Deadly Salvage

by Don Pendleton

  “Now that we’re one big, happy family,” Bolan said, “let’s gather the rest of the clan and go get us a chopper.”

  Chapter 12

  Bolan scanned the dark water as Grimaldi piloted the AS332 Super Puma toward the platform.

  “What do you think?” Bolan asked the pilot.

  Grimaldi pushed the stick forward slightly and zoomed over the platform’s superstructure. “Damn,” he said, hollering to make his voice heard over the noise of the rotors. “Looks like they’ve got an M-60 set up on the corner by the landing pad.”

  “That’s better than a fifty caliber,” Bolan yelled back. “But maybe we can use a subterfuge.”

  “How the hell we going to disguise our approach?” Grimaldi retorted. “This tin can makes more noise than a drunken reggae band.”

  “Let’s hope they like the music then,” Bolan said. He reached over and grabbed the radio mic, then plucked a piece of paper from the glove compartment and began crinkling it as he spoke into the mic. “Attention, control room, this is approaching chopper. We have Mr. Everett on board.” He crinkled the paper again. “Experiencing radio problems. Do you copy? Over.”

  A few seconds later, a reply came over the radio. “Roger, chopper. Be advised, I have to verify clearance before you’ll be authorized to land. Over.”

  Bolan crinkled the paper again as he spoke. “Attention, control, we are experiencing radio problems. Do you copy? Over.”

  The banter continued for several more refrains.

  “Time to set her down,” Bolan told Grimaldi.

  Bolan turned to Kournikova, Ivan, Tyler and the two other FBI men. “Remember the plan. When we land, Tyler pretends to be Everett as he gets out and walks toward the stairway, with Kournikova hanging on his arm. It’s dark and our reception committee will be confused, so that should buy us a little time. I’ll grab the closest guard and have him take us to the control room. We don’t know how many personnel they have on this rig, but we’re here to recon, not kick ass.”

  “Too bad,” Ivan said. “I like kicking ass.”

  “And he’s good at it, too,” Grimaldi said.

  “Yeah.” Ivan patted the polymer handle of his Strizh Strike One 9 mm.

  Grimaldi banked the Puma and began a slow descent toward the large, yellow X on the landing pad.

  Bolan checked his 93R, the Espada knife clipped inside his belt on the left, and his minimag flashlight as he silently did the math on their combined firepower. Kournikova had a small Beretta Nano, which had a mag capacity of six rounds. With one in the pipe, that made seven. Ivan’s magazine held seventeen and the 93R held twenty, so they were at forty-three rounds before reloading. Tyler and his two compatriots had SIG Sauer P226 Nitrons, with ten and one each. With Jack’s P226 nine and his thirty round mag they were up to around a hundred. Not a bad total for first magazine capacities before combat reloads. But they were likely to be going up against assailants who had rifles. The odds, Bolan knew, weren’t in their favor, but they still had the element of surprise.

  If Everett’s men bought into it.

  Grimaldi landed the helicopter with the finesse of a master pilot. Bolan looked through the side window and saw two men approaching. Each one carried an M-4 at the ready. He pulled the brim of his baseball cap down and tucked his chin as he got out. Even though the sea was relatively calm, the platform swayed slightly under his feet and a cold wind whipped his face.

  “Where’s Mr. Everett’s regular chopper?” the first man asked.

  Bolan pointed past them. “There it is.”

  As the two guards turned, Bolan lashed out with his Beretta, striking the closest one on the temple. He reached with his left hand and grabbed the barrel of the second man’s rifle as the first man collapsed between them. “Release your weapon and act natural if you want to live,” he said.

  The guy let go of the M-4 and held up his hands.

  Bolan jabbed the man’s cheek with the barrel of his 93R. “I said act natural. Lower your arms.”

  He complied. Ivan was already out of the chopper and picking up the fallen guard as if he were lifting a feather. “I throw him in ocean?”

  Bolan shook his head. “Sling him over your shoulder for now.” He pulled the second guard closer. “How many of you are on this rig?”

  “Twelve topside,” the man said. “Two dive teams down below, plus the underwater crew in the submerged rig.”

  “How many topside are armed guards?”

  “Two more on the other side,” the man said. His face looked ashen in the moonlight.

  “You have radio contact with them?”

  He nodded.

  “Then call them over here now,” Bolan said. “Tell them your buddy collapsed. One trick and I’ll empty my magazine into you. Understand?”

  The man nodded again and spoke into his radio mic.

  After the call was made and acknowledged, Bolan directed everyone over to the shadowed area adjacent to the superstructure. The guard had indicated the others would be coming through the port way, which they did about forty seconds later. The newcomers were quickly subdued. After stripping them of their weapons and securing their hands behind their backs with flexicuffs, Bolan continued his interrogation of the first guard.

  “Tell me again, who else is on this thing?”

  “Two in the control room,” the man said. “Six more below in sleeping quarters. We go in four-hour patrol blocks.”

  “Well,” said Bolan, “you’ve just been relieved. Ivan, take two men and secure the sleeping beauties downstairs. The rest of you come with me.”

  Ivan departed with Larch and Bettinger, the guard limp across his shoulders. Grimaldi, Kournikova and Tyler followed Bolan as he pushed the guard toward the stairway. As they crested the stairs Bolan jerked him to a halt and pressed the barrel of the 93R against his cheek.

  “These guys armed?”

  “Yeah. Sidearms,” the man said in a squeaky voice.

  Bolan told Grimaldi to check it out. He crept to the window and peered in, then nodded at Bolan, who motioned for the pilot to open the door. Bolan pushed the guard in, then leveled his Beretta at the two shocked-looking men operating the control panels. In less than thirty seconds, both of them had been disarmed and placed on the floor with the other guard.

  Tyler’s phone chirped. He answered it, listened, then said, “The rest of the crew’s been subdued. What do you want done now?”

  “Tie them up and find a secure place to put them.” Bolan grabbed one of the men who had been monitoring the control panels and walked him over to the main console. “Show me what we’re looking at,” he ordered.

  “The boss’ll kill me,” the man said.

  “If I were you—” Bolan put his mouth close to the man’s ear “—I’d be more worried about what we’re going to do to you now.” He shook him like a rag doll. “Talk.”

  “Okay, okay. Those first two cameras are showing the area around the platform. We’ve got two scuba divers down there with scooters and spearguns.”

  “How do you signal them to come up?”

  “Signal beacon.”

  “Show me,” Bolan said.

  The man, whose hands were secured behind his back, turned and pointed to a button. Bolan asked where the divers would come back aboard, and after finding a camera view of that area, sent Grimaldi and Tyler to intercept them. He then grasped the technician’s head and twisted it to face the monitors again.

  “What do these show?” he asked.

  “The submerged platform. It’s connected to this section by an umbilical.”

  That meshed with what Bolan had observed on his previous underwater visit.

  “The others show the submersibles and the divers working on the sub—” The man shut his mouth abruptly, as if realizing he’d
said more than he should have.

  Bolan prodded him with the Beretta again. “Don’t stop on our account.”

  The man squirmed. “Please, the boss’ll kill me.”

  “He’s not here,” Bolan said. “I am.”

  “Fine, it’s an old Russian submarine. Sunk years ago. It must have been uncovered by the last hurricane. The boss has sources all over the place, and a few of them told him it might be in this area. We’ve been searching for months, pretending it was for this movie thing.”

  Kournikova approached the screens and studied them. “It looks like an old Oscar class sub. What is its designation?”

  “I don’t know,” the man said.

  Bolan jabbed him again with the Beretta.

  “I don’t,” he said. “I swear.”

  “Sounds like a whole lot of swearing’s going on,” Grimaldi said, as he came back into the room, flashing a thumbs-up. “Divers secured. And we’ve got M-4s and night vision goggles for everyone.”

  Tyler came in behind him. “We’ve got them all locked up in a washroom section below.”

  “You know of any missing subs in this area?” Bolan asked Kournikova.

  She nodded slowly. “There was one thought to have sunk in the Caribbean, returning from Cuba, a number of years ago. The K-159.”

  “Was it armed with nukes?”

  She nodded.

  Grimaldi and Tyler moved toward the screens.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Grimaldi asked.

  “It is,” Bolan said.

  “But it’s against international law to salvage another nation’s naval vessel,” Tyler said.

  Kournikova rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, please. Are you that naive?”

  Grimaldi began shuffling through some papers in a tray on a nearby desk. He picked up several sheets and brought them over to the others. “This first one looks like it might be in Arabic.”

  “No,” Kournikova said, “not Arabic. Farsi.”

  “Farsi?” Grimaldi repeated. “Don’t tell me there’s an Iranian connection.”

  Kournikova scanned the page. “It is some kind of shipping manifest. The vessel is named the Xerxes. They were to deliver a shipment of oil to Cuba. Four days ago.”

  “Four days,” Bolan said. “The ship should be on its way back to the Persian Gulf by now.”

  Kournikova turned the paper over and looked at some scribbling in pencil.

  “There are some calculations here,” she said. “With some writing in the Cyrillic alphabet. Distances in kilometers, some mathematical formulas.” She picked up the next sheet. “Someone was doing extensive calculations. Maximum yield in kilotons versus distance. EMP blast radius.” She looked up.

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Grimaldi said. “Sounds too much like WMD talk for my tastes.”

  “Could Everett have taken a nuke out of the sub?” Bolan asked.

  Kournikova shrugged. “It is possible. The Oscar class was equipped to carry the RU-100 Veter missiles. I believe your government called them the SSN-16 Stallions. Twenty kilotons. The K-225 was armed with two.”

  Bolan looked back at the technician, who was sweating profusely. “What about it?”

  The man lowered his eyes. “Yeah, but they were only able to recover one so far.”

  “Where’s it at?” Bolan asked.

  “The boss took it to the compound.”

  “The compound?”

  “He’s got a place on the island. I don’t know where. We aren’t allowed to go there.”

  “You should look at this,” Kournikova said. “A drawing of an archipelago along with a circle marking variations of destruction is on a subsequent page.” She handed the paper to Bolan.

  “Where’s that?” Tyler asked, looking over Bolan’s shoulder.

  “Don’t know.” The soldier snapped a picture with his cell phone. “I’ll email it to Hal. Maybe he can find out.”

  Tyler frowned. “I’d better get on the horn to D.C. right away.”

  “And tell them what?” Grimaldi asked. “You’ll start a panic if we don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with. Let us handle it through our channels.”

  “More calculations here,” Bolan said, interrupting them. “Looks like mileage versus fuel consumption. Two different listings in English. One is M, the other V. Mean anything to you, Jack?”

  Grimaldi rubbed his chin as he looked at the pencil markings. “That Russian bird’s proper designation is the Mi-24 Hind. V...” He shrugged. “Can’t say.”

  Bolan grabbed the technician’s shirt, pulling the man upward until their faces were inches apart. “You’ve got about ten seconds to tell me where that compound is before I toss you over the side and let you deal with the sharks.”

  “I don’t know. I swear, I don’t know!” The man started crying. “The boss set it up before I got here. Before any of us got here.”

  Bolan tossed the man back into the chair.

  “Do you believe him?” Kournikova asked.

  Bolan glanced at the weeping man and then nodded.

  “I don’t think he knows either,” Grimaldi said, his mouth twisting into a crafty smile. “But I bet I know who does. Le Pierre.”

  Bolan turned to Tyler. “Get everyone back to the chopper now. We’re going to pay a visit inland.”

  * * *

  “THE K-225?” BROGNOLA punctuated the statement with a groan.

  “You’ve heard of it?” Bolan asked. He and Kournikova had given each other a wide berth as they walked back to the chopper. He knew they each had to report in via satellite phone regarding these latest developments.

  “Only in hushed whispers,” Brognola said. “It’s on the Russians’ missing nukes list. Oscar class sub. Disappeared back in the late nineties, to the best of my recollection.”

  “Well, it’s resurfaced, in a manner of speaking. Can you get the navy down here to take over this platform operation?”

  “You bet. I’m going to wake up the President as soon as we finish. What else you got?”

  Bolan took a deep breath. “A lot of loose ends and speculation. We haven’t located the recovered missile yet. Did Aaron find that address for me on Le Pierre?”

  Brognola said he’d check, and Bolan listened to silence for several seconds. “He’s emailing it to you and Jack now with a map,” the big Fed said when he came back on the line.

  “Roger that,” Bolan said. “Keep an eye on that Iranian ship, the Xerxes. I’m not sure how it fits in, but it has to mean something, and I’ve got a feeling it’s not good.”

  “Okay,” Brognola said. “I’ll call back if we have any luck. Stay safe down there.”

  “Yeah, right,” Bolan said, and ended the call. He glanced over and saw Kournikova was off the phone, as well. She walked over to him with a wistful smile.

  “Are your superiors as upset over this as mine are?” she asked.

  “Probably.” Bolan waved his hand toward the helicopter. “Shall we?”

  * * *

  USING THE MAP they’d received from Stony Man Farm, Grimaldi was able to locate Le Pierre’s residence easily, and set the chopper down in a vacant field nearby. Bolan told Ivan, Larch and Bettinger to guard the helicopter, and he, Tyler, Kournikova and Grimaldi set off at a jog through back alleys and between ramshackle houses toward the police captain’s home. It was on a corner lot, and easily the largest residence in the neighborhood.

  “An island of affluence in a sea of poverty,” Grimaldi said.

  Bolan stopped behind the seven-foot-high wall that surrounded the place, and clasped his hands together, gesturing to Grimaldi. The pilot stepped into Bolan’s palms and jumped as the soldier lifted. Grimaldi straddled the wall and did a quick survey with his flashlight. He turned back to others and n
odded. Bolan boosted Kournikova up next, then Tyler. Grimaldi lowered his arm to give Bolan the slight lift he needed to grab the top of the wall.

  They descended and made their way through the expansive yard, past Le Pierre’s in-ground pool. Grimaldi flipped down his night vision goggles and took out his weapon. Bolan removed his Espada knife from his belt. When they reached the back door, they stopped and listened intently.

  No noises greeted them. Bolan pressed the blade of his knife between the door and the jamb and gave a quick twist. The door popped open, and one by one they stepped into the house. The back door had opened into an enclosed porch area. Grimaldi went first, using his goggles to negotiate around the furniture. The porch connected to a hallway with two open doors on either side. Grimaldi poked his head into each, holding up his hand to indicate that it was unoccupied. When he got to the last room on the left he peered in, gave a thumbs-up and lifted two fingers.

  Bolan signaled for Grimaldi, Tyler and Kournikova to clear the rest of the house. He stood in silence, his Beretta down by his leg, waiting at the bedroom door. The mixed snoring coming from the bed reaffirmed what Grimaldi had implied: two people sleeping. He made out their forms under the white sheet. A few minutes later, the others returned, and Grimaldi made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. Bolan motioned for him to go inside first.

  Grimaldi crept into the room, circling to the far side and removing two handguns from a chair next to the bed. One was a semiautomatic, the other a large revolver. Once he had both weapons a safe distance from the bed, he flipped the goggles up on his forehead and signaled to Bolan.

  Bolan hit the light switch and the room was illuminated. None of them moved for several seconds in the sudden brightness. Bolan looked at the two figures entwined on the bed: Captain Le Pierre and Sergeant Gipardieu.

  Grimaldi crouched in front of Le Pierre. After a few fluttering movements, the captain’s eyes opened and he blinked several times. An expression of sheer terror spread across his face and his mouth opened wide, but no sound came out.

  “Rise and shine, sleepyheads,” Grimaldi said. He held his pistol a few inches from Le Pierre’s face.

  Gipardieu awakened, shock and terror twisting his features as well. “Mon dieu.”