John Puller 02 - The Forgotten

by David Baldacci

  “Then it could get pretty dicey tonight. We might not have enough firepower.”

  “This is an intelligence-gathering expedition only. No engagement. We take what we find to the proper authorities.”

  “We might not have a choice about engagement. If we’re spotted.”

  “Risk of the battlefield.”

  “On U.S. soil no less. Didn’t teach us that at the Army War College.”

  “Maybe they should have.”

  “Yeah, maybe they should have. I’ll speak to the appropriate parties about it. If I survive hanging with you.”

  They fell silent until Carson said, “Something else on your mind?”

  Puller didn’t look at her. There was something else on his mind. He had continued his investigative work prompted by looking at his watch outside of Grif Mason’s hideaway. And everything he had found out only reinforced his suspicions. It didn’t sadden him. It angered him. But he would have to productively channel that anger. He looked forward to the opportunity to do so.

  “Just a jumble of things,” he said.

  Carson was about to say something else when Puller put up a hand. “Stay down,” he hissed.

  A few seconds later Carson heard what Puller’s quicker senses had already registered.

  The truck crept along the surface road shielded by a line of trees. It turned and puttered down toward the water, easing into the small park-off, where the driver killed the engine. Several men got out even as Puller and Carson hunkered down at their observation post.

  Puller held up a finger, indicating to Carson that they would communicate solely via nonverbal signals from now on. She nodded in understanding.

  Lying prone in the sand, Puller intensified the power on his night-vision goggles and pointed them at the truck, which sat about a hundred yards away from their position.

  At first Puller was thinking that another vehicle would meet the truck, but that didn’t make any sense. Truck and truck at a clandestine meeting site was not logical. Moving over the road you’d get a warehouse and do your transfer in privacy.

  The only reason to drive down near the water was if you were expecting a delivery from the water.

  A minute later Puller’s deduction was proved correct.

  The whine of the boat wasn’t much, but water was a great conductor of sound. The boat was moving fast, and within thirty seconds Puller could see the outline of what he almost immediately recognized as a RIB. It was the same type of amphibious boat the Rangers used.

  As the RIB grew closer to shore, Puller could make out many people on board. Too many for the boat’s small footprint.

  Carson touched his arm. He looked at her, found her pointing back toward land. Puller focused that way and saw the men from the truck coming down to the beach.

  Right now he would have given anything for a night camera to record what was about to happen.

  People were being pulled off the RIB. When they hit the sand, Puller could see that they were bound and their mouths taped shut.

  They also wore different-colored shirts.

  Puller flipped up his goggles and saw green, red, and blue.

  He felt a gentle squeeze on his arm and turned to see Carson staring over his shoulder. She looked at him. He shook his head and turned back to what was happening on the beach.

  The people were herded up the sand and to the truck where two men were posted there to guard them.

  Puller turned his attention back to the beach, where the RIB had disappeared, but another one was now approaching the beach. The scenario that had just happened on the beach was repeated with this second group.

  A third RIB beached, disgorged passengers, and left.

  Then a fourth RIB came and did the same.

  After the last RIB left, the truck was locked and three men climbed into the cab.

  Carson said, “What do we do now?”

  Puller was thinking this very same question.

  What do we do?

  “We need to call the police, right now,” Carson urged.

  But Puller shook his head. “No,” he said.

  She looked at him in bewilderment. “No? Are you crazy? Those people were prisoners, Puller.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “Then we call the cops.”

  “Not yet.”

  “When do you think might be a more suitable time?”

  Puller looked at the truck as it started to pull away. “Let’s go,” he said.

  CHAPTER 77

  Puller kept back as far as he could from the truck while still keeping it in sight.

  It was tricky. Headlights back here at this time of night would no doubt make the guys in the truck dangerously suspicious.

  Carson alternated between looking at the tail- lights of the truck and scowling at Puller.

  “I’m still not getting this tactic, Puller. If you don’t call the police for something like this, what then?”

  He said nothing, but kept his gaze upon the truck as it wound around the curves with thick trees on both sides. They might as well have been in a forest. There was no hint of the nearby ocean except for the occasional whiff of brine.

  He finally looked at her. “Well-timed op. Secluded spot, middle of the night. Bring them in by water, truck them out.”

  “Right, so?”

  “How many nights you think they do this?”

  “I have no way of knowing that.”

  “Let’s say they do it three or four times a week. Maybe seven days a week.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe we just got lucky.”

  “No one is that lucky.”

  “And your point?”

  “Maybe this is what my aunt saw. Or what the Storrows saw.”

  “Maybe it is.”

  “My aunt was a good upstanding citizen. The Storrows were, by all indications, pillars of the community.”

  “Granted, they probably were.”

  “And you think these elderly solid citizens saw what we saw and didn’t tell the police?”

  Carson started to say something and then stopped. “So your point is they did tell the police and nothing happened.”

  “Oh, something happened. They ended up dead. All of them.”

  “You think the police are in on what we just saw?”

  “I don’t see how you can run an op like that, even once a week, and trust that the cops are not going to happen upon you. All it would take is one cop on patrol seeing a boat light, or the truck, or just happening to walk down the beach and see what we saw tonight.”

  “And they couldn’t risk that?”

  “We just saw four RIBs. They’re not long-dis- tance boats. That means there’s a larger vessel out there that they launched from. I counted eighty people off the boats, and now they’re in the back of that truck. You’re talking equipment, money, and manpower. The payoff has to justify that.”

  “Like you said before. Drugs, guns.”

  “They were people, General. No guns, no drugs.”

  “So maybe drug mules?”

  “And there were young women. So prostitutes. And bigger, older men. Maybe slave laborers.”

  “Slave laborers? In America?”

  “Why not?”

  “I thought we fought the Civil War to take care of that little bit of evil.”

  “If it’s profitable, evil can come back strong, just like a cancer with fresh blood lines to feed off.”

  “Damn, Puller, do you really think that’s what this is about?”

  “A pipeline is a pipeline. You can run lots of different things through it.”

  “And the police?”

  “Part of the equation. Paradise is wealthy and a tourist destination and no one wants to rock the boat and maybe the cops are paid to look the other way. Hell, maybe the whole damn town is.”

  “I can’t believe that.”

  “Maybe not. But if I’m those guys I’m not putting an operation like this together and risking a cop stumbling onto it and blowing it out
of the water.”

  “Something like that has to come from the top. So Bullock?”

  “Maybe. I was surprised at how quickly he turned into my friend.”

  “I wonder who’s running the op from the other end.”

  “My bet is on the guy who got his Bentley blown up.”

  “What? Lampert? How do you figure that?”

  “I checked the guy out. Made and lost a fortune. Then made another one back, obviously. Only I can’t find out how. And he screws the hired help. And maybe they’re not hired at all. Maybe he’s got slaves on his ‘plantation.’ ”

  “Okay, let’s say he is the guy. Why would someone blow up his car?”

  “Maybe a guy with size sixteen shoes has a beef with the man.”

  “Size sixteen shoes?”

  Puller explained about the footprints outside the guesthouse window. “He’s the same guy who saved my butt the other night. I don’t think he did it out of kindness. And maybe he regrets it now. But he may be the one after Lampert. He works on a landscaping crew. Why do I want to bet he works the Lampert estate?”

  “And his beef with Lampert?”

  “No idea. And I may be barking up the wrong tree. But guys that big with skills like he has are rare. And I can’t believe he came here to cut grass.”

  “So with the knowledge in hand, what do we do? Call in the Army? The DEA? The Border Patrol?”

  “We need to know more. If we start making noises and they have moles on the inside, we’ll never get the evidence we need to put them away. They’ll be gone, never to return.”

  “Well, when we find out where that truck is going we may have all the evidence we need,” she said.

  Puller suddenly punched the gas and the Tahoe sped up.

  “What are you doing?” Carson exclaimed. “They’ll see you.”

  “We’ve already been seen.”

  “What?”

  “Twin bogies behind us and they’re closing like an Abrams tank brigade on a soft target.”

  She looked behind her and saw the set of twin beams coming on way too fast.

  “Shit!”

  Carson lifted her pistol from its holster.

  Puller shook his head. “Ineffective at this range and tactical position. Take my rifle. I’ll pop the back window. Take up a position in the rear. Use the tailgate to steady the rifle.” He eyed the rearview again. “I’m thinking fifty yards. Aim for the windshield and the radiator.”

  She was already scrambling over the seat. “Roger that.”

  He popped the window, she took her spot, settled the rifle on the tailgate, but then she paused.

  “Puller, what if it’s the police or Feds back there?”

  A bullet shattered the back glass, covering Carson in shards.

  “Don’t think so,” said Puller. “Fire! Now!”

  Carson pumped five rounds from her rifle into the windshield and radiator of the first vehicle. It swerved and smoke started pouring from the hood.

  Carson fired twice more and the windshield shattered completely and then came off in one large chunk. She could see the driver hunched over and then the vehicle flew off the road.

  “One bogie down,” she called out.

  “Don’t declare victory yet,” barked Puller.

  Out of the smoky haze thrown off by the first vehicle the second, an SUV, raced, bearing down on them fast.

  These people were taking no chances.

  Bullets poured from twin gunmen hanging out the windows.

  The Tahoe’s left rear wheel shredded.

  “Puller,” cried out Carson.

  “I know.”

  He fought the wheel, keeping it on the asphalt.

  Carson fired back but then stopped.

  “Keep shooting,” snapped Puller.

  “My rifle jammed.”

  “Shit,” barked Puller. He checked the rearview. Bogie coming fast, major firepower. They had one bad wheel and as he checked his fuel gauge he saw it plummeting. One round must have pierced the fuel tank.

  “We’re losing gas,” Carson called out. “I can smell it.”

  “They hit the tank.”

  Carson looked back and her eyes widened as the SUV came on hard and fast, its hood nearing the back of the Tahoe. Then it abruptly slowed and fell back.

  At first Carson thought they were retreating, but then she saw something that told her otherwise.

  “Puller!”

  “What?”

  “They’ve got an RPG.”

  The man on the right side of the SUV was hanging out the side getting a bead on them with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher riding on his shoulder, while another man inside the truck held on to him.

  That’s why they had fallen back. To avoid the blast from ground zero when rocket and Tahoe plus leaky gas tank erupted in a flame ball.

  Carson ducked down as the man fired. It was a good thing she was holding on, because at that very moment Puller, who’d been watching this unfold in the rearview, cut the wheel hard to the left at the exact instant the grenade launched.

  The Tahoe shuddered and then responded.

  The grenade passed by on the right, hit a bank of trees, and exploded.

  Carson tumbled across the rear of the truck’s interior as the Tahoe skidded off the road and slid onto the shoulder. The rear door was ripped open and a large hand flew in, grabbed Carson under the arm, and lifted her out of the Tahoe.

  The next instant she and Puller were running for their lives.

  CHAPTER 78

  They had two pistols and a jammed rifle between them.

  Puller led Carson to cover behind a dune. It wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t need to be. They looked at each other as they heard people running toward their general position.

  “Tight spot,” said Carson.

  Puller checked the pistols. “We’ve both been in tighter. They haven’t located us yet. It’ll take some time.”

  “But they will.”

  “Yes, they will.”

  “Superior numbers and firepower.”

  “We’re the underdogs, certainly.”

  “I don’t mind that. It’ll just take a little figuring to move us to the top of the food chain.”

  “I like your confidence.”

  She looked at her phone. “Can’t call in the cavalry. No service.”

  “I know. I already checked mine.” He hunkered down, looked around.

  He said, “We need higher ground.”

  “Soldiers always want higher ground.”

  He looked at her, apparently sizing her up for the question he was about to ask. “You mind taking orders from an enlisted?”

  She managed a smile. “Under the circumstances I think I’m going to insist that I do. I’ve sat behind a desk too long. Your combat boots are fresher than mine are.”

  He rubbed a bead of sweat from his eye. “You think you can hold this position alone?”

  In response she scrambled up to the top of the dune, surveyed the beach, and then rejoined him.

  “If they have another RPG round to fire, no. But if it’s gun to gun, I can. For about ten minutes if I manage my ammo properly.”

  “I won’t need that long. And I’m leaving both pistols with you.” He handed the weapons to her. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Get to higher ground.”

  “As a sniper? But the rifle jammed on me.” Puller cleared the rifle’s breech, checked the firing mechanism, and pronounced it workable.

  She said, “You think anyone heard what happened? The guns, the explosion? We’re not that far out of town.”

  “We’re too far out. And the breakers make a lot of noise.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll make it, General.”

  “No doubt. But then every soldier wants to believe that. Good luck.”

  “It’ll be about more than luck.”

  She touched him on the arm. “Counting on you to come back, John.”

  “There’s only one
thing that will stop me.” Carson knew what that was.

  Death.

  She drew a long breath and nodded. “Okay.”

  Puller slung the rifle over his shoulder and in a few seconds was gone.

  Carson blinked. It was like he had simply vanished. And for a man as big as he was, that took some skill.

  But then again, he's a Ranger, she thought. That's what they do.

  She gripped her Glock, racked the slide, slid her secondary weapon, Puller’s Mu, into the back of her waistband, and took up her defensive position in a slot she burrowed on top of the dune. She was trying to make herself as invisible as possible. You couldn’t kill what you couldn’t get a bead on.

  Gun on gun she could hold this piece of sand for a time. But after that it would just be inevitable.

  She would die.

  And if they fired another grenade she would be blown into little bits of organic matter.

  She crossed herself, settled in, and took aim.

  CHAPTER 79

  Puller had sized up the battlefield and chosen his high ground. Now he knew he simply had to get there “fastest with the mostest.”

  And in that he had pretty much summed up the winning strategy of every military campaign ever fought.

  When opposed by superior numbers and firepower it was essential to hit the other side fast and hard and in multiple spots. This would hopefully cause confusion, blunt any momentum they might have, and ideally force a tactical retreat.

  Puller would be just fine with confusion. But then he would also be just fine with killing all of them.

  He found his spot and shimmied up a tree, coming to rest in the crook formed by the trunk and a sturdy limb. He settled his rifle into place and sighted along the scope, dialing in necessary adjustments to fit the wind, distance to target, and other factors.

  There were six men. They came on in two groups of three. They were moving in a V shape, one leader and two followers. From Puller’s perch up the tree they looked like two arrowheads moving forward across the sand. They had some military training, he deduced, but not as much as they should have. He scanned behind the men, looking for reinforcements waiting to be deployed. He’d made that mistake at the Sierra; he didn’t intend to make the same error again.