American Sniper

by Ian Patterson

He did neither mostly because of Mad Max. The old Max would have done the woman six ways from Sunday before dropping his trousers. Instead, he watched her like a father, forcing Chan to keep hands-off. To Chan, this new Max was tiresome. Safe to say, when this ended, Chan and the new Mad Max wouldn’t be reminiscing over cold beers.

  For transportation and accommodation, Chan purchased a forty-foot, two-thousand-nineteen Thor Aria Motorhome they collected—prepaid, registered, and plated courtesy of Liu Jianguo —in the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, the maximum limit of the Bell chopper’s range. The vehicle was powered by a 360HP Cummins diesel, slept eight adults, was equipped with a mini-gourmet kitchen, a bathroom with walk-in shower, an inclining king-bed, five television sets including a fifty-five-inch LED HDTV in the living area.

  It was a four-hundred-thousand-dollar ride. The motorhome kept them mobile, nimble, and virtually undetectable on the fifteen-hour-long journey to San Padre where Chan prepaid a month-long stay at the KOA Holiday campground located on the leeward side of the island.

  Once settled in San Padre, Chan executed a rental agreement on a Formula 400 Super Sport cruiser with twin 525HP Merc Bravo outboard motors. With a cruising speed of twenty-nine miles per hour and a maximum speed with open throttle of forty-nine mph, the beast would get them through the Brazos Santiago Pass into open Gulf water and to Tampico, Mexico, in ten hours running on fumes.

  And if things went FUBAR in The Land of Enchantment and burritos, Cuba was a hop, skip, and a puddle-jumper away. Neither the CIA, the FBI, or the military would follow them to Cuba, even presuming they could.

  ◊◊◊

  With the sun rising in the east off his left flank, Ezekiel Bohannon watched a trio of pelicans dive-bomb for their breakfast into the glassy water of the Gulf Coast. A suicide mission, mused Bohannon, knowing the pelicans would eventually go blind from the impact. Unable to fish, they’d die.

  Poor bastards: Bohannon knew how they must feel.

  Igniting the last cigarette in a pack he’d bummed from Chan, Bohannon inhaled greedily. He feared Chan was unstable. Bohannon could not afford an unstable Jackie Chan. As for Mad Max? Max remained deadly calm. Which, knowing the man as he did from Iraq, worried Bohannon even more.

  It was evident to Bohannon, now, he was meant to die in New York, someone’s twisted version of Bohannon falling on his sword for the cause.

  Like Iraq. When politics prevented the military from doing what must be done. Bohannon didn’t regret signing on with the Agency to finish the job. Would have done it for free.

  But that was then, this is now. Bohannon had no intention being set-up as anyone’s sacrificial lamb, least of all the Agency.

  Or Mathias. Goddamn Mathias.

  A final drag from the cigarette and Bohannon flicked the butt to the pavement, crushing the ember beneath his boot. He returned to the motorhome.

  “Hasta la vista, amigos,” he said, ordering Chan to fuel the 400 Super Sport, and Hathaway to roust their guests.

  ONE HUNDRED THIRTEEN

  U.S. Coast Guard Sector / Air Station, Corpus Christi, Texas

  TURNED OUT, MATHIAS wasn’t done with Berkshire, after all.

  ONE HUNDRED FOURTEEN

  U.S. Coast Guard Sector / Air Station, Corpus Christi, Texas

  THOUGH THE SMALLEST of the U.S. military service branches, by itself the U.S. Coast Guard is the world's twelfth largest naval force. Operating under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during peacetime, it can be transferred to the U.S. Department of the Navy by the President at any time, or by Congress during times of war. The Coast Guard maintains an extensive fleet of two hundred forty-three coastal and ocean-going patrol ships, tenders, tugs, and icebreakers, sixteen hundred smaller boats, and an extensive aviation division of over two hundred helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.

  Which was why Mathias supposed, it was in Berkshire’s power to demand three Navy SEAL Commandos join Mathias on his mission to rescue Tara.

  When Mathias objected, Berkshire said, “A condition of my participation, Mathias. Take it or leave it.”

  From Liu Jianguo, Mathias learned Bohannon, his team, Tara, and a second unidentified hostage were traveling by motorhome to San Padre Island, Texas. According to Liu, at San Padre, Chan had arranged the use of a high-speed power boat. Beyond this, Liu could say no more.

  Mathias knew San Padre was a short fifty-mile drive to Matamoros on the U.S.-Mexican border. Less than half the distance over open water to the mouth of the Rio Grande River, a natural border between the two countries.

  Because it’s what he would do, Mathias assumed the next stop for Bohannon was Mexico. If Bohannon escaped with Tara over the border to Mexico, it was a whole new kettle of refried beans.

  But Mathias couldn’t dismiss the possibility Bohannon would stay holed-up in his motorhome at San Padre Island.

  Leaving at two in the morning to arrive before sunrise in San Padre, they made the one-hundred-fifty mile trip over water in under three hours traveling in a Damen Interceptor high-speed watercraft. Joining Mathias were Berkshire’s three heavily armed recruits and two U.S. Coast Guard crew.

  Reaching San Padre, the Interceptor stayed two miles offshore while Mathias and his team approached the Island on a rigid-hull inflatable boat launched from davits on the Interceptor’s stern. Powered by a high performance, silent-running electric outboard, they covered the distance to shore in under twenty-five minutes.

  Clearing the breakwall into Brazos Santiago Pass, they steered the inflatable north. Ahead, the Queen Isabella Causeway glittered like a strand of Christmas lights over the water of Laguna Madre. From early reconnaissance, Mathias knew the only location on the island able to accommodate a large motorhome was the South Padre Island KOA Holiday campground.

  Mathias planned to approach the campground from a shallow bay that lay south of a pier extending out into the water of Laguna Madre. Dotting the shoreline of the bay was a thicket of sheltering mangroves. Beyond the mangroves was an expanse of open sand leading directly to the campsites where oversize motorhomes and travel trailers were required to overnight.

  From Liu, Mathias knew the specific make and model of the motorhome: a late model, forty-foot-long Thor Aria. With a price-tag approaching four-hundred-grand, Mathias presumed it would be obvious.

  Wearing night vision goggles, Mathias and his team of SEALS tied off the RHIB to a mangrove. Clearing the mangroves, they moved quickly over the open flat of sandy soil. Approaching the campground, they paused. With only two dozen vehicles to choose from, the Aria stood out like a thoroughbred among nags.

  Ordering his men to halt, Mathias retrieved a compact thermal imaging sensor from a pack strapped to his back. Two minutes was all he needed to know the vehicle was empty.

  “Shit,” said the commando by his side. “Haven’t put down a hostile since Iraq.”

  An hour searching the motorhome revealed no evidence Tara had ever been there. Mathias didn’t know if he was relieved or alarmed.

  ONE HUNDRED FIFTEEN

  Tampico, Mexico

  LIKE A HELLISH VISION of Dante’s Inferno, the gaseous burn-off from Refinería Madero dominated the Tampico horizon.

  Arriving after dark, Hathaway used a flashing red signal beacon, and the blazing deck lights from a row of hulking tanker ships docked upriver to navigate the channel at the mouth of the Pánuco River. As an experienced skipper operating his own charter service in the Florida Keys, Hathaway was elected by Bohannon to guide the approach to Tampico.

  On either side of the entrance to the river was a solid breakwall built from huge concrete blocks and massive boulders. At intervals along the wall, locals fished, walked, or clustered in groups; men, women, and children talking, laughing, arguing, the grown-ups drinking beer.

  “How will you find this place, Sarge?” Chan asked Hathaway. “It’s blacker out here than Obama’s ass.”

  Chan blamed Obama, not Bush, for the fuck-storm in Iraq.

  Raising a hand-held device wit
h blinking lights, Hathaway said, “GPS.”

  If he’d said, “It ain’t rocket science,” Chan would have shot him dead on the spot. But he didn’t, so Chan deferred.

  Jackie was restless. On the rollercoaster trip from San Padre Island hobby-horsing through a gut-churning four-foot-swell, the journalist had puked on Chan’s boots. Preparing to throw the runt overboard into the churning sea, Bohannon intervened.

  “We may need him, Jackie. The Post may pay a ransom. No one dies till I say so. Got it?”

  “Got it, Chief,” Chan replied, hoping for the dark to conceal his disappointment.

  Ten minutes upriver, Hathaway said, “That’s it, the jetty, starboard side. You see it?”

  Bohannon did. A cluster of lights at the end of a dock jutting maybe fifty yards out into the river. Moored to the dock were a half dozen small boats.

  “According to Google satellite,” Hathaway explained, “other side of that dock is an entrance leading to a small lagoon. The home looks as if it’s built directly on the water with a small dock of its own where we can tie-off. It’s secluded enough; lots of trees and vegetation hiding it from the road, which backs onto the security fence of the refinery.”

  With a nod, Bohannon said, “You keep the vessel on the water idling, keep an eye on them.” Bohannon jerked a thumb at Tara and Clayton Brux. “Jackie and I will take the dingy, check it out. If we run into trouble, we’ll radio. If not, we’ll return. We go in together, tie off, make these two comfortable.”

  “Sounds like a plan, Chief,” Hathaway said.

  “Indeedy, it does.”

  Moments later, Hathaway navigated the Super Sport through a narrow channel into the small lagoon. With the engines running, he used the throttle and stick to keep the boat stationary. Meanwhile, Chan and Bohannon lowered the dingy from davits.

  Climbing aboard, Chan said, “Don’t do any sightseeing while we’re gone, Chief.”

  “Nowhere to go, William. We’re running on fumes.”

  With that, they set off, small outboard bubbling through the water disturbing a flock of seabirds out fishing for their evening meal. Backlit by the glow of a preternatural sunrise coming from the refinery, Hathaway watched the dingy recede. Trailing the dingy like an afterthought, the small boat’s wake faded into the calm surface of the lagoon.

  ◊◊◊

  Amid violence, more than two thousand troops had been withdrawn from the Mexican State of Tamaulipas due to a breakdown of a security agreement between the state government and the army. Though the Narcos weren’t yet planting severed heads on pikes in Tampico’s Plaza De La Libertad, their presence was known by the openly armed men leaning in doorways of abandoned shops knocking-back Negra Modelo or speeding through the streets in small Nissan pickup trucks. The almost daily violence was also a dead-giveaway, literally.

  At one time Tampico had been considered the Disneyland of destinations for American spring-breakers who transformed miles and miles of city beach into twenty-four-hour party central. The beaches were now populated by thatched umbrellas and sun chairs reserved for tourists who would never arrive. Many of the beachfront bars, motels, hotels, and businesses along Blvd. Costero were shuttered, in need of repair, or collapsing. Public beachfront parking lots were backfilled with drifts and dunes created by the windswept sand.

  As a place to vacation, Tampico sucked. As a place to hold hostages, Bohannon could have chosen much worse.

  ◊◊◊

  Tara had less than zero hope her and Brux would get out alive. With fumes from the nearby refinery clogging her airways, she didn’t need to sit confession with Bohannon to know they were in Mexico. Even if Mathias discovered her whereabouts, the U.S. government wouldn’t risk an international incident by invading sovereign territory to rescue a couple of kidnap victims. As a former extraction specialist herself, Tara knew this.

  And since ransom money wasn’t important to Bohannon, Tara knew she and Brux were doomed.

  Of course, Mathias could go-it-alone. Assuming he could locate them, enter the country, acquire arms, breach the perimeter, take down three heavily armed and experienced commandos, return Tara and Brux to American soil unharmed.

  Even for a man like Mathias, a tall order.

  Exhausted from lack of sleep, Tara ruminated on her prospects. Bound ankle and wrist with plastic shackles, tied at the neck like a dog on a chain to a four-inch by four-inch square supporting beam, she despaired of her odds.

  She must have dozed, because next thing she heard was Bohannon saying, “Wake up, Ms. McDonald, wake up.”

  Waggling her head, Tara willed the sleep from her brain. Framed by the doorway, Bohannon stood with two plates in his hands. Observing him, Tara wondered how such a physically unimposing man could be so deadly. Or was it because he was so physically unimpressive that he was so deadly?

  Seeming to read her thoughts, Bohannon said, “I’ve done all I can to keep you secure and safe. If Mathias finds you, this will end differently than I plan.”

  “You saying you don’t plan to kill me?”

  “Indeedy, I am.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “No reason.”

  “Give you the benefit of the doubt?”

  Bohannon smiled.

  “You’ve murdered dozens of civilians in cold blood.”

  “After the first, the rest are easy.”

  “Innocent civilians.”

  “No one is innocent, Ms. McDonald. You, of all people, should know this.”

  With a tilt of her head, Tara indicated Brux. “What about him?”

  “He’s here because of you, not me.”

  Brux shivered.

  Unlike a typical hostage situation, Tara had no illusion keeping Bohannon talking would lead to a more favorable outcome.

  Still, she said, “You’re not a stupid man, Bohannon. Clearly, you’re not insane. If you know anything about me, you know I wasn’t working cleaning toilets for Brookbank. I’m a trained extraction specialist. It was my job to make sure men like you weren’t left behind to die hanging from a bridge in Baghdad or for your naked body to be dragged through the streets of Kabul behind a pickup truck.”

  “Your service is greatly appreciated.”

  “So, tell me why all this?” Tara could only lift her chin to indicate the dire conditions.

  Bohannon set down the plates.

  “I’ve killed hundreds of men. Women and children, too. Some unintentional, most with deliberation. All in the service of Uncle Sam. I’m not an ideologue, Ms. McDonald. Leastways, no longer. In this, me and your boyfriend are much alike.”

  Tara spit. “You’re nothing like Mathias.”

  Bohannon seemed to give this much thought. “The man who signs my paycheck is the same who signs his.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “I’ll leave you to figure it out. Now, eat. You could be here a while.”

  “Talk to me, you son-of-a-bitch!”

  With a nod to Brux, he said, “If we live, maybe I tell my story to him; you can listen in.”

  Stepping forward to snip the plastic ties fastening her wrists, Bohannon said, “Eat, Ms. McDonald. Your dinner is getting cold.”

  When the door closed behind him, Brux said to Tara, “Does this mean he won’t kill me?”

  ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN

  San Padre Island, Texas

  IN THE LIGHT OF DAY, Mathias was no closer to understanding than when he’d first made landfall in the dark. From local fishermen, boaters, and a nightshift employee at the nearby Sea Ranch Marina, Mathias learned that a high-performance Super Sport cruiser with powerful twin Mercs had slipped its mooring lines sometime after dawn the previous morning. At least three crew, all male, were aboard the boat. Possibly a woman and a fourth man were aboard, though none could say for sure.

  Forced again to contact Berkshire, Mathias bit his tongue.

  Answering the telephone, the ADD of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center said, “I thought w
e were done.”

  Mathias bit down hard. “Apparently not.”

  “Did you locate Tara?”

  “Where she was.”

  “But no longer is.”

  “San Padre Island RV park. According to locals, Bohannon departed the island in a high-performance watercraft approximately twenty-four hours ago, destination unknown. I’m betting he didn’t head north to Corpus Christi.”

  “Mexico?”

  “Mexico.”

  “I can’t help you across the border, Mathias.”

  “Don’t need you to help me across the border, Berk. Need you to help me get there.”

  “An illegal entry?”

  “I can’t pass from Brownsville to Matamoros fully armed by car.”

  “By water?”

  “Even with the Interceptor, it would take too long.”

  “The second you cross into Mexico, you’re on your own.”

  “I’m on my own anyway.”

  “How is it you keep contacting me?”

  “Now is not the time for semantics.”

  Berkshire laughed. “I can arrange for a chopper. You thinking Tampico?”

  “Only destination on the coast within fuel range of the Super Sport. And the coast from San Padre to Tampico is virtually uninhabited.” Then, “One more thing.”

  “With you, Mathias, it’s always one more thing.”

  “I can’t fly the chopper myself.”

  “We still maintain a contact list of Narcos active in the region and willing to lend a hand. Locals connected to the national army and State police. I have a man, or two, on the payroll in Matamoros. I can have him to you by midday. You’ll be sipping Margaritas by sunset.”

  “This man won’t shoot me?”

  “No, but he won’t take a bullet for you either. Any idea where they’ve gone to ground?”

  From Mathias, silence over the connection. Berkshire laughed a full throat chuckle.