by Jeff Rovin
If any of them landed far afield or became disoriented, they had palm-sized MicroTalkies, battery-powered with a range of three hundred feet and a light that could be seen from twice that distance away. Williams was not a religious Catholic, but right after praying for a safe touchdown, he prayed he did not need to use the beacon. The last twenty hours had already taken enough of a toll on his confidence as a leader.
The decades evaporated as Williams dropped. He remembered how surprised he was, when he first jumped, that there was no sensation of falling. The air seemed as solid as the sea, with very similar currents and eddies. The under-canopy behavior had been reviewed by Captain Howard, but it came back to him just the same; it was easy to remain steady in the box man position—facing down, his arms at right angles to the torso, legs out forty-five degrees with a forty-five-degree bend at the knees.
There was a digital altimeter attached to the chest-high adjuster fitting of his harness. When it ticked off two thousand feet, Williams pulled the ripcord. The chute ruffled noisily as it deployed, briefly overpowering the sound of the air rushing by. Williams did not exactly ease to a slower rate of descent but he wasn’t jolted either. He swung like a pendulum for a few moments, blood surging back into his legs, before is body became its own plumb and his feet were pointed straight down. Then he slipped his gloved fingers into the two toggles he would use to steer.
The sound of a thick, tumultuous atmosphere was no longer in his ears. Magnified slightly by the helmet he heard the creaks and groans of the harness, the lines, the gentle flutter of the canopy, his heart throbbing rapidly in his ears. His eyes were turned downward, the high-performance lenses of his goggles—with antifog coating—giving him a wide view of the terrain that seemed to climb toward him. He did not see the rest of the team nor did he look for them. Captain Howard had sent them out with enough of a gap between jumps to avoid a dangerous canopy collision.
“Better to be a little spread out than die air-dancing,” she explained.
As he descended, Williams was focused on what he could see of the opaque black tree canopies spread below, and the ribbon of slightly less dark charcoal gray that would be the Navet River. He looked for a nearby patch that was neither tree nor water but shore. Williams maneuvered toward it; whether he found the dry, flat stretch or it found him, he tucked in his chin as Captain Howard had reminded them to do and hit the ground with a thump that forced his knees to bend. He felt the bump in the small of his back, dropped to his left side to relieve the sudden muscle-tension there, and flipped the plastic lid on the parachute release button that was on the opposite side from the altimeter. Because of the trees on either side there was no wind on the ground. The canopy had already collapsed and popped free without blowing away.
Swinging onto his knees—a strained muscle in his side complained but did not stop him—Williams crawled over the fabric and bundled it toward him.
Lance Corporal Rivette emerged from the darkness, holding his chute. There were weapons strapped to hip holsters on either side. Major Breen followed him, holding an M9 service pistol.
“Bury them?” Rivette whispered, indicating the parachutes when the three men were together.
“Quicker to sink them in the river,” Williams said, remembering his training. He stood, looked past the others. “Where’s the lieutenant?”
“We haven’t seen her,” Breen said.
“Or heard her,” Rivette said, holding up his radio.
The woman couldn’t be far—if they knew which direction to search.
“We looked at the spot where she was supposed to land,” Breen said. “Also checked the trees, as far as we could see.”
Williams swore but the oath was lost in a gunshot. It was followed by a flurry of bursts. The men looked at one another, then dropped the parachutes and ran toward the sound.
Grace did not carry a gun.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Rio Claro-Mayaro Region, Trinidad
July 23, 6:19 a.m.
Situated between dense stretches of trees, and flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, the Navet River provided easy access to the Nariva Windbelt Reserve—which was comprised significantly of swamp—the Bush Bush Forest Reserve, Macaw Island, and Omega Island. It was a short but convenient route for smugglers and sightseers alike and, without exception, the gun and drug runners and the tour guides let one another be. At times, the latter provided cover by steering occasional law enforcement efforts in a wrong direction. It was, lamented one politician, a perfect sociopolitical ecosystem.
The eastern end of the waterway was just beginning to reflect the first red of dawn when the twin 250hp Yamaha 4 strokes chugged to silence and the thirty-two-foot sports fishing boat settled in twelve meters from shore. The shallow waters there would not accommodate the vessel, so the cargo would have to be off-loaded by hand. Two men stood under the rigid central canopy with three bales of opium; a third man was crouched in the bow, a Czech VZ-58 assault rifle in his hands. The men had been traveling without lights, the engines throttled down to make their approach as silent as possible.
From two hundred feet up, Lieutenant Grace Lee had seen a slight shine from the chrome fittings that surrounded the boat. And if she could see them, chances were good, if they looked up, they would see her canopy blotting an increasing circle of sky. The boat was practically on silent running. She assumed the silence was tactical and, as such, suggested something illegal.
As she saw it, there were two options. Before spotting the silver rim, she had picked out an open spot on the shore, one she could easily hit. But if the boat had not seen her by then, it would certainly hear her come down. If these people were smugglers, they would assume she was not simply a skydiving enthusiast and would cut her down. Even if she had a gun, saddled by the canopy, she would be an open target.
It would be better, she felt, to land on the boat. The question was where. It was still too dark to see anything but the outline. All she could assume, from the size, was that it did not hold more than four or five crewmembers.
She guessed there would be a standing shelter in the center and headed for that. The rising sun finally showed her more detail and she made a last-second adjustment to land square in the center of the covering. There was an armed man up front; she would need some protection as quickly as possible.
Popping the release right before she touched down, Grace sure-footedly planted the landing and hunkered into it, crouching to keep her balance and also to let the canopy drift backward, away from her. The thump of her feet and the ghostly shroud drew the immediate attention of the crew—voices below her and one from the bow.
Whoever was on point would have a weapon, probably an automatic or semiautomatic. She pivoted and went to the back of the roofing, watching her footing on a surface slick from sea mist. Drawing an eight-inch blade with each hand, she jumped to the deck and turned toward the wheelhouse.
There were two men at the controls, with a stack of bales between them. The man on the right, at the controls, was not her immediate concern; the man on the left, who was drawing a gun, was.
Grace ducked behind the bales as the man fired a single shot. Birds screeched and took to the air up and down the shore. Crouching again, hugging the side of the cargo, Grace cut the tendon of the pilot’s left knee and he went down with a shriek. The man on the left turned and fired at the empty air. When the empty chamber clicked, she rose and, with a powerful underhand toss, flung the unbloodied blade into his sunlit chest. She ducked just in time to avoid a blasting discharge from the assault rifle. The windshield exploded, covering her with glass, but not before she had spotted what she hoped was the throttle. Still low, she jumped forward and rammed it up. The boat surged ahead, the gunman was thrown onto his back and, using the injured pilot as a stepping-stone, Grace ducked and leaped through the shattered window. She half-ran, half-skid on the slippery surface, reaching the gunman before he could recover. She stabbed his left shoulder to the deck and wrapped her right fingers around
the hand holding the gun. She snapped his wrist back and easily wrenched the weapon from his grip.
The rest of the team arrived then, Williams and Breen splashing through the riverbank, Rivette covering them from the shore. While Grace searched both men for small arms, the two older men pulled themselves aboard. After looking up and down the shore, Rivette joined them. As he came on deck he saw Grace’s canopy spiral slowly toward the bay.
“No point going back to sink our chutes,” the young man remarked.
Williams wasn’t immediately concerned about the chutes. The gunfire would have been heard for a considerable distance. Anyone else on the river might come to investigate.
“I’m going to turn back to sea,” Williams told Breen. “We’re less likely to run into hostiles out in the open.”
Breen nodded. “I’ll see to the crew.”
Breen followed Williams to the control area and, with Rivette’s help, pulled the injured man toward the stern. He was trembling uncontrollably, his nerves in revolt, and each breath was a tiny scream. He reminded Rivette of a gull he’d once seen fly into a window and half-snap its neck. The lance corporal found a tool kit with bandages, scissors, antiseptic, and aspirin and brought it to the major. He cut away the man’s pants leg and did his best to patch the wound Grace had inflicted. Williams was still wearing his helmet and goggles and left them on. He would need the eyewear to protect him from the wind coming through the broken window. He throttled up slightly and as he put the boat in a tight circle, the lance corporal recovered the knife from the chest of the dead man, wiped the blood on the man’s shirt, and slipped the point into one of the bales. He withdrew the blade and angled it in the rising sun.
“Looks like opium,” he said.
“These three were smugglers for sure,” Williams said, “but not necessarily tied to terror.”
“I know Caribbeans back in L.A.,” Rivette said. “If they’re dirty, they’re dirty top to bottom. Only way you compete with the Vietnamese, the Russians, the gangs. These guys? Human trafficking yesterday, cocaine today, terrorists tomorrow.”
Williams nodded as Rivette left to take lookout at the stern.
The kid was probably right about these three. That notwithstanding, Williams was angry. Maybe Grace did not have a choice; this was certainly not a good spot to have come down. Or maybe she thought, like Rivette, that three criminals in a boat were worth interrogating. That, too, might be true. But the encounter could just as easily have cost the woman her life. It had certainly cost them the option of reconnoitering and choosing their target. Slash and burn was not the way Williams had ever conducted intelligence work.
But Black Wasp is not about “your” way, he reminded himself. As yesterday morning had vividly demonstrated, his way, the old way, might no longer be enough.
* * *
Grace Lee was with the gunman in the bow. The man was awake, writhing and moaning. The lieutenant was crouched over him, having ripped of his T-shirt and using her stiff left arm to apply pressure to his wound.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The man shook his head, as if to say he didn’t understand. With her free hand, Grace turned on the smartphone she’d found in his pocket while searching for weapons. The device was locked. Grace switched her left palm for her left foot to push down on the makeshift compress. She grabbed his right wrist and pressed his thumb to the outline on the phone. The screen opened.
“Your emails are in English,” she said, putting the phone in a vest pocket. “What’s your name or do you bleed to death?”
“Chandak,” he said.
“Chandak what?”
“Maharaj.”
“Indian. Were you born here?”
He shook his head.
“Tell me, Chandak. Do you have a local doctor here?”
He hesitated.
“You’re bleeding out all over the deck,” she said. “You need medical care.”
“Cocos Bay … Medical Outlet … Dr. Newallo.”
“Good. We’ll take you to Dr. Newallo. Meantime, tell me how to contact a leader of Jamaat al-Muslimeen. You transport drugs—you must have transported terrorists.”
The man shook his head vigorously. Grace twisted her foot on his shoulder, as if she were crushing a cigarette. The man screamed.
“I … just … delivery … man!”
“All right. Who do you deliver to?”
Major Breen walked up behind her then. The man was shaking his head again. Whatever he thought of what was playing out, he said nothing. Those were the SITCOM rules.
“My partner will bandage your wound and give you whatever painkiller he has,” Grace said.
“Opium, as it turns out,” Breen said.
“You hear?” Grace said. “You will live long enough to see Dr. Newallo or you can bleed out here,” Grace said. “Your choice. We’ve got one of your partners in the wheelhouse—it’ll be a waste if you die and he talks.”
“They kill me,” the man said vaguely.
“Your fear is a possibility. Death under my foot is a certainty.”
“We can give him asylum,” Breen remarked.
“How about that?” Grace said. “A ticket out of this place, this life.”
“Movement up river!” Rivette shouted.
Breen set down the first-aid tool kit and picked up the assault rifle Chandak had been carrying. Grace thrust the crook of her right thumb and index finger around the throat of the injured man and squeezed. Her Dragon grip cut off the flow of oxygen and blood to his brain and, in five seconds, the young man was unconscious. Moving fast and low, she gathered up and sheathed her knives then joined Major Breen in the back of the boat.
A pair of camouflage-painted speedboats was rapidly approaching along both shorelines, bobbing up and down. They looked like Russian Navy; long prow and a high windshield reflecting the morning light, making it impossible to see how many people were aboard. It did not surprise Williams that either confederates of these three or fellow smugglers would come to investigate. Whether the gunshots signaled a turf war or law enforcement, it would impact the livelihood of every criminal element on the river.
There was an equipment locker to Williams’s left. It wasn’t locked; either there were boat tools inside or the crew did not expect unwanted guests. He used the toe of his boot to lift it.
“Grace!” he shouted above the roar of his own twin engines.
The lieutenant had been en route to join the others. She turned and ran to the control area. Williams pointed with his forehead. She looked into the locker.
There were boxes of ammunition and two belts with a half-dozen hand grenade pouches bulging on each.
“They’re likely to come in shooting,” Williams said.
“Won’t they want to investigate first?” Grace asked.
Williams cocked his head portside. Grace saw what looked like bobbing white jellyfish. The fishing boat had snagged her parachute, which had blistered with air pockets.
“Understood,” she said, shouldering the belts and turning to join the others.
“Hold on!” Williams said suddenly. “Don’t go back there.”
“Sir?”
“I have an idea.”
It wasn’t so much an idea as the result of a desperate process of elimination. Ahead, to the south, was the first of two narrow tributaries that he thought they could reach before the boats were beside them. But he had no idea where they led or how soon either of them might narrow even more, and there was no time to check a map. The last thing he wanted was to box them in. He also wasn’t sure what advantage he gained by reaching the bay, assuming they could even outrun those sleek, high-performance boats. They were obviously intended to outrun police vessels; this chamber pot was even less seaworthy.
They were going to have to fight—and not a fair fight.
Williams said, “I’m going to make a run at them. What I need from you is one live grenade in each belt, one belt in each boat.”
Grace l
ooked at the sharply pointed bow. Then she hefted the belts, one in each hand. “I’d have to stand to reach them both—they’d pick me off for sure.” She pointed. “Up there in the nook behind the tow ring—if I squat I can get you one. Then you spin around and then I’ll get the other.”
“I’ll go starboard, to the one on the left,” he said.
“Got it,” she told him, then ran toward the right side of the bow.
Williams turned to the stern and yelled, “Hold on!”
The men were too close to the growling engines to make out what Williams had yelled, but when they’d turned they saw the lieutenant running to the other end of the ship with the grenade belts.
“He’s doing a Barney Oldfield!” Breen said and braced himself on the rail. Rivette did the same.
When the men were secure and Grace was in position, Williams spun the boat around hard. The boat did a sluggish, wobbling one-eighty, coughed twice, then finally gained some traction in the new direction. The turn had come none too soon: the pursuit vessels were less than one hundred yards away.
Gunfire erupted from both speedboats. It peppered the hull and wheelhouse, Williams dropped to his knees, exposing only the top of his head as he held the bottom of the wheel and looked out the shattered windshield. He steered the boat to the south as if he were making for shore. He did not want to appear to be playing chicken; if the target changed course, Grace would not be in position to deliver the belt.