Countdown: H Hour

by Tom Kratman

  “Bet she didn’t learn that at Mount Holyoke,” Lox muttered.

  “An extra twenty-five million if you bring me that bastard alive!”

  “And, interestingly, only one of the cars we’ve been tracking went to either the docks or an airport in the last few days.”

  “More if you can get me his family!”

  Still speaking softly, Lox added, “So I think we have an initial target. Finally.”

  Mrs. Ayala stood then at the entrance to operations, her dainty, bejeweled hands clutching either side of the door. Her face was inhuman in its fury, which was all the more disconcerting because that face rode above a frame that could make five feet only in high heels.

  “Blllooooood!”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  There are, as it turns out, only two different modes

  of loyalty that arise spontaneously. The first, of course,

  is the family. The second is the boys’ gang.

  —Lee Harris, Civilization and Its Enemies

  MV Richard Bland, South Atlantic

  There were other naval types for whom, of course, the meeting was the be all and end all of existence. Having suffered through more than a few of those, in his Navy time, Captain Pearson liked to keep his meetings infrequent and short. At least where possible.

  The meeting, as were most, was held in the conference room not far from the captain’s quarters. The room was spic and span, the walls decorated with nautical themes, and the Formica conference table top, though old, was gleaming. I might have to tolerate leaving rust marks on the hull, but I don’t have to put up with sloppiness inside.

  Despite—or perhaps equally because of—having given Sergeant Hallinan three days confinement on bread and water, the ship seethed. It was, thought Captain Pearson, something you can feel, even if you can’t see it. The line grunts detest the special operators and the feeling is returned in full. This is out of my league to handle. And then there’s the medical supply issue . . .

  “TIC Chick and I can draw blood from the crew we have aboard, to build up a store,” Cagle said, “but we’re still stuck for the drugs. None of the regimental shipping is conveniently placed to meet us, mid-ocean . . . or anywhere on any ocean.”

  “We sure as shit can’t make landfall,” said Warrington, “not with what we’re carrying. So we’re fucked?”

  Cagle grinned. “Not necessarily. Interestingly enough, some pirates from the Horn of Africa area—they’ve taken to calling it Punt, of late—recently grabbed a humanitarian aid ship, a medical ship. They’re from MSF, Doctors Without Borders, so that’s probably going to have everything we need.”

  “Rescue the ship and crew?” asked Captain Pearson. “I think that’s more attention than we can afford.”

  “Fuck ’em,” said Stocker, heatedly. “Tranzi bastards are as responsible as anyone for the mess the world’s in.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Cagle half-agreed.

  “Capture at sea?” asked the skipper. “Take the boat, take what we need, move the crew over, then sink it?”

  Warrington shook his head; the captain’s power really stopped at the edge of his command and surely didn’t cover ordering an operation not in his mission statement. “We’re killers, not murderers. If we took the ship, we’d probably have to let the aid workers go. And we could never guarantee or take their word that they’d be quiet.”

  “Just a thought. But we wouldn’t have to let them go.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Cagle said, “it’s already landed.”

  “Buy from the pirates?” suggested Stocker’s XO, Simon Blackmore. Blond, blue-eyed, standing about five-nine and with broad shoulders and a powerful chest, the young Welchman was formerly of Her Majesty’s Royal Gurkha Rifles. He, like a dozen of his brother officers, had been put on the beach when the Brigade of Gurkhas, in another ill-considered financial austerity measure, had collapsed from two battalions, that down from four, further down to one. The regiment had snapped up a couple of those officers and a larger number of the middling senior noncoms. It would have snapped up some of the Gurkha rank and file, too, but they were too bloody expensive for machine gun fodder.

  Once quite broad, Blackmore’s sense of humor had become somewhat impaired since being robbed of his regimental home. And the regiment, AKA M Day, was . . . trying, in both senses. He wasn’t sure at all that he belonged here.

  Simon continued, “I mean, really; how much do we need, weight and cube wise? Wouldn’t it fit in one of the CH-750’s? Two at the outside? And there’s not a lot of news coming out of Punt to give us away; now is there?”

  “We could probably buy the aid workers,” suggested Pearson. “Then we could hold them until the mission was done.”

  “Out of our price range,” said Warrington. “Easily run a million bucks a head, as hostages. And there’s probably what, forty of ’em?”

  “Fifty-two,” said Cagle. “That would eat the profit for the mission almost entirely.”

  “Let’s just defer a decision on the tranzis,” Warrington said. “Maybe we’ll save them; maybe we won’t. Depends.”

  “Fuck ’em, anyway,” Stocker repeated. “Not our mission. Not our problem. Not our people. In any sense.”

  “Do we have any connections in Punt?” Pearson queried.

  Warrington sighed. “Since we killed a rather large number of them some years back, probably not good ones.”

  “They don’t know who did that, or that we’re affiliated with the group that did,” said Stocker.

  “If you were them, would you take any chances on heavily armed white foreigners who come from the sea?” asked Cagle.

  “Put that way,” Stocker conceded, “I suppose not.”

  “Don’t worry about it, in any case,” Cagle said. “The people who took the ship aren’t the same group the regiment blitzed. Besides, I have a pretty good connection in the area.”

  “From what?” asked Stocker, gaping.

  “I . . . ummm . . . used to do humanitarian aid work there.”

  “Dickhead.”

  Before Cagle could form a retort, the hatch to the conference room sprung open. Framed in the grommet-lined steel was Sergeant Major Pierantoni. He took a half step forward, folded his arms, and leaned against one side of the hatch.

  “While all you high and mighty sorts are solving not only our problems, but the world’s, I thought you might like to know that A FUCKING RIOT HAS BROKEN OUT ON THE MESS DECK!”

  Warrington’s head sank on his chest. The hard stuff we can find a solution to. It’s the easy shit—or what ought to be the easy shit—that bites us in the ass.

  Looking up at Pierantoni, Warrington asked, “Who the fuck started it?”

  “No clue, Boss. Doubt we’ll ever find out, either. But I think we ought to get our asses down there before serious blood gets spilled.”

  “Right,” Warrington answered. “And Skipper? I think you might better arm your crew.”

  Mess Deck, MV Richard Bland, South Atlantic

  The only bright spot was that in one corner of the mess deck two of Stocker’s four Gurkhas, kukris drawn menacingly, had cornered a dozen or so of Charlie Company’s brawlers, holding them in place by sheer intimidation, while a third Gurkha guarded the backs of those two, holding off several of Warrington’s men. The khukri of the latter, glinting under the artificial light, shifted like lightning, left to right and back, punctuated with barely perceivable flicks.

  The fourth Gurkha was probably off meditating somewhere.

  Otherwise, though, things were pretty dark. In the center, four Charlies had one of Alpha’s operators down, taking turns kicking him in the sides and belly. Off by the serving line, an Alpha, Feeney by name, appeared to be drowning a Charlie in a large vat of warming soup. As Warrington watched, Feeney pulled the Charlie trooper out, reddish soup—or perhaps soup and blood—streaming from face and hair. He pulled him out, but only long enough to set him upright, land several solid punches, grab him, and stuff his head back into
the mess.

  Most of the other three corners were just a wild melee, with no discernible winners. If Charlie had the numbers, Alpha had the experience.

  “Wade in to break it up?” Stocker asked.

  “Provided we are breaking it up,” Warrington replied. “To which end, you and yours go after yours and get them in the corner with the Gurkhas. Me and mine . . . well . . . first we’d better save that poor bastard from drowning. But we’ll push our own into the opposite corner. After that . . . Vug, I dunno.

  “On which happy note, A Company, such as you are, follow meeeee!”

  On the plus side, thought Cagle, standing just behind Warrington, TIC Chick and I are going to get a serious work out.

  Stocker nodded once, briskly, and told his exec, “Simon, go reinforce the Gurkhas. Deck anyone who gets in your way. The rest of us will start breaking them up and pushing our troops to you.”

  “Aye, sir,” the lieutenant replied. With a gulp, he stepped into the anarchic mess. After a few hesitant steps, he had to jump back for a moment as a Charlie company body sailed across his path, arms flailing and face spitting teeth and blood. He looked in the direction from which the soldier had come and pointed at an Alpha, just recovering from the punch he’d thrown.

  “Freeze, Sergeant!”

  For a moment the trooper, Sergeant Hallinan, in fact, seemed disinclined to obey. He took two lurching steps forward, then hesitated.

  If I strike an officer, thought the sergeant, Warrington will have the skipper put up a yardarm and hang me from it. That, or bread and water for a fucking year. Mmm . . . not how I wanted to die, actually, either hanging or boredom.

  “Ye . . . yessir,” Hallinan answered.

  Simon pointed again at the corner opposite the one where his Gurkhas were holding some of the company’s men prisoner. “Go there. Now.”

  “Yessir.”

  Past Hallinan, Warrington and Pierantoni trotted for the soup vat, pushing scrappers out of the way or jumping over the semi-comatose, as needs must. There, they heard their operator, Sergeant Feeney, staring down into the soup and laughing maniacally. “Ha, ha, no more bubbles from you, motherfucker!”

  The sergeant major kidney punched Feeney from behind, then grabbed his hair and pulled him over backwards. The soldier from C Company came up into the air with him. He didn’t seem to be breathing.

  “Mister Cagle!” Pierantoni called over his left shoulder, “This one’s for you!” Then he let go of Feeney’s hair, taking instead a grip on his collar and belt, and began to run him straight into the wall of the corner Warrington had designated. Feeney slammed off the wall and then fell into a heap.

  Looking around for someone with a degree of his wits about him, Pierantoni settled on one. “You! Sergeant Hallinan! You’re in charge of this mess until further notice. Sit on Feeney if you have to, and take charge of the rest as we send them to you.”

  “Yes, Sergeant Major,” Hallinan replied.

  Sometimes they came in of their own accord, more or less. Sometimes they were forcibly carried over by Stocker or his first sergeant. In one case, one of the captive Charlies, just awakening from a punch-induced unconsciousness, turned and began to go for the XO. A mild—for certain values of mild—tap from the hilt of a Gurkha kukri split the soldier’s scalp and laid him out in a heap on the deck.

  “Thanks, Sergeant Balbahadur,” Simon said. The Gurkha sergeant shrugged: Just my job, sir.

  At about that time, a file of shotgun-armed sailors appeared with their captain. Pearson gave the order, “Lock and load,” loudly enough for everyone on the mess deck to hear. Whoever’s attention that failed to garner, the sound of multiple shotgun slides being worked—Ka-ka-ka-chunk-k-k—got everyone’s notice.

  Captain’s Quarters, MV Richard Bland, South Atlantic

  “Okay,” Warrington asked, “besides us and the squids, who isn’t under arrest?”

  The A Company XO sported a huge and ugly shiner. He wasn’t the only one with injuries among the command groups. And Cagle and TIC Chick were still busy down below sewing torn flesh and passing out Motrin and cold packs.

  Stocker answered, “My three Gurkhas and seventeen others who weren’t on the mess deck at the time. All the rest are on deck with shotgun bearing sailors watching them.”

  “Of us? Nobody,” said Sergeant Major Pierantoni. “Somehow every one of them managed to get into it. The aviators stayed out, sensibly.”

  Pierantoni pointed at Warrington’s eye and asked, “And, by the way, what are you going to do about that? Legally, I mean.”

  “Nothing. I never saw who landed it on me.” Warrington looked around the room and added, “I think it would be better if none of us saw anything that could lead to charges.”

  “What about Feeney and the guy in the soup?” asked Pearson.

  Stocker cleared his throat and said, “Private Cuthbridge will live. Besides, it was a clear cut case of self-defense.”

  Pearson sputtered, “Self def—”

  “It was self defense,” Warrington said. “For everybody. Self-defense, got it?”

  Seeing that the captain was inclined to disagree, Warrington added, “We can’t do anything about it, Skipper, not and have a hope of completing the mission.”

  “My ass,” Pearson said. “We already don’t have a hope of completing the mission with two companies that are supposed to work in harmony and hate each others’ guts.”

  “I know,” Warrington said. “And I wish I knew something we could do about that.”

  One of Pearson’s crew knocked on the hatchway. “Enter,” said the captain.

  “This just in, sir,” the rating said, handing over a printed off sheet from CNN.

  Pearson read it, then began to laugh. “Best news I’ve had lately,” he finally forced out, passing the sheet to Warrington.

  “What is it?” Stocker demanded.

  Warrington, likewise laughing now, wiped a tear—wincing—from his blackened eye. “The regiment has mined the shit out of Venezuela.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The media’s power is frail.

  Without the people’s support, it can be shut off

  with the ease of turning a light switch.

  —Corazon Aquino

  Safe House Alpha, Hagonoy, Bulacan, Luzon,

  Republic of the Philippines

  Mrs. Ayala sat in a shadowy alcove of the small outbuilding, Pedro and her other most trusted guard to either side of her and slightly in front. On a strong wooden frame, set at an angle and bolted to wall and floor, lay a pale and terrified looking journalist, with a very bright light focused on his face. The journalist, one Mohagher Kulat, was buck naked, something that Lox was mildly surprised to see bothered Mrs. Ayala not a bit.

  Given that, though, he thought, I’m unsurprised to discover that she is completely unbothered by what we’re about to do to this poor bastard. Then again, if I’d seen my wife’s finger snipped off on national television, I might be disinclined to Christian charity, as well.

  Still, I’m glad it wasn’t a woman we grabbed.

  Kulat had been taken from the street in front of his house, at about the same time as a different half of Welch’s team had grabbed his cameraman, a Mr. Iqbal. Iqbal’s auto had been driven off by Welch, while Kulat had been bustled into the trunk of Pedro’s taxi. They’d both arrived at the safe house in a state of chemically-induced unconsciousness. There, they’d been stripped, bound, and prepared for questioning.

  Wires ran from the journalist’s genitalia to a field telephone. It was World War Two surplus, but it would do. There were more sophisticated methods of electrical torture, but Lox’s background was Army rather than police, hence field expedient oriented when it came to coercive methods of interrogation.

  Lox reached out a meaty hand, slapping the journalist across the face hard enough to split his lip. It was also hard enough to get his complete and undivided attention, quite despite the lingering effects of the drugs used to subdue him.

&n
bsp; “Hello, Mr. Kulat,” Lox said. “Before you ask, my name is of no use to you. Suffice to think of me as the man you are going to tell everything I ask you to tell me.”

  “Fuck you,” the journalist said, blood spraying from his split lip.

  Lox smiled as he wiped the spray from his face. He turned to Semmerlin, manning the field telephone, and said, “Go.”

  Semmerlin began turning the crank ferociously. Hand-generated electricity coursed up the wires and through Kulat’s genitalia. He screamed and writhed, his back arching half a yard from the platform to which he was bound.

  “Intermittent,” Lox ordered. Semmerlin slowed the spin of the crank, just enough to let Kulat’s back slump to his platform, then cranked it ferociously again, pulling another agonized shriek from the man’s throat and again causing his body to deform itself into a stiff arch. This he repeated, half a dozen times, until Lox held up a restraining hand.

  “You owe me an apology,” Lox said. When none was forthcoming, he signaled Semmerlin to begin the process again. After several more minutes in mindless, gibbering agony, the prisoner took advantage of a short lapse in the current to scream, “I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry . . . please I’m SORRY!”

  “Good,” Lox agreed. “And now that we’ve gotten over our little impoliteness, let me tell you what’s going on.”

  Lox seemed to hesitate for a moment. “Hmmm, on further reflection, let’s talk a little about morality, since the human mind is capable of all kinds of self-delusion if it thinks itself to be uniquely in the right. This is especially true of journalists, it seems.

  “You have a wife and children, do you not, Mr. Kulat?”

  Kulat tensed, not answering. If these madmen didn’t know about his family they would be safer.