He wondered once again what the hell had happened to Pendergast. He knew the man hadn’t liked the SWAT approach and wanted to go in covertly. That was damned foolish, Longstreet knew; nothing was better than a blitzkrieg of overwhelming firepower. Back in their special forces days, there were times when Pendergast had disappeared just like this—no word to anyone—only to reappear later with some important objective accomplished. It had happened often enough that their team developed a slang term for it—Don’t pull a Pendergast meant “Don’t disappear without explanation.”
Well, he couldn’t worry about that now. If the man had indeed “pulled a Pendergast,” he would be reappearing soon enough. Longstreet just hoped to God he hadn’t gone rogue and prepared to do something stupid, triggering a nightmare of paperwork, questions, and hearings.
As they came in low and fast, he could see Halcyon Key loom into view through the open door of the chopper. Only a trace of light remained along the western horizon, on the edge of a dark, moonless night. Off to his right he could see the chopper conveying Team Blue, keeping good formation with them.
He murmured into his headset: “Blue, separate north and go in for a landing. We’re landing south. Both teams on the ground at nineteen hundred twenty, to the minute.”
“Roger that.”
The chopper turned and slowed as it came in. Below, in the faint light, Longstreet could see the outbuildings and plenty of open area in the form of saw-grass-carpeted sand.
“Check weapons, body armor, and activate night vision,” said Longstreet while checking his own equipment and 9mm Beretta, and lowering his night-vision goggles.
A moment later, he said: “Take us in.”
The pilot came around and brought the helicopter down, streamers of sand blowing away in the downdraft, saw grass thrashing. The chopper settled on the sand and the team leapt out, weapons at the ready, spreading out, running for the cover of the outbuildings and the bushes, following Longstreet’s predetermined plan to the letter. Longstreet was the last out, and he headed directly toward the beach.
Pendergast had stripped off Constance’s heavy dress, leaving her in her slip. She was trembling all over. He doctored her knife wounds using supplies from his medical kit, cleaning them with a disinfectant, applying a topical antibiotic, and closing them as best he could with bandages—all the while keeping his gun trained on Diogenes, whose hands he’d cuffed behind his back.
He heard the throbbing of Longstreet’s choppers.
“The cavalry approaches,” said Diogenes tonelessly.
He ignored his brother. The wounds were not dangerously deep, but they were not shallow, either, and would require stitches. Constance had lost a lot of blood and was, he feared, about to go into shock, although she seemed strangely alert. Beyond that, her psychological stability at the moment remained very much an open question.
She had to be removed from the island as quickly as possible.
“Well, frater,” said Diogenes. “If my life is to be spared, what now?”
Pendergast put an arm around Constance, bracing her and keeping her upright. He could feel the strange animal trembling that had taken hold of her form. She had fallen silent: vibrantly, glowingly silent. A strange state that he did not understand; but then, he realized, he had never fully understood her.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Put your arm on my shoulder, use it as a brace.”
She grasped his shoulder, her body leaning against his.
Pendergast gestured toward his brother with the muzzle of the gun. “Let’s go.”
“Where to?”
“Keep quiet and follow my orders.”
“And if I don’t? You’ll kill me?”
“They will kill you,” said Pendergast.
“They are in for the surprise of their lives,” said Diogenes. And then he chuckled, low, as if in response to a private joke. The chuckling went on.
At that moment, Pendergast heard the sound of a two-stroke engine out on the water and looked over to see the dim form of a Zodiac approaching the pier at the far end of the beach.
“Into the woods,” he said.
Diogenes obeyed, chuckling and cackling under his breath, and all three went into the darkness of the buttonwood grove.
“That way,” he said to Diogenes, gesturing with the gun.
His brother moved through the darkness, down a faint path among the trees. Pendergast supported Constance, who clung to him like a child.
“What’s this surprise?” Pendergast asked.
“You shall know very soon. About now, in fact—”
An enormous explosion erupted behind them, a huge fireball rising into the darkness, weeping flaming debris and sparks; a split second later the pressure wave hit, pressing down the trees and generating a blast of wind. The explosion caused an instant reaction from the southern SWAT team, with the sound of gunfire, shouts, a couple of smaller explosions from RPGs being fired: a burst of frenzied activity that, Pendergast could hear, was rapidly approaching.
“What have you done?”
“That was perhaps the coincidence of the millennium. It wasn’t intended for you or your compatriots, I assure you—it was a strictly personal demolition job. Typical of the FBI to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“What demolition?”
“My personal cabinet of curiosities. O soul, be chang’d into little water drops, and fall into the ocean—ne’er be found.”
Pendergast glanced from Diogenes to Constance and back again. He merely said: “Let us go south, parallel to the beach. With the utmost quiet.”
They moved on, keeping to the trees and bushes behind the beach, as the sounds of battle continued behind them.
68
FLAVIA ROSE FROM the prone position she had dropped to at the sound of the explosion. She wasn’t sure what was happening, or why, but what she did realize was that the sudden chaos was very much to her advantage. Chaos was going to be her cover, her friend.
Slipping along the edge of the island, just inside a band of mangroves, she approached the area where the explosion had gone off, which was now burning brightly, leaving a glow in the sky above her bright enough to navigate by. She heard the brief rattle of gunfire off to her left. As the mangroves ran out toward the northern end of the island, she crouched, staying behind them, and looked out at the scene of destruction.
A great crater had been blasted in the open, sandy area, dull flames flickering from it as if from the maw of a volcano. A hundred yards away, a chopper lay tilted on its side, afire, flames leaping up into the sky. Several bodies lay not far off, with two men—medics?—bending over them. She cast about and saw, just fifty feet away, in the open, another man lying on a stretcher, bandaged and moaning. He had already been taken care of, it seemed, and left temporarily while the others were triaged.
She couldn’t begin to fathom what was going on here, or why helicopters full of armed men had landed, but she didn’t care. She had only one aim: killing that bitch, Constance.
Keeping low, Flavia scurried out into the open, across the saw grass, leaving the cover of the mangroves. In another moment she stood over the man on the stretcher. His head and one arm were bandaged and his eyes were open, staring at her in dull surprise.
She quickly examined him, and there it was: a .45 in his holster. She slid it out, ejected the magazine, saw it was fully loaded, slapped it back in.
“What…are you…?” the man began, speaking painfully.
“Taking your weapon.”
He sputtered, shaking his head, his body trying to move. “No…”
“Relax. Nothing you can do about it.”
She saw he had an extra magazine in a magazine pouch on his belt; she took that, too.
“Nooo…” he said in a louder voice.
“See you later.” She turned away. Then she hesitated, thought better of it, and turned back to the man, pulling a Zombie Killer from her fanny pack.
The job took only ten seconds.
Now she scurried back into the darkness of the mangroves, stopped for a moment to examine the weapon—a nice model 1911 Colt—and then she shoved it into her waistband and headed south to find the woman.
Longstreet, on the beach, was far enough from the explosion to be merely knocked down by it, but left unhurt—though it shocked the hell out of him. The three closest men were down; he rushed to their aid as the others in Team Red came back; and then the chopper, which had been knocked on its side, caught fire and there was a second, fuel-fed explosion. Everyone was in a panic, believing they were under a massive assault, firing at everything that moved. Longstreet himself had believed the same for a moment, but when he saw the deep crater, he realized it must have been a preset explosive device. Diogenes had set a bomb in the island’s most obvious LZ, and they had fallen right into the trap. It was one of the scenarios Pendergast had warned him of. He realized he had badly underestimated the resistance they would meet, and he burned with self-reproach.
In his headset he could hear the confusion and consternation among the men, both his team and Team Blue. He immediately called in three more Zodiacs from Key West with extra men and medics to take out the wounded. But Key West lay eight miles southwest; at thirty knots the boats would take fifteen minutes to reach the island’s pier.
Longstreet had an immediate decision to make: call off the assault or finish it, full-court press. He chose the latter. If they retreated now, it could turn into a weeks- or months-long standoff, another Ruby Ridge or Waco. It was pretty clear they were dealing with a deranged individual; as horribly as the op had begun, if they didn’t finish what they’d started it would be even worse. They were too deep in it to abort now.
Longstreet rallied his men by radio. They were spooked and at the edge of control. He talked them down from their initial confusion, ordered them to stop shooting, and got them refocused. He gave the requisite orders to evacuate the wounded and ordered the two teams to proceed as planned. Team Blue, still in full force, was to go in and take the house. He and the remainder of Team Red would sweep north, clearing the island. The pincer movement would meet at the main house, where he hoped Diogenes would make his last stand. There, they could tear-gas, flash-bang, and, if necessary, burn him out.
Moving along the beach, Longstreet remained in continuous contact with the rest of the team, listening to the chatter on the channel. One of his men suddenly spoke through the comm, his voice at a whisper: “Red one, there’s someone here. In the bushes.”
“Red two, wait for backup. I’m on my way.”
Longstreet scurried toward the GPS location, night-vision goggles lowered. It was another dense, overgrown cluster of buttonwoods and palmettos. He moved fast and soon connected with his teammate. The man had taken cover behind a dense stand of bushes.
“Through there,” Red two said. “I heard someone moving. I ordered him to come out. No answer.”
Longstreet listened. They were close to the shore and a maze of mangroves, which extended far into the water.
He called: “FBI! Come out now!”
No answer, but he heard the faint splash of someone moving in shallow water. He searched the dense tangle of vegetation with his goggles but could see nothing. If this was Diogenes, and he was pretty sure it was, he’d better be careful; the man would likely fight to the death.
He gestured for Red two to loop in from the right to try to cut off the person, and with a similar gesture indicated he would go in straight.
The man nodded. As they cautiously emerged from behind their cover, two shots rang out. Longstreet and Red two immediately dropped to the dirt.
“You okay?” Longstreet muttered on the comm, his head down.
“I’m good,” came the whispered reply.
“Move in diagonally through that dense cover. I’m going in straight to get the fucker.”
Longstreet crawled forward on his belly. He had to take out the shooter and he believed he had an advantage in the night vision, although he couldn’t be sure Diogenes didn’t have goggles, as well.
As he moved, he heard another faint splash—the man was retreating. From his prone position he aimed at the sound and fired twice.
That stirred the shooter into retreating faster, and he heard more splashing, which gave him a better fix. He fired twice again and thought he heard a grunt of pain.
Leaping up, he ran toward the sound, entering the water and wading fast through a tiny, winding channel in the mangroves, firing once, and then again—widely spaced shots to keep the shooter in retreat and to suppress return fire. It was very dark in the mangroves, but with his goggles he could see well; he hoped to God the shooter could not. Red two was behind him to the left, looping around to cut the shooter off. He had set up their approaches to make sure there was no chance of a friendly-fire accident. But Longstreet wanted to get to him first. If it was Diogenes, he was going to kill the man himself, and this setup provided the perfect way to do so with complete justification.
He stopped, listening. There was a blur of motion in his goggles, but it was too quick to get a bead. He pressed on, firing once again, pushing through narrow channels in the mangroves. The pressure of his approach was spooking the shooter; he heard louder crashing as the target moved hard and fast, trying to get away.
Another shot came tearing through the mangroves, clipping a branch by his shoulder, and Longstreet dropped into the water. It seemed the bastard wasn’t as spooked as he’d assumed. Two more shots, coming in high, and then more thrashing through vegetation as the target continued retreating. He wasn’t far away, and the noise made a fine target.
Longstreet rose, aimed carefully at the sound, and fired. There was a short cry and a final crash—and then silence.
Moving quickly, he bashed through a screen of mangroves—and came upon the shooter. He stared, incredulous: it was a young woman lying on her back, chest covered with blood, eyes open. For a second he thought it must be Constance Greene—but this was certainly not the woman whose picture had been in the briefing book. In fact, with a sudden shock, he knew who this was; the face was recognizable from mug shots and security videos he’d viewed. Flavia Greyling stared back at him with glittering, hate-filled eyes and, with her strength fading, tried to raise her gun, but he reached down and pulled it out of her hand. She held a wicked-looking knife with a green handle in the other. Grimacing with pain, she raised it as if readying it for a throw…and then collapsed back into the water.
His teammate came up behind him. “What the hell? A girl?”
“Yeah.” What the hell she’d been doing here on Halcyon, Longstreet couldn’t begin to imagine. This was turning into an absolute clusterfuck. Pendergast had been right, after all.
“She’s not target two, is she?”
“No.”
“Where’d she come from?”
“No idea. You get her out of this crap and to the pier, evac her on a Zodiac.”
“She’s dead.”
“Maybe. Just get her out and do your best. I’ve got to meet up with Team Blue at the main house.”
Longstreet pushed out of the mangroves and headed up the beach.
69
LONGSTREET JOGGED UP the beach and soon arrived at the main house. It was already surrounded by Team Blue, and a hostage negotiator was on a megaphone telling everyone to get out, last warning. They were coming in and any resistance would be met with deadly force.
“Anyone in there?” Longstreet asked, coming up to the Blue leader.
“We don’t know. No shots fired, no sightings, no sounds. Could be empty.”
Longstreet nodded. Diogenes wasn’t in there, he knew it the minute he saw the house—a rambling wooden structure that would burn in five minutes, that offered no cover anywhere: a 9mm round would go straight through the entire building.
“Hit it with flash-bangs and go in.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m moving on—I’ve got
a special assignment to do.” Longstreet turned away. Diogenes and the woman were somewhere else. The assault on the house would be a perfect diversion, allowing him to track them down when they least expected it. As he moved away, he heard the man on the megaphone announcing that their last opportunity to come out had expired; and a moment later came the sound of shattering glass and the muffled booms of the flash-bangs.
Moving stealthily through the mangroves, away from the main action, Pendergast supported Constance while keeping Diogenes in front, at gunpoint. His brother moved slowly, as if in a fog. They proceeded with stealth, maintaining the deepest cover. Ahead, he could see a second fire through the trees; it was, he knew, the caretaker’s cottage. A moment later he peered into the clearing surrounding the house. It was indeed on fire, having been cleared and taken. The fat copy of Ulysses now lay in the sand, along with numerous footprints. The SWAT team had moved on, leaving the area empty.
“Keep moving,” Pendergast said, gesturing toward the trail that led from the cottage to the beach.
“Where are we going?” Diogenes asked.
Pendergast did not answer. They moved along the trail and, a few moments later, came out at the edge of the beach. Pendergast paused to reconnoiter. It was empty. An FBI Zodiac was tied up at the pier, opposite the main house. He could see two people loading the wounded on stretchers into the boat. Shortly the boat’s engine fired up and it left the dock, speeding southwest. The rest of the activity now seemed confined to the main house.
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