CHAPTER 35
Dueling Lead
The first gunshots did little to alarm the guests. People screamed, but it could have been fireworks. Guests began looking around, and the occasional scream began to reproduce itself and multiply like a wave through the crowd.
Then the .50 calibers began.
Smoke, flesh, shell casings, and screams turned the scene into terror. Hysterically laughing teenagers and ex-cons began indiscriminately mowing down anyone who was not them. The guests were being herded toward the house, which was thick and walled like a fortress. Some of the thugs took it upon themselves to isolate some of the female victims and drag them into a secluded area behind a wall or vehicle.
The Scorpions first realized they were one of the targets when Mario’s men turned the .50 calibers on them as they congregated in a large group in front of the Happy Mermaid.
Gerard had been sitting on a golf cart, smoking a cigarette and talking to a group of perhaps twenty of his comrades when the rounds began to fly.
Many of the Scorpions had already left the area in teams of ones and twos so they could take out sentries along the perimeter and scout out the movements of Mario’s men. The arrival of the gun trucks had concerned Gerard, and he had called a quick meeting. Mario’s thugs were all young, imitated the American gangsters they had seen in rap videos, and were usually stoned or amped up on meth. Many of them were ex-cons from L.A. and Texas and wanted nothing more than to prove themselves. Many of them, of course, had been through the weapons-training camps run by the Scorpions. They were not professional soldiers but psychopaths. They had something to prove. The triggermen possessed the innate insecurity of dysfunctional youth raised in a system that taught them that the world was all about them.
The guests, who, moments earlier, had been talking pleasantly and enjoying their morning coffee, were now running, screaming and panicked, toward the large beach house.
Gerard managed to leap off the golf cart and sprint onto the yacht as bullets literally ripped the golf cart and his men into shreds.
“No!” he yelled.
Gerard returned fire, but did not have the range to hit the men in the F-150s. He helped a few of his men to cover and then finally had to abandon them when he was overwhelmed by men running in his direction.
He had to find Jorge quickly, get some decent weapons, and then regroup his men. He knew that at least ten of his men were still on the yacht. Gerard was terrified that he had just been caught so off guard by such an insanely bold move. He had underestimated Mario’s triggermen.
Within about five minutes, the dock began to clear, and the house began to fill. Bodies lay torn, twisted, and moaning along the dock.
Anyone unfortunate enough to not be killed outright was being treated to a particularly sick treatment.
Team Two, Five Minutes Earlier
Oscar and Pablo, the Alpha Squad leader, were at the partial shelter near the sub. Pablo sent a few guys forward to meet with Tanya’s escort. They downloaded gear and carried no weapons. The point was to give the impression that they were part of the sub’s maintenance crew. She would be placed in a Zodiac and moved to a different part of the island. Charlie Squad’s sniper and spotter were back on the beach. His name was Kevin, and he was manning a Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifle. The Barrett was a large, cumbersome weapon, weighing thirty-plus pounds. It could take out vehicles or people at up to a mile.
Kevin confirmed that they had one gun truck marked as a target. A second gun truck was dangerously close to the sub and had been marked by Joaquin. Oscar glanced at his watch and listened to his squad leaders relay information. Details, counter-contingencies, and prayers were exchanged.
“Oscar, if I did not know better, I would say that these idiots are setting up to mow down all of the guests…along with Evan and his whole team,” one of the team members said over the radio.
“Boss, Bravo Team has been spotted. They are moving toward their linkup with the Mermaid. I don’t see any way to secure this LZ without a huge fight. We are outnumbered two to one and need more firepower.”
“Airpower!” another member said excitedly over the radio.
The radio set made a sound and everyone listened.
“Oscar! This is Charlie Squad! We have about thirty men walking right up the beach toward our position. I think they know or suspect that something happened to the guests. If we hold and fight, your ass will be exposed. If we don’t fight, we will all get flanked later. Please advise.”
Oscar peeked behind a piece of concrete seawall and made out the outline of Evan and Bravo Squad. He spoke quickly to Charlie Squad. “Charlie, when the signal from Team One goes down, you guys hold. Ambush the mob heading toward you. Eliminate them and then hightail it to our flank; sweep up. Your sniper assets have to take out these trucks!”
“What is going on? Why would these guys look like they wanna kill off their own people?” someone asked over the radio.
“I think we are caught in a civil war,” Pablo replied.
“Roger’s team is on the yacht. They are going to blow the minigun and then clear the Happy Mermaid. We have to clear this LZ so the birds can land!” said a voice over the radio. Oscar made a decision and turned to one of his men.
“Call Charlie Squad. Tell them to be ready!” Oscar said urgently.
Someone on his team relayed news to Oscar. He did not have time to see who it was.
“Oscar, we have Tanya. Tensions are rising. Get ready.”
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
All of the .50-caliber gun trucks began firing at once.
Oscar and his squad leaders took cover, exchanged confused looks, and then popped up and started sniping targets.
A white smoke trail, shot from the upper deck of the Happy Mermaid, hit the gun truck that was the closest to Bravo Team. The truck burst into a bright ball of orange-and-white light. Pieces of truck and glass went in all directions, ripping into pieces anyone who was too close. People with severe burns ran or rolled from the flames. Some just smoldered.
Oscar cursed as his men from Bravo Team were mowed down as they tried to bound and maneuver away from the superior force, which moved more like groups of frantic rats than organized troops.
Guests began running in all directions, and Mario’s thugs began firing at anything that moved. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, as if they were in a game.
“Taking my shot,” one of the snipers said over the radio.
Oscar could hear Charlie Squad’s sniper whisper over the air.
A teenager was manning a .50 caliber and spraying into the crowd. He wore an iPod with earbuds and a Che Guevara T-shirt.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Suddenly, the kid on the back of the truck was missing his torso. The two-hundred-yard shot was not difficult, but it also gave a sniper less room to evade and escape. The truck veered and hit a wall by the swimming pool as the driver was taken out.
Mario’s thugs seemed to realize they were under attack now and began moving out toward the perimeter of the open area, which had become the kill zone. They dove for cover and fired wildly. Then they began to run and retreat. Bodies dropped, skidded, and twisted, and some crawled. The Dark Cloud shooters did their best to clear out bands of Mario’s men near the guests. In one case, a woman was being dragged behind a wall by both her arms and one leg by three men who were frantic yet could not let go of their prize. Three coordinated head shots gave the woman the seconds she needed to flee and disappear. Smoke canisters with CS gas and red smoke began landing in the LZ, driving the remaining shooters and civilians to cover.
“We have to move now!” Oscar yelled.
Oscar and his team popped more smoke and began bonding and firing and maneuvering until they reached their objective near the sub. Superior training and fire discipline won out over the numbers and sheer chaos of Mario’s fighters. Within thirty minutes, Alpha Squad had put Mario’s warriors in full retreat. They had fired all five of their AT-4s, killin
g dozens of scrambling men, and had taken out all but one of the gun trucks. Charlie Squad’s snipers had taken out anyone who had remotely looked as if they were giving orders. The remaining gun truck remained idling with no one in it. No one dared go near it.
CS gas began stinging eyes and making people cough and curse as the winds changed directions.
“Boss, we are getting low on ammo,” someone yelled.
Oscar had linked up with the three surviving men from Bravo Squad and got a situation report from the men.
“Juan is dead.” A situation report came over the net for all of Dark Cloud to hear. Things where deteriorating fast. Everyone listened. “Tanya is away on the Zodiac. All squads are at about fifty percent with ammo. AT-4’s gone. Our heavy guns are gone. Half a dozen hand grenades. Mario’s thugs have retreated behind the house’s perimeter wall. Charlie Squad has taken five casualties and three wounded. Bravo Squad has lost all but three. Alpha Squad has lost one. They are moving our way. The enemy is at about sixty percent, which means they still outnumber us. They are afraid to show themselves.”
“Kill all these bastards!” Oscar yelled out over the net. It was time for Dark Cloud to take the fight to the enemy, before there was no Dark Cloud.
Oscar listened to the sporadic small-arms fire and occasional explosions from a lobbed round from one of their M203s. He heard the occasional heavy thud of a .50 caliber. “Where’s that coming from?” he yelled.
A report came in from one of their snipers who had a birds-eye view. “South of the island. Scorpions, we think, were decimated, but I suspect they are rallying. There are only two gun trucks left on the island, and the Scorpions have them!”
Oscar checked his magazines; he was down to one thirty-round magazine. He spoke out loud to anyone who could listen. The gunfire was deafening. The fog of war had begun.
“We still have not secured the LZ. We just killed half of our enemy, but when they mount a counterattack, we will be toast. Get the M203s up here. We have to start lobbing some explosives over that wall!”
A desperate voice came over the radio. “Team One is about to blow the minigun and breach the hull of the Happy Mermaid.”
Boom! Boom!
The noise and percussion shook the very sand and concrete seawall that Oscar had been crouched behind. He popped up quickly with his rifle and scope. He looked quickly to see who would leave their covered position to peek at the explosion. Being a sniper, like being a hunter, required you to be a student of behavior.
Two of Mario’s men suddenly stood up from behind their brick wall some hundred and fifty yards away. The men pointed and froze while they watched the front section of the yacht explode in a bright-orange fireball. They yelled and pointed with shock, arms moving.
Pop! Pop!
Both men collapsed immediately, a wisp of red briefly staining the air.
“Idiots,” Oscar muttered. He finished speaking as if he had merely stopped to smash a fly. “OK, we have to drive those morons out from behind the walls, into the open,” he said.
Everyone seemed to speak at once; no one could tell who was speaking. It did not matter, the pieces came together. Oscar listened to them all and got the big picture.
He shot thugs, listened, and gave orders all at the same time. Brass flew, bullets thudded, and people screamed. Oscar paused briefly to pull one of his teammates out of a hole he had stepped in.
“Choppers are inbound, ten minutes!”
“Civilians that are not dead are barricaded in the house.”
“Something crazy is going on inside the house. Looks like they are segregating men from women.”
“They must be preparing hostages.”
“Charlie snipers just capped two men through the upstairs window. They are assaulting the women!”
Oscar cursed. “What is going on? It’s like these guys are a bunch of Vikings raping and pillaging!”
“These are their own people!” Gustavo added as he capped two more of Mario’s men, who had tried to run from an opening in the wall into the house. Their bodies landed in the swimming pool.
“Keep their heads down. Smoke them out!” Oscar yelled to his squad members.
Suddenly Oscar had an idea. “Where is Charlie Squad?”
“Coming up the beach now! They have lost one more,” someone reported.
“OK, listen,” Oscar began. “There is a minigun, a twenty-five-millimeter chain gun, on the back of the Happy Mermaid. I am going to get to it and rip that wall to shreds. Get online with everyone and start picking them off.”
“Oscar! That’s a forty-five-yard sprint,” Pablo cautioned. “You will be ripped to shreds!”
“And?”
“Fine, we cover you.” Pablo loaded another magazine and racked the chamber.
“We got problems.” An operator named Julio moved down the column and spoke to Pablo. Julio was in charge of maintaining contact with the navy. “The navy just called, weather conditions. They are pushing back their arrival twenty minutes!”
“What? It’s clear! Whatever. What about gunboats?” Pablo asked, his face visibly getting angry.
Julio shook his head and continued, “Against their SOP. They need to protect their landing craft!”
“The Scorpions are making a sweep from the north. They have about fifty guys. Two gun trucks. They know how to fight!” someone from the other end of the island, a spotter, said over the radio
One of the team members from Alpha Squad was looking at a tiny screen that gave a video feed from a tiny remote-controlled, hand-launched drone.
“Well, if you are going to do it. Do it now!” Pablo yelled to Oscar, who had moved several yards away to help someone who had tripped.
Oscar checked his weapon and looked at his men. “Throw some smoke. Shoot the suckers who try to get me.”
Forty-Five Minutes Earlier
Evan heard the muffled shot and banged on the hatch. “Hey!” He stepped back and waited as the heavy door was unlocked and slowly opened.
Juan, or Lucky, as Evan called him, was in charge of Bravo Squad Team Two. He stood next to Evan and waited for the door to open. The dead bodies were being dragged from the passage, while the two prisoners were being taken to the galley. Someone had put duct tape over the female’s mouth and zip-tied her hands in front of her. She still kept talking, upset from the burn mark on her flesh.
“Well?”
Evan and Lucky both had their answer as soon as the hatch swung completely open.
Tanya and the three men from Bravo Squad stood around the naked body of a Mario cousin.
“Not him,” Tanya said flatly.
“OK.” Evan motioned for the team to leave their equipment and follow him.
“Now what?” Tanya asked, annoyed and a little nervous.
Evan gave her a hug but not to patronize her. He just wanted to bring her energy down. She was amped up, most likely from exposure to so much violence in the last few days. Evan and most of the other operatives had been in enough combat of one form or another to know that you had to turn off the “spaz” in order to function smoothly; otherwise, you would wear out.
“Let’s go to the galley, have some coffee, and I will call Roger,” Lucky said.
Evan, Lucky, and all fifteen members of Bravo squad met in the galley. They readied their weapons, drank coffee or water, and rechecked gear.
Evan spoke quickly to Tanya while Lucky called Roger to report that it was not Mario.
“So you sure?” Evan asked.
“Yes! Yes I am sure! The man I spoke with on the yacht, he was Mario. Sure of it. That guy was close, real close…but not him. I…I remember the mannerisms of Jorge around Mario. Mario is a bigger-than-life kinda guy, a king. Holds himself like a cowboy king. Pearl-handled pistols and everything!” Tanya said and brought her hand down hard on the table and cursed as she almost spilled her coffee. “Oops, sorry—excited,” she said.
“Bring it down, sweetheart.” Evan laughed.
“Evan, com
e here a second!” Arturo said.
“Excuse me.” Evan squeezed her hand, handed her a napkin, and then stood up.
Arturo stood over the captured and shaky security guard. The man was sipping coffee and talking a mile a minute to save his life.
“Hey, tell him what you told me!”
Arturo, who had been an interrogator for years, had the smooth, calm demeanor and quiet intelligence of someone who could size you up with a smile and get inside your head quickly.
“Have more coffee. You are doing great.” Arturo was encouraging his prisoner.
The prisoner looked up at Evan, and began. “I…I took this job ’cause I just needed the money. Been in prison my whole adult life. Why…why did I get here? They said I would just have to protect Mario, go on the sub, but…but then there was more, much more. Look, I don’t wanna kill anybody. I have seen too much, and where does it go? I saw a glimpse of hell, of eternity…my life.”
Evan waved his hands to the man, trying to get him to speed up. “I get it. Look, this is your second chance. Things don’t happen by accident. You were spared for a reason. I don’t believe in luck, really. Just spit it out.”
The prisoner nodded, accepted his coffee, and got to the point. “Mario’s son is furious with Jorge. He hates Jorge, and he hates his arrogant Scorpions who strut around like they are supersoldiers. Everyone hates them, fears them! Well, this morning we were brought together by our leaders, and they say, ‘Men, you have one job today—’” The guard stopped talking for a second.
Evan figured he was a bit of a drama queen but was being truthful.
“‘Men, today your mission is to kill everyone who is not one of us! Start with the Scorpions, and when you are done with them, you can have the rich people. You can take whatever you can steal to include the women!’” He paused again. “I am with animals, I thought. Teenagers, boys who are cheering that they will kill people and preselecting which chicas they will drag off and violate…I don’t want any of this! All of these men were recruited from prisons from Mexico and the United States. They were all brought here for one reason!”
Silver Lead and Dead (Evan Hernandez series Book 1) Page 33