by James Rosone
Bringing his Sig Sauer 300 Blackout AR to his shoulder, Han cut loose a string of rounds into the target vehicle. The passenger side of the front windshield splattered with blood as his rounds found their mark, the heavy 300 Blackout bullets punching right through the lightly armored glass windows of the government SUV.
The other shooters with Han were likewise unloading their rifles into the vehicle, riddling it with dozens and dozens of rounds, killing the occupants. The driver in the chase vehicle in the rear had thrown their SUV into reverse, flooring it as they tried to get out of the kill box. Several of Han’s guys stood their ground, emptying their magazines into the vehicle, aiming for the driver side and the engine compartment.
The vehicle managed to drive in reverse for another thirty or so feet before the driver was riddled with half a dozen bullets. A man climbed out of the passenger side of the vehicle and, while using it as cover, pulled his own rifle out of the vehicle and returned fire.
One of Han’s guys got hit and went down. The others dove for cover as they reacted to the new threat.
“Flank them!” Han yelled out.
Two of his guys fired some shots while they ran to the right. Another two guys ran to the left as they sought to get the defender in a crossfire so he wouldn’t be able to escape. Meanwhile, the rest of Han’s guys continued to light the vehicle up now that it had stalled out and appeared dead.
Running up to the vehicle they’d just shot, Han found the lone gunman slumped against the side of SUV, blood covering his chest from multiple bullet wounds. With the threat neutralized, Han began searching the vehicles.
In the first vehicle, the driver and front passenger were clearly dead. One of the occupants in the rear had also been killed in the gunfire. The fourth man, a nerdy-looking computer guy, had his hands up, tears streaming down his face.
Han couldn’t hear what he was saying. He raised his rifle up and fired a handful of rounds into him, ending his pleas for mercy.
“All clear,” shouted one of his guys as they encircled the second SUV.
“Come out with your hands up!” shouted one of Han’s guys.
A moment later, a woman and a man climbed out of the vehicle. They looked terrified. Han recognized the man from the images he’d been sent as Ma Yong. The woman with him was unknown.
Han approached them, his rifle at the low ready. His other guards likewise kept their rifles at the low ready.
At this point, a lot of spectators from around the area began poking their heads out of their nearby businesses to figure out what was going on. For the briefest of minutes, it must have sounded like World War III had started in their sleepy little town.
Walking up to the man and woman with their hands held high, Han asked, “Are you Ma Yong?”
The man looked at him, dread in his eyes. Han knew that look all too well—that look of a person who knew they’d been caught and were about to be either arrested or killed.
Raising his rifle, Han shot the traitor several times in the chest. The woman next to him screamed and tried to run. Han turned his rifle on her and fired a handful of bullets into her back as well.
He then walked over to Ma’s body and fired a couple more rounds into him. He reached for his phone, then took a photo of him. He then reached down and grabbed his right hand, taking his electronic fingerprints just to make sure they’d gotten the right person.
By this time, they heard police sirens. Han’s sniper team told them they had two sheriff deputies on their way.
“We got what we came here for—it’s time to roll!” Han called out over their internal coms network.
While his guys were running back to their vehicles, one of the sheriff vehicles came around the bend. The front windshield suddenly cracked and was then splattered with blood. The vehicle careened out of control and slammed into a parked car on the side of the road. The sniper team had scored a hit and bought them some time to get in their SUVs and haul out of there.
Once Han was in his vehicle, he directed the driver to head to their exfil location. They had a U-Haul moving van waiting for them. They’d pile into the back and head off to a safe house near Spokane, Washington, where they’d await their next set of orders.
This was the first set of targeted assassinations. Han doubted it’d be their last, given the number of them they’d heard about on the news over the last couple of days. All sorts of foreign intelligence operatives were turning up dead in countries all over the world, to include the United States.
Chapter Eighteen
Miami Heat
USCGC Charles Sexton
Thirty Miles off the Florida Keys
It was a blistering hot afternoon when the fun started. The Coast Guard cutter spotted its prey and maneuvered to swoop in.
“Lieutenant, it looks like we have a submersible!” shouted one of the lookouts from his post.
Lieutenant Don Winslow furrowed his brow. “This is the third one in four days,” he muttered. Then he turned to his senior enlisted man. “Chief, go check it out. See if it really is another one of them,” Winslow ordered.
Chief Petty Officer Yoni Yankovic nodded and got up to see for himself.
“Where’s it at?” he asked the lookout.
“Over there, Chief,” the young man said.
Raising the binos to his eyes, Yankovic looked in the direction the young man was pointing. It took him a moment, but sure enough, he spotted a shallow wake—a telltale sign of a submersible.
Turning to look back into the pilothouse, Yankovic gave them a signal letting them know he confirmed it. They’d found another one.
Moments later, the Sentinel-class cutter picked up speed and headed toward the drug-running submersible. A general quarters klaxon blared, letting the crew know to get ready for action.
When Yankovic walked back into the pilothouse, Winslow exclaimed, “Where the hell are they getting all these submersibles?”
Yankovic shrugged. “No idea. You want me to have the team get the RIB ready?”
“Yeah, get them ready to launch. We need to get as close to them as possible before we send them out,” Winslow answered.
It took them twenty minutes to catch up with the drug runners, who were doing their best to evade them. Had their vessel been a true submersible, they might have been able to dive and hide under the waves. The little drug boats could only go a few feet under the waves at best. They were primarily designed with a low profile to make them hard to locate with radar or the naked eye. One of the giveaways was rough seas. When the waves rose above a certain level, it became harder for them to hide and not get tossed about.
As they neared the vessel, the RIB stationed at the rear of the cutter slid off the rear of the boat and took off after the drug boat. While they raced to intercept it, two sailors manned the 25mm cannon on the bow while another sailor handled the fifty-caliber machine gun on the port side.
When the RIB pulled up right next to the drug boat, Yankovic called out to one of his soldiers, “Jenkins, see if you can get them to stop.”
The petty officer third class nodded, a determined look on his face. Jenkins and three other Coasties were the only ones tricked out in full body armor with M4s strapped to them. If there was a shoot-out on the sub, they’d be the ones to handle it.
*******
The RIB angled right up against the submersible, closing the distance so all Jenkins had to do was practically walk on to it. Once he was on, he ran toward the front of the boat to the cabin entrance.
Jenkins banged on the hatch a couple of times, shouting at them in Spanish to no avail.
Yankovic shouted, “Hold on, Jenkins. He’s trying to fling you off!”
The drug runners pulled the sub hard to the right, nearly throwing Jenkins right off the back. Jenkins scrambled to grab at anything to hold on to. Then the driver decelerated, causing Jenkins to spin around and almost fly off the front of the submersible.
Yankovic veered the RIB in front of the drug boat a couple of ti
mes, making sure the crew inside knew they weren’t getting away.
Jenkins reached for his radio talk button. “Chief, I’ll plug a few rounds in their engines and end this.”
“Good copy, Jenkins. Permission granted,” Yankovic replied, not waiting to get the lieutenant’s approval. They needed to end this now before Jenkins or anyone else got hurt.
Jenkins finally found his footing and walked past the small cabin toward the rear. As he approached the rear of the boat, Jenkins pulled his M4 from behind him and flicked the selector switch from safe to semi. He took aim at the rear of the boat, where the engine was located, and proceeded to fire half a dozen rounds into the compartment, trying to disable the engines.
Seconds after he started shooting, he heard a grinding noise, and then smoke emanated from the bullet holes. The drug boat started losing power as the engine gave out.
At this point, Jenkins turned around, his rifle at the low ready in case any of the occupants decided they wanted to get frisky.
The front hatch opened a couple of inches, and a small yellow canister dropped on the rear deck. It rolled off the boat into the water, puffing out thick orange smoke.
Oh crap, they’re gonna fight, Jenkins thought to himself as he took a quick knee.
The pilothouse was now covered in thick orange smoke, obscuring the Coast Guard’s view of what was going on. Then Jenkins heard the unmistakable sound of an AK-47 opening fire.
He dropped to his belly, hearing the hot metal projectiles zipping over his head where he’d just been. Aiming his M4 where he suspected the shooter was, Jenkins returned fire. He fired close to a dozen rounds at the pilothouse, hoping he’d hit the shooter and ended the fight.
Then a voice called out in Spanish, telling him they wanted to surrender. It was still hard to see clearly; the damn smoke canister was floating next to the submersible, spewing clouds of orange signal smoke that obscured everything.
Jenkins called out in Spanish, telling them to drop their weapons and start walking toward the rear of the submersible with their hands held up. A minute later, two figures appeared out of the smoke. When a gust of wind blew more of the smoke away, Jenkins got a good look at them. They both had their hands up, no visible weapons. When he caught a quick glance of the pilothouse, he spotted the body of their comrade. He looked dead.
“Jenkins, you alright?” called out Chief Yankovic over the radio.
“Yeah, Chief. I got the shooter. I’ve got two prisoners near the rear of the boat where I am,” Jenkins replied.
A minute later, the RIB pulled up next to the submersible. One of the sailors found the smoke canister and grabbed for it. Once they had it, the chief accelerated away and they tossed it in the open ocean. They needed to get it away from the submersible so they could see clearly. Those little signal canisters could puff away for a good three to five minutes if you let them.
Now that Jenkins could see better, he moved toward the two guys with their hands up. “Turn around and place your hands behind your backs,” he ordered.
Jenkins grabbed for his zip cuffs and got them secured. When the RIB pulled up next to them again, they transferred the two prisoners. A couple more sailors hopped aboard the sub and made their way to the pilothouse and the inside of the submersible.
They’d spend the next couple of hours documenting everything they found and dusting the place for prints. Three hours later, they’d counted one hundred and forty-eight kilos of heroin. This was on top of the two other drug boats they’d stopped earlier in the week.
No one knew for certain what was going on, but they were interdicting an awful lot of heroin coming from Cuba in the last three weeks.
*******
Drug Enforcement Office
Miami Field Office
“Bill, what’s going on with all the drugs coming in from Cuba? I don’t think we’ve ever seen this many drug smugglers originating from there. Is there something going on we don’t know about?” asked Mike Auger, the Special Agent in Charge of the Miami DEA office.
Bill shrugged as he poured himself another coffee. “Beats me, boss. Maybe they figure with all the crap going on in the country, now’d be a good time to slip some boats past us.”
Mike sighed at Bill’s indifference. He’d be glad when Bill retired at the end of the year. Once Bill had dropped his retirement papers a month ago, he had truly become a ROAD, retired on active duty. The man did as little as humanly possible as he waited out the last few months of the fiscal year and his retirement.
“How about you do this, Bill? Take the new kid, Tom, with you. Reach out to some of your sources and figure out what’s going on. This might be a good chance for you to start transitioning your people over to him since you’ll be retiring in a few months,” Mike offered, though it was more of an order than a suggestion.
Bill lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t you think Tom’s a little green to be running sources?”
“Have you read Tom’s file?” Mike asked. “He’s got eight years’ experience working for Portland PD in their narcotics division. Prior to that, he spent six years in the Marines, counterintelligence. He may be green to the DEA, but he’s got some good experience to rely on. Besides, you’re retiring in four months. It’s time to start transitioning your sources over to someone else.”
“All right, Mike,” Bill said with a sigh. “I’ll make some calls and start looping the cherry in on what’s what. Keep in mind, most places are still closed down with all this COVID BS going on, so organizing some meets might be a challenge.”
*******
Two Hours Later
Mike walked back to his office and closed the door. He checked his email and saw an urgent one from D.C. He clicked on the email from his boss.
Mike,
Something’s going on along the border. CBP has intercepted more drugs in the last eight weeks than they did in the previous year. Most concerning is that the drugs appear to be a mixture of fentanyl and heroin. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I need you to press your sources in South Florida to see if there’s an increase in demand. There shouldn’t be this much product coming into the US unless there’s a sudden increase in demand we don’t know about.
Jerry
“I knew something was going on,” Mike said aloud to himself, lightly punching his desk. He hadn’t noticed the new guy had popped his head in through the open office door.
“You all right, boss?” asked Tom.
“Ah, Tom, just the guy I was looking for. Come on in,” Mike replied as he pointed to an empty chair in front of his desk. “Sometimes I like to think out loud. It helps me know if what I’m thinking makes sense or not. Now, how did things go today with Bill?”
Tom pulled out a notebook and flipped it open. “It went good. Bill got us a few meets set up for the next couple of days. Tonight, we’ll be meeting up with a guy named…Nugget. Bill’s granted me access to his source files, so I’ll spend the next few days reading up on them all.”
“Ah, excellent. Nugget’s actually a surprisingly good source. We’ve been employing him for a long time. He’s a bit of a wild card, though, so just keep an eye on him.”
“Yeah, I saw that. He seems to have a bit of a temper. Resisting arrest, assault on a police officer, assault and battery charges and a rap sheet as long as my arm. Guy’s a real piece of work,” Tom commented.
Chuckling at his assessment, Mike replied, “Guys like that make for the best sources. They’re in so deep their only hope is a deal. He knows the second he stops being a good reliable source, he’s back in federal custody. He likes his freedom too much. If he knows what’s going on with all the drugs coming in from Cuba, he’ll talk.”
*******
Four Hours Later
Miami, Florida
After driving down South Dixie Highway for a little while, Bill finally broke the silence.
“We’re approaching the meet location.”
Tom leaned forward in his seat as if it’d help him see what they were a
pproaching. “This is where we’re meeting Nugget?”
Snickering at the question, Bill countered, “You don’t approve? It’s one of the few places still open right now.”
The parking lot was coming up quick. It was half-full of Harleys and a few pickup trucks sporting Confederate flags.
Tom shook his head. “No, I figured he might hang out at a higher-caliber strip club than this joint. This place looks like a real dive.”
Bill snorted. “Well, the higher-end strip clubs are all closed because of the virus. The only benefit about that is the girls that work at them are now working at these dive bars instead. Same view, half the ticket price.”
Tom shook his head. He hated how some guys viewed women like a piece of meat. Strip clubs weren’t his thing. He only went to them for work when he had no choice.
Bill parked the beater of a car they’d taken from the impound lot for tonight’s meet. As they approached the entrance, the booming of the music became louder.
Opening the door, Bill motioned for Tom to head on in.
The front entrance was filled with smoke and the slight scent of marijuana.
“It’s ten dollars,” announced a burly man with the word Security stenciled on his black T-shirt.
Bill pulled a twenty out of his pocket and handed it to the bouncer. The two of them then walked past the black curtain and inside the bar.
There was a stage along the center wall of the open room. A dozen chairs ringed the stage, with half a dozen two- and four-person tables set a little further back. On the opposite wall was a U-shaped bar that gave the patrons a good angle to watch the stage from a distance while they drank their drinks or ate an appetizer.
Bill led Tom past several tables while several mean-looking men stared at them. The tough guys had a pile of empty beer bottles on the table in front of them.
The two of them found a seat at the bar and ordered a beer. While the bartender was getting them their beers, Bill leaned in and lit a cigarette. “Nugget’s sitting near the stage. He saw me when we came in. I suspect when she’s done dancing, he’ll join us. When he gets here, let me do the talking, OK?”
