Then Maxwell turned to look at Bolan. "You do have your DAN card, right?"
Naturally, he carried whatever fake ID he felt he might need over the course of a mission in a wallet, including his Divers Alert Network card.
He pulled out his wallet, removed the card and showed it to the woman behind the desk, and all was well.
The Executioner understood where both Maxwell and the woman who ran the dive shop were coming from. Scuba diving was a very heavily self-regulated hobby, which kept it from having to be regulated by outsiders like the government. The diving community was usually a small, tight one, and shops would never, under any circumstances, allow someone to dive unsafely.
As it was, it took Maxwell's considerable powers of persuasion to allow the pair of them to rent the boat without one of the shop's employees running the dive. Both Bolan and Maxwell had instructor certification on their DAN cards, which helped with that argument.
Once the arrangements were taken care of, they both had to take equipment that fit them. For Bolan it was relatively easy, but Maxwell had a much harder time of it. Most female divers were small and svelte, two words that assuredly did not apply to Maxwell. She even tried a men's size, but that was far too small in the chest.
Eventually, though, they found a neoprene wet suit that fit her.
After all that was taken care of, they were led to the boat, which was called the Saint Marie. It was a standard dive boat, a twenty-two-foot Burpee, that could probably hold up to eight divers, plus crew. It was more than enough for the two of them.
Bolan had been certified on these craft in his Army days, and Maxwell grew up in the Keys and could pilot pretty much any boat that sailed these waters, so they took turns taking the helm while the other kept an eye out for Dessens and checked over the equipment one last time.
"Look," Maxwell said suddenly at one point, "I wanted to thank you. I know I've been a pain in the ass, and I know it was stupid to sleep with Johnny, but..." She sighed, then smiled. "I appreciate you letting me be your dumb-but-loyal sidekick for this mission."
"What concerns me," Bolan said, not returning the smile, "is how seriously you don't take the work."
Maxwell shrugged. "Blame growing up down here. In the Keys, everyone's pretty devil may care. It's hard to take much of anything seriously when the most important thing in the world is to sit around in the sun and drink beer and eat fish."
"There's more to life than that," Bolan said, thinking of the lives ruined by people who placed themselves above the law. "Much more."
Within ninety minutes, they were closing in on the coordinates for Castro's Lawn.
There was already a yacht holding position at those coordinates, with a red-and-white diver's flag flying. From this distance, it looked empty, but the flag signaled that there were people diving. Anyone who passed by would think they were just a bunch of divers checking out the coral reefs that the area was famous for.
"Looks like Dessens is already here," Bolan said.
"At least she hasn't gotten away yet," Maxwell said. They had both been concerned that Dessens would have already cleared out by the time they got out there. But leaving before morning wasn't an option — they both needed the sleep, and navigating and diving in darkness was suicide, especially in this barren area of the Gulf of Mexico. Modern technology — GPS and computerized navigation, and so forth — could only get you so far if you couldn't see where the hell you were going.
This morning, though, was clear and sunny and warm. Perfect for a dive.
And for justice.
"There are two crates on the deck," Bolan said, pointing at the Grant. "My guess is they're moving them up in stages. That would mean there are still eight to go."
Maxwell nodded. "Let's do it."
They were already wearing their neoprene suits and headgear. Now that they'd arrived, they had to put on the rest: waterproof holsters for their weapons — the Desert Eagle for Bolan, the Beretta for Lola — flippers, face mask, breather and the air tank. That last was a heavy metal tank that strapped onto the back, and was all that stood between the diver and drowning.
After one final check to make sure the tanks were full and working, they both fell into the cool embrace of the Gulf of Mexico.
While it was nice and toasty warm above the water, the water itself was still quite chilly — hence the need for full neoprene suits. In more tropical regions, such as Hawaii or in the islands between Asia and Australia, the water got warm enough that you could dive in a bathing suit, but the Gulf never got that temperature.
Bolan took a brief moment to enjoy what he saw around him.
Maxwell did the same. When she told people she was a diver, they would nod and say, "Oh yeah, I've gone snorkeling a few times myself," as if that meant anything. Saying you know about scuba diving because you've gone snorkeling is akin to saying you know about skydiving because you've jumped off a low tree branch.
Snorkeling gave a hint, but it was just a preview of the main event. When you really went underwater, there were so many different shapes, sizes and colors. Maxwell knew that nothing on land came remotely close to the splendor one saw from the fish, reefs, plants and coral under the Gulf of Mexico. The fish loved to dart around and toward and under and over divers.
The thing that had impressed Maxwell the most, though, was the freedom. While it was true that you had to keep track of bottom time, air intake, surface intervals and so on, after a few dives, that was all done automatically, and you could just enjoy the freedom of movement. It was like what floating in zero gravity had to be like, except the water covered you like the world's biggest flannel blanket.
Eventually, they saw a large globe near the bottom. This was a particularly shallow stretch of the Gulf, so it wasn't all that deep, though they were past the depth where nitrogen narcosis was a risk.
According to the specs Brognola had e-mailed to Bolan the night before, there was an airlock on the top of the base that allowed people to readjust to the surface-normal pressure inside.
To their relief, the airlock was not in use, which meant that Dessens and whoever she had brought along were still packing up some number of the remaining eight crates.
From the outside, the airlock operated quite simply. Bolan pushed a big button lit in red, which then switched to yellow after he'd pressed it. Then they waited for it to turn green. When it did so, the door slid open slowly, water from the Gulf pouring into a small chamber of about twenty square feet. They swam in, and then Bolan pushed a similar-looking green-lit button on the inside. It changed to yellow as the door over their heads closed.
The button remained yellow while the water drained out of the chamber, and both the Executioner and Maxwell could feel the pressure lessening.
It was about a full minute after the water was drained that the button turned green, and a door perpendicular to the one they swam in slid slowly open.
Removing their tanks, masks, flippers and breathers, Bolan and Maxwell opened their waterproof holsters and brought their weapons to bear.
The airlock opened onto a catwalk that looked out over the main section of the base. Looking down, the Executioner saw banks of twenty-year-old computers: long, wide white monitors, thick white keyboards, ungainly CPUs, disk drives. All were inactive, of course.
Several chains with hooks on the ends were bound up near the ceiling. When unbound, the chains lowered to floor level. These were used for quick delivery of items from the airlock down to the main level.
On either side of the large chamber were two doors. One, he knew, led to barracks. The other likely led to a cargo hold.
At the end of the catwalk was a freight elevator that went down to the door to the cargo hold. Bolan pointed at it; Maxwell nodded.
They moved slowly down the catwalk.
Bolan whirled his head sharply at the sound of scuffling feet below him just as he pressed for the elevator.
Looking down, he saw two men, one with wild black hair and a beard — and a y
armulke — wearing two bandoliers of grenades and holding a P90 TR personal defense weapon. Next to him was a man with a gray crew cut and a hard face, armed with a Heckler & Koch MP-7 A-1. They were moving a large wheeled dolly that had two crates on it. The crates were identical to the two on the Grants deck.
Bolan dived off to the side, knocking Maxwell down with him, as both men opened fire. Rounds clanged off the catwalk railing, a couple sinking into flesh. Bolan felt the 4.6 mm rounds tear into the flesh of his right arm.
Ignoring the pain, he gripped the Desert Eagle with both hands and fired straight ahead. The .357 rounds he fired through the white-hot pain in his arm tore through the leather straps that bound the chains, but did no damage to the chains themselves, as they were made of sterner ' stuff.
But since the chains were unrestrained, they fell prey to gravity, their hooked ends hurtling toward the main level.
The two men saw what the Executioner had done, and stopped firing so they could drop to their knees and bring their hands up to protect their faces.
* * *
Marty Anderson heard the gunfire and raced from the cargo hold to see what was going on.
Anderson hated guns — which was ironic, given his line of work since leaving the CIA. Indeed, his hatred of such weaponry was why he was initially so reluctant to join Dessens in her new career, though he was eventually lured with the promise of sex in the Bahamas with the woman of his dreams.
However, for all his hatred of guns, he was good with them. He'd always gotten good range scores, and he'd even had to threaten to shoot a real person once, though the man gave in before it got that far, to Anderson's relief. He'd never actually fired the Walther PPK that Dessens had given him when they started this job.
And now he never would.
As soon as he ran out of the cargo hold door, one of the chains that Bolan's Desert Eagle had freed from captivity came down right over the door. The end of the hook caved in Anderson's skull.
* * *
After watching the man who'd just entered the room get taken out by the hook, one of the men who'd been pushing the dolly said, "Son of a gee dash dee damn bitch! You're gonna die for that, mister, you hear me? Ain't that right, Conlon?"
"Yeah, Raviv."
As he shouted his threat, the bearded man named Raviv yanked a grenade off his bandolier, removed the pin and tossed the bomb up to the catwalk. It landed on the grille floor with a metallic clang.
Bolan and Maxwell both saw the grenade coming, and they dived in opposite directions, Bolan toward the elevator, Maxwell toward the airlock. Both raised their arms to protect themselves.
The shrapnel that the grenade spewed when it exploded wound up not harming either of them.
The catwalk itself, though, was another matter. The grenade's detonation had weakened the catwalk's support struts, and it started to buckle. Bolan leaped for the elevator, which had just arrived in response to his pressing the button moments earlier.
Maxwell was not so lucky.
Her end of the catwalk collapsed completely without the full support of the now-damaged struts, and she went hurtling toward the main chamber.
As she fell, she managed to squeeze off one round from her Beretta, but it ricocheted off the chains and hit one of the old computer monitors. The glass of the screen and the tube inside shattered, a small flame erupting from the impact.
For her part, Maxwell went limp in the hopes that it would minimize the impact, though it was probably like spitting in the ocean at this point.
Her body struck the metal floor of the base with a bone-crunching impact. Several ribs shattered, one piercing her lung. The bones of her left leg, which hit first, shattered into a dozen pieces. Miraculously, the femoral artery remained intact, but many other veins were punctured. Her left arm fared even worse, as the limb twisted the wrong way around as she landed, utterly mangling her ulna.
Bolan saw what had happened to Maxwell as the elevator door closed and swore vengeance.
As soon as the elevator opened, Bolan — standing once again in sanchin stance — squeezed off four rounds with his Desert Eagle.
Conlon, the second man who'd been moving the crates, fell, clutching his shredded leg as the first bullet did to his thigh what the grenade did to the catwalk.
The second bullet flew over his head, as did the third.
The fourth hit the bearded man, Raviv, in the left shoulder, instantly vaporizing his scapula and acromion, severing the connection to his humerus. His left arm fell to the floor, no longer attached to his body.
It appeared the man was trying to form words but was unable to. Instead he screamed.
Since he was the one who'd thrown the grenade that killed Maxwell, Bolan let him scream, unable to find mercy.
He hadn't been thrilled with Maxwell on this mission, but she'd done her part, and she certainly didn't deserve such a fate.
Exiting the elevator, the Executioner fired another shot at Conlon, who was trying to raise his H&K. Bolan's bullet pierced his cheek. Death came a moment later.
Raviv continued to scream, but Bolan ignored him.
Yvonne Dessens was the one he wanted.
"Don't move."
Bolan cursed himself. He should have spared Raviv a mercy round — his screams covered Dessens's movements enough so that he hadn't heard her come up from behind him.
"Right now," she said, "I'm pointing an OD Green Glock 19 right at your chest. If you budge, a 9 mm round is going to turn your heart into a thing of the past."
Bolan did not move.
Nor did he speak.
The next move was hers.
"I gotta tell you, mister — whoever you are — I don't know whether to shoot you or hire you."
"Go with your first instinct," Bolan said. "There is not a single circumstance under which I would work for a traitress like you."
"'Traitress'? Oh, how old-fashioned of you. For the record, 'traitor' is a non-gender-specific term. In any case, I was the one who was betrayed."
"I read your file," Bolan said dismissively. "Your job was to serve your country. It wasn't up to you to question how your superiors decided to let you do that."
"'Let' me? Oh, that's rich. You know how many people died in New York in the fall of 2001? That could've been prevented if someone had just listened to me. But no, I'm just some dumb lady, what do I know?"
"So you decided to deal your own death in revenge?"
That brought Dessens up short. "What do you mean?"
"You think these guns you sell are being used for lawn ornaments? This shipment you've got here was originally tagged for a drug dealer."
"The guns exist, mister. Whether I'm here or not, slimeballs like Rico will still get their hands on them. I may as well take advantage of the process, my connections and make some cash for myself."
"If you're trying to justify yourself to me, give it up. I'm not interested."
"Yes, but I'm interested in you. Before you arrived in Florida, everything was going swimmingly. Now it's a couple of days later, and my entire organization is pretty much gone. So I need to know — who are you?"
"Get used to disappointment, Ms. Dessens. It's over."
"I'm the one with the gun at your back."
"And I'm the one who took down Lee, Delgado, Jiminez, Martinez, Hawkins, Brand, Favre, and some others whose names I don't know, not to mention the six men you sent to kill us and the three corpses on the floor right now."
Only then did Bolan realize that Raviv had stopped screaming. The Executioner hoped that meant that he was finally dead.
"One of those corpses is my assistant, Marty. He never hurt a fly."
"If he was your assistant, he's as complicit as you."
"I meant him personally. He was a good man, a kind man and very well organized. I couldn't have done this without him. And he was always so grateful to me." Her tone sounded briefly wistful. "But enough of this. I ask again, who are you?"
"And I say again, get used to disappoin
tment. You'll die never knowing who I am."
"You're just trying to get me to shoot you before I can interrogate you properly." She chuckled. "I had really thought Perry and his people would be able to handle it, once I got word that you and Maxwell were staying in the Summerland Key safehouse. Ah, well."
Before Bolan could mull on what those words meant, he heard a whoosh sound. Glancing to his left, he saw that a small fire had started, and was spreading. It looked like the monitor that Maxwell's ricochet had destroyed had conflagrated.
"Oh great," Dessens said, "a fire. Well, I was gonna destroy this place anyhow. Raviv's explosives would've been faster." With a dramatic sigh, she aimed her Glock center mass. "It was nice knowing you, mister — but it's all over now."
The Executioner saw the muzzle-flash of a pistol out of the corner of his eye. A bullet whizzed through the air and struck its intended target, shredding bone and heart muscle. Blood spewed from the wound, escaping the body in life-threatening amounts, as the heart could no longer pump it to where it was needed in the body.
And Yvonne Dessens fell to the floor of Castro's Lawn, dead.
Whirling, Bolan saw that Maxwell had managed to raise her Beretta one last time to shoot the woman who'd ordered the death of her lover.
Bolan ran to her side, but by the time he got there, the light had gone out of her eyes. Her dead, bloody face stared upward at the chains that now dangled from the ceiling of the base.
Warm air pushed against Bolan's head, and he realized that the fire was spreading. There was no time to get anyone's body out of there. Maxwell deserved a proper burial, but a watery grave was probably sufficiently dramatic to suit her.
Getting back to his feet, Bolan ran toward the elevator.
" Hey... hey ass... asshole!"
The ragged voice was coming from the floor behind him. Turning, Bolan saw that Raviv wasn't quite dead yet.
"Set — set all the — the charges a'ready."
The Executioner saw that Raviv was holding, fittingly, a dead-man's switch and had pushed the button.
Deep Recon Page 14