Scorpion Strike

by John Gilstrap

  Jonathan bristled at the thought of teaming with Jolaine Cage again. A fine fighter, she was just three clicks too close to psychotic serial killer. Madman wasn’t his favorite, either, but over the last couple of years, he’d done a lot to redeem himself. Certainly, he was not the raging asshole that he’d been during his Army days.

  “—plus Torpedo and Bomber—actually, he prefers Chief now. And you remember our spooky friend, Conan?”

  “Of course.” Jonathan had always liked Henry West. They’d only worked together a few times, but he always found the man to be smart, mission-focused, and lethal. “Glad to have him on board.”

  “The big surprise for you will be Boomer.”

  “Whoa,” Jonathan exclaimed. “Glad to hear he’s still alive.” He covered the mouthpiece and relayed that news to Gail, who was equally shocked. Dylan Nasbe had been a living recruitment poster when he was an operator. A few years ago, he went off the rails, though, and killed some CIA pukes who had betrayed and killed a favorite asset of his. Boomer made the spooks pay with their lives, and then he disappeared. Everybody in the Community thought Boomer Nasbe was dead.

  “I got word that you picked up a couple of stragglers,” Boxers said. “Four, right?”

  “Just one,” Jonathan said.

  A beat. “Was there a time when there were four?”

  Jonathan avoided looking Tyler’s way, even though the kid couldn’t possibly see any more detail than Jonathan could. “There was a time, yes.”

  Boxers gave a low whistle. “Yikes,” he said. “Bad friggin’ day.”

  “I’ve had better.”

  “Well, we’ll have bang sticks to spare,” Boxers said. “I’m not unpacking all that shit until I have to.”

  “Too many guns and NVGs,” Jonathan said with a chuckle. “Words never spoken.”

  “I can’t stay on the phone and chat with you all day,” Boxers said. “Don’t cry in the dark. Think happy thoughts and do your best to stay alive till I get there to rub your tummy.” He clicked off.

  “So, when do we knock out the lights on the island?” Tyler asked.

  “Sometime after they’ve swum to it. When you’re in the middle of the ocean, it’s always nice to have a target to aim for.”

  “When do we head down?” Gail asked. “This darkness is pretty absolute. Even with shielded flashlights—”

  “Yeah, that could get pretty hairy,” Jonathan agreed before she could finish her point. “Plus, the sooner we meet up, the sooner I get out of this victim mode and I can gear up to make something happen.” He turned in Tyler’s direction. “What do you say, kid? You ready to go?”

  “Probably not,” Tyler said. “But I sure as hell am not staying up here alone.”

  They rose together. As they were about to start the walk down the steep incline, Tyler said, “What do you think that is over there?”

  “Pointing in the dark is only marginally helpful,” Jonathan said, though he could see the stain of Tyler’s silhouette pointing out toward the horizon. It took a few seconds to find it, just as it had the previous night, but those were clearly the lights of an approaching ship.

  “Do you think that’s the nerve agent?” Gail asked.

  “Given the luck of the day, how could it be anything else?” Jonathan said.

  “What does that mean?” Tyler asked. “Okay, I know what it means, but what does it do to our plan?”

  “I don’t know,” Jonathan said. “Other than make it a hell of a lot more complicated.”

  * * *

  Baker Sinise called it the “Red Phone,” but it was black, just like any other landline. The fact that it was ringing meant only one thing, and somehow Alpha knew exactly what it was.

  “This is the moment when you can be smart, or you can sentence all of your guests to death,” Alpha said. “That would be the Katie Starling, would it not?”

  “How do you know these things?” Baker asked.

  The phone continued to ring.

  Alpha walked to the credenza, lifted the phone from its charger, and handed it to Baker. “If you do your job correctly, the Katie Starling will tie off at the dock, their crew will work with your team to off-load their cargo, and we will be on our way. If they do not, then everyone on this island dies.” He pressed the phone closer. “Answer it.”

  Baker took the phone with his free hand and looked at it. The counter on the ringer told him that it had been ringing for thirty-two seconds.

  “Answer the phone, Mr. Sinise,” Alpha menaced.

  “It has to ring for at least a minute,” Baker said. “It’s part of the security plan.” The nature of the clandestine shipments that arrived at the Crystal Sands required a carefully controlled flow of information. Only handpicked workers were allowed to handle the shipments and interact with the ships’ companies. The chosen workers had been with Baker since the beginning, and they were both trustworthy and well-compensated. They worked like a fine-tuned machine to take delivery of the contraband and then transfer it to the storage locations, only to repeat the process in reverse when customers arrived.

  The entire process started with a phone call that could be answered only by Baker. It’s difficult for people to allow a telephone to ring unanswered for an extended period. The sixty-second-plus delay in answering was a hedge against an unauthorized person picking up the Red Phone. If that were to happen, the shipment would turn around and alternative plans would be made.

  Baker let it ring for a minute-ten before he pressed the CONNECT button. He’d been thinking about this moment for hours now, and a part of him wanted nothing more than to repay Alpha’s atrocities with a mission failure, but he couldn’t do that. Not with so many innocent lives in the balance.

  “Four seven, seven, three,” he said into the phone.

  A voice on the other side said, “Kilo, alpha, juliet, hotel.” Translation: This is the Katie Starling awaiting instruction.

  “Papa, papa common timing.” Everything’s ready. Use the regular piers. How far out are you?

  “Due west, break four-zero.”

  “Charlie uniform.” C.U. As in, “See you.” Internet phonetic bullshit had invaded everything.

  Baker disconnected the call and handed the phone back to Alpha. “They’ll be here in fifty minutes,” he said. “I told them to come to the common piers to keep the transfer simple.”

  Alpha clearly didn’t trust him. “What did ‘due west, break four-zero’ mean?” He asked the question as if it were a trick.

  Baker explained, “Due west is ninety degrees. Break means minus, and four-zero means forty. Ninety minus forty is fifty.” The trick with any radio code was to be cryptic enough not to be immediately understood by eavesdroppers, but not so cryptic as to confuse the targets of the conversation.

  “Give me the names of the workers you wish to be transported to the dock to unload the ship.”

  Baker hedged. These men had been his first employees. They were the ones who helped him build his fortune. “You’re not going to hurt them, are you?”

  “Of course not,” Alpha said. “I’ve said from the beginning that those who cooperate will be treated fairly. I have no need, and certainly no desire, to harm you or your staff or your guests. Those who I have harmed left me no choice.”

  Baker hated this guy. Was it possible that a mass murderer could truly self-justify his barbarity?

  “Don’t get all self-righteous on me now, Mr. Sinise,” Alpha said, as if reading his mind. “At lease my men and I are soldiers for a cause. We kill to achieve a goal. You, however, kill for the money. You kill for profit.”

  “I’ve never killed a soul,” Baker protested.

  Alpha laughed as he indicated to one of his men to unchain Baker from the table he was shackled to. “You tell yourself that, Mr. Sinise. You tell yourself that all those guns and bombs you broker do no harm. Tell yourself that they kill no children. You tell yourself that the chemical weapons you are about to receive were not going to be used to choke the lif
e out of innocent men and women, boys and girls.”

  Baker rubbed his freed wrist as his ears burned.

  “You do what it takes to allow yourself to sleep at night.” Alpha moved closer, as if daring Baker to throw a punch now that his limbs were free. “But in those quiet moments, when your guard is down, you know the truth. You know who you are and what you are. If you are a religious man, you know that you will never see the Gates of Heaven. They say that soldiers go to Heaven because they kill for what they believe to be just causes, but who is to know? Personally, Mr. Sinise, I don’t care. I don’t believe in religion. I believe that we become fertilizer when we die. One day, I will know if I am right or wrong, but in the meantime, I have no difficulty sleeping at all.”

  Tears burned behind Baker’s eyes as anger boiled in his gut. This man—this stranger—had pressed a raw nerve. Everything the man said was true. Baker did have difficulty sleeping some nights when the truth of his life sneaked through the protective barriers of his mind. He’d tried in the past to talk himself into believing that what he did was no different than what the owner of a gun store did. He’d told himself that he was no more responsible for the lives taken by the weapons he processed than a bar owner was responsible for the deaths caused by drunk drivers.

  But there was a big difference. A huge difference.

  He didn’t sell to sportsmen and citizens who wanted to protect themselves. He was the equivalent of the guy who sold weapons to known criminals out of the trunk of his car at outrageously inflated prices. He was the treacherous, lecherous old man in the alley who sold bad booze to pitiful drunks who didn’t mind that their product was filtered through an old car radiator.

  Baker did believe in God, and if there was a second certainty in his life—beyond the fact that he would die tonight—it was that eternal damnation lay in his future.

  Baker didn’t resist as the soldiers led him out of his opulent dining room and across the beautiful office to the once-hidden stairs.

  One way or another, this would all soon be over.

  CHAPTER 31

  FEWER THAN FIVE MINUTES AFTER TEAM YANKEE SLID INTO THE WATER with their gear, Jesse Montgomery felt a crushing sense of isolation. The ocean was a big, dark, silent place when you’re all alone. For a while, he could hear the faint splashing of the team’s progress toward shore, and for a while more, he talked himself into believing that they hadn’t yet disappeared. But ultimately, reality sneaked in and the fact of his aloneness could no longer be denied.

  The night vision goggles helped give some definition to the otherwise blank landscape, but combined with the rolling action of the boat, they added a strange level of disorientation. Not dizziness, necessarily, but not far from it.

  If Davey’s estimates were correct, it would take somewhere between thirty and forty minutes for them to reach the shore. Once on dry land, they’d unpack their stuff, and one of the first official acts would be to give him a shout on the radio. Not to give him instructions—he already had those—but to let him know that they were safe.

  While they fought their little war, Jesse’s responsibility was to keep the boat ready for immediate exfil. He was also to keep an eye out for unusual things, whatever the hell that meant.

  This whole adventure felt too much like déjà vu for him. The last time—the only time—he’d worked with this Boxers guy and his friend Scorpion, the floor of the boat they’d brought became slick with blood. As Davey had explained, when people throw hot pieces of metal at each other, somebody’s going to bleed.

  Who knew that his father was such a philosopher?

  Because of the need for quick action when the time came, no anchor had been thrown, which meant that the boat was essentially adrift and subject to the vagaries of currents and tides and fish farts. With the engines just above idle, he was to keep his eyes focused on a single spot on the island in order to keep from losing his bearings.

  When the time came to pull them out of there, they’d light up an infrared strobe to serve as a beacon, but if he’d floated too far in any direction, he might not be able to see it.

  To makes things even more challenging, there’d be a time pretty soon when all the lights would go out on the island, making night vision dependent on starlight. This, of course, would be at the same time when cloud cover was rolling in. To keep his position when darkness came, his sole focus would be on his GPS coordinates. As long as he stayed a click or two with an imaginary circle drawn around that precise point on the globe, then everything else should work out perfectly.

  Problem was, this maritime shit was all pretty new to Jesse. His specialty was stealing stuff, which was what led him into this weird clandestine world to begin with—but not before getting jammed up by a prison term that was shortened without warning by the intervention of the FBI. It was a long story, but the short version was that if he stole stuff for Uncle Sam, then stealing was okay.

  Except Team Yankee and Scorpion were not Uncle Sam. He wouldn’t be surprised if they did occasional work for Uncle—in fact, he’d be shocked if they didn’t—but those were questions he’d learned a long time ago never to ask.

  So, when the roulette wheel of his life settled down this time, all he had to do was stay stationary in the middle of a moving sea, waiting for the opportunity to save lives. All the while, he’d be contemplating that the consequence of his failure would not just be the death of his father, but that of the entire insertion team.

  Yeah, good times.

  Something moved in the darkness behind him.

  He whirled to see a ship about ten times the size of his boat carving a Rorschach blotch out of the horizon. Through the NVGs, it looked like some kind of cargo vessel, and he could see movement on the deck. He didn’t think he was in danger of being rammed, but they were going to pass within seventy-five yards of him.

  What would they think, he wondered, when they saw—

  A floodlight came to life near the ship’s aft end, washing out his NVGs. In that instant, Jesse knew he was in trouble. Without hesitating, he slapped the throttles to idle and dove for the opening to the lower deck, pivoting in midflight to land on his back to prevent breaking his face with the night vision goggles. He landed hard, driving the air out of his lungs, but he didn’t think he did any harm.

  A couple of seconds later, the bright white light swept his boat. It started from the aft transom and then painted the entire length of the craft. Shadows swirled around him as the impossibly bright beam played through the windows of the cockpit to bring even interior details into high relief.

  “Ahoy!” someone yelled. “Everybody okay?”

  Jesse pressed himself against the bulkhead, wishing that they hadn’t removed so much of the interior.

  “Is anyone aboard?” the voice yelled. It didn’t sound threatening in the least.

  Jesse didn’t breathe. He just watched the contours of the shadows as the ship moved to the bow, and projected the blinding light from the front.

  Then darkness returned.

  Jesse scrambled to his feet and returned to the cockpit, slapping the NVGs back down over his eyes. The activity on the ship’s deck seemed to be disbursing, leading him to believe that his boat had been the reason for the activity in the first place.

  As he reengaged the transmission, he made a mental note of the ship’s name as it was stenciled along the aft end.

  The Katie Starling.

  * * *

  Jonathan stood among the trees at the edge of the beach with Tyler and Gail, scanning the breakers for some sign of Team Yankee. His line of work didn’t involve a lot of amphibious landings—though he’d done a few—but he was reminded of what a blessing the sound of the surf was to cover the sound of battle rattle. Now that he was on the flip side, that same masking effect was annoying.

  Because the sand was as white as it was, Jonathan felt it was important to hang back so as not to be silhouetted for casual observers. The downside of that decision was limited visibility. They could se
e only the section of beach that played out in front of them—maybe fifty yards of it, max. It was the section where Boxers and company were supposed to land, but pinpoint accuracy seemed a bit of a stretch under the circumstances.

  Then the surf gave birth to Team Yankee. Their glistening silhouettes rose from the water one and two at a time. Most were hard to distinguish at this distance, but there was no mistaking Boxers, who was literally head and shoulders taller than the second tallest member of the team.

  “Holy shit,” Tyler whispered. “That guy’s huge.”

  “Yes, he is,” Gail said. “That is Big Guy.”

  “But he’s sensitive about his size,” Jonathan said. “I wouldn’t mention it if I were you.”

  “Okay.”

  Jonathan added, “And he’s deaf in his left ear, so stay to his right to talk to him.” As he spoke, he led his team out onto the beach, scanning above and behind them for any sign of bad guys.

  Gail whispered, “I didn’t know Big Guy was deaf in his left ear.”

  Jonathan couldn’t contain his grin. “He’s not.”

  “Then why—” She got it. “Good God almighty. Really? Rookie games? Here?”

  Jonathan didn’t answer. There was never a bad time to have a little fun.

  Up ahead, the arriving members of Team Yankee dragged their equipment bags out of the surf and across the sand toward the tree line.

  “Let’s make sure we have their attention before we get too close,” Jonathan warned. “This is a bad time to startle people.”

  But Boxers had clearly been looking for them. He raised his arms high and waved.

  Jonathan waved back.

  Boxers detached himself from his float gear and met them halfway. “Evenin’, Boss,” he said when they were close enough. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into?” To Gail: “How’s that romantic getaway working for you, Gunslinger?”

  He laughed.

  She didn’t.

  Boxers pointed to Tyler. “What’s this?”

  “My name is Tyler.” As he spoke, he pivoted around to Boxers’ right side, earning an odd look.