Punching Tickets: Book Five in The Mad Mick Series

by Franklin Horton

  There was a hallway off the main living room that led to some bedrooms, but there was one door in the hallway he couldn't open. It was a substantial door with some kind of fancy access control panel. It was about the right size to scan a man's hand. Wombat had laid his hand on the scanner several times and had no luck. The scanner glowed red and a tiny green display told him Access Denied.

  Deciding to bypass the door entirely, Wombat dragged a chair into the hall and stood on it. "You think you can outsmart old Wombat, do you?"

  He pushed up on one of the acoustical tile ceiling panels, thinking he'd climb over the wall and drop into the locked room. Yet he was stymied when he found a row of cinderblocks blocking his way. Some exploration above the ceiling revealed that the entire section of the building hidden behind that door was constructed of cinderblock and capped with a concrete roof.

  Wombat knew a little bit about construction. Cinderblocks were a rigid building material but they had their weaknesses. Drop one the wrong way and it crumbled. Recalling that he'd seen a hatchet on the porch for splitting kindling, Wombat retrieved it and began pounding on the block wall with the backside of the hatchet. He soon discovered that the cores of the cinderblocks were poured solid with concrete. Chopping a hole in there big enough for his large body would not be an easy task.

  It made him wonder about what might be inside that room. He'd already found several weapons and loaded magazines around the house. He'd discovered a storeroom stacked with years’ worth of food. If those items were not valuable enough to store in such a secure room, what was?

  He wasn't giving up, however. The biometric hand reader had a keyhole below it and Wombat had to assume it was for some kind of manual override. Where there was a keyhole, there was a key. He just had to find it.

  45

  Johnny Jacks' Farm

  Wayne spent a comfortable night in Johnny's spare room, the room Barb had been using during her stay at the house. As soon as he heard movement in the house, he rose and helped the family with their morning chores. Wayne was stoking the fire when Jason stuck his head out of the kitchen.

  "There's some hard-boiled eggs on the counter if you need something to get you started. We usually do a few chores first and eat a hot breakfast around 11 or so. That holds us until dinner. Two meals a day isn't perfect but it makes the food go farther."

  "I'm fine with that," Wayne said. "I will grab me one of those eggs in a minute. You guys have chickens?"

  Jason nodded. "About three dozen. They don't lay as much in the winter but we get enough. In the summer we're overrun with eggs, and it gives us something to trade."

  "That's a good problem to have."

  Jason convinced his dad to take it easy that morning since he'd been experiencing a lot of pain recently. Johnny agreed as long as "taking it easy" included keeping the fire going and making breakfast. He wasn't willing to sit by and do nothing while other folks worked.

  Jason and Sam took on the work of watering the animals in the corral. Without power to run the well, this involved lugging five-gallon buckets from the creek. While it was a good workout, it burned a lot of calories. Wayne watched them work while he split firewood and replenished the stack on the porch, giving him some time to analyze the situation at the farm.

  Farms were easily entrenched in old patterns. People developed a certain way of doing things and never changed it. Wayne could see evidence of that now. Some of the ways in which the family worked were based on a time when they had fuel and power. They were smart and hard-working people, but sometimes it took an outside eye to see places where a system might be improved.

  Wayne wasn't the kind of person to upset the apple cart. He was a guest here and he intended to make suggestions respectfully. Studying the lay of the land as he worked, he was pretty certain he could run a water line over the ground to a trough near the barn. If he could get enough suction on it, he should be able to pull water from the creek through a continuous siphoning action. It was worth trying.

  He worked steadily up until brunch when they stopped for a meal of eggs, biscuits, bacon, sausage, and fresh milk. After the meal was done it was agreed that Wayne should head out to Conor's compound. He'd spend the night there and return to Johnny's place the next day. As everyone did these days, he armed up in case he ran into trouble on the trip. He carried his rifle across the front of his body, one in the pipe.

  Wayne had explored a good bit of the Dismal River area, the region around the firehouse, but didn't know the Jewell Ridge area very well. He had Johnny draw him a crude map before he set out to avoid getting lost. It was a nice day with temperatures in the forties. Having worked outside for most of his adult life, Wayne was comfortable with being out in the weather and knew how to dress for it.

  It took him until early afternoon to reach Conor's compound. That was longer than Johnny had advised him it would take, but Wayne had managed to take a wrong turn at an intersection. He'd also stopped at several overlooks along the way to glass the area and see his community from a new vantage point.

  When he finally reached the compound, he reined his horse to a stop at the gate and sat there for a moment. He listened and watched but heard nothing. He smelled wood smoke, which told him someone was there, or had at least been there recently. Wayne slid off his horse, then called out, "Hello!"

  He braced himself, having been warned that Conor's dogs put on a vicious show whenever someone appeared outside the gate. No dogs came, nor did any people respond to his greeting. He called out again, louder this time. "Helloooo!"

  When no one answered, he began to wonder what was going on. He decided to tie his horse off and take a look around, but didn't want to tie it to the gate. If the dogs showed up barking and snarling it would scare his horse. He led it off to the side, ready to lash the reins to a sapling. It was then that he noticed the opening cut into the chain-link fence.

  That was immediately concerning to him. The Conor Maguire he knew would not allow a vulnerability like that to remain unrepaired. It would have been laced closed with wire or patched in some other manner. No way would he leave it so someone could so easily breach his perimeter.

  Wayne approached the opening in the fence and stared through it. He didn't want to venture inside only to get attacked by Conor's dogs. He didn't want to have to shoot them, nor was he interested in getting eaten alive. Yet something felt off. Conor was too protective of this place to leave it unguarded. Something had to be wrong and he needed to look into it. Johnny had assured Conor he'd check in on the younger folks and now Wayne had accepted that responsibility. Walking away wasn't an option.

  Wayne parted the fence and stepped through. He double-checked his rifle for the glint of brass in the chamber, then flipped the selector to the Fire position. He wasn't assaulting the place so he didn't stay low and concealed, but he intentionally sought to stay close to items that would offer cover if someone started firing at him. There was a heavy forklift, an old Cat dozer, and several trucks he could hide behind if someone took a shot at him. Even if he came under fire, he couldn't shoot back until he made certain it wasn't Ragus or Shannon he'd be shooting at.

  Johnny had informed him that the living quarters would be recognizable because it was a metal industrial building with a wide country-style porch attached to it. Not something you saw every day. Wayne immediately spotted that building and headed for it. There was a whisper of smoke coming from a rusted chimney pipe but no other signs of life.

  Deciding he'd circle the building before he knocked on the door, Wayne moved to the right side of the structure. There he was greeted by the sight of the damaged steel door. He wasn't a detective, but he had enough deductive reasoning to understand that the steel I-beam laying nearby had probably been used to batter the door down. The door had been bent and the frame damaged to where it didn't shut properly now.

  Wayne approached the door and gave it a tentative shove. He heard a chair shift inside, a poor attempt to keep the bent door closed. He shoved a little ha
rder, creating an opening wide enough to walk through. He turned on his weapon light and raised his rifle to high ready. He took a deep whiff of the air as he entered the building, hoping to God he wasn't walking into another slaughterhouse. He couldn't bear to find more young people beaten to death. And how would he ever tell Conor?

  All he smelled was the aroma of cooked food. Someone had prepared a hot meal in here recently. Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe Ragus and Shannon had gotten locked out somehow and been forced to batter the door down? However, it didn't seem likely. Someone like Conor would have redundant systems in place. There would be a key hidden somewhere and the kids would have had another way in.

  He continued his search of the home. It looked like things might have been rifled through but he couldn't be certain because he'd never been in there before. The unkempt appearance could have been the result of two young people living on their own for a while and getting lax about housekeeping. Yet something did strike him as odd. In the living room he found one coffee cup, one plate, and one empty bottle that had once held mead. It was unlikely that one of the kids would have picked up and the other wouldn't have. Nothing he'd seen here was comforting.

  Wayne exited the way he'd come in, trying his best to leave things the way he'd found them. He did a sweep of the main compound area, finding goats, horses, and chickens. He didn't find Shannon and Ragus, nor did he find the dogs. While the search was his primary objective, it was hard not to take notice of the impressive facility Conor had. The chopper landing pad, the discreet solar array, and the water tank. Then there was the room inside the main quarters that was secured by an access control system.

  Wayne still wasn't one hundred percent certain what Conor really did. It was clear that he wasn't simply a welder and fabricator, which had been Wayne's suspicion anyway. Conor was too handy with a gun and had too impressive an arsenal. Perhaps that was what was behind the locked door.

  Wayne thought about all the times Conor had teased him with the line, "If I told you, I'd have to kill you." Suddenly the joke was a lot less funny. This was the home of a man clearly capable of carrying out that threat.

  Walking around to the front of the compound, Wayne took a seat on a wooden cable reel and pondered the situation. Did he go back to Johnny's place and report what he'd found? Did he start searching the local area for signs of foot traffic? He needed to take a moment and weigh his options, although he didn't think he could leave until he found those kids.

  46

  The Red Sea

  Things happened fast after the meeting with Uzi. Shani returned home, leaving Conor and Barb in the hands of Uzi and his team. They took a van to Haifa, where they were outfitted with gear for the mission. While Conor was expecting black fatigues, he and Barb were issued baggy pants, shirts, and vests. By the time they wrapped shemaghs and keffiyehs around their heads, they looked as if they might pass for Arab fishermen, at least from a distance.

  On their belts, they carried traditional fisherman's knives that might be used for cutting rope, though Conor hoped to cut more than rope with it. He tested the grip and thumbed the edge to gauge the sharpness. It would do the job. They were both issued Egyptian Maadi AKs. Having wielded many AK variants over the years, Conor thoroughly examined both rifles and found them to be acceptable.

  Conor had no concerns about Barb running an AK. He'd trained her on the weapon. She not only knew how to shoot it, but how to deal with any of the common malfunctions that might occur. Conor understood the logic of the non-descript AKs, the traditional knives, and the clothing. It was basic insurgent technique—local clothing and gear. Nothing that could be traced back to Israel if they were killed in the operation.

  They each got six mags, understanding that there would be no time for a protracted gunfight at the resort. If they needed more than six mags, they could be certain that police or military troops would be on their way. Conor was also given his suppressed Ruger .22, the only one of his weapons to make it off the Shandong. It still had the spare mags and the tiny bag of spare subsonic rounds.

  While Conor was fine with using a knife, there was something old-school about a .22 round to the head that he liked. It must have been from all of those Irish mafia stories he heard growing up. It wasn't as messy as slitting a throat and didn't put him in the situation of having to engage in hand-to-hand combat. It also left a clear message: this was an assassination and the person I just killed was probably an asshole.

  From Haifa, they choppered to the naval base at Eilat in southern Israel. They were shuttled directly from the chopper to the patrol boat, which immediately powered out of the port. During the boat ride they all ate from the rations they'd been issued. Each of the team members carried a locally-sourced shoulder bag. Besides spare mags and rations, each had a small trauma kit and a radio with an earpiece they carried inside the bag.

  Despite the very basic loadout, this was the kind of operation Conor preferred. Quick and dirty. No pack full of gear and goodies. No complicated operational guidelines with limiting rules of engagement. This was a simple mission to kill Abbas and hope that with his death, the partnership that the Saudis and the Chinese had with elements within the American government fell apart.

  Conor lost track of how long they'd been on the water when Sydner returned from speaking to the boat crew.

  "We should rendezvous with the fishing boat in about thirty minutes," he said. "These fishermen are on the payroll but we won't engage with them. It's also important that they don't know Barb is a woman. Saudi law would forbid a woman from working on a boat crew with men. As soon as we board, we'll enter the cargo hold of the ship and remain there until they dock."

  "Is it full of fish?" Barb asked.

  Sydner grinned. "Probably. A fishing boat wouldn't exactly blend in if they weren't fishing, now would they?"

  Barb wrinkled her nose at the thought of riding in a hold full of fish.

  "How long until dark?" asked Conor.

  Sydner checked his watch. "The sun should be setting about the time we board the fishing boat. I expect it will be around dark when we reach port."

  Conor nodded. "What then?"

  "There should be a van waiting on us. The driver will deliver us to the resort."

  "Sweet and simple," Conor mused.

  Sydner smiled. "Talking out an operation is always the simple part. Carrying it out isn't always so easy."

  They fell back into silence, knowing thirty minutes would pass quickly. Barb stared off at the beautiful evening, the sun low over the Red Sea.

  "What's on your mind?" Conor asked.

  "Just feels odd that I've seen more of the world than I've ever seen before and it's all been because of this mission. It's an odd sensation, this exotic scenery on a mission of violence and death."

  "You're not the first to experience that, my daughter. War has allowed many men to see parts of the world they never would have seen otherwise. A lot have experienced those same feelings you are, the contrast of a breathtaking setting against impending ugliness."

  Before they knew it, the commander of the patrol boat eased off the throttle, dropping back to an idle. The boat bobbed in the water and Conor looked about, finally spotting a fishing boat in the distance.

  The patrol boat crew readied the zodiac. When they were ready, Sydner and Conor settled into the front of the craft. They pulled alongside the wooden fishing boat, where a single man helped them over the side. The rest of the crew kept watch for any other boats on the horizon. Once they were onboard, the man pointed toward the cargo hold and the team climbed inside. A few minutes later the zodiac was back, and Barb and Sandy joined the other two in the hold.

  The crew resumed their work while puttering toward shore. The old fishing craft, perhaps seventy or eighty years old, had significantly less speed and agility than the patrol boat. Conor felt himself trying to urge it forward, like he could push an imaginary throttle and speed them up. The sensation was probably motivated by the foul smell of the cargo hold w
ith its generations of embedded fish odor.

  As the light faded, with fewer things to see, their sense of smell rose to take precedence over all other senses. Their entire world became fish. Each of them knew that escaping the hold wouldn't be enough to put the odor behind them, either. They were sitting on fish, the slime of their skin soaking into the operators’ clothing. It would take a lot of showers to put this memory behind them.

  The world beyond the open cargo hatch was dark by the time the sound of the throttle changed. The boat bobbed and turned, the captain working wheel and throttle to ease it alongside the dock. Then the boat gently bumped against the structure, old tires softening the impact. A face appeared at the hatch, a lantern held aloft beside it. The man who'd helped them aboard was now waving them out.

  One by one, they climbed the wooden ladder from the cargo hold, enjoying the fresh sea air. It was almost enough to make them forget about the cargo hold, but not quite. Sydner climbed onto the dock, carrying all their AKs over his shoulder in a burlap sack. The rest of the team disembarked, stretching as they walked, looking like tired fishermen home from a long day of work.

  "There," Sydner said, nodding toward a white van with Arabic lettering on the side. In a low voice, he said, "Driver with a red hat and a yellow shirt."

  "Got it," Conor said.

  When they neared the van, Sydner said something to the driver, some innocuous phrase they'd planned as a sign. The driver opened the sliding door and the team piled into the rear of the van. While they got settled among the tools, cardboard boxes, and spare appliance parts, the driver casually walked around to the driver's seat.

  He started the van without a word and had only been driving for a few minutes when he began sniffing the air, his nose wrinkled in disgust. He fired off a barrage of Arabic, too fast for Conor to understand.