by Peter Nealen
“I thought Ciela International was based in Bonn,” Brannigan said, pointedly focusing on her eyes. He wasn’t sure that was much better than staring down her blouse. Her eyes were mesmerizing. “What is the CEO of that kind of transnational conglomerate doing in Corpus Christi?”
“This is one of our transshipment hubs into the United States,” she explained. Something about the way she said it filled in the blanks for Brannigan. Not everything that Ciela International dealt in was necessarily legal and aboveboard. “I just so happened to be out here for a meeting with some of our American shareholders when the terrible string of incidents happened.”
Brannigan nodded, though he watched her with narrowed eyes. He didn’t know if he believed her or not. She returned his gaze, that little smile on her lips, as if knowing he distrusted her and enjoying it.
Hell with it. It wouldn’t do any harm to follow up, and as he’d stressed to Curtis and Flanagan, time was pressing. “We’ve got a little shipment that we need to get to Matamoros, soonest,” he said. “And it needs to be discreet.”
Her smile only widened. It made her only more devastatingly attractive, at least until he looked closer. She hid it well, but there was a lot of cold calculation going on in those glittering green eyes. “At Ciela International,” she said, putting on like she was reciting a corporate advertisement, “we live and breathe discretion.” She took another sip of her drink, watching him languidly. “How big is this shipment?” she asked.
“Passengers,” he replied. “Twelve men, and probably about a hundred fifty pounds of equipment per man.” He honestly didn’t want to tell this woman any more than he absolutely had to, but he had a painful certainty in his mind that she already knew exactly who he was, and what the mission was.
She nodded, her lips pursed slightly in thought. “I think we can arrange something,” she said. She sat up and pulled a notepad to her, scribbling something down with a very expensive-looking, gold-chased pen. She tore the page off and passed it to him. In delicate, almost flowery handwriting, there was a set of coordinates and a sum with an awful lot of zeroes after it. “Be at these coordinates by…six thirty AM. Presuming that you are in a terrible hurry?”
Brannigan nodded, as he took the paper and stuffed it in his shirt pocket. She made a moue. “I was afraid of that,” she said disappointedly. “You have hardly touched your drink.”
“I need to keep a clear head,” he said calmly, only realizing once the words were out that they had more than one meaning. And Dalca had clearly picked up on that same meaning, because she smiled again, stretching a little in her chair like a satisfied cat.
“I’m afraid that the price tag is due to how quickly this is having to be put together, as well,” she said. She looked at him from under her eyelashes. “You will be able to pay it, no?”
Brannigan reached across the desk and took the pad and the gold-chased pen. He quickly wrote down Van Zandt’s current contact information, information that would doubtless change within hours of this operation coming to a close. “Reach out to this man,” he said. “He’ll arrange for all the financial necessities to be taken care of.”
She made a point of touching his hand as she took the paper from him. “I’ll certainly do that,” she said. She sighed. “It’s too bad this is all in such a rush. We might be able to arrange some sort of…personal discount.”
Brannigan felt a hot flush rising from his collar. This wasn’t exactly what he’d been expecting. This Dalca woman was a far cry from the Suleiman Syndicate thugs who had tried to murder them, or the man known to the Blackhearts only as “Dmitri,” who had finally supplied the weapons and the dhow to get to Khadarkh.
He suddenly suspected that she was far more dangerous than either of them.
He looked at his watch. “Well, we don’t have much time, do we?” He stood up. “If we’re going to meet that time hack, we’re going to have to hurry up and do some serious packing.”
“Of course,” Dalca replied, standing as he did. “Though I really wish we had more time to get to know one another. Personal relationships are so important in this kind of business.” She tapped the paper he’d handed to her. “I will, of course, contact this Mr. Van Zandt,” she said. Brannigan hadn’t written Van Zandt’s name down, or mentioned it. She was entirely too knowledgeable about this operation for comfort. “At least partial payment will be necessary before final arrangements can be made.”
Brannigan nodded. “I’m sure it will be no problem,” he said. “We’re all in a bit of a hurry here.” He held out his hand and she shook it, holding on for just a little bit longer than politeness demanded. “Thank you, Ms. Dalca.”
“Erika, please,” she said.
“Thank you, Erika,” he said. She beamed at him.
Then he, Curtis, and Flanagan were beating a hasty retreat. Flanagan blew a deep breath out with a faint whistle. “She’s a piece of work, ain’t she?”
“She’s dangerous as hell,” Brannigan said, as they headed back out into the parking lot. “We’re going to have to stay on our toes, or this could turn way nastier than Dubai did.”
But, hopefully, they had an insert platform. And with time being as short as it was, beggars couldn’t afford to be choosers.
Chapter 7
Huerta stood near the shore, his face stony. The platoon of Naval Infantry was almost completely loaded up on the RHIBs, the Rigid-Hulled Inflatable Boats floating off the pier in Punta de Piedra. They were a bit better equipped than the first assault team; they’d had slightly longer to prepare. Each man was armored and wearing an inflatable horse collar, with a P90 5.7mm submachinegun on a single point sling and two hundred fifty rounds of ammunition. Night vision was still scarce for the Marines, so they were going to have to make do with the high-intensity lights mounted to their weapons.
Salinas was standing beside him, wearing a windbreaker, her face as severe as his. Huerta glanced over at her and suppressed a sneer. Her tough act did not impress him. He knew what she was; she was a political appointee, who had gained that appointment by spreading her legs for every man in higher office who might advance her career, all while presenting the image of a strong, independent woman that the Norteamericano press loved so much. The fact that he had to defer to her demands irked him to no end. He wasn’t some ball-less maricòn who simply took shit from a woman because he liked it.
But his instructions from his own commanding officer were clear. For whatever reason, Salinas had overall discretion on this operation, so he had to facilitate her demands. And she was determined to make sure he knew it, every step of the way.
He was looking forward to this being over. He’d put her in her place then. Or so he told himself, as he fantasized about it on the rare occasions he got to sleep.
Teniente Oquendo waved from the lead RHIB. Everyone was aboard and ready to go. Huerta returned the wave, signaling that they were clear. The Teniente nodded and stepped back down off the gunwale, tapping the coxswain on the shoulder. A moment later, the dark water churned around the RHIB’s rubber hull as it backed water and pulled away from the pier.
Huerta didn’t like this. One platoon was the absolute bare minimum for this kind of assault, but it was still doable, especially considering how thinly spread the Naval Infantry were, with Los Zetas stirring up more trouble in Tamaulipas lately. It still bothered him, especially considering the level of training his men had. Against most of the narcos, they were more than adequate. Against whoever had hit the meeting in Matamoros and shot down the four helicopters on the first assault, he found he was less sure.
But Salinas had insisted that the situation had to be resolved as quickly as possible. It was bad enough that Mexico couldn’t bring the cartels to heel. This small group of terrorists, holed up on an easily-located oil platform, had to be eliminated.
Huerta didn’t disagree. He just disagreed with the rushed nature of the operation. He’d watched four helicopters filled with his own men get shot down and fall into the Gulf.
He feared that he was sending Teniente Oquendo and his men to their deaths, as well.
On the other hand, there was the chance that, on the surface, they would be able to get close enough to board the platform before being detected.
And if they succeed, then I won’t have to bring those gringo mercenaries into this.
***
Oquendo squinted into the salt spray as the lead RHIB cleared the narrow passage across the narrow levee that divided the Laguna Madre from the Gulf of Mexico. He was young, but had already seen combat against Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel. He was no green novice.
But he was still nervous. He knew what had happened to the first assault force. And while he was a trained and hardened soldier in the Mexican Naval Infantry, most of his combat experience had been inland. As the only force that was generally considered incorruptible, the Naval Infantry were often tasked with hitting the truly high-value targets, and that often took them far from the ocean. He had been through all the training, but never on a real, live maritime mission.
“Señor, look,” the coxswain pointed. “I thought all the fishing boats should have been cleared away from here by now.”
Oquendo had to look hard to see what the coxswain, a young man named Robledo, was pointing at. After a moment, he could just make out the dim silhouette of what did indeed look like a fishing boat, floating just off the banks of the levee, only a few hundred meters to the south.
He frowned. The Navy had been broadcasting warnings to keep out of the waters around the Tourmaline-Delta platform for the last thirty hours, but apparently someone hadn’t gotten the message. Or else, a local fisherman had decided to simply ignore the warnings. It wasn’t unknown for such people to hold the government’s warnings in contempt. If he was being honest, not entirely without cause.
That didn’t make the fisherman any less of an idiot.
“Get them out of here,” Oquendo ordered.
The Mexican Marines weren’t particularly gentle, or concerned with the niceties that their neighbors to the north were. There were credible stories of the Naval Infantry firing on gringos across the border, and even executing three Americans outside Matamoros, not far away, in 2014.
So, they didn’t flash lights or even pull closer to the fishing boat to use loudspeakers to warn them off. Instead, two of the Marines near the bow of the RHIB leaned on the gunwale, levelling their P90s, and opened fire on the dim shape of the boat.
They weren’t especially trying to hit anything. They were “warning shots.” Just warning shots that also weren’t necessarily aimed to miss, either.
The P90s stuttered, muzzles spitting flame into the dark. A few shots visibly sparked off the metal gunwales of the fishing boat.
At first, there was no response. The boat didn’t veer away. Then flame blossomed from the dark shape, amidships.
Oquendo thought something flammable had been hit, at first. Then the first bullets snapped past his head, and he realized that whoever was on that boat was shooting back at them.
Machinegun fire roared in the dark, and bullets tore through the night air and spanged off the metal shelter over the RHIB’s helm station. All of the Naval Infantrymen instinctively ducked for the rigid deck. Only Ochoa was too slow. Even over the crackling roar and the thumping of gunfire, Oquendo heard the meaty thumps as he caught several bullets, and sprawled lifelessly to the deck, bouncing off the rubber gunwale in the process.
The Marines returned fire, spraying 5.7mm gunfire toward the boat. Oquendo followed suit, lifting his submachinegun to his shoulder and squeezing off a long burst before ducking back down, himself, wondering why he was bothering. It wasn’t like the RHIB’s inflated rubber hull was going to stop machinegun bullets.
The machinegun fire from the boat didn’t seem to be especially accurate; the rounds were going high and wild. One or two bullets in just the right place could end the operation, though. Oquendo heaved himself up, fighting the slickness of the salt-water-drenched gunwale and the weight of his own gear, and fired off another long burst, just over the gunwale. He knew a lot of his rounds weren’t going anywhere near the machinegunner, but if he just made him flinch away just a little bit, it might save some of his men.
As he let off the trigger, he peered through the darkness. He’d been nearly blinded by his own muzzle flash, but after a moment, he thought that it looked like the boat was turning away from the Mexican RHIBs, though the machinegun was still firing, its muzzle blast flickering in the dark.
He ducked back down and reloaded. They needed to save some ammunition for the assault on the oil platform, but none of them wanted to get shot to pieces just past the levee.
Slapping the fresh magazine in place over the top of the bullpup submachinegun, he worked the charging handle and shoved himself up again, though this time he took a second to evaluate his surroundings and the situation before firing.
The boat was definitely pulling away, and fast. He still couldn’t see much more than a vague shape, but it looked like maybe they’d been wrong; that didn’t look like a commercial fishing boat. It looked more like a high-speed yacht. It was certainly heading back out to sea faster than the RHIBs could probably pursue, and they weren’t slow boats.
A few last, desultory bursts of machinegun fire ripped and crackled overhead again, and then the boat was gone, vanishing into the darkness of the Gulf.
“Report,” Oquendo snapped. “Anyone hit?”
“Ochoa’s dead.”
“Villar is hit, but he’ll live.”
Cabo Jimenez crawled over to Oquendo after a few moments. “On average, the men each expended a magazine against the boat, Señor,” he said. “We should still have enough ammunition to assault the platform, but we weren’t counting on an engagement before we reached the target.”
“We will adapt,” Oquendo said. “We have no choice.”
The RHIBs sped toward the distant Tourmaline-Delta platform. Oquendo was glad for the darkness; he didn’t have to see Ochoa’s blood sloshing against his boots on the deck.
***
“Hey, Flint?” Dingo called, sticking his head in the door.
Flint cracked one eye with a growl. He’d been having a good dream, with five of the hottest bimbos in South Carolina. Or wherever he’d been in the dream. “What?”
“We just got a message,” Dingo said. “No sub tonight.”
“What the fuck?” Flint heaved himself up to a sitting position. “We’ve been sitting here for two damn days.”
“No idea,” Dingo said with a shrug. “Something must have gone wrong. But they didn’t include any details.”
“Of course they didn’t.” Flint ran a hand over his face. His stubble was getting long. Oh, well, he didn’t really care. Maybe he’d grow a beard again. “Did they have an ETA at all?”
“Nah, just a ‘stand by,’” Dingo said, shaking his head. “My guess? The sub got too close to one of those ships out there, and the skipper panicked.”
“Didn’t ask for your guess,” Flint said, as he heaved himself to his feet. He wanted to go back to sleep, but realized that he really needed to piss. It was warm on the Gulf, so he was wearing just his skivvies. He was medium height, tanned, and hairy. His shock of dirty-blond hair was long and untamed, and he had a lot of tattoos crawling across his arms, chest, and back. Some of them had been blacked out.
He wasn’t too worried about security, though his kit was close at hand, and his Field Pistol was never far from him, in this case underneath the pillow he’d raided from the platform’s crew quarters. “Was that it?”
“Yeah, that was all.” Dingo wasn’t especially deferential, but Flint knew that the rest of the team was a little afraid of him. Whacking that Switchblade punk during the train-up had made sure of that. That was the way Flint liked it. A combat leader should make his men a little afraid. He’d just never been able to really cultivate that fear the way he would have liked before joining up with this outfit.
“Fine. I gotta piss.” Ignoring
his fellow team leader, he lurched toward the hatch. There was a head not far away.
He was about halfway there when he heard the radio crackling loudly behind him. It had to be Dingo’s radio; his own was still on his gear.
“We’ve got incoming,” Villain called out. “That lookout boat engaged some boats coming toward us. Looks like four RHIBs, coming fast from the southwest.”
“Motherfuck,” Flint snarled, turning back to his cabin. Leave it to the idiot spics to decide to spring this just when his bladder was full.
He hurriedly threw on a shirt and his plate carrier, swinging his gunbelt around his hips and holstering his Field Pistol. He loved that gun. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to take the chance that another one of these lowlifes might try to steal it. Then, after shoving his feet into his boots, he was pounding up the ladder toward the control room, where they’d set up their little operations center.
“What have we got?” he asked, as he came through the hatch.
“Like I said,” Villain replied, “four RHIBs, about ten nautical miles off, coming in at about thirty knots.”
“Mexican Marines?” he asked.
“Looks like it,” Villain answered. “They’re coming from the mainland, so they’re probably not American. The SEALs or the Marines would be coming from the sea.”
“Provided that our friends had failed to keep them off our backs,” Flint agreed. He stared at the darkness to the southwest. The boats were invisible to the naked eye, but he knew that Scrap and Gibbet had spotted them with the powerful thermals they had up top.
Slowly, a grin started to grow on his face. It was not a pleasant expression, though if they were given to such observations, his teammates would probably say that few, if any, of Flint’s facial expressions could ever be said to be “pleasant.”
“I think this is an opportunity,” he said. “Let’s break out the new toys.”
“Do we have time?” Villain asked. Flint snorted.