by Blake Banner
“No! You need to start understanding that the NPP stays with me and does not leave my side until I am ready to let it go.”
There was a grating noise which I realized was a laugh. I inched closer to the hatch. I heard the colonel lower himself onto the bottom step.
“You are not a woman of principle, Helen.”
“Oh, hey, you know my name. I am in shock and awe. Do you know what color panties I am wearing?”
The reply was savage. “No, sister! But we can soon find out!”
“So Mendez told you my name. So what?”
“Just shut up and listen! Some people stand up under torture. They are rare. I knew one in Mexico. They tortured him all night. Sometimes he would pass out with the pain and they would throw water on him to wake him up, then they would start on him again. You know what they wanted from this guy?”
“Amaze me.”
“All they wanted was for him to say his mother was a whore. He wouldn’t do it. As the sun rose that morning, he died.”
“So what?”
There was a short pause. “You are not that guy.”
“Have you lost your fucking mind? Do I look like a Mexican man to you? Of course I am not that guy!”
“Jesus Christ! Boys, we just walked into Alice in fucking Wonderland! I mean that he was a man of principle! You are not! You are a scavenger, a parasite, a weak, spineless, gutless thief who is only interested in her own well-being! You will not last thirty seconds under torture!”
There was another, longer silence. I inched a little closer, wondering what the hell I was going to do. I had evened up the odds a little, but it was still six well-trained, well-armed professionals against one unarmed man and a crazy woman.
I heard Diana’s voice again. The voice was cold and hard, and it left little doubt that she was serious.
“I would rather be lynched with my own intestines than have you and Mendez benefit from my work and cut me out.”
There was a rustle, like the colonel had shifted his position.
“Maybe that’s true, but you are a trader and a negotiator, and you would rather make an arrangement that sees you in a mansion in Beverly Hills with a pool and a harem of pool boys than spend your last hours being serially raped and bleeding to death in the middle of Lake Superior.”
“What do you want?”
“I want the NPP.”
“It’s never going to happen.”
“We’d better stop posturing, sister, and get down to negotiating.”
“There is nothing to negotiate, Rambo. You go back to Spain and you tell that asshole Mendez he can kiss my ass.”
His voice was quiet. “You’re out of your mind. You know I have to take you with me.”
I peered over at the Albatross. With modified tanks it might make it to Europe. Spain would be a stretch, unless they refueled in Nova Scotia and the Azores. I wondered if they planned to bind and gag her in the cargo bay. It seemed like a reasonable plan. I also wondered how many people there were left on the bird. I figured a maximum of two. Eight guys was already a big team.
I tried to pierce the darkness with my eyes. It looked like there was a modified sliding door open on the left side. They must have launched the Zodiacs from there and left it open. That suggested one guy was left, the pilot.
I was pretty low on options. I slipped over the side, ducked under the water and swam the distance between the disabled yacht and the side of the plane. I came up for breath once, but kept it quiet. At the hatch I pulled myself in by degrees and lay a moment, allowing the water to drain off me. From the cockpit I heard the rustle of paper. I stood and took three silent steps to the hatch. There was one guy. The stereotype demanded he should be reading soft porn, but he was reading an aviation magazine. For a split second it made me regret what I did next.
I stepped in, saying, “Hey, gimme a hand, will you?”
While he tried to process a situation that made no sense at all, I delivered a left hook that left him groggy and groaning, and while I did that I slipped the blade down behind his left collarbone. Death was quick, peaceful and relatively painless.
Getting him out of the chair was not easy, but I managed to drag him to the sliding cargo door and lower him into the water. I went in after him and swam, a little faster and a little less careful, back to the yacht. I’d been gone maybe a minute and they were still arguing inside. As I crawled up the transom steps I could hear Diana speaking more quietly now, more businesslike.
“But what can you offer me as a guarantee? You’re not stupid and you know sure as hell that I’m not. And you know that there comes a point when I hand over the stone that I become a very vulnerable non-essential.”
He didn’t answer and after a moment she started talking again.
“You can torture me till the fucking cows come home. I know that my only passport to safety is that I have the NPP and you don’t.”
A heavy sigh. “Look, Diana, I have orders. Either take it, or torture you until you tell me where it is…”
I took two pulls and dragged myself to the nearest rifle lying beside the two boys I’d killed earlier. An M4 carbine. I could hear Diana laughing.
“You’re a mercenary. You are not a soldier. There is a difference, you know? And I know what the difference is. So do you. Soldiers follow orders. Mercenaries follow the money…”
I inched to my right and dragged my sodden body six inches closer to the hatch, staying flat and trying not to sniff. What I could see was very limited. There was a black, left shoulder at the bottom of the stairs, on the right. I could see the colonel’s head directly ahead of me. He was sitting at the table and he had removed his balaclava. His hair was gray, but smudged with black. Diana’s hands were on the table, laid flat side by side. And beyond the colonel’s head I could see the legs of another soldier. That left three unaccounted for, who were obviously standing around the cabin.
I lined up the shoulder. I figured I had enough of his shoulder blade to take a chunk of his left ventricle. Then, half an inch up and to the left and take out the other guy’s inside thighs. He would bleed out in seconds. The colonel would stay with Diana, which was OK. I wanted him alive. They were too good to try and storm the steps, but they might try it giving each other cover. That would be OK.
I lined up the shoulder again and took out his left ventricle. The colonel glanced toward the steps, but by the time he’d taken in what had happened I had torn out the far guard’s groin with a controlled burst. The last thing I saw was the colonel leaping across the table.
By then I had snatched up the second rifle, an SA80, and scrambled along the deck to the back and left of the hatch. Fire rained out of the opening as they stormed the exit, yelling and shooting. The first one emerged, swinging his weapon left to right from his shoulder; the other two were behind him on the steps. I double tapped him in the neck, and as the other two scrambled around to try and get me, I opened up and emptied the magazine into them.
I dropped the M4, slung the SA80 on my shoulder and returned to the cockpit. I peered down the steps but could not see either the colonel or Diana. I shouted.
“Colonel. Think about it. I want you alive, right?”
“Bullshit!” The disembodied voice exploded and there was real fear in it. I smiled.
“You’re scared and you’re not thinking. You guys have been having a real interesting conversation. I see where this is going. You’re going to set up a nice, cozy association, while I rot at the bottom of Lake Superior.” I laughed. “I don’t think so. I just took out eight of your men, Colonel…”
I paused, letting him do the math. “Eight…?”
“I took a swim, fed your pilot to the fishes. The plane is drifting now. So we need to make a deal fast.”
It was Diana who answered. “What kind of deal? He has a gun to my head right now.”
“I’m going to come down the steps, Colonel. You come out and stand where I can see you. Then we can start to deescalate this situation. We al
l three want this thing, but it seems to me that we can benefit as much as an association as we can as individuals—maybe more. So let’s talk. Are we in agreement?”
There was a protracted silence, then, “Yeah, OK. I’m coming out with Diana. Shoot and she dies too…”
“There is not going to be any shooting, Colonel. We are going to negotiate.”
“Negotiate what?”
“I heard enough to know I want in. Your team is dead. Try to take me out and you’re more likely to die. Factor me in, and we might just pull this off.”
I was halfway down the steps and he slipped into view. He had Diana in front of him and his Colt 1911 pointed at her head. I smiled.
“We have a Lake Superior standoff. Two guns and a woman who is essential to the outcome. We need her, Colonel, and she needs at least one of us. The plane is drifting. Leave it too long and the only place the Zodiacs will get us is into deep trouble. The clock is ticking and we need to get out of here.”
“OK, talk, what do you suggest?”
“We have two objectives. First, we all three want the NPP.” They both frowned, narrowed their eyes. Did I know what the NPP was? But no suggestion that I was wrong. I kept going. “But we also need Mendez off our backs. Diana is essential because only she knows where the damn thing is. You are essential because you can get us to Mendez without arousing suspicion. And you need me because nobody knows who the hell I am, and I can take out Mendez without arousing suspicion.”
It was Diana who answered, after a few seconds’ thought. “And then?”
“And then the three of us sit down and work out how we guarantee each other’s safety, and exploit the NPP. We each commit to the group, we each support each other, and we all know that if any of us betrays the other two, there will be a consequence.”
The colonel snarled. “How the hell do we do that?”
“Mutual blackmail. A joint, sealed document left with an attorney. One of us goes down, we all go down.” I could see them hesitating. “The upside is that as long as we stick to the plan…” I smiled at Diana. “How fucking rich can we get, Diana?” There was no mistaking the greed and the hunger in her eyes. “I have a hunch there is enough to go three ways, and more than that. I think if we stick to this association, we might actually live long enough to enjoy it.”
There was a hint of a smile and a trace of respect on the colonel’s face. “They train you hard in the SAS, huh?”
“Yeah, they train us pretty hard.”
“Those were hard men you took out, all special ops and experienced pros.”
“What can I tell you? I’m the meanest son of a bitch in the valley. We going to stand here talking while the Albatross drifts ashore, or are we going to do this?”
His Colt wavered in his hand. “What guarantee have I right now that you won’t kill me the minute I drop my gun?”
“The same guarantee I have that you won’t. I need you so I can get close to Mendez. You need me because Mendez doesn’t know me and will not be on his guard with me.”
He nodded. “OK… I’m in.”
I looked at Diana. Her eyes were burning holes in my head. I said, “Diana, you’re in.” It wasn’t a question; there was no interrogative inflection. She nodded. “OK, I’m in too.”
I smiled and allowed myself to relax a little.
“Good. Colonel, you will please holster your Colt.” I slung the SA80 off my shoulder. “I will set my weapon down, and the three of us will get in one of the Zodiacs and go after the plane.”
I put down the rifle as the colonel holstered his semiautomatic, and I offered him my hand.
Nine
His handshake was firm and strong. I gave a slight pull and smashed a left hook into the tip of his jaw. His eyes rolled in his head and he sagged back across the table, then slid between the table and the bench.
Diana was giving me her expressionless stare.
“You’re some kind of freak,” she said. I measured the jab carefully and punched her gently on the tip of the jaw. She looked confused, her eyes lost focus. She tried to take a step on jelly legs and fell to the floor.
I worked fast. I took the colonel’s bootlaces and tied his wrists tight behind his back. Then I took off his boots and tied his ankles together. He still hadn’t recovered consciousness, but Diana was beginning to moan. I went to the steps and took the laces from one of the guys there. I used those to tie her wrists and ankles too, and cut a sleeve from one of the black sweatshirts to make a gag for her. When I was done I poured a pan of cold water over her. She gave a high-pitched intake of air and lay rigid, blinking at me. While she was blinking, I fitted the gag.
Then I dragged the colonel onto the floor and poured a pail of water over him. He came round more slowly. I’d given him my best shot. When he tried to move, then saw me looking down at him, realization started to dawn and with it rage.
But it was impotent rage.
It was the same rage I could see in Diana’s eyes as she saw what was coming. I sat on the bench at the table. Diana was on the floor on my right, propped against the wall. The colonel was on the floor in front of me, with his head by the steps, and one of his dead men’s bare feet just a few inches from his face.
I picked a Glock from one of the bodies and laid it on the table. “If you prefer,” I said, “I can use your good, American .45. It will do the job just fine.”
Then I pulled the Fairbairn & Sykes from my boot. I held it up for him to see. “It’s been busy tonight. I guess you probably prefer the bowie. I prefer this guy. It’s more surgical, cleaner. Sometimes a brutal weapon like the bowie can actually numb the nerves and dull the pain. The FS won’t do that.”
“What the hell…”
“Now, here’s the thing, Colonel.” I pointed with the knife at the bodies on the stairs. “I have proved to you that I am effective. But there are a lot of men like that, who will draw the line at torture—I mean serious torture. Sure, any tough guy can do a bit of waterboarding. But when it comes to amputation, that kind of stuff, a lot of men will draw the line at that, even hard men. So the quandary for a man like me, who draws no lines at all, is, when trying to persuade a man like you, do I need to prove first how far I am prepared to go? Because, you see, I need you to believe that I will do what I say I will do.”
He had gone real pasty. There were beads of sweat on his brow and his skin had a yellow tinge. When he spoke his voice was thick.
“You don’t need to prove anything to me. I have seen all I need to see tonight.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. What do you want? I am not loyal to any flag. I work for money, and I have no intention of being tortured for…” He hesitated. Diana started screaming through her gag. He looked me in the eye and said, “For Frank Mendez.”
I nodded, like the name was vaguely familiar.
“Frank Mendez, Francisco Mendez, why is that name familiar to me?”
“He’s the field officer for the NCS in Andalusia.”
Diana was screaming and kicking her feet. I looked at her and she was displaying signs that could not be faked. They came direct from her autonomic system. I reached over and pulled off her gag.
“What have you got to say, Diana? Why can’t I know about Frank Mendez?”
She stared at me with wide, wild eyes. It wasn’t a glare. It was a lot more than a glare. I fitted the gag again and turned back to the bound man.
“So, Colonel, maybe you should tell me why Frank Mendez wants Diana dead.”
“He doesn’t. He wanted her brought back to Spain.”
“Back…”
“Yeah. I don’t know the details, but she was collaborating with him in acquiring the NPP. Then she suddenly went AWOL…”
“And he alerted the boys back home in Virginia.”
“I don’t know about that…”
“What he didn’t realize then was that she had actually, physically, taken the NPP. He thought she was looking for a competing buyer who would either pay
more, or force him to pay more. That’s why he told the New York team it was OK to kill her.”
“I guess, maybe, I don’t know. But she did take it, and she ran.”
“That was when he called on you. He didn’t want her killed anymore, he wanted her brought back so he could find out where the NPP was, and two gets you twenty he wanted Langley kept in the dark. He must have wanted her pretty bad to hire such a big team.”
The colonel nodded. “He did, he wanted her bad.”
“And you were his go-to man for this kind of operation.”
He nodded again. “I’m well connected…”
“Don’t threaten me, Colonel.”
He closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. I thought for a moment. I didn’t need to think long.
“You know what this NPP is?”
His eyes snapped open. He watched me for a moment. Finally he said, “Some.”
I glanced at Diana. Her eyes were wide and she was glaring at him.
“So what is it?”
She started screaming and thumping her feet on the floor again. He was thinking fast, trying to find an angle that might save his life.
“It’s a nano-particle processor.”
She went quiet. I looked at her. She’d closed her eyes.
“It processes very small particles of what?”
“I don’t know. Electrons, protons, that kind of stuff.”
“How does it process them?”
Now he looked scared. “Come on! I’m a soldier, a mercenary. I don’t understand that shit. I know it’s cutting edge. More than cutting edge! I know it has a military application. I know it has a price tag that would have the three of us living in fucking clover for the rest of our lives. And our kids and their kids too. I’m talking Forbes Five Hundred. Your plan was a good one. You shouldn’t fuck up now.”
I nodded, still watching Diana. She was breathing hard and still had her eyes closed. I couldn’t decide if it was despair or relief. He’d either told me the truth, or he’d lied.
I said, “So what about Mendez?”
Her eyes opened.