Hellfire- The Series, Volumes 1-3

by Leigh Barker

  Ethan closed his eyes for a moment, turned and resumed his journey to the doors.

  He stepped out of the terminal and felt the warm night air. It was way up around nine or ten degrees, which after the freezing wind in Washington felt positively balmy.

  There must have been some sort of convention on in the city, because the taxi stand was empty. Ethan looked around and saw the bus.

  The driver of the shuttle saw him too, pulled the bus onto Airport Road, and rolled over to stop at the curb right in front of him.

  “See you haven’t lost your touch,” Loco said as he pushed past and stepped up onto the bus. “Nothing’s too good for your men.”

  “I could shoot him for you, boss,” Chuck said with a straight face.

  “You carrying?” Ethan asked and looked at the others.

  “Sure,” Chuck said and shrugged. “Seemed likely we’d be needing something better than a sharp stick.”

  “Copy that,” Ethan said and received confirmation nods from the other two.

  They spread out on the empty bus, and Ethan sat in the seat behind and opposite the driver. “Hotel in town. A good one. Uncle Sam is paying.”

  The driver glanced at him and nodded, and Ethan wondered if he could understand a word he was saying. He looked like one of the drivers of the hellish taxis in Kabul who babbled constantly and were always trying to sell him something or rip him off on the bill. He put the thought aside, every Arab wasn’t an Afghan, and every Afghan wasn’t a crook.

  He closed his eyes and waited for the bus to start for the city. He needed to sleep. Must be old age. The bus wasn’t moving, and he opened his eyes to find the driver had gone. His body buzzed and he was suddenly wide awake.

  “Trouble!” he snapped and stood up.

  The others followed him off the bus and spread out behind him. Jerry and Chuck to his right, and Ben to his left.

  The bus driver was standing in front of the arrivals doors with his right hand extended.

  “He holding what I think he’s holding?” Chuck asked quietly.

  “He is,” Ethan said and took a small step forward, but stopped when the driver raised his hand higher to show he meant business.

  “Like in Helmand,” Ben whispered, raised his hands, and smiled at the man. “I know you’re pissed, what with us blowing shit up all over your country.” He stepped in front of Ethan. “But I gotta tell you, son, you’re not far enough away from the bus.” He nodded towards the bus, in case the driver had forgotten where he’d parked it. “If that there button thing is a detonator, then you’re coming with us, man.”

  “Allahu Akbar!” the driver said and closed his eyes.

  “That your brother?” Ben said quickly.

  The driver opened his eyes and glared at him. “Allah will send you to—”

  Ethan stepped out from behind Ben, snapped his Sig up, and fired in an instant.

  The bomber pressed the button.

  The Compound

  It was one of those flukes the gunnery sergeant tells new guys about. Do everything right, but it still comes out with a huge doh! Ethan’s Sig had put two nine mils into the bomber’s T-zone and jellied his medulla oblongata. He should’ve dropped like a stone, his nervous system fried, but he’d pushed the detonator. Maybe the signal had already reached his fingers, maybe he was a freak. Whatever.

  Ethan swore and strode over to the dead man sprawled and bloody on the neon-lit concrete. “Why’d you do that? You know it makes me look bad.” He bent down and pulled the detonator from the dead man’s fingers.

  Loco stepped off the bus and tossed a silver pencil blasting cap and a piece of C-4 to Ethan. He grinned and pointed at the terrorist with most of his head missing. “Bet his seventy-two virgins are packing their cases and going home to mother.”

  “Where’s Smokey?” Ethan asked, ignoring the blasphemous comment.

  Loco nodded towards the bus. “He said if it was going to blow up, he wanted to toast marshmallows.”

  Ethan closed his eyes for a moment.

  “Nah, he’s fiddling about with the rest of the C-4.”

  They heard the sound of sirens as the whole of New Orleans law descended upon them from all sides.

  “Figured it wasn’t you who disarmed the thing,” Ben said, then lifted his Sig. “We should maybe put these someplace safe.”

  Ethan nodded and looked around as the first blue and white skidded onto the terminal approach road. “Everybody be good,” he said, and turned to Loco. “You hear me, Lance Corporal?”

  “Loud and… the other thing, Top.”

  Ben opened his go-bag and let them drop their sidearms into it, then zipped it up and put it on the bus just as the police screeched to a halt and the two officers jumped out and pointed their guns at them. And started shouting, as they were prone to do.

  Ethan raised his hands, and the others followed. Loco was grinning, but he would be. Smokey stepped off the bus and looked around as if he’d expected a parade or something for saving everybody. Instead he got—

  “Get on the ground! Now!” The police officer’s voice was shaking, either from excitement or fear. Either way, he was a heartbeat away from pulling the trigger. Six men standing around a bloody corpse meant they were bad men in his book. He didn’t read much.

  Smokey put his hands on his head and knelt down very slowly, glanced at Ethan and winked.

  “We’re US Marines, officer,” Ethan said as calmly as he could. “This guy is… was a terrorist. He was going—”

  “Shut the fuck up!” It was the second officer’s turn to get excited.

  Ethan could hear his voice shaking like his friend’s. They were young, their uniforms pressed and new. It occurred to him they’d do one of two things right then: they’d start shooting because they were scared shitless, or they’d start shooting to get their medals. Either way, they were going to start shooting, he’d bet his pension on it.

  He glanced at Ben and got a tiny nod in response.

  “Officers,” Ben said, and raised himself off his heels, where he’d been sitting since he got on the ground as ordered.

  The officers squinted at him from behind their Glock 22s.

  He could see their hands shaking and came to the same conclusion as Ethan. They were going to do something really stupid at any moment. “What the master sergeant here says is the truth. We’re marines saving our country from enemies foreign and domestic.”

  The rest of the squad exchanged long looks, and Loco shook his head in mock despair.

  Ethan groaned, clutched his chest and fell sideways. The police officers jumped visibly and pointed their guns at him.

  “You can shoot him if you like,” Ben said. “He’s had a heart attack.”

  “Pr’bly dead,” Loco said, and shrugged his shoulders and lifted his hands off his head.

  The officers pointed their guns at him. One of them was practically jumping up and down and glaring at the other, waiting for him to make his move.

  Lying with his back to the patrol car, Ethan pushed the blasting cap into the small chunk of C-4. There was enough explosive there to lift the patrol car a few feet into the air. And give the New Orleans Police Department a reason for a parade, a funeral parade. But these two eager-beaver young cops were going to shoot them, he knew it. His life wasn’t more valuable than theirs, but the little girl’s they’d come to save was. He flicked the arm switch on the detonator and started to roll over to face the officers.

  “Stand down! Stand down!”

  Ethan looked up across the sidewalk to the terminal doors and the uniformed policeman marching out. He could see from the epaulets and big shiny badge on his shirt that he was an officer.

  The young policemen looked at each other for a moment, then lowered their weapons. The officer strode up to where Ethan was lying, and crouched. “If you blow my men up, I’m going to be really pissed.” His voice was mild and low, but had an edge that was all too familiar to Ethan. A man used to being obeyed.

 
Ethan switched off the detonator and dropped the C-4 into his jacket pocket. “Never crossed my mind, Captain,” he said, and added a smile to show his conviction.

  “No, of course not,” the captain said. “Okay, everybody can stand up now.”

  Ethan climbed to his feet and dusted off his knees and tried not to look at the young officers he’d been a second from blowing to hell. Sure, they were about to shoot him and his squad, but that was because they were stupid, not malicious.

  At that moment, the rest of NOPD and airport security arrived, the headlights from the convoy of patrol cars flooding the terminal with harsh light. The officers jumped out of their vehicles and ran across the road and up the sidewalk, eager to get to the action. Ethan watched them coming and shook his head. If this really was a terrorist incident, then there’d be a whole lot more bodies for the ragheads to blow up. Where the hell was—SWAT arrived. Three big blue vans full of heavily armed officers in full military uniforms. Better late than after the event. Ethan kept his views to himself, this time.

  The police captain stood in front of Ethan and the squad and waved the newcomers down. “Stand down! These are the good guys.”

  Ethan was very pleased to hear that.

  “I saw what went down here.” The captain pointed at what was left of the bomber. “This one had a detonator in his hand.” He glanced at Ethan, then pointedly at his pocket. “And the marines here took it off him. That’s why I’m alive, and so are a hell of a lot of other folks.”

  The mass of police and SWAT officers relaxed and put away their weapons, then came over to take a close look at the corpse. It was something to do. The captain stepped up beside Ethan and watched the circus.

  “Put the junk in the bus,” he said quietly. “Let the CSI boys find it in there.”

  Ethan put his hand in his pocket and felt the explosives. “They’re gonna think it’s a bit strange, the detonator being in the bus when the terrorist was holding it and he’s not any more.”

  “True.” The captain turned and put himself between Ethan and the officers trampling over the crime scene. “Give it to me.”

  Ethan fished out the chunk of plastic and the electronics and dropped them into the captain’s hand. He glanced at them and his eyebrows rose a little. “That’s not much.”

  Ethan chuckled, then realised he wasn’t kidding. “There’s a bit more in the bus.”

  “About fifty pounds,” Ben said over Ethan’s shoulder.

  “That’ll do it,” Ethan said. “Can we go now, Captain? We’ve a place to be in a hurry.”

  “You’ve just shot a guy in the middle of Louis Armstrong Airport and are material witnesses to an attempted terrorist attack.” The captain smiled and looked around at the uniforms everywhere and the crowds of civilians coming out of the terminal to see the gore. “The big boys haven’t deigned to join us.” He reached into his shirt pocket, took out a card and handed it to Ethan. “Gimme a call when you’re through.” He turned to leave then looked back. “And thanks for that.” He pointed at the body. “It’s my wife’s birthday and she hates it if I’m late.”

  “You’d be late if that went off,” Loco said with a grin and pointed at the bus. “A late police captain.” It was like a joke.

  Ethan and the captain exchanged a long look. The squad casually stepped in among the people in front of the terminal and strolled away as if they belonged there, just as the main event started and the suits arrived in their black Chevys.

  After recent experience, Ethan decided to pass on public transport and led the way to the car rentals near the arrivals terminal main doors. He rented a Tahoe just because it was the only SUV they had that could take all six of them and their stuff.

  “Where we going?” Smokey said, lounging across two of the back seats and leaving Winter, Chuck, and Loco the luxury of the second row. Loco got the cut-down middle one, but at five-seven he fitted it perfectly.

  “First off,” Ethan said, as he settled into shotgun next to Ben, who drove, as always, “we need to set up someplace. Then I’ll talk to Kelsey and see if the FBI brains have come up with a location for Tessa.”

  “Tessa’s the kid, right?” Winter said.

  “She is.”

  “You met her?”

  “No. Met her mom.”

  “Right.”

  Ethan half turned in his seat and looked back at Winter. He wasn’t smiling, but that didn’t mean anything; theory was he’d lost his smile muscles when he was a kid.

  “This help?” Loco said, and passed a clear plastic folder over the seat to Ethan.

  Ethan pulled out the contents and nodded once. “It’ll do.” He looked back at Loco.

  “Found it on the bus,” Loco said. “Bomber musta thought it was going to get incinerated. Like the rest of us.”

  “Thought wrong, then, didn’t he?” Chuck said, and reached over to pat Ethan on the shoulder.

  Ben coughed. They all looked at him and shared a questioning frown. “You know who disarmed the bomb, don’t you?”

  “That was easy,” Loco said. “Just pulled out a coupla wires. Top here, he shot the bad man, right?”

  The rest of them made kissing noises.

  “What you got there, then, Top?” Chuck asked, trying to get the squad back into some semblance of a military unit.

  Ethan turned on the interior light and shuffled through the papers. “A map with a circle.” He lifted it so he could see it more clearly.

  “You need glasses, Top?” Loco asked.

  Ethan ignored him, as usual. “Could be something. The location’s way out in the sticks.” He pulled out a close-typed A4 sheet. “It’s an inventory list.” He nodded. “For the bus. C-4, caps, three detonators.” He frowned. “Three detonators?” He looked across at Ben. “You see any detonators in the bus?”

  Ben shook his head.

  Ethan glanced out of the window as his brain crunched the data. “Turn us around!” He pointed back. “There’s another bomber!”

  Ben shrugged and kept driving as he rummaged in his pocket. He handed Ethan a tangle of electronics. “They’re the RCs from the C-4.” He smiled. “All of them. Even the ones they’d hidden underneath. Oh…” He dropped a small cell phone onto the electronics. “And this.”

  Ethan looked at the cell and smiled. Eight missed calls. “The FBI’ll probably want to take a look at this stuff.”

  Ben shrugged again, his over-muscled shoulders threatening to pop the seams of his denim shirt. “They can find their own stuff.”

  Ethan pushed the gear into the door pocket and went back to the papers. “This one’s details of our flights, arrival times and such.” He put it on his lap. “How’d he get this info?” The question was for internal use.

  “Easy enough to find flight times,” Chuck said.

  “True, but when did you decide to come?” Ethan asked without turning.

  “You called. I came. Around dinner.” He shook his head. “Christ, was it only five hours ago?”

  “It was,” said Ethan, “and that’s my point.”

  “Yeah, right,” Ben said. “How the hell did the bomber get our flight details in that time? And we flew in from all over.”

  “More than that,” Ethan said. “How’d he know we were coming? I only made the decision just before I called.”

  They looked at him for a moment.

  “The C-4,” Smokey said. “Shit, it’d take more than five hours to set that up.”

  “Maybe he was psychical or something,” Loco suggested.

  “Yeah, right,” Chuck said. “He knew we were coming before we did.”

  “Like I said,” Loco said, checking his nails, “he was psychical.” He sighed heavily. “My ol’ gran was psychical. She used to see things.”

  The others glanced at each other.

  “You didn’t have no gran,” Smokey said, leaning over the seat between Loco and Winter on his left.

  “I did so!”

  “Nah, ’cus then you’d have to have parents,
and there’s no way you had parents,” Smokey said. “They found you in a box behind a dumpster.”

  “That’s not nice,” Loco said, hurt. “Last time I save your life.”

  “Next time’ll be the first,” Smokey said with a shrug. “That’s my job, saving your girly ass.”

  “What about all those times in Afghanistan when my trusty rifle saved your oversized hulk?”

  Smokey’s face screwed up as he dredged his memory. “Nah, don’t recall no such event. Any of you guys remember tiny Loco saving any of us?”

  There was a general shaking of heads.

  “Won’t do it again if that’s all the thanks I get,” Loco said, and sulked.

  “Seems to me,” Smokey said, “it was me saved everybody over there.”

  They turned their heads to peer into the darkness back there.

  “Who was it did the spotting for Loco to shoot the bad men?” he said, brushing down his immaculate white shirt.

  “Shit!” Loco said, snapping out of his sulk. “Anybody can look at a target; it takes real finesse to shoot the fucker.”

  “It does that,” Ethan said, smiling. “Met anybody with that finesse, have you?”

  “Shot a few,” Loco said, his smile returning.

  Ethan sat back in the big seat and looked out of the window as they headed east down the Pontchartrain Expressway. “Find a motel,” he said to Ben. “Away from the city.”

  “New Orleans has got the finest blues sounds in the country. Hell, the world,” Winter said. “And you want us to stay in some shitty motel in the burbs?” He didn’t say much, but he was right on the money.

  “I want,” Ethan said slowly, “for us to focus on our mission. That’s what I want.”

  Winter nodded slowly. “Right. Forgot I was back in the Corps.”

  “Was you ever out?” Loco asked, looking to his right at the white hair made ghostly by the neon lights.

  “Guess not. Once a marine…”

  “Oorah!” they said together.

  “Pick a good motel,” Ethan said. “Uncle Sam’s paying.”

  “That’ll be a first,” Ben said.

  Ben pointed to his right. “Marriott do?”