Strike (A Ray Hammer Novel Book 3)

by Aaron Leyshon

  They settled in to eat.

  “Hey kid, ain’t you going to have some pizza?” said Marlowe in his deep Southern accent.

  Haruki munched noisily.

  “I’m making some progress,” said Adam. “I’ll be there in a sec. Just save me a slice or two.”

  “Which one you want saved, kid?”

  “Margherita,” said Adam without.

  Just then, Marlowe’s face popped up on the database. The image was flagged need to know, and Adam scrolled through the specifics about Marlowe: his age and height and what US military intelligence had on him: “allegiances unknown”. Adam considered this for a moment, opened the attached report and read about Marlowe’s activity with China and Korea. It seemed this guy was a mercenary. He worked for whoever paid the most. He’d even trained with the CIA. Adam saved the file, sent it to himself back in Tokyo, and stepped over to bed and grabbed a slice of pizza.

  “Are you guys like CIA or something?” he asked.

  Marlowe stopped chewing. Haruki looked up, and then back down at his piece of pizza.

  “Who’s asking? What makes you say that, kid?” said Haruki. “You been digging up data on us in your searches?”

  “There’s some stuff on both of you,” he said, “but I only had time to read about Marlowe.”

  “Yeah? And what’s it say?”

  “Ex-CIA, allegiances unknown, someone to watch. You’ve been involved with China in the past, been involved with Russia, Israel, and Korea. Seems like you work for whoever pays the highest amount.”

  “What if we do?” said Marlowe.

  “I’m not judging,” said Adam, “I’m just wondering how I get in on that racket. Seems like a pretty sweet gig. I’ve got skills you guys don’t have. Maybe we could team up.”

  “We’re already teamed up,” Haruki said. “You get paid 50 grand, you fuck off home and you leave us alone. You never see us again.”

  “What’s to say you don’t just put a bullet in my head?” said Adam.

  Marlowe chewed, “Our boss had an agreement with you. An agreement’s an agreement, and when money’s involved we take that pretty seriously.”

  “It’s like this pizza here,” said Haruki. “We all get a piece. We share it. We make it go around. We do our job, we get a piece of the pizza. We don’t do our job, we get a bullet in the head. It’s as simple as that. This ain’t a game you want to get into, kid. You’re not cut out for it, trust me. The fact that you just told us what you just found out and didn’t hang onto it for yourself to use later just shows you don’t know what the fuck you’re getting into, and you’re already in well and truly in over your head.”

  Adam could only concede that point. Haruki was right. He should have held onto the information and used it to his advantage. Adam stepped back over to the computer, sent some more files to himself back home in Tokyo. Then he set a timer to email out to all of the intelligence email addresses he could find in the database. This would be his security, the one thing stopping him getting a bullet in the head. He gave them three days.

  “What you doing, kid?” Marlowe moved behind him. Then he was in Adam’s face.

  Adam closed the window down quickly, and opened another one.

  “I think I’ve got the launch codes,” he said, “or a way to get them, anyway.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  When Hammer was finally brought to Inspector Frank Whitcombe’s quarters, he was barely able to stand. Drool pooled on his chin and dripped on the ground, and his eyes fluttered closed, then opened, then closed. He clenched his fists and unclenched them. It was the only thing he had control over, the only thing he could feel as he dug his nails into the palms of his hands. It was the only thing keeping him awake, keeping him here, keeping him vaguely present. But Hammer’s mind was off somewhere else, destroyed, listening to the cry of a baby, a child screaming for its mother, screaming and screaming and screaming, and watching the patina of light in his eyes and green fairies dancing across Whitcombe’s face.

  Whitcombe sat him down and Ray’s head bobbled. He squeezed his fingernails into his palm, opened his eyes, and tried to look at Whitcombe, to face him down.

  “You asshole,” Ray mumbled through the drool dripping down his chin. We had a deal. You said you needed my help finding some missing nuclear weapons. You needed to track them down. You tested me to see if I was the right fucking person!”

  That was all the energy Hammer had. His eyes closed and his head crashed down on the table, which woke him.

  He jerked upright again.

  “Where . . . where am I?”

  Whitcombe reached out to Ray’s arm, pulled it across the table, and then lifted a syringe and brought it down on the fat of Ray’s bicep. Hammer’s eyes jerked open. Adrenaline shot through him.

  “That better?” said Whitcombe.

  “I can . . . hardly . . . we had a deal,” said Ray.

  “Yes,” said Whitcombe, “and you’re undercover, and you’re snooping around a military base where you shouldn’t be. Our deal was for you to track down the leak, find out who stole the nukes and the codes. I asked you to watch Okai Hatashi and find out what she had. You were supposed to do it subtly, smoothly, and not interfere with the operations of this base. I had to make an example of you, and now that example’s been made.”

  “But,” said Hammer, “but we . . . what? I don’t understand.”

  “Our deal still stands, Ray, but every single person on this base had to see you punished. The Chinese are using mercenaries, many with a past in the US military, defense or intelligence communities. What’s to say you’re not one of them, one of these mercenaries paid to extract information?”

  “You’re not paying me shit,” said Hammer. “Hell, all I get out of this is a story that gets mostly redacted and makes me a few hundred bucks. I’m doing this out of the goodness of my fucking heart.”

  “You’re doing it out of a sense of duty, Ray. Don’t you ever fucking forget that,” said Whitcombe.

  “Sure,” said Ray, “ a sense of duty, duty to a country that threw me to the wolves, that let me burn in Afghanistan. That made me witness things I should never have had to see. A country that provided no support when I returned home, and treated me like a criminal, and still does.”

  “It’s the country you love, Ray,” said Whitcombe.

  “Yeah,” said Hammer, “but it ain’t the kind of love I’d write home about.”

  “That’s why you travel so much,” said Inspector Whitcombe. “That’s why you became a journalist, an investigative one at that. It provided you an out. You could get away from America whenever you needed to distract yourself. You could get away from your past.”

  “How’s that going for me?” said Hammer. “Here I am on a military base in a far-flung island territory, being tortured by my own government when I’m on a mission for that same government—supposedly.”

  “You’re doing the right thing, Ray,” said Whitcombe. “I know the torture was tough, but you’ve been trained to handle it. You know how to deal with it. You’ll get time to sleep now, and then I’ll bundle you off the base. I need you now more than ever, but I need you focused, attentive, doing what you’re told, not making the decision to create a scene out front of a military installation… the same naval base that lost those fucking B61s.”

  Ray felt himself getting heavier, the adrenaline not as strong as it had been when it was first pumped into his veins.

  “You got any more of that?” said Hammer, waving a vague hand and picking up the empty plastic syringe.

  “No. How about a bottle of whiskey? It can be arranged. But, I need you out of here. We’ve got some problems that need dealing with.”

  “Why ask me to look after Hatashi, to watch over her, if you were going to kidnap her?”

  “That was never the plan,” said Whitcombe. “Kidnapping her was something that came up recently and I couldn’t go against it without betraying my purpose here. Besides, I’m not in control. I’m a d
eputy marshal, a guest on the Marianas. Sure, I’m a consultant, but that’s it. I consult. I have no sway over anyone other than you. You are the only person I command because you committed to this mission. To me.”

  Ray shuddered, bristled. “I don’t take orders. Not anymore. I’m retired.”

  “You came out of retirement, Hammer. You take orders from me.”

  Hammer shrugged. He was too tired for this bullshit, too broken down. He knew he would obey Whitcombe’s orders. “You said you had some problems?” he asked, defeated.

  “Yeah,” said Whitcombe. He sighed, and his shoulders drooped. His big belly shuddered, and there was none of the deep booming laugh that Hammer had come to like in a past life.

  “Hatashi’s dead,” said Ray.

  “Yup,” said Whitcombe. “How’d you know?”

  “Your body language said it all. You hadn’t wanted to kidnap her, let alone shoot her in the process, and then she was brought in here, treated the same way I was treated; with great respect and dignity and torture.”

  Whitcombe shrugged. “I told you, I’m not in charge around here.”

  “You’d have done it the same if you were.”

  “You’re undercover; I’m undercover.”

  “We’re here for a single purpose.”

  “Yeah, that’s the second problem,” said Whitcombe.

  “That one’s not as easy to read,” said Hammer, and his eyes drooped again. “Besides, I’m feeling tired, and that whiskey would go nicely now.”

  “I’m sure it would,” said Whitcombe, “the thing is, both Naval base and Anderson Air Force security have been compromised. We have reason to believe that there’s a hacker on the island and that they’re after the launch codes for the weapons that went missing. Shit, Ray, this could kick off World War III. I need you to find out who’s hacked the database, track them down and get rid of them.”

  Hammer’s eyes were almost completely closed now. He lay his head down on the desk, stretched out one arm imploringly, “You mentioned something about whiskey, and sleep?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Adam knew he looked like a kid. That’s because he was a kid. But, being a kid made him stand out here, in a secretive department inside Anderson Air Force Base. He should have said no, shouldn’t have pushed so hard to try and become a mercenary like Haruki and Marlowe. He shouldn’t have pushed as hard as he had for a hundred-thousand-dollar payout and a job when this all ended. But, another part of him was proud he had pushed, proud he’d stood up for himself, that he’d started making something of his life, something beyond just sitting in a darkened cupboard under the stairs, working hard at developing a serious vitamin D deficiency, playing video games and hacking into government departments just for fun. This was the real deal. And here he was inside a government department, physically inside, just a teenager about to hack one of the most secure servers on this side of the equator.

  Boots thudded on the metal floor above. Adam pushed himself back against the wall and listened until they passed. He crept out, along the narrow gangway, which was lined, both top and bottom, with steel planks and balconies, and which surrounded a large server. Fans hissed, and air conditioning cooled the place as the racks whirred.

  Adam wore military BDUs in his size. Marlowe went out and got them specifically for him, for this, the moment they’d got off the phone call with the boss.

  Adam had pitched his services, told the deep modulated voice at the other end of the line what he’d found, that he knew where the codes were, but that he needed to get inside Anderson to access them. He explained to the boss, and to Haruki and Marlowe, that the weakest link in any chain of security was the human link and that one of them would have to go in and they’d have to take Adam with them. The boss would only agree to send Adam in on his own. That way, if anything happened, Haruki and Marlowe were deniable and could find someone else to finish the job.

  Adam had snatched the phone from Haruki and put it to his own ear, “I’ll go in for a hundred grand. That’s on top of the fifty you already owe me.”

  “Forty,” said the modulated voice on the other end of the line. “Forty that I already owe you. Okay, kid, you got yourself a deal.”

  “And a job at the end of it, a job with you, working on other projects like this,” said Adam.

  The voice agreed and then the phone line went dead, and now here he was, a kid in a military base, not just in a military base, but in the most secretive part of it, the part where the databases were kept, where the codes to arm nuclear weapons were kept.

  There were more boots on the metal. Adam looked across the vast empty space over the top of the stacks of servers and up into the rack above him. He watched as the boots stamped on the boards over his head and moved past, an M-16 slung over the shoulder of the soldier guarding the place.

  “Shit,” Adam muttered to himself.

  He should have asked for more money. Instead, he stepped out and whistled. “Hey, you!”

  Confidence, that was the other key to working with human resources, to hacking the system through the weakest link. Confidence and authority. Adam had been testing this out lately with both Haruki and Marlowe. It had worked on their boss too. They’d smuggled him in and told him that they’d be waiting outside in the car near the main gate. They’d pored over the maps several times. He didn’t have long, but they’d drive by again in half an hour if he wasn’t out yet.

  The soldier stepped down.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?”

  “I was about to ask you the same question,” said Adam.

  They’d pored over the staffing records of the base as well.

  “Jesus, kid, how old are you? Looks like you’re just out of diapers. Are those zits on your face? Hell, there’s no way you’re an Airman.”

  “You need glasses, old man,” said Adam, tapping the insignia on his chest. “Airman first class. Anyways, Rear Admiral Conrad wants to see you.”

  “Conrad?” said the man, his face blushing a deep red. “What about? Conrad himself?”

  “Rear Admiral Conrad to you,” said Adam, and the soldier swung his rifle back over his shoulder.

  “Which room?”

  Adam gave him directions that sent him to the far end of the military base. “Apparently, there’s been some breach of security,” he said, “I’ll cover your duty here.”

  “Thanks, man,” said the soldier, visibly stressed, sweating. Deep patches filled the places under his arms.

  Adam smiled to himself as the soldier ran off down the hallway, freaking out over whatever it was the One Star RDML wanted to see him about.

  Adam stepped over to the nearest server, checked the number. It was the wrong one. He scudded around the towers until he found the one he was looking for, but he didn’t have the key.

  Luckily, Haruki had spent the last day teaching Adam how to pick locks. He pulled out a torque wrench and a lock pick and began playing.

  If he couldn’t get this now, he was out of luck. There were no other options, and the only person who likely had the key had just been sent running to the other end of Anderson. He’d be back, sure, but Adam didn’t want to be here when he came back.

  The pins clicked up and the lock turned, and Adam Winters sucked in the aroma of Old Spice aftershave.

  Something hard hit him on the back of the head and Adam’s forehead crashed into the server.

  He hit the ground. Unconscious.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hammer sat in MK Bar near the mermaid in the water fountain by the roadside. Pop music played sardonically through the jukebox. The usual barflies, drunkards and military personnel on a day of leave were scattered around the place, in pairs and threes at the tables. Some were alone, downing long glasses of misery and hope. Ray had downed enough of those in his own time. Hell, he’d downed enough today to dull his senses completely.

  For all of Whitcombe’s harsh treatment and sleep deprivation, the sleep Ray had been granted had been fitful and fl
eeting. He’d kicked out at dreams that would never go away, the screaming faces, the pile of bodies on the floor. He clawed at his own face in his sleep. He strangled himself in the sheets and woke up. Nothing worked. Nothing refreshed him, except the taste of whiskey and sour memories.

  What was he doing here? He’d retired to avoid this very thing. Sure, trouble followed him around when he was investigating as a journalist, but it wasn’t the same level of trouble that came with being back on a military base in a far-flung US territory. The memories that came to him unbidden were different to the ones back home in his own bed. They weren’t the same shivers and the chills that ran down his spine as when he heard the planes taking off overhead or landing.

  It was work. It was a distraction. Journalism was an escape for Hammer. This wasn’t.

  Alcohol was his medication, his answer to a life that had been torn apart by the Marines, but a life that had also been put together by them. He couldn’t divorce himself from what he learned and who he’d become in the service of his country, and he was proud of that, proud of his successes, proud of his role in keeping peace in the world, proud of the things he’d done to track down the people who’d wronged him and his country. But, he’d also done things that he couldn’t talk to anyone about. He’d witnessed things that scarred him forever, and sometimes he wished the sheets really would strangle him, or the bath would drown him, or the whiskey would explode his fatty liver and leave him to bleed out on the barstool.

  But when he was sober, when he wasn’t near the military or its establishments, when he was Ray Hammer and not Benjamin Miles—the name he’d had when he’d served the military—then he could be himself. Here in Guam, at Anderson Air Force Base, or the Naval base, in this bar with other soldiers, marines and the Air Force men on their leave, Hammer was a soldier again.