Another explosion and the rattle of gunfire means Lesile has found her target, or he has found her. I break through the door of the building I’m using for cover and burst into a room of pitch blackness. My eyes adjust quickly to the increased darkness, and I barely notice the swift movement to my left. A hand snakes out, grabs the barrel of my weapon, and strips it from my hand, snapping the nylon sling in the process.
A foot sends me flying across the room until the brick wall is kind enough to catch me and dump me onto the floor. The SEAL tosses my weapon to the floor and brings his Knight’s Armament PDW to bear. I lunge for an open doorway leading to another room and draw Shalonda while bullets chase me from the room.
I dart around the corner, take a knee, lean back into the doorway, and fire all five rounds as fast as I can pull the trigger. My first shot blows his PDW nearly in half when the heavy round strikes it center mass of its breach. Three more bullets slam into his chest, rocking him several steps back, but he’s wearing a vest, and the bullets shatter against the ceramic SAPI plates. The last and most vital misses his head and blows a fist-sized hole in the wall behind him.
He rips his Beretta 9mm from the holster, and I unsheathe my blade. Bullets chip away at the doorframe as he circles toward me for a clean shot. I sidearm a brick around the corner and clip him in the head. When he tries to duck the projectile, I lunge forward, leading with my sword. He flips the pistol in his grip so the barrel is pointing toward his elbow and uses it to block my neck-seeking blade. A combat knife appears in his other hand like magic, and I barely manage to turn and raise a shoulder to keep it from cutting into my neck.
I drop Shalonda from my grip and grab his wrist before he has time to stab me again. I look into his feral eyes as we spin around the room like a couple of ballroom dancers. He’s pretty far gone, but not as bad as I was in Nam. He still has an even split between man and animal whereas my human consciousness barely registered. It’s like looking into the eyes of a guy tweaked out on crack.
He launches a series of knee strikes into my gut and sides. I feel more than one rib surrender under the assault with an audible crack. I whip my head forward and head-butt him. His head snaps back but returns twice as fast. My eyes cross from the blow, and a kick to my chest sends me flying into the wall. The SEAL takes two steps back and kicks off the far wall. His leap propels him the length of the room, knife leading like a human spear.
I slam my fist down onto a floorboard. Thanks to the conservative use of nails, the eight-foot plank pivots upward on a crossbeam and catches the rogue low in the gut. His inertia shatters the wood into splinters, and he lands atop me before I can regain my feet. We roll across the floor trading punches until I manage to get a leg between us and heave him across the room. He hits the floor, rolls to his feet, comes up with my MP-7 pointed straight at my head, and grins triumphantly. I smile back at him and hold up my hand. Only our remarkable eyesight can see the near-invisible line running between my fingers to his chest where I had stuffed the claymore behind his SAPI plate during our ground and pound. I yank the string as if I’m starting a lawnmower and blow him all to hell. The directional charge all but cuts him in half, but the concussive force still kicks the shit out of me even being on the “safe” side of the explosive.
My head is reeling, and I struggle to get my shit together as the sound of gunfire and the occasional explosion registers. It sounds like Lesile and Meat have their hands full and could use my help. My weapon didn’t fare any better than the rogue in the blast, so I retrieve and reload Shalonda before stumbling out of the building.
The firefight is happening on the other side of the village, a couple of hundred yards away. It is constantly shifting, and I assume it has been a running battle, unlike mine. The SEAL is smart and a consummate professional. He knows he’s outnumbered and that Lesile is a formidable fighter. He’s going to want to kill or disable her and Meat from a distance, and it sounds like he’s been doing a good job of it.
I lurch drunkenly toward the battle, annoyed at my inability to shake off my injuries faster. Movement in the illumination of a muzzle flash catches my eye. A dark shape streaks across the desert to the south as bullets seek out his fleeing form. The rogue must have decided discretion was the better part of valor and is trying to break contact. I know I cannot catch him, and I think he is going to succeed in his escape until I spot another shape racing after him. Meat has gone into a full shift and is showing us all how much better four legs are than two.
I lose sight of them both in the distance, but a shot echoes out across the black desert followed by incoherent shouts and animalistic snarling. It is over in seconds, and silence falls over the area. Meat lopes back into view a minute later and disappears behind one of the brick huts. I find him and Lesile a minute later. Meat is putting his clothes back on, and Lesile is in a mild trance as she closes off numerous wounds.
“You guys all right?” I ask as I approach.
Meat nods. “I took one in the shoulder right before I brought him down, but I’ll manage. I guess we’re done here.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” My voice is heavy with bitterness.
“You do not sound pleased with our success,” Lesile says.
“No, I’m pretty fucking far from pleased. These were good men turned into monsters. Even if they could have volunteered to be blood-sucking guinea pigs, they couldn’t have known what they were signing up for. Snow’s blood debt is starting to look like the national deficit, and it’s about time for him to pay the balance.”
“Kinda hard to collect with a flesh-eating bomb inside your head,” Meat points out.
“Yeah, that is a problem, but I’m good at solving problems.”
“Too bad you can’t shoot this problem.”
“True, but I got a guy who is good at the brainy ones. We need to get proof of death and burn the bodies. Let’s get this over with so we can go home.”
Meat and Lesile head out into the dark to recover the runner while I search through the few dwellings for things to make a pyre. I salvage a good pile of furniture and bust it up into kindling. There’s also several gallons of kerosene in cans and jugs to get it burning good and hot.
We take pictures of the two men’s faces to send to Snow and Jafar, or whatever his damn name is, as proof of holding up our end of the bargain. It’s tough getting a recognizable image of the guy I obliterated, but it will have to do. Unfortunately, we never got a picture of the one we killed in town, so Snow will just have to take our word for it. Fuck him if it’s not good enough.
Meat and I find shovels and dig a deep grave. We pile the broken furniture in the bottom and douse the bodies with kerosene. The blaze lights up most of the ghost town in an orange, wavering light that would look cheery in most any other circumstances. Lesile stands mute, almost distracted, while Meat looks as if he might be saying a silent prayer. Like me, he’s been a soldier, and he gets it. Unlike me, he had a choice, but he came anyway knowing what we had to do. I think that’s why he came. These men deserved to die with more respect than those spooks likely would have shown. There won’t be any congratulatory high fives or drinks shared for a successful mission, and there damn well shouldn’t be. This mission ain’t over until I say so, and I say it ends with Snow’s head decorating my loft.
CHAPTER 9
It’s a slow, somber walk back to town. No one talks much. I think we set it into our minds that this was just another rogue problem for us to deal with, but it wasn’t. Not only were the SEALS unwitting, it was the government who created them then sent us to assassinate the monsters they became. That makes it a lot more personal.
I send Snow a text along with the pictures and a brief explanation for why there was no evidence for the third target. We are less than a mile from town when I get a reply in the form of an eight-digit grid coordinate. Lesile pulls out a map, traces a delicate finger across the top then down until she finds the spot. Call me weird, but it’s kind of sexy when a woman knows how to plot a locati
on on a map to within ten meters. It still won’t keep me from killing her when I get the chance.
The coordinates are ten miles offshore. I doubt Snow wants to wait for a boat to sail from Saudi Arabia’s butthole back to the U.S., so I assume there’s an island there with our ride waiting.
“We’ll have to acquire a boat unless they have one waiting for us,” I say when we reach the southeastern side of town.
A voice breaks the otherwise silent early morning. “I believe I can help you with that.”
Zaim steps out of a darkened doorway. Despite his nonchalance, I can smell his anxiety. I also know he isn’t alone. Obviously, he has had eyes on us from the moment we reached the town, several of which are probably peering through high-powered scopes attached to large-caliber rifles.
“Jafar, you are a sneaky little devil, aren’t you?”
“I received Ms. Savard’s message regarding your success. It is time for you to leave, and I wish to ensure you do so with all possible haste. These are a poor people in a poor country. I would not like to see a man’s livelihood disappear just to facilitate your departure.”
“That’s awfully nice of you.”
“Not at all. Forgive me for being a poor host, but I want you out of my country, and I hope you never return.”
I’m starting to like him. “You’re welcome.”
Zaim takes a deep breath and looks up at the starry sky. “When you said there were still five monsters in my town…”
“I meant you need to let us go and do our job for everyone’s sake.”
“It appears you were true to your word, but how can I know this will not happen again? The people who sent the ghuls here also sent you.”
“Our cooperation was not voluntary. The people who sent us crossed a line, came into knowledge they shouldn’t have. I aim to rectify this problem. We will not allow what they did to continue. They think they learned from their first mistake, but they just replaced it with new and more dangerous ones. Sleep easy, Zaim. This place is too damn hot for ghuls. I doubt you’ll see any more. You certainly won’t ever see me again.”
“I hope I do not see any of you again. As lovely as Ms. Savard is, I will do everything in my power to kill you, her, or anyone I think is a threat to my people.”
“We are certainly of the same mind in that regard, Zaim.”
Zaim takes us to a long pier jutting out a hundred yards into the Arabian Sea and shows us to a small boat tethered near the shore.
“May I presume you are going to one of the small islands a few miles out?”
“You can if you want. We won’t be able to return your boat.”
“I will find it.”
We climb into the small fishing boat, and Meat takes the wheel. I use my phone to point him in the right direction and motor out to sea. The ocean is almost placid, and our short voyage is over in less than an hour. We find the island, which is little more than a large mound of sand rising starkly above the water. Meat runs the engine until he beaches the craft on the sandy bank. It’s high tide, so Jafar has a good chance of finding his boat still here when he comes looking for it.
The sound of idling jet engines drones across the island’s narrow expanse. We walk only a hundred yards up the beach’s slope before we see the black CIA plane parked on a rough landing strip less than a quarter mile away.
I ask Meat, “You ever get the feeling you’re being watched?”
Meat doesn’t get the chance to nod before several sections of sand bulge upward to our front. Men cast off the blankets covering them just beneath the surface and train their weapons on us.
“Hands up! On the ground, now!”
“I guess this is our welcoming party.”
We drop to our knees and splay ourselves out flat onto the sand. Several men rush forward and begin prodding, squeezing, and groping us all over. They stack our weapons in a pile and affix our shackles before jerking us to our feet and marching us toward the plane.
“Same thing as before,” one of the spooks says. “Several of my guys have the remote on them, and they’ll use it at the first sign of trouble.”
It’s possible he’s telling the truth, but I doubt their redundancy measures are as layered as he is making out. Just like our trip over, he’s the only one with his hand in his pocket instead of pointing his gun at us. I’m sure there’s more than one kill switch, but not all of them are going to be given that kind of responsibility, and he’s the only one with his at the ready.
Once we reach the landing strip, one of them waves a wand over our bodies. The metal detector lets out a shrill squeal over my stomach.
“What’s this?”
“Probably shrapnel from a grenade, RPG, or even one of several bullets I’ve absorbed during this little exercise. Wave that thing over my left ass cheek and it’ll probably explode.” He shoves his hand inside my clothes and pats me down. “Go a little lower and you’ll find my Prince Albert.”
He shoves me toward the plane. “Fucking freak.”
Meat and Lesile undergo a similar examination with Lesile’s pat down taking a bit longer. The plane’s ramp is down, and the half-dozen spooks don’t waste any time hustling us on board. They seat us next to each other and attach our shackles to the seat frames like before. I was hoping they would, because it’s the biggest mistake they’ve made in our handling.
The ramp isn’t fully up before we start rocketing down the runway. The plane flies just over the surface of the ocean until we are well within international airspace. The craft makes a steep climb until leveling out a minute later at its cruising altitude. My restraints don’t give me much room to stretch out, so I lean forward onto my thighs and tune out the world.
A bump and metallic clank snaps me out of my self-induced reverie. It appears we’re halfway through our flight and have met our refueling plane. That’s my cue to start setting up the chairs for the party. Thanks to my Ali Baba costume, it’s easy for me to conceal my hands while I’m hunched over. I’ve been willing my fingernails to grow since my capture and now sport a set of claws almost an inch long.
Using the sharpened nail of my index finger, I make a clean incision in my stomach and fish around for the stiff wire I squirreled away. It only takes me a few unpleasant seconds to extract it and start working on my cuffs. The locks are better than your average police-style restraints, but I have nothing but time and a great deal of motivation.
Twenty minutes into my prodding, I feel more than hear the satisfying click of the lock’s surrender. I nudge Meat with my elbow, but it’s unnecessary. He’s been casually observing my actions since I woke up. I have no doubt he knows what I’m planning and why I’m risking all our lives. Snow might keep Lesile around as long as she continues to help them in their cause, but our end results are the same: experimentation and an unpleasant death.
I covertly pass Meat my lock pick. He gives me a slight twitch of his head and slips it to Lesile. Lesile manages to unlock her cuffs in half the time I did, and I’m jealous to the point of being pissed. My shrink constantly warns me about my ego, but my pride insists I ignore him.
Now we sit and wait for our moment. Meat and Lesile don’t know exactly what I plan, and they’re waiting for my cue. I pretend to be disinterested and zone out, but I’m keeping very close tabs on all six members of our security detail. My guy with the button never drifts off to sleep, but his focus does waver. Two hours after our refueling, half our guards have closed their eyes and are taking catnaps. Our apparent docility has lured them into complacency.
I nudge Meat and he pokes Lesile in the thigh. I nod at the two men closest to him, and do the same for Lesile. Meat begins a subtle, partial shift. Apparently, Snow warned the button man that I was going to be the most likely source of trouble, and he keeps his eyes fixed on me the entire flight. I look over his shoulder and tilt my head in confusion. His eyes flick toward the bulkhead where I’m staring for just a second, and a second is all I need.
I cross to the other side of
the fuselage before he can turn his head back toward me. My fingernails pierce the soft flesh of his exposed throat, and I tear out his windpipe. I grab his thumb with my free hand and twist it back until it touches his wrist. Meat and Lesile move at almost the same moment. A knee to the face of the man sitting next to our executioner removes him from the equation before he can open his eyes. The other two secondary targets have just enough time to open their eyes wide and bring their weapons halfway to the ready before Meat and Lesile take them down.
Six men are dead in less than three seconds. I grab a combat knife from my two guys and sprint for the cockpit. Being a military craft, it doesn’t have the reinforced door to keep out would-be hijackers. I take a single step into the cockpit and slam a blade into the pilot and copilot’s heads John Woo style. I fling both bodies out of the cabin and take a seat behind the controls.
Meat sticks his shaggy head in a moment later. “Do you know how to fly this thing?”
I look at all the buttons, dials, and controls. “Not a clue. I was hoping one of you knew how to fly.”
“I’ve only flown helicopters.”
“Ask Lesile if she knows. She was probably banging one or both of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk.”
Lesile and Meat climb into the cockpit with me. “I don’t know how to fly a plane! Are you telling me you killed the only two people who can fly this thing? Why would you do something so stupid?”
“Explain it to her, Meat.”
“Malone doesn’t think beyond getting what he wants, like kicking the only Arabic-speaking member of our team out of a plane without a parachute.”
“Idiot!”
“Relax. Go find us some chutes and we’ll just bail out.”
Blood Conspiracy (Brooklyn Shadows Book 2) Page 11