Hell on Earth

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  “An appreciative fan’s left word with Marla the drinks are on the house, John. I think you may know him: Alexi Fiialkov,” ‘Rique told me.

  “I heard he made a bundle.” I toasted my crew and downed the double Beam with gusto. After watching me suck down my Bud chaser, Marla plopped refills down immediately. “I saw you, Jeff, and ‘Rique keeping an eye on the fight crowd from out of town, Earl. Thanks. It did cross my mind they might decide on protesting the fight outside.”

  “That was our thought too,” Jeff replied. “I called in a patrol car to do a round-robin until everyone took off. If I were you I’d grow some eyes in the back of my head. Those folks were pissed. I saw their guy’s arm when they rolled him out. He ain’t fightin’ with that thing again.”

  I’m real broke up. “Sucks to be him.”

  My adlib drew laughs from everyone within earshot. ‘Rique and Jeff head for the door.

  “Happy Thanksgiving, John. We have to take off,” Earl tells me as he follows them.

  “You still owe me drinks, piker.” Earl gives me an acknowledging wave with his right middle finger on the way out.

  A few moments later we’re all sipping and listening to music when I see Marla look toward the door. I glanced over and what do you know. It’s Denny. He spots us and trades friendly words with my crew before angling in next to me where Dev gives him room. He orders a double Bushmills and takes a sip before speaking.

  “Hell of a fight, John. It’s up on YouTube already. Someone pirated it off the Al Jazeera signal and uploaded it. Was that the set up it looked like?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Did you find out why yet?”

  “Sort of. That shithead Alexander, one of the promoters, hates my guts. I thought we had a business relationship worked out but he took a big hit betting against me in my last fight. He thought he had everything set in stone for this fight. Guess who he lost a bundle to on this one – Fiialkov. I learned that’s who he lost to last time too.”

  “No shit?” Denny’s impressed. “You and Fiialkov are having quite the romance.”

  “He left orders for drinks on the house in here and didn’t even stay. Think he’s sweet on me?”

  Denny laughed before leaning even closer. “Your boat’s ready and we can’t wait for the Dubai cover. I put the word out we had something planned with the parameters to my boss once I inspected the boat. It looks good… real good. Anyway, the next day I was sitting in front of the Director. They don’t know whether to shit or go blind over these pirates. They want something substantial right now with no threads back to them.”

  “How soon.”

  “Two weeks. I know you’re engaged and all but the boat’s on its way already. They want the hook baited for two weeks when in position. Anything goes other than discovery if you get a bite. You’ll be back for Christmas… unless of course something tragic happens to your new boat.”

  “You want intel or just a body count?”

  “Both. They’d like you to light up a few targets for obliteration too.”

  I smiled because I liked it. “I’ll tie up some loose ends in my business this week. When you’re ready, give me a call. Think I should take Jafar with me?”

  “I’m all for it. He’s a natural. The more experience he gets, the better. He proved himself on the Chardin boarding at the Marina. How’d you do convincing Karim’s old man Jafar would make a great addition to the family?”

  “Not very well, but Samira will probably sell him on Jafar. Badee knows if Samira wants to marry Jafar nothing short of an honor killing would stop her, and he ain’t like that. Speaking of Chardin, have you extracted all you want from him, and secondly, are you keeping track of his daughter.”

  “No, and yes.”

  “I’m going to kill you first before Chardin gets me if he breaks loose, buddy.”

  Denny laughed because he thinks I’m kidding. After finishing his drink off, he stands up. “Have a nice Thanksgiving, John. See you later.”

  Tommy moves next to me while I’m watching Denny walk out. “Boy, Lora’s family will love you tomorrow.”

  Crap! “Gee, thanks T. I could have done without that reminder. I don’t look that bad, right Jess?”

  “Whatever you say, brother.”

  “Can you pretend it’s Halloween and wear your Dark Lord mask?” Dev asks me, trying unsuccessfully to keep from laughing.

  Chapter Twenty

  Pirates

  I knocked on Lora’s door at precisely one o’clock PM. I had on black dress pants and shoes, along with a black sweater top. Lora answered the door. Her smile went from zero to gasp in a split second. Alice, who had been following her, looked up at me with wide eyes and wide open mouth. Granted, there had been a little swelling and discoloration but I didn’t think I looked that bad. I think it was mostly the bandages.

  “Hello… it’s the Dark Lord,” I announced in Dark Lord voice, which drew an immediate giggle from Alice.

  “Tess already showed us the fight on YouTube you neglected to mention, Dark Lord.”

  Uh oh. “How the hell did-”

  “Apparently, she stopped over at her old law firm yesterday and heard about it. They knew it would be on YouTube and Tess checked it out this morning before showing it to all of us for breakfast.”

  “I didn’t want you worrying about it with your family visiting so we kept it on the down-low. I was going to explain. I didn’t know I’d get marked up quite this much so I guess the YouTube showing saves me some time. Can I come in or do you want me to remain incommunicado until your guests leave?”

  Lora hugged me. “Hell no, I don’t want you to leave. I’m just glad you’re still in one piece. At least Tess had the good sense to get Alice in her room before showing it. It was filmed in HD, and that guy’s scream when you broke his arm nearly put my Mom in a coma.”

  Alice grabbed my hand, yanking on it excitedly. “Can I see the fight, John? Pleassssseeeeeee…”

  I walked them both inside and Lora closed the door. “I don’t think so, kid. It’s pretty bad, like your Mom said. I’m sorry Grandma watched it. It was a setup, Lora. I would have lost on points or the ref was under orders to stop it by declaring a technical knockout for Abdul. I had to make it so he couldn’t go on.”

  “You certainly took care of that,” Lora declared, taking my windbreaker off my shoulders. Did you drive over?”

  “Jafar dropped me off on his way to Thanksgiving with his folks. I hear tell his Dad’s got a job and has stopped drinking. Jafar’s going over to see if it’s true.”

  “Did you get plastered last night at the Warehouse?”

  “First off, the Dark Lord never gets plastered. Secondly, I only had a taste when Denny Buzz-Kill came in to visit. We’ll discuss that later. Were you going to offer me refreshments?”

  “Everyone’s in the kitchen having a glass of wine while we cook. Cal liked the fight. He was rooting for you before Tess elbowed him in the side. She’s pissed because she couldn’t get the reaction out of me she’d hoped for. The wine has softened her up though and Mom’s color is better.”

  “I’ll have a glass with you. C’mon, Al. Let’s go see what kind of trouble the Dark Lord can get into today.”

  Alice immediately played along, dropping her head and coming to attention. “Yes, Dark Lord.”

  She cracked me up as always because Alice looked so much like her Mom and she mimicked Lora perfectly. We walked into the kitchen together. Cal stood up and shook my hand enthusiastically.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that fight, John. I’m glad you won. How much do you get for something like that?”

  “My partner and I cleared nearly thirty-five grand for last night’s fight. It could have been a disaster because my opponent had the ref and the judges on the payroll. Those back alley type fights I’ve fought in the past take place in an open area and they end when one of the fighters can’t go on. This Abdul the Terrible’s backers fixed up the Oakland warehouse and installed a new ca
ge. In payment, he got to transmit the video overseas in a type of pay-per-view and bring in his own judges and ref.”

  Cal grinned. “That didn’t work out too well for him.”

  “I think they made a bundle on the transmission, but I don’t know if Abdul will be able to make a comeback.” I accepted a glass of wine from Lora.

  “That was horrifying!” Lora’s Mom exclaimed.

  “It’s really not a sport meant for more refined tastes, Marian,” I replied with what I hoped sounded like deference.

  Tess made a noise that could have been a snort or a gasp, walking around the table with her wine glass. “It’s no sport, John, and you damn well know it! It’s more like gladiators in a Roman arena.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I should have rethought the sport label. “You’re right, Tess. Since it was so horrifying maybe you could explain to all of us why you needed to show it to everyone.”

  Lora laughed, Alice giggled, and Tess turned tomato red. “I…I wanted my Mom to see for herself what kind of-”

  “Monster I am,” I finished for her. “Look, why don’t we have a toast to the holiday and talk about what you and Cal do. Then we can have a nice Thanksgiving dinner and take a walk together or something.”

  “That’s a great idea, John.” Cal held up his glass and we joined him, even the reluctant Tess and Marian, and of course Alice with her sparkling cider. “To family.”

  “To family,” we all echoed the sentiment, and just like that, I became part of the family… sort of.

  Later, Lora and I washed dishes up while the others played a Memory game with Alice. It had been pretty pleasant so far after the small dust up earlier. “I have to go overseas in a couple weeks, babe.”

  Fear rushed across Lora’s face for a moment as she looked up at me from the dishes. “How long?”

  “Denny says a couple weeks. It was a last minute thing. I didn’t know anything about it until last night. He says I’ll be home for Christmas.”

  “You better be. I have something planned that involves some special costuming.”

  Mama Mia!

  * * *

  Jafar came up on deck of our vessel dubbed The Sea Wolf, where I was taking my turn in the sport-fishing chair. I would have been having a better time with a beer in hand, but this wasn’t a pleasure cruise. We could be attacked at any time in this area of the Arabian Sea near Salalah, Oman. I’d never had a chance to go sport-fishing before. Lucas had told me I could hook a swordfish or even a shark and it would be a battle. We’d only been cruising for a day. Lucas and Casey had pulled in some tuna and southern herring.

  “Any bites, John?”

  “Nope, but it’s the journey, young Jedi, not the destination,” I told him in Dark Lord persona which he was used to since interacting with Lora, Alice, and me lately.

  “I prepared the fish Casey and Lucas caught. We will eat well tonight. Can I take a turn in the chair?”

  “Sure. In fact if you’ve finished all your newbie duties Lucas put you on, you can have the chair right now.” I kept hold of the pole and slipped out of the harness. It took only a moment to get Jafar strapped in.

  “Do we sail dark at night, John?”

  “We’ll be lit up until we get a bite. Our targeting and night-vision gear is state of the art. We want them to be comfortable attacking us. If we get hit though, it will probably be in the daylight. We made a big deal launching out of Mumbai like a bunch of tourists. If there were pirate facilitators there passing the word out, we should get hit rather quickly.”

  Jafar nodded his understanding while studying the pole and sea intently. “Could we… I mean if we’re successful, can I visit Samira?”

  “It depends on the heat we get from this excursion. I’m just hoping we can get our boat back to the states. Lucas will go postal if anything happens to it. Even I’m pumped about having something like this back home. I’ve been discussing with Tommy and Lora about making a buck from it with our clients.”

  Fifteen minutes later we’re enjoying the calm day on the water in a pleasant silence. Jafar is hunched over the pole because he’d felt a hit as if something big checked out our bait. Casey jogged around from his prow position where our firepower addition had been incorporated into a shell that extended outward and upward, all sleek and positioned around the bridge without limiting vision. With the extra weight they’d supped up the twin diesels and added to the ship’s buoyancy factor. Although looking like a big unwieldy pleasure yacht, we had a flip out fifty caliber machine gun nest on one side, and on the opposite side an XM307 25mm grenade airburst gun which can fire 250 rounds per minute. In addition to those bad boys we had a hand held XM25 25mm airburst grenade launcher and my .50 caliber M107 sniper rifle. We’d tried them all out and baby… we were going in hot and heavy if need be.

  “Denny’s on the line. We got incoming, heading straight for us full speed, and five miles distant. They have ten hostiles. Want to go up and take some potshots, John?”

  “Hell yeah. Go on below, kid.” I moved up quickly to where a hatch in the added weapons shell extended up over the bridge area. It opened up with my M107 ready to rumble. I could feel Lucas turning us in a direction where I’d be sighting in on our pursuers. Casey moved up next to me with his Leupold Mark IV Spotting Scope and began the tedious work of spotting for me.

  When the sucker was a mile distant I began putting holes in the skiff under the water line, gradually working my way up. I smiled while imagining what those armor piercing rounds were doing. By the time the pirates realized they were in trouble smoke began seeping up on deck and they were dead in the water. We could have opened up with our heavier stuff but we didn’t want it sinking too fast. Lucas had slowed to a leisurely pace while I began to sight in targets with Casey’s help, no easy task from a moving ship with your target bobbing in the waves, but I’d done it before. I popped the guy Casey saw hustle up on deck with a rocket launcher. My round went right through the launcher and the pirate. Once Casey didn’t see any more stuff on the pirates that could mess our boat up Lucas circled around and we headed toward them.

  Casey hit the switch to pop our Browning .50 caliber machine gun nest out and trimmed everything off the top on the pirate skiff. When Casey stopped firing for a moment, those pirates threw everything I could see with the spotting scope overboard, AK47’s, handguns, shotguns, and miscellaneous hand weapons before standing up straight on the fantail with their hands over their heads. Apparently, they were used to the idea if outgunned they could just give up to be taken prisoner, and treated to three hots and a cot until some corrupt UN appointed putz let them go. They were half right. We might be taking prisoners… temporarily.

  Predictably, Casey and I joined Lucas on the bridge to talk like pirates while Lucas eased into a circling pattern around the rather large pirate skiff. Jafar cracked up when he worked his way up to us, watching three killers trading squint eyed arghs and mateys. What brought it on was finally getting a piece of the action in stopping these Somali bastards. The only reason they got away with piracy on the high seas is everyone is so afraid of world opinion denouncing any nation that steps up and wastes these pricks. Denny’s bosses didn’t send us out here to play ‘catch and release’. We’re here to find some Pirate Mother ships and a couple of pirate dens on land for our new ‘Reaper’ drones to obliterate. Also, our Somali pirate friends would not be sailing away like Johnny Depp in a real life ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ remake. Playtime’s over. When they decide to send Lucas, Casey, and me out together they expect a body count and no trace-backs. We’re not the Navy Seals. We’re cold blooded killers.

  Lucas keeps circling because we hope to attract the Mother ship if someone on the pirate skiff called for backup. Casey and I go back up to my sniper nest. He keeps an eye on them with the spotting scope while I stay ready to trim off pirate parts. When we keep circling for an hour, the smoke from below on the skiff gets a little denser. The Somalis have dropped their hands and talk animatedly to each
other. They decide to try and launch their small lifeboat. Yeah, that didn’t work too well for them. I blew the head off the guy seemingly in charge of giving directions before making sure the lifeboat wasn’t worth another look. Jafar appeared shortly after.

  “Lucas sent me up. Denny called. A ship much larger than the skiff is on its way toward us. He’s really happy too. They’ve picked up communication between the approaching ship and coordinates near Mogadishu.”

  Casey chuckled. “Damn it! I get the feeling Denny ain’t going to need us to light up the targets. So much for the wily pirates who should know better than to call home base.”

  I like it. “It’s only our first day, Case. I didn’t want to go foolin’ around in that damn hellhole at night anyway. Denny’s happy because as much as he thinks we’re a pain in the ass, he’d like to reuse us.”

  “Denny said he’d call if they get acceptable confirmation from the ‘Reaper’ cameras. If they do, orders are weapons free and sail for a spot further around, opposite Mogadishu.”

  See, our com unit on the bridge can’t be intercepted by anyone. In this situation we don’t want any loose talk picked off any Sat Phone communications or even our personal com units. No chances taken. “Okay, kid, go on back down with Lucas. Let us know the moment you hear from Denny.”

  Jafar nodded and returned to the bridge. Casey and I made bets on when the pirates would start grabbing a loose plank or something that floats and diving into the water. The smoke was getting real thick so the Mother ship had a first class homing beacon. We had no intention of letting that puppy get anywhere near us. You can bet they had something more than a few rocket launchers. Casey won five hundred off me as the first of the surviving pirates grabbed pieces of mast and crates before diving into the water only one minute past the ten minutes he gave them. Soon, the skiff listed badly and the remaining pirates had no choice but to grab some floaties and abandon ship. They were beginning to get the idea we weren’t there to rescue them since even our initial plan to take prisoners for a talk didn’t seem necessary. The Somalis began calling out to us in broken English, Arabic, and a couple in native Somali which only Lucas knew a little of. Boo hoo.