Bronson nodded. “That’s either really good or really bad. Your gut is a combat multiplier, and if you’re not feeling anything, that could be a sign that you think we’re okay, or it could be a sign that you’re preoccupied with the Reaper.”
Valerie stared at him. “I’m not preoccupied with Vick. Get me the intel, and I’ll figure it out.”
CHAPTER 21
Vick Harwood
Harwood had changed the gas tanks three times, and they were on the fourth can. The Mercury 250 engines were guzzling the fuel. The headwinds and sea chop weren’t helping the situation either. He navigated so that they stayed about a quarter mile off the stern of the ship, never losing sight.
“Why is Senator Nolte’s son on that ship?” Sassi asked.
Harwood nodded. The salt spray from the swells colliding with the hull of the motorboat peppered the windscreen and Harwood’s face. He had exchanged his IVAS for some Revision ballistic eye protection.
“I’m not sure why, but I can tell you that he’s someone very important to me,” Harwood said. “He was probably in that cooler they were dragging up the gangplank.”
“But you don’t know for certain he’s on the boat, right? I mean, we could be on wild-duck chase,” Sassi said.
“Goose.”
“Excuse me?”
“The phrase is wild-goose chase.”
Sassi stood next to him. Her chestnut hair whipped in the breeze. The boat was traveling at twenty-five knots.
“Whatever manner of fowl we might be chasing, the point is that we in fact might be wasting our time.”
“Have you ever had something taken away from you to the point you would do anything to get it back?”
“Every day,” Sassi said. “I work for the United Nations. My life is a never-ending cycle of disappointment, regret, and worry.”
Harwood looked away from the sprawling sea and into Sassi’s eyes. They reflected an honest accounting of her words. Kind eyes. Deep and compassionate. The adrenaline dump from having been kidnapped and freed from captivity most likely had her reflecting on life. The twenty-five-knot boat chase for the last few hours wasn’t exactly high octane. Neither was it easy on the spine with the teeth-jarring swells.
“That’s not good,” Harwood said.
“Yes. Not good, but then again, very good. I get a lot of personal satisfaction from what I do.”
“Same here,” Harwood said.
“How so? You kill people for a living. You’re a sniper.”
“I help my country and our allies win wars to protect our freedoms.”
“Do you really believe that? How could anything you were doing in Israel or Lebanon be helping your country?”
He looked at her.
“Oh God. Don’t tell me you were in Syria?”
“I didn’t tell you anything, and I won’t. My missions are classified. I don’t have to justify anything to you, and you can get off anytime you’d like, either now or when we dock.”
“Seriously? You’d just have me jump off this boat?”
“It’s a free world.”
“There you have it wrong. It’s far from free.”
“I wasn’t making a political statement. I was saying that I wouldn’t stop you if you dove overboard.”
Sassi laughed. “The hardened Army Ranger is living up to his billing. I think I’ll wait until we hit land … if we hit land.”
“Your choice. See? Free.” He smiled.
“You’re a piece of work,” Sassi said. Her comment was lighthearted, not cross. The half smile turning up her lips reinforced the idea that she was at a minimum amused by him. He continued to navigate the sea and stay well off their target.
“Besides, you had your chance before we got in this boat,” Harwood said.
“Not much of a chance, Sergeant. You practically kidnapped me,” Sassi said.
“I’m not sure I could have, much less wanted to. You have skills, I believe.”
“So, you think I’m here because I can help you.” A statement, not a question.
Harwood nodded. He was conflicted.
After another hour of shadowing the container ship, Harwood saw an airplane flying low, as if landing or taking off. Landing, he decided. It was slowing down and losing altitude. On cue, the boat engine sputtered. Running out of fuel.
“There’s an airplane,” he said. “I think we’re on our way to Cyprus. Regardless, we’ve lost our chance to board the ship unless we can find more gas.” The fuel gauge read an eighth of a tank remaining. Maybe he imagined the sputtering. He eased off the throttle a bit, unsure about fuel-consumption rates on boats. Common sense told him that if he needed to conserve fuel, then he should put less strain on the engine.
Land appeared beyond the container ship.
“I’ve been there. Greek side is better,” Sassi said. She was standing next to him, holding on to the windscreen with her hands as she flexed her knees and rode out the swells. After another mile, the wind seemed to shift direction, taming the swells and easing the ride.
“We’re going to whatever side has gas,” Harwood said. “If we can’t catch up with that ship, we’re screwed. They could take him anywhere once they dock.”
“Yes, many airports and other seaports. Plus, lots of beach and shoreline where a boat like this could get in and out without being noticed. There’s a lot of crime there, so it is easy to pay money to get something like this done.”
“I’m all inspired now,” Harwood said.
Sassi smirked. “We can’t have that, now, can we?”
Whatever she was, Harwood thought, the woman had a lot of pluck. She’d just been captured and released, and now she was along for the ride with him acting as normal as a person could act.
The ship began to turn to the north on the south side of the island.
“Famagusta,” Sassi whispered. “The ghost city.”
* * *
Tankian stood in the bridge as the container ship steamed into port at Famagusta, Cyprus. The admiral sat quietly in the corner whittling with a knife and a block of wood. He appeared about sixty years old with a leathery face, wizened from years at sea. After they departed Tripoli, the admiral had said very little. He just sat there tilted back in an old lawn chair, chipping away at the wood, shavings falling onto the floor. It was clear his presence was mandatory either because of the ship or its cargo. A burly man had been at the helm from the start and also had said very little. They had been at sea for maybe six hours, having departed Tripoli the moment he and Khoury boarded.
The sun hung low on the horizon ahead of them, highlighting the sheer bluffs of Cyprus in gold-tinted shades of brown and black. The gray sky etched a backdrop worthy of a charcoal drawing. Tankian visualized the geography. Two hundred miles to the south, similar bluffs would mark Egypt’s northern border. Turkey’s coast was closer in the north, looming some seventy miles away like a suspicious parent. Seagulls squawked overhead, hoping for the slop buckets. A few perched on the edges of the containers stacked in front of him for the length of a football field.
The most noticeable landmarks were the scores of empty high-rise buildings in the distance. The skyline was peppered with dozens of buildings, all black from lack of power and empty of inhabitants. Tankian knew of the Turkish invasion here that had driven residents from what was today essentially a ghost town. The northern side of the city was still populated. The port divided the city in half and was a quick thirty-minute drive to Geçitkale Air Base, a Turkish fighter jet haven that doubled as a civilian airport.
Tankian had several clients that laundered and smuggled goods through Cyprus. Neither the Turks nor the Greeks had any particular standards that prevented illicit goods from transiting the Mediterranean Sea. Cyprus was the perfect pivot point for transshipment. Egypt, Israel, Syria, Greece, Italy, and Turkey were all within a day’s movement by ship. Given the shifting geopolitics of the region, a shipper could hold goods there for a day or two and make the best call on how to proceed. Sh
ould he ship to Israel on an Israeli ship? American? A neutral nation such as Liberia? And likewise, to Syria. There were so many legal and illegal goods moving through this gateway that it was impossible to track anything.
He reflected on the two attackers that the ship’s security team had shot in the container yard. The ship had been turning, and he lost sight of the engagement. He preferred to have verification that the madman and UNHCR worker had been killed. He didn’t need any more problems from them. Had never wanted them to begin with. The presence of the woman reinforced to Tankian that the attacker had entered his compound to secure the prisoner he kept in the hold below. The man evidently had released her, escaped his compound unscathed, and tracked him to the port. Where would it end?
“Where do we make the exchange?” Tankian asked the admiral.
The ship crawled alongside the berth and shut down.
“We wait until night. Then we move,” the admiral said, ignoring his question. “We will offload your two containers and your prisoner and take you to the airport. My instructions are to make sure you arrive safely, board the aircraft, and depart.”
Tankian was confused. “Where are we going?”
The admiral pushed off the wall and shrugged. “I only know this part of this mission.”
“Is this even your ship?”
“Of course. And when I leave, it will be someone else’s ship.”
Tankian understood Max Wolff was managing him through this admiral. To date, he and Wolff had a trusting relationship devoid of any suspicion or duplicity, a rarity in this or any business. An entrepreneur all his life, Tankian had never technically worked for anyone, though he’d had plenty of customers he’d tried his best to supply with all their needs. Now, though, he wanted to prevent his control from slipping away. He had survived the attack on his compound. And while an attack was always technically a possibility, Tankian had never really considered it likely. Not at all. Just the opposite. He had been secure to the point that he had taken for granted much of what he wished he had on hand right now.
His satellite phone vibrated as they pulled into port. The tug nudged them closer to the berth as he held the phone to his ear.
“Yes.”
“Status?” Wolff asked.
“Arriving.”
“I know this. The cargo?”
Tankian had checked on the prisoner twice during the trip. He and Khoury had let him out of the cooler and tied him to anchor bolts in the floor of an empty hold using thick one-inch ropes. They’d given him water and some sea rations, which he refused.
“Cargo is in excellent condition.”
“Make the transfer and then contact me.”
“Yes.”
Wolff hung up, and the admiral said, “Time to move.”
Tankian took one last look out the bridge. He paused. A small boat sped away into a marina about a quarter mile away on the opposite side of the city.
“Commander Tankian. Time to move,” the admiral emphasized. The man came up and grabbed his massive triceps, then released, thinking better of it, perhaps.
“Coming,” Tankian said.
“Did you see a ghost?”
Maybe, he thought. Or maybe it was the Reaper.
CHAPTER 22
Harwood shouldered his ruck as he stepped from the stolen Riva, tied off the lines, and helped Sassi out by clasping her forearm and pulling her onto the pier.
They were moored at an abandoned marina that appeared to be connected to a vacant condominium complex. Harwood kept one eye on the setting sun, which was dipping below the horizon.
“This way,” he said.
Sassi followed. She was carrying her Beretta pistol that Harwood had returned to her. Placing trust in Sassi was his only option. If he was to continue and secure Clutch from whoever his captors might be, he needed help. To the extent that she was willing to assist, he was happy to facilitate her. Harwood felt that he had gotten lucky at the compound. His element of surprise had provided him with a window of opportunity that had stayed open throughout his violent execution.
He couldn’t count on that being the case in the future.
They were about four hundred meters from the port where the ship they were following had docked. He led her beyond a gate and found a path that wound between two blacked-out high-rises. The buildings looked like poorly carved jack-o’-lanterns with their shattered windows.
The ghost city was creepy and haunting. They passed through a building with no doors. It had been an office of some type. Desks were empty with no papers or equipment. Everything of value appeared to have been looted. Grime covered broken chairs and desks. There was nothing living in any of the buildings, not even rats. Rats needed food. With no grocery stores or leftovers in the trash cans, there was nothing to keep anything alive. This place was like Harwood imagined Chernobyl to be after the nuclear meltdown had subsided. Vacant. Desolate.
They popped out of the office building and were standing in a parking lot, looking across the pier at the ship they had been trailing. Harwood stepped back inside the office building and tugged Sassi to one knee next to a low window. From there, they could see the ship while still being protected from any direct fire.
Moments later, three men emerged from the ship’s hull on the gangplank. Harwood donned his IVAS and focused the lens.
“That’s them. They’re pulling the same cooler. Clutch has got to be in that thing.”
“Three of them. Two of us,” Sassi said. “Seems like good odds, no?”
He liked this woman.
“Yeah, but the two SUVs that pulled up have four linebackers standing guard with long rifles.”
What was the play? Shoot and the captors could easily flee with Clutch. There was no way to kill all of them in the thirty seconds it would take them to figure out what was happening and to evacuate the area. Worse, they could kill Clutch, making this pursuit moot.
To the north about another four hundred meters, Harwood noticed traffic flowing smoothly on a road. There was a stoplight that led to a freeway. Bright lights bounced off the thin layer of clouds about ten miles to the north also.
Major city? Airport?
Harwood had docked the boat in the closest spot he could for fear of running out of gas. He was quickly seeing the disadvantage to being in a desolate area. Great for hiding, but options were limited. Nothing worked. There were no transportation choices. Couldn’t steal a car, a bike, or a skateboard. Nothing.
“I have an idea,” Sassi said.
“Shoot.”
“See those two Mercedes-Benz trucks driving up to the ship?”
“Roger.”
“They came in with the SUVs and peeled off toward the crane.”
“They’re together.”
“Yes, which means this team will wait for the other team.”
Two snub-nosed Mercedes-Benz cargo trucks idled alongside the ship and beneath the overhead container crane. Their drivers exited and met midway between the trucks. One called out to someone across the asphalt yard.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But I think the best option is those guys. Let’s go.”
Harwood memorized the route he had studied. They could move behind the office building, across the railroad, and on the back side of the port main terminal building, which would allow them to avoid the bulky security guards by the SUVs and attempt to stow away on one or both of the trucks.
It was all he had.
They jogged through the empty office building onto a sidewalk covered with dirt from years of disuse. Stepping across the railroad tracks, Harwood saw movement near the gate where the vehicles had entered the port. Two guards dressed in olive-green uniforms were talking and smoking cigarettes. Both had blocky, wood-stock HK G3 rifles slung across their bodies with two-point slings. The tall guard laughed at something the chubby guard said. They both took a drag on their cigarettes and continued joking. While not a real threat, they could detect and report. He didn’t want to risk shooting them, which would make noi
se and potentially alert the others. While there was minimal activity at the port—almost as if the people here were specifically present because of this one ship—he didn’t want to risk being detected when he was so close to securing Clutch.
“I’ve got this,” Sassi said. She unsnapped one of the pockets on his rucksack and retrieved something; Harwood couldn’t see what. He knew he had ammo, a knife, a phone, and flex-cuffs in the pocket she had opened.
Before he could say anything, Sassi was up and moving from their prone position in the gravel on the port side of the railroad tracks. Sassi backed away and followed the tracks to the north, where she popped into the open near the gate and the guards.
Her voice floated through the air some fifty meters away. She walked up to the two men, holding her hands in the air, as if surrendering, and pointing back at the train tracks.
The two guards turned, startled, and drew their weapons.
“Emergenza!” she said. She spoke in Italian. These men could be Greek, Turkish, or some other nationality altogether.
“Poios eisai?”
Sassi pointed at the tracks again and said, “Corpo morto!”
Harwood was unable to hear the conversation once the voices lowered. One guard stood back while the other seemed to be curious.
“Pou?”
Another question. Sassi waved her arms and ran back toward the tracks, turning to usher one of them forward.
The tall one walked quickly to the tracks where Harwood could no longer see Sassi or the tall guard. A couple of minutes passed before the short guard got curious and walked to where they had disappeared.
Someone shouted from across the yard. The crane whirred to life and moved with short robotic jerks. The long arm swung over the ship, its spreader opening its jaws wide to snatch the containers on the ship.
Reaper: Drone Strike: A Sniper Novel Page 18