The Gift of the Dragon

by Michael Murray

  “All right, Price."

  "Nate, your HRT guys—they are pretty good?”

  “Studs.”

  “Northwin is a bad guy, Nate. Get him.”

  “Yeah, Ed, we’ll get it on.”

  Callan

  Callan pulled up at Miami City Yacht Basin in downtown Miami and found a berth. It had been a long trip in the Fountain, but coming by boat let him bring everything he needed more easily than coming by road. The diving and underwater construction tools made more sense on the fishing boat than they would in one of his vans, and in his Fountain 38 with its three engines, he made it to Miami almost as quickly as he would have if he had driven. Dressed in a blue polo shirt and black jeans, he walked into the Hard Rock Cafe next to the Yacht Basin for some food. About an hour later, Callan strolled south through Bayfront Park. He could see the towers along Chopin Plaza ahead as he passed by a tiki hut-themed floating bar, along more piers, and then down a wide, tree-lined sidewalk.

  A pleasant sea breeze blew off Biscayne Bay to his left, and, glancing out over the water, Callan saw Dodge Island and the big ocean liners at the Port of Miami. The walkway narrowed along the low seawall and a higher hurricane wall decorated with whimsical art installments, a neon blue waterfall in one place, made of plastic tubing that emerged like twisted steampunk roots from the cement. A few young girls were climbing them, giggling. In a few minutes, he rounded the small point where the Miami River flowed into the bay, and there stood the tower of the Epoch Hotel and the masts of the Endurance beneath it. Callan walked casually forward, seeing another, smaller mega-yacht parked in front of the Endurance with its stern pointing toward the Endurance’s bow. It looked a little run down. A very shiny Harley-Davidson crouched on the upper foredeck of the yacht, where there would usually be a dinghy. As he walked by the curved white hull, he saw a hair-covered, shirtless man sitting in a lawn chair next to the Harley, reading a book. Callan called out, “Nice bike!”

  The man looked up. “Thanks.” He didn’t look happy.

  “Hey, what’s the difference between a Harley and a woman?”

  That made the man smile. “When I ride the Harley, we both get where we’re going at the same time!”

  “And it doesn’t care if you forget its birthday!” Callan called back, laughing. “So why do you have that fine bike up there on the bimbo pad?”

  “Hell, I got no money for gas.”

  “Really? Got to have some money to be sitting there… or is it Britney’s boat?”

  “Ha! You got that right, and Britney pays the dock fees but hasn’t paid me jack in two months.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got my master captain’s license, and I can sail this scow around the world, but the owner treats me like a damn deck monkey.” The man looked more closely at Callan. The thinning hair jutting out from under the Rays cap on his head was shot with gray. “You sound like you know boats yourself?”

  “Some. I came up this way from the Gulf. I’m over at the City Marina. Mine’s nowhere near as big as this beauty, though. My name is Mike. Mike Weston.”

  The man emerged from the lawn chair. Now Callan could see faded blue shorts, brown sandals, and more hair from his shoulders down to his belly, also partly gray. He knelt down and stuck out his hand. Callan noticed broken fingernails with dirt or grease under them, and smelled fresh sunscreen and old beer. The man’s nose looked red and a little bulbous. “Matt McReady is what my ma called me. I’m also called Headbanger when I ride.”

  “Hi, Matt. Hey, could I come up and check out your ride? I love old Harleys.”

  McReady looked around. “Sure. Just don’t tell Britney, okay?”

  “If I see her, I’ll get all tongue-tied.”

  “Ha! That will be good. My Britney’s a dude, though. Old, fat, gold chains.”

  “I’ll watch out for him, then.” Callan grabbed the rail and vaulted up onto the deck of the yacht. McReady seemed a bit taken aback. “Shit, Mike, I was going to open the dock access gate for ya.”

  Callan laughed. “No worries, Matt. Helps me keep in shape!” Also helps me judge how hard it will be to get up here quickly later.

  “Welcome aboard the Hammond’s Folie.”

  “Great name.”

  “Yeah, Fred Hammond is the owner. He originally named it after a restaurant his wife liked, called Folie Douce, but that means ῾crazy happy.’” McReady made air quotes with his hairy hands. “He got divorced, so he shortened it.”

  “How sad for him. Hey, your bike is even nicer close up. Rolling sculpture!”

  McReady smiled. “I got nothing to do but shine the old girl.” He showed Callan some of his customizations. They looked at the bike and chatted about its internals.

  Then Callan asked, “So the owner of the boat really doesn’t pay you?”

  “He pays me when he wants the boat moved. I was up in New York, and then two months ago he wanted me to bring it down here because his kids were coming down. Then they changed their minds. Decided Miami got too hot in September. Shit, I could’ve told them that! But now I’m stuck here until they want it somewhere else.”

  “You clearly have skills, Matt. Why not find another boat?”

  “Well, I haven’t found one yet. I got no money to move on since my ex-wife took my house, kids, and bank account. All she left me was Scarlet here. That’s what I call the bike.”

  “Good name.”

  “Thanks. Yeah, I guess I could save up when they do pay me and move on. But, when I get money, I like to party. I drink a bit.”

  “Hey, the meter's running. Might as well live it up!”

  “You got that right! It’s always five o’clock somewhere.”

  “So do you worry about someone messing with your bike? Keeping it out on the deck? This boat must have all sorts of alarms, I guess.”

  McReady squinted his eyes. “Nah. If the bike’s here, I’m here. Me and my Louisville Slugger. There are alarms in the cabins and the bridge deck and, of course, on the hawsers.” McReady spat over the side. “Last thing I need is for those old lines to break and send me drifting out while I’m sleeping. Getting this tub run down by a ferry is not the way I want to make my exit!” McReady wiped his mouth with the back of his forearm. “Between you and me, I don’t turn the bridge alarms on much. The navigation equipment on this old girl is all pretty outdated. And freaking heavy. Not really worth stealing.”

  “Ah, gotcha. She looks good from shore, but now that I’m here, not so much.”

  “Yeah, well, Mr. Hammond, he doesn’t like to pay for maintenance. He prefers to buy new things when the old things break.”

  “Sounds like a real winner.”

  “He did good in the bubble. Got out at the peak, just before the crash. But he’s not smart about boats.”

  “It’s hard to find a good boss these days.” Callan grinned. He thanked McReady, wished him luck, and jumped down from the Folie.

  Ian

  Ian leaned back in the luxurious seat of the Gulfstream G6 executive jet and went over his father’s plan. He sniffed when the plane hit a bit of turbulence. He keyed the intercom to the cockpit. “You boys need help up there?”

  “Sorry, sir. Just bumped into the jet stream.”

  Ian hated being a passenger, but he had things to go over. Besides, he’d be flying soon enough. Not so fly as a sleek G6, but his next ride would be armed! Ian grinned at the joke. Some days, even he felt one hundred years old, and on those days he would listen to rap. It energized him. Nicki Minaj, Eminem, Karmin, they woke him up. The Far East Movement’s “Like a G6” was one of his favorites to put on at the start of the third hour of a kickboxing workout.

  Glancing back to the mission brief on his iPad, he read for the second time what he already knew well, that Apple Creek’s Guardian group worked along with Graywater Security on a contract for the CIA to resupply Predator drones in Afghanistan. Northwin’s teams served in the more dangerous locations that Graywater turned down. Throughout the la
ter years of the war, as the drone missions ramped up, instead of adding new staff to handle the load, the CIA contracted out these support operations.

  Some of the Hellfire missiles used to arm the drones went missing. “Oops,” Ian said under his breath.

  In another contract, Apple Creek’s aviation services arm converted single-engine Cessna Caravans to carry and fire Hellfire missiles. After being tested at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, the planes were shipped to the Iraqi Air Force. The test flights carried dummy missiles without warheads, but the planes flew otherwise fully operational. Ian licked his lips.

  Next he called up an article on the armed Caravans from Aviation Week’s electronic version on his tablet. He grinned when he read that the planes were often called “armed breadboxes,” and they did look boxy and old-fashioned with their fixed landing gear and high, wide upper-wing. Ian knew the plane as a stable and reliable platform. Tonight he would be flying a Caravan equipped with a full set of night operations gear, on a mission out over the Avon Park test range in central Florida. These test flights always went up with an Air Force pilot. That was one thing Apple Creek couldn’t control. “One of the few things,” Ian said aloud. An Apple Creek technician would ride along to run and test the equipment. Tonight, there would be a technician trainee also. When he had left Washington, his father had handed Ian a nicely worn ID badge and told him to dress casually. Ian carried jeans and a polo shirt with an Apple Creek logo in his carbon-fiber Henk luggage. He would have to change out of his custom-tailored white linen suit soon.

  Ian opened the electronic manual for the Hellfire missiles and the targeting systems installed on the “breadbox.” His luggage included four fully-operational Hellfires packed up in fine wooden boxes with the words “Helicopter-Launched Fire-and-Forget Test Rounds” neatly stenciled below the Apple Creek Aviation logo.

  Sighing, Ian put down his iPad and opened the paper folder with the printed service record of the man he would soon have to deal with. The pilot, a former hotshot, had gotten busted down to training missions because of some risky maneuvering in Afghanistan. He had saved a downed helicopter crew. He also had taken out a house with a family inside. “Good man—not a lucky man,” Ian said.

  What the plan entailed for the pilot was a shame. Ian decided then to try to give him another chance. A good warrior has no fixed plans…

  The G6 landed uneventfully at Tampa International, and he changed on the plane into his technician’s clothes and trudged down to the rental cars. He rented a Hyundai van, making sure to ask the pretty girl at the counter if it were a safe vehicle. His face sported a fake nose and thick glasses, and he wore a red-haired wig, which he thought should be enough to keep his description from leading anyone back to him.

  He drove the thirteen miles to MacDill Air Force Base, and once there his identification got him through the various checkpoints without a hitch. His directions took him around the main base to a group of hangers at the southwest corner. At each checkpoint, he showed the paperwork for the Hellfire missiles in his van. “Just dummies, test rounds for the flying breadboxes,” he explained a dozen times. The guards studied his eyes carefully when he said it. He smiled warmly back. No one took his brass knuckles.

  The Apple Creek technician’s name was José, a navigator/gunner from the Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program, retired and come to work for Apple Creek. The pilot had not showed up yet. Ian pulled José aside for a chat.

  “José, I’m Ian. Ian McAlister.”

  “I heard you were going to be on this mission, sir.” José looked at him expectantly.

  “You remember the oath you swore when you joined Apple Creek?”

  Jose nodded. “Every word.”

  “You remember the gift we gave you?” Ian hated the formality of invoking the oath, but he felt it necessary to put José in the proper frame of mind before telling him what they would need to do tonight.

  “The gift that can’t be named,” José said woodenly.

  “Right. Do you know what time it is?”

  “I do, Ian. Just tell me what you need me to do.”

  Ian smiled and put his arm around José’s shoulder. “Walk with me awhile, José.”

  José and Ian got the missiles loaded and the plane ready for takeoff. Ian was just starting to worry about the time when the pilot drove up in an ancient black Porsche.

  Ian bounced up to the dark-haired pilot wearing a goofy grin and with his hand out. The first thing he noticed was how short the pilot was in person, short but built like a fireplug. Ian didn’t like using the brass knuckles in his pocket. However, the pilot looked as though he could put up a struggle, and a fair fight would not be a good thing to conduct in the cockpit of a plane. Once the pilot was out, José would use the syringe Ian brought, the one loaded with an Ativan/Haldol knockout mixture good for a few hours of dreamless sleep. “Hey, so glad you could make it! We got the missiles loaded. Don’t they look sweet?”

  The pilot squinted up at Ian as if he were a bug or a fence lizard. Out of the side of his mouth, he said, “They’re fakes. Duds. Don’t matter how sweet they look. They’re junk.”

  Ian smiled even more widely. “Heck, a lot of guys’d love shooting blanks in Florida. You could be over in the Sandbox getting shot at by jinglies!”

  The pilot looked angry. “What do you fucking know about it,” he squinted at Ian’s name tag, “Dave?”

  “Oh wow, sorry, man. Look, no harm, no foul, okay? I am just here to do my job, same as you.”

  “My job’s not shooting fracking blanks at a swamp. My job is back over there.” The pilot gestured vaguely to the East.

  “Okay, so, hey, let's start over here. I’m Dave. Dave Lightman.” Ian stuck out his hand.

  The pilot looked at his hand as if he were checking it for something dirty. Finally he took it. “Tom Current.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Tom.” Ian introduced José.

  “Now that we’re all friends, why don’t you two get situated while I complete my pre-flight?”

  “Sure, no problem.” Ian gave Current a friendly punch in the shoulder, feeling solid muscle under his knuckles. Have to give him a good hit when the time comes. Ian and José went to the sliding side door of the Cessna. Pausing, Ian looked around at this dark, empty part of the base, lit only by the runway lights. “What, no cheering crowds?” Ian said to José. “Mark my words, though, friend. Tonight will not be a waste of time.”

  It might be, though. Ian’s father suspected that once Callan got to Miami, he would start working on his plan right away. If Grant decided to enjoy the beach for a few days before taking out Northwin, there was a contingency plan to hide the plane, but having known about Grant almost as long as his father, Ian agreed that taking no chances would be the safest course. Especially with what is at stake!

  They took off uneventfully, with Ian next to Tom in the copilot seat, looking over the high dashboard at the dark night. The plane smelled of fuel, stale sweat, and spilled coffee. Apparently we do not spend much of the refurbishment budget on cleaning the cabin.

  The big engine just in front of them roared. They wore heavy earmuff-style headphones and throat mikes in order to communicate. Heavy clouds and thunderstorms hung along the coast, but the weather cleared up as they moved inland. They stayed low as they flew south over Tampa Bay to keep below the commercial jets, and then they went west to pass over the mostly empty farmland along the Alafia River. As they were simulating military flight to test the night capability of the sensors and targeting radar, they flew at about five hundred feet.

  As they headed south toward Avon in central Florida, Ian said, “Hey, Maverick, what’s down there?”

  “Don’t call me that!” Current banked the plane sharply, jerking Ian sideways against his belts and nearly throwing José off his seat.

  “Okay, okay, Mr. Current, sir. What is your call sign anyway?”

  “You don’t need to know.”

  “Ha.” Ian keyed his microph
one. “MacDill Tower, this is Cessna 907A. Hey, what is my driver’s call sign?”

  “Cessna 907A, you are flying with Friendly.”

  Ian looked over at Current. He casually dropped his right hand down alongside his seat, out of Current’s line of sight. He slipped on the brass knuckles. “As in Friendly Fire?”

  Current flushed red, clicked on the autopilot, and turned off the radio so the tower would not hear what came next. “You better drop that attitude, or you will not believe what I do to you.” Current’s eyes peered though mostly shut lids and his jaws clenched as he spat out, “Even while it happen—”

  The brass knuckles hit Current’s forehead just below his helmet, slamming his head back. He went out like a light. Ian quickly turned the radio back on.

  “Cessna 907A, you okay out there?”

  “Yes, MacDill, no problems. Friendly just hit the radio button by accident. We’re all set now. Cessna out.” Ian looked over his shoulder and motioned to José, who gave Current his dream shot. José then handed Ian a box with a plug on the end, an MP3 player with Ian’s voice and voices that sounded much like Current and José conducting a routine mission. Ian plugged the box into the control panel and pushed a button marked play.

  Nate

  Nate Achille looked over the FBI team on the Response Boat. They had volunteered for Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. They believed they were fighting the good fight against terrorists, drug dealers, and enemies of the state. They trained all day long, all year long for missions like this. To say they were ready for action would be an insult. They were well beyond ready.

  “All right, people, we have a hard-case arrest. There may be armed guards.” Despite Ed Price’s assurances that there would only be Laird Northwin and maybe a few others on the Endurance, Nate preferred to prepare for the worst. “Good ones, former military. It may be up close and personal. You all read the briefing folders on the plane.” Silence. “You all read them, right?” They were standing on the back of the Response Boat at the dock at Miami’s ship harbor.