they could fire point-blank. He did the math in his head. At the rate they were closing, this whole thing would end in a minute or two.

  He swung a series of S curves, first to the left and then to the right. On the final swing to the left, his tires lost traction for an instant, and he had to slow to maintain control. That’s when the shooter behind him made his move. Whether it was a better truck or a better driver, the active word was better. They were better at this car chase thing than he was.

  A hundred yards ahead, the tunnel of leaves and trees would open up into the wide expanse of the fourteenth fairway. In a flash, he realized that would allow the shooters to accelerate and then they’d be alongside him and he wouldn’t have a chance. In his mirror, he saw that they had thought the same thing and were already making their move.

  Tyler slammed his brakes, stood on them. The flatbed screeched and Tyler was thrown forward against the steering wheel. A fraction of a second later, an even greater lurch threw him back into his seat and then down onto the floor as the pickup with the terrorists slammed into him from behind.

  He found himself under the dashboard among the pedals and food wrappers and he sensed that his truck was still moving. He needed to get it stopped, and he needed to find his feet and get out of here. Making them wreck was the whole idea to buy time, but here he was wasting it.

  The truck lurched again, and the driver’s-side window shattered as yet another impact brought him to a halt. He was oriented on the floor with his head facing the passenger side. The challenge of wriggling past the floor-mounted stick shift was too daunting, so he chose to sit back up into his seat and climb out the door.

  He estimated that he’d lost a critical twenty, thirty seconds of his lead.

  Upright now, he pulled the handle on the door, and drove it open with his shoulder. At first, it wouldn’t budge. On a second and third try, it moved a little. Then, on the fourth, it finally flew open, and he damn near tumbled out.

  He rolled from the cab to the ground, landing on his feet and ready for a fight. Using his cuffed hands as a single claw, he grabbed a folded shovel, which was clamped under the driver’s seat, and held it as if it were a baseball bat. His heart hammered, and virtually every body part screamed, but he saw no one to swing at.

  Where were they? His truck ha
d come to rest at an angle that obscured his view of the road. The portion he could see was clear, but the smell of a leaking radiator was undeniable. Certainly, the massive palm tree he’d hit had cut a pretty deep dent in the grille.

  Before he could run, he needed to know where the shooters were. As soon as he showed himself, they’d mow him down.

  By now, he’d lost all elements of surprise. He wouldn’t allow himself to be captured, just to be tortured, and he wasn’t going to give these assholes an easy target. That left no option but a fight. The last time he’d fought anyone was at a football game last year, and that one hadn’t gone all that well for Tyler.

  Of course, the stakes weren’t as high.

  Where the hell were the terrorists with the guns?

  Keeping low and to the driver’s side, Tyler inched down the length of the truck, ducking even lower when he crossed from the cab to the flatbed. He really had no cover at all, just the twelve-inch depth of the flatbed and the girth of the wheel wells. He was entirely exposed from the road to the undercarriage.

  So, why weren’t they shooting at him?

  Tyler dared a look through the gap under the truck, and drew a quick breath when he saw the damage that had been done to the front of the pickup that had been chasing him.

  The trailing edge of the flatbed’s lift had all but decapitated the pickup truck, shearing through the windshield and all the way back to the B-post. Unless they’d ducked, there would be nothing left of the people in the cab. Even from here, Tyler could see smears and flashes of red. He had no desire to see it more closely.

  Judging from the volume of foul-smelling liquid that was spilling from under the cab of his landscape vehicle, he didn’t bother to try and start it up again.

  If the dead guys had had a chance to get out a radio call, then there’d be more soldiers on the way soon. Keeping the shovel in his hand for good measure, he started the long jog across the golf course and back up the hill to the other side of the island.

  * * *

  Jonathan had just regained sight of the car chase when the impact happened, and it was epic. The good news for the bad guys was that they didn’t feel much pain. “Holy shit!” Jonathan exclaimed. “Did you see that?”

  When he didn’t get an answer, he turned and saw that Gail had fallen behind. She’d developed a distinct limp, too, telling him that her old injuries were becoming new ones again. He knew she was tough and that she’d endure, but he couldn’t wait for her. That kind of impact could have injured Tyler. Jonathan wanted to get to him before he had a chance to bleed out.

  He’d closed the distance by half when he saw the kid emerge from the wreckage and start to jog back across the fairway.

  “Tyler!” Jonathan yelled. When the kid didn’t respond, Jonathan yelled again.

  Still, no response.

  Jonathan fired two rounds into the grass, and Tyler reacted immediately, first ducking, and then turning to see who was shooting at him.

  * * *

  “Shit!” The gunshots came from very close by.

  Tyler pivoted to confront the threat, and was shocked to see the shooter waving at him. Big, bold arm movements that were more appropriate to signaling aircraft than waving hello.

  And he was yelling Tyler’s name.

  “Scorpion?”

  In the distance, behind Scorpion, Tyler could see Gunslinger running to catch up.

  “Scorpion!” Tyler ran toward him, then slowed to a jog as the distance closed to within a few yards. He wasn’t going to die, after all. Not now, anyway.

  When Scorpion caught up to him, the commando grabbed him by both shoulders and beamed. “Jesus, kid, are you okay?”

  That’s when the emotion hit, breaking like a wave and drowning him. “No,” he said. Or at least he tried to. It came out more as a sob. Embarrassed, he pressed his hands to his eyes and tried to push it all back, but it wouldn’t stop.

  “They . . . Jaime.” Words wouldn’t work. Nothing would work. The sobs escaped his throat and made sounds that he’d never heard himself utter before. He’d seen too much. He’d hurt too much. He’d killed people. He was sure he was dead, and now—

  His legs folded until he was kneeling in the grass. He tried so hard to stop. So hard—

  And then someone folded him into an embrace. He knew without looking who it was, and as Gunslinger hugged him, he hugged her back.

  * * *

  Jonathan had no idea what to do as he watched the kid fold in on himself. It was the kind of emotional meltdown that never happened outside the world of violence. It was all-consuming, paralyzing.

  And far outside Jonathan’s wheelhouse. That kind of emotion had no place in the middle of an emergency. As they stood out here, they were exposed. When Gail arrived and went to the ground to embrace Tyler, Jonathan was relieved that she’d taken control of the emotional first aid, but he was even more aware that there was one fewer rifle in play.

  And they were still out in the open.

  “Can we take this to the tree line?” he asked.

  Gail nailed him with a glare.

  “We’re in the kill zone here. The jungle is right over there.” He worried that the dead guys might have friends on the way. One thing was for certain—they were not in friendly territory here.

  “I’m okay,” Tyler wheezed. He eased away from Gail and took a swipe at his eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jonathan said. “These are stressful times that bring awful things.” He grasped the kid’s hand in a thumb grip and helped him to his feet. Then he did the same for Gail. He looked Tyler in the eye. “I really need for you to be okay. Don’t just say it if you don’t mean it.”

  Tyler snuffled and wiped his eyes again. “Then how’s this. I’ll be okay.”

  “Works for me,” Jonathan said. “I think we’re all a little worse for wear. Let’s find a place to hole up and rest. We’ve got a few hours before the night gets really interesting.”

  The voices from the radio bud in his ear were sounding agitated as they called again and again for Quebec and Uniform to answer up. Jonathan kept that detail to himself. He figured that Tyler didn’t need to know the names of the guys who had just beheaded themselves on his bumper, even if those names weren’t names at all.

  * * *

  Nobody asked Jesse Montgomery for his opinion, but if they had, he’d have told them that it would have been a hell of a lot cheaper and easier just to buy a boat that had already been stripped of all its goodies. They’d peeled this boat like it was an orange. Seats, tables, everything. They were all gone.

  “My orders were to make a fast boat faster,” Davey had said, “and less weight means more speed.”

  And, as he’d pointed out so eloquently before, it wasn’t his money.

  Now Jesse understood why. First there were the people. He and Davey didn’t know how many had been invited along on this party, but now that they numbered six—and one of them was the size of three more—the need for extra room made more sense. On the way back, there’d be a minimum of two more people, for a total of eight. Add them to the arsenal of weapons the team had brought with them, and he could see how lighter was better.

  They’d met Team Yankee on an isolated dock on a tiny river north of Zihuatanejo at around four in the afternoon. The land-based team was already assembled and waiting, their SUVs parked along a tree line, and their gear stacked all around them. Davey told Jesse to stay with the boat and he stepped aground to meet them. From where Jesse stood, the greeting had the feel of a reunion of old friends. Lots of handshakes and fist bumps. A few bursts of laughter.

  There was even a girl in the mix—a lady? Jesse couldn’t put his finger on why that struck him as odd, but it did.

  If Jesse remembered correctly, the Lurch impersonator preferred to be called Big Guy, and really did not like being called Lurch. Of the others, none looked familiar to him, though all of them had a similar thick-necked bearing about them
, including the girl. He found her She Devil nom de guerre a little over-the-top. Of the four, she was the one who said least. In fact, Jesse wasn’t sure he’d heard her voice at all yet.

  “Permission to come aboard,” said the youngest and most cheerful of the operators as he carried an overstuffed duffel bag over the gunwale and stepped down onto the deck. “You must be Torpedo. You’ve got the physique for it.” As the guy spoke, his smile took the edge off the insult. “I’m Conan,” he said.

  “But your friends call you Barbarian, right?” Jesse replied.

  Surely, it wasn’t the first time the guy had heard that, but he gave a hearty laugh, anyway. “I’m gonna like you,” he said. “Where can I stow this stuff?”

  Jesse pointed to the opening that led to the cleared-out lower deck.

  Conan thanked him and disappeared.

  She Devil boarded next, with a stuffed canvas bag in each hand, followed by a much older guy who despite his age—fifty, maybe?—still carried himself with that operator swagger. “Madman,” he said by way of introduction. He appeared to be about Davey’s age, but a little less haggard. The load he carried seemed heavier than what the others bore, and Jesse wondered if the difference was really the weight of the load or the strength of the man who carried it.

  Not surprisingly, when Big Guy hefted his load, he didn’t look strained at all, but the vessel shifted significantly when he boarded.

  “Jesus, Big Guy, don’t capsize us at the dock,” Conan said. “We’ve got work to do.”

  Big Guy made a sound that resembled a growl, and the growl triggered a laugh from the others. Davey brought up the rear with a duffel that clattered with the unmistakable sound of firearms rubbing against each other.

  “That’s okay, son,” Davey said as he passed. “We’ve got this.”

  “I figure you older guys need the exercise,” Jesse replied.

  As Big Guy passed on his way for another load, he said to Jesse, “Kid, a shark could eat you whole and not even fart.”

  So, it was going to be that kind of trip.

  The loading process took all of ten minutes.

  “Okay, Chief,” Big Guy said, “fire this thing up and let’s head out. How long a ride do you figure?”