B005J4EW5G EBOK

by Mack Maloney

“Hear it?” he asked them again.

  “How can you hear anything over all those race cars?” Murphy replied.

  Batman looked out the shack’s only window, and then ran out to the dock.

  That’s when he saw it.

  High in the sky, but getting closer.

  The answer to their prayers—maybe.

  It was the Shin-1 flying boat.

  27

  THE ITALIAN-BUILT NUMERO Two racing yacht was like the Smoke-Lar in almost every way.

  It, too, was shaped like a sharp-point bullet; it had special paint, aerodynamic glass, a semi-enclosed cockpit and a gas turbine for propulsion. And it, too, could reach speeds in excess of eighty mph on water.

  They were virtually the same vessel, except Numero Two was painted red and the Smoke-Lar was painted white.

  Michele Savoldi was Numero Two’s pilot; his cousin Giuseppe was his engineer. They’d left Monte Carlo at the same time as the Smoke-Lar, but had fallen behind the Dutch-designed boat almost immediately, losing sight of their opponent not ten minutes into the race.

  This was not so unusual; it was just a difference in racing philosophy. Going at a moderate speed early, as Savoldi had, saved fuel for later on. If you start out at full throttle, as the Smoke-Lar had, you might get a big lead, but that could diminish as the race went along, especially if you ran into mechanical issues that sucked up more fuel than expected. Per the competition’s rules, Savoldi had never met or talked to the Smoke-Lar’s pilot, and every driver had his own methods. But in Savoldi’s opinion, his opponent did seem to be pouring it on a bit prematurely.

  In fact, Savoldi had been out of sight of the Smoke-Lar during most of the Mediterranean leg of the race. It was only after both vessels passed through Gibraltar in late afternoon and were out on the open ocean that he increased his speed and finally resighted his rival.

  Savoldi did not have any binoculars with him; only absolute essentials could be brought on the race because any extra weight meant loss of speed. This was why when he finally saw the Smoke-Lar again it was simply a dot on the horizon leaving a faint spray of water and smoke in its wake.

  He’d been keeping a close eye on the Dutch boat ever since, though. His plan was to gradually increase his speed during the night and creep up on his opponent. Even though they were trying to outrun the sun, if Savoldi could get within five miles of the Smoke-Lar by dawn the next morning, he would be happy.

  * * *

  GIUSEPPE HAD JUST changed out a fuel tank when Savoldi realized something was about to fly over them. He’d seen all kinds of aircraft during the Mediterranean leg—everything from airliners, to private planes, to TV helicopters taking pictures as he roared along below. But since moving out into the Atlantic, only the contrails of the airliners remained and even they became few and far between.

  But there was an aircraft above him now and it wasn’t an airliner or a private plane. It was a huge flying boat—and it was flying extremely low.

  It had come up from his aft starboard side, making no noise until it flew right over him not fifty feet above the mast.

  And now, as he and Giuseppe watched, the big plane turned violently to the left, and started coming back at them from the opposite direction.

  Savoldi had no idea what was happening. Giuseppe was equally baffled. This huge hulking airplane seemed so interested in them—but why?

  The flying boat went over a second time, again very low and extremely loud. Its four propellers even drowned out the roar of the Numero Two’s turbine engine. Savoldi didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to deviate from his precise, predetermined course—that might cost him time and speed at the finish line. But he didn’t want to collide with the huge plane either. Yet it was flying so low that seemed like a possibility.

  The plane turned a third time, and came at them now from the starboard bow. It went by no more than twenty-five feet off the water, its wing almost touching the boat’s nose. Then it turned once more, sped up—and landed with a great splash about a half-mile directly in front of the Numero Two. Incredibly, it began taxiing toward a collision course with the racing yacht.

  Savoldi had no choice. The plane had succeeded in outmaneuvering him. With great reluctance, he disengaged the autopilot and pulled back on the throttles. The boat slowed down to almost nothing.

  That’s when he saw a person frantically waving something from the flying boat’s open cockpit window.

  It was an Italian flag.

  This person was also yelling for Savoldi to come to a stop.

  * * *

  INSIDE TWO MINUTES the flying boat had come up alongside the idling Numero Two.

  By now Savoldi and Giuseppe were convinced that something had gone wrong and the race had been canceled. But then they saw a raft deploy from the rear of the flying boat with several heavily armed people on board. They began paddling madly toward the racing yacht, reaching it in seconds.

  The first man to climb aboard was an Italian; he identified himself as one of the pilots of the flying boat. He told Savoldi and Giuseppe that he was ex–Stormo Incursori and that the people with him were an American special operations unit that had to take over the Numero Two.

  By this time, the rest of the strange group had climbed aboard. Four of them were wearing futuristic battle suits and huge helmets and carrying large combat weapons. But Savoldi was mystified to see this small army was made up primarily of a man missing an eye, a man missing a leg and a man missing a hand. A fourth man was not in a battle suit; he was dressed like an average American citizen, someone’s grandfather out for a leisurely stroll. And the fifth person was not only the most beautiful girl Savoldi had ever seen, she looked like his favorite movie actress.

  He couldn’t believe this was happening.

  “These people are taking over my vessel?” he asked the Stormo pilot in Italian. “In the middle of this race?”

  The Stormo nodded yes.

  “Come pirati?” Savoldi asked. “Like pirates?”

  The Stormo pilot thought for a moment and then nodded.

  “Preciso…” he replied. “Sono proprio come i pirati…”

  They are just like pirates.

  * * *

  THE SHIN-1’S MONTE Carlo stopover lasted only thirty minutes.

  The flying boat had taxied up to the amphibian dock on the edge of the busy harbor to be met by Batman and Twitch. They knew right away this was the airplane that Alpha Squad had taken to Gottabang because of the detailing around the cockpit and tail section.

  Nolan had jumped out of the open hatch even before the flying boat had stopped moving. He greeted Batman and Twitch warmly—as if he hadn’t seen them in years, when actually it had only been a few days.

  Nolan looked especially strange to Batman. He was battered and bruised all over, like he’d been shipwrecked, beaten-up, through a major battle and more. Yet he seemed … happy. Batman had never known his friend to be anything but in a dark mood and angry at the world, especially after the team’s misadventure at Tora Bora. But now, he appeared to be a changed man.

  Nolan told them he knew Monte Carlo was the only logical place to look for them. They were full of gratitude he’d followed his gut. Then a reunion that should have taken hours or even days, was accomplished in a matter of minutes, right on the dock.

  Batman and Twitch talked first. They quickly told Nolan what had happened to them in the past forty-eight hours. Their arrival in Monte Carlo, their brief stay in the world-class luxurious penthouse, their fall to pauper status. They explained their comeback via Batman’s vast gambling winnings, the events surrounding the gagnant, and its tragic aftermath—and finally, their unusual alliance with a guy named Bobby Murphy, and his revelation to them just how dangerous the Z-box was, and how the key needed to activate it was now in the hands of terrorists.

  In the retelling, each chapter sounded more fantastic than the one before it. The money, the intrigue, chasing jump jets, mysterious women. But as incredible as it all was, nothin
g could have prepared Batman and Twitch for the surprise Nolan had in store for them.

  Only the need to get properly dressed in an extra Stormo flight suit had delayed Emma Simms’s arrival onto the dock. But as soon as she stepped out of the airplane, Nolan saw the look on Batman’s face and said, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  To which Batman replied, “Better watch what you say…”

  They’d had no idea she’d smuggled herself aboard the Shin-1 for the trip to Gottabang. No idea that she’d been with Nolan all along.

  But then it got really weird.

  On first seeing them, Emma greeted Batman and Twitch like they were long lost brothers.

  “We were so worried about you two,” she told them breathlessly, embracing them and kissing their cheeks. “We were off doing our own thing, but we were always wondering how you guys were. We had to rescue a bunch of really unfortunate people from Gottabang and then these really bad pirates called the Bum Cats kept attacking us, but we fought them off because of these poor people—we just had to save their lives even though they’re wracked with disease and malnutrition, and…”

  She went on and on … and on, telling it all, at times hugging Nolan, at times laughing and then almost crying, and then laughing again.

  It was so unexpected, that at the end of it, in perfect deadpan, Twitch had asked her, “And who are you again?”

  * * *

  THEIR CONVERSATION CONTINUED while the Shin-1 was being gassed up and the Alpha Squad was introduced to Bobby Murphy.

  It was clear that a lot of strange things had gone on with both teams, especially when Batman pulled Nolan aside and told him the unusual spiritualized way he’d so quickly won the immense fortune playing cards.

  But they really didn’t have enough time to ponder any of it. They had to concentrate on the two most important items of information: that Beta now knew what the Z-box was, and that Alpha had a good idea where it was—at an address with the zip code of 10007.

  When a quick Internet search told them that 10007 was located in lower Manhattan, frighteningly close to where the Twin Towers once stood, everyone agreed that, considering what had transpired and what was at stake, it was up to Whiskey to stop the Jihad Brothers before they got where they were going.

  Which is why they were now on the Numero Two.

  * * *

  THEY HAD A plan.

  They’d worked it out during the flight from Monte Carlo to this point almost 800 miles off the French coast.

  The plan was typical Whiskey: highly improvised and held together by Band-Aids and duct tape. That’s what had worked best for them in the past. They had no time to change their technique now.

  Most of the team’s special combat equipment had remained aboard the Shin-1 after Gottabang, so now they had access to it again, including their sniper rifle, a Barrett M107 LRSR capable of firing a .50-caliber round almost four miles, an astonishing distance. If the person firing it knew what he was doing, the M107 could be an extremely effective weapon.

  It would have to be for Whiskey’s plan to work.

  They’d immediately discounted any kind of ship-to-ship boarding action as a way of stopping the Smoke-Lar. Though it was more their forte, attempting such an attack would almost definitely cost Murphy’s protégé Li her life, not to mention it would have to be done while both vessels were traveling in excess of 80 mph.

  So their idea was this: If they could get within four miles of the Smoke-Lar, then they would use the M107 to shoot the terrorist who was piloting the boat, and hopefully his engineer as well.

  It seemed crazy, killing the two people who were in control of the high-speed vessel. But in theory it would work because just like Numero Two, the Smoke-Lar was basically run by a computer. As long as its autopilot was engaged, whether a human was at the helm or not, the boat would continue going where it was supposed to go.

  But Whiskey also figured that, with both terrorists dead, the beautiful female hostage would be able to figure out how to take the computer off-line and stop the boat. Or even if that failed, by not changing out the fuel tanks, the vessel would eventually stop on its own.

  Another advantage of the plan was that the Jihad Brothers would probably never know what hit them, at least not until the last moment. The roar of the Smoke-Lar’s turbine engine would be Whiskey’s ally here. Just as its racket masked the sound of the terrorists killing the Dutch support crew back on the dock in Monte Carlo, so now it would mask the sound of any gunfire being aimed in their direction.

  The hope was neither terrorist would realize anyone was even shooting at them until the first sniper bullet hit. And as far as they knew, as the race was still on, the only people following them were the two people trying to beat them to the finish line.

  Finally, because they were still about 3,000 miles from the U.S., mainland, Whiskey would have almost forty hours to carry out the scheme.

  * * *

  BUT, AS WAS usually the case when Whiskey took on these high-risk endeavors, there were potential complications.

  Though the M107 rifle could indeed hit a target four miles away, that was based on an expert doing the shooting and that expert being on solid ground. A non-expert firing the weapon from a racing yacht going 80 mph over six-foot ocean waves might prove a bit problematical.

  The second dilemma was how to get close enough to the Smoke-Lar to get off a good shot. The Numero Two had already been ten miles behind the Dutch vessel when Whiskey appeared on the scene. The midocean stop took another ten minutes, putting the Smoke-Lar another fifteen miles in front, for a total of more than twenty-five miles.

  The Numero Two would have to somehow make up a lot of that distance if they hoped to get within decent firing range of the lead boat.

  * * *

  BUT ON HEARING the plan, Savoldi, Numero Two’s pilot, simply laughed at them.

  “Non si può fare,” he told them. “It cannot be done.”

  The Shin-1 had departed and the Italian racing boat was climbing back up to 80 mph, its nose pointing northwest. While Savoldi’s main concern was to get moving again, he’d been quickly briefed on who was driving the Smoke-Lar and how they had killed the racing yacht’s driver, engineer and support crew. As it turned out, the pilot was intensely sympathetic, as he’d had a close relative slain by al Qaeda gunmen while serving in Iraq. And he wished he could help Whiskey in catching these terrorists.

  But, he reiterated, their plan was unworkable. Why? Because the Numero Two had become seriously overloaded.

  “This boat is built for two people,” he explained to them in rough English, shouting to be heard over the roar of his recharged turbine engine. “And Giuseppe and I are thin on purpose. We diet just to make this trip. The boat goes fast not just because of the engine but because everything else on board is built lightweight or it does not come with us at all. We don’t even have binoculars or sat-phones or more than one radio. We drink energy drinks instead of bringing food and water, and we pop pills so we won’t need a place to lie down and sleep.”

  He used his hands to indicate all the equipment Whiskey had brought with them. Their weapons, their ammunition, their heavy battle suits. And the fact that there were now five extra people on the boat.

  Savoldi guessed they were at least six hundred pounds overweight. And while there was one extra person on the Smoke-Lar, she was probably less than 100 pounds at the most, which equaled Emma’s weight. So the two females were a wash.

  But that still left the fact that Nolan, Batman, Twitch and Murphy were all extra poundage, as was all their gear, something that never dawned on them while they were en route, cooking up this plan.

  To put it in numbers, Savoldi explained the Numero Two’s turbine contained a sensor that, in simple terms, indicated how hard the engine was working. That information could then be translated into how much the boat weighed at any given moment.

  When he checked this sensor, it showed they were 575 pounds overweight.

  “I
am with you one hundred percent in this endeavor,” the surprisingly even-keeled Savoldi concluded. “But we have no hope of catching the lead boat, because we’d have to get rid of almost 600 pounds just to get back to even—and that seems impossible.”

  In other words, with the Shin-1 long gone, and with no way of calling it back, Whiskey was now stuck aboard the racing yacht whether they liked it or not.

  So much for off-the-cuff planning.

  * * *

  BUT WHISKEY COULD not just give up.

  Once Savoldi’s cold truths sank in, they began accounting for anything aboard the racing boat that was not necessary and could be thrown overboard.

  The first to go was most of Whiskey’s weapons. Over the side went their beloved M4s, all their ammunition and their sidearms. Next went the teams’ heavy battle suits, their helmets, utility belts and even their boots.

  They knew this was not nearly enough, but still wanted to know how they did. Savoldi checked his sensor

  They’d shed only eighty pounds.

  Next to go were the two gunny sacks containing MREs, some water, medical supplies, blankets, an assortment of things usually needed by special ops groups.

  Another check of the sensor. They’d only lost another thirty pounds. And that was just about all the equipment Whiskey had brought aboard the vessel.

  With Savoldi’s blessing, they started searching for items belonging to the boat itself that weren’t necessary. The racing yacht was made up of three basic components: Its extended nose was empty; its main purpose was to provide the aerodynamics of a long narrow snout. The semi-enclosed cockpit, where they were all congregated, was also where all the navigation and steering controls were located, as well as all the computers. The third component was the engine compartment, the claustrophobically small, brutally hot rear space where the turbine sat surrounded by a slew of twenty-five-gallon fuel containers. Once a container was used up, it was thrown overboard, thus making the vessel that much lighter, and making it go just a little bit faster.

  Whiskey crawled all over the vessel, inspecting every bit of it. But as Savoldi had said, the intricately designed boat had been built to be lightweight in the first place, so there really wasn’t much on board that could be discarded.