The Forgotten (john puller)

by David Baldacci

  It was now or never.

  He pushed the throttle forward and aimed the boat right at the platform.

  Two hundred yards.

  One hundred yards.

  Fifty yards.

  Every image on the platform came into sharp focus despite the raging storm because Puller was totally focused.

  Lining up a bead on a target with his sniper rifle.

  Figuring out how to put down six guys in a few seconds without receiving a mortal blow in the process.

  Working out how to get off this boat and land on that platform at forty miles per hour.

  It was all the same. It required complete focus. Special skills.

  And luck.

  Puller said a silent prayer and gunned it.

  Ten yards away.

  Five.

  He ripped the wheel to port and rammed the throttle into neutral at the exact same time he jumped.

  The forward momentum of the boat carried with him even as the boat turned and its hard rubber fenders-which Puller had put on before attempting this maneuver-slammed against the platform.

  Puller was in the air. He looked down and saw frothing water.

  He looked up and saw a dark sky full of muscle and potentially catastrophic damage.

  He looked down and saw steel.

  He landed, rolled, and came up in time to see Mecho starting to tie off the boat to the platform.

  The platform had rubberized sides to prevent the metal from smashing the boat, and along with the fenders, the bow rider did not appear to have sustained serious damage. Still, with the seas as high and frenetic as they were, there might not be a boat left much longer.

  Carson tossed Puller his Mu and an MP5.

  No time to wonder how he’d made it. No time to thank God for the assist.

  Puller led them up the metal steps.

  Zero hour was here.

  CHAPTER 88

  Enclosed space.

  High up.

  Inside the enclosed space there would be perimeter security.

  Puller wanted very much to see what it looked like.

  Surveillance was tricky under most conditions, particularly so under these.

  But Puller found a gap.

  One metal shutter was improperly closed, leaving a significant gap. He spotted this weakness and motioned Mecho over.

  Diaz, Carson, and Landry had set up perimeter points around the structure.

  The rain pounded down and the wind was so fierce it was hard to stand upright.

  Puller glanced into the right side of the shutter and Mecho did the same from the left.

  The first thing they both saw was that the space was big and open.

  That was problematic on a number of levels.

  The second thing they saw was that there were jury-rigged cages full of people in the middle of the space.

  That was also problematic but not unexpected.

  There were some good points.

  The guards were deployed in regularly spaced clusters. They were not alert, weapons held loosely. Some were smoking, chugging from gallon water jugs and beer cans, and others were sitting, their guns holstered and their focus wavering.

  There were also few places to hide. But some discreet shooting positions. Firing down into the massed sentries they could do a lot of damage in a very short time with minimal exposure to counterfire.

  Puller looked at Mecho and could see from his expression that he had just gone through the same analysis and arrived at a similar conclusion.

  “Do you think Lampert or Rojas are here?” Puller asked.

  Mecho shook his head. “Big fish don’t swim with the small.”

  “Yeah, what I was thinking too. So assuming we can get past the perimeter?”

  “The guards will be instructed to kill the prisoners.”

  “Like burning the evidence?”

  “That may have been their plan all along. Kill them, dump their bodies in the ocean, let the sharks do their job.”

  “But the storm put the kibosh on that.”

  Mecho nodded.

  Puller glanced over at the women. Carson looked determined, focused. Landry the same. However, Diaz looked apprehensive, unsure.

  “Your partner isn’t looking too good,” said Puller.

  “She will be fine.”

  “You know her well?”

  “I don’t know her at all.”

  “So what, then?”

  “You learn a lot about a person when she saves your life.”

  Puller nodded. “I agree with you.” He glanced back through the gap in the shutter and then looked at Mecho.

  “We can fire from up here. I count twenty guards. We have eight weapons among us, including an MP5.”

  “We’ll miss some of them.”

  “I just want to cut down on their numbers as quick as we can.”

  Puller looked back through the gap and saw something he hadn’t picked up on before. Diego and Mateo sat in a comer of one of the crowded cages. A guard stood directly in front of them.

  Puller told himself that that guard would be the first one he killed.

  “So, fire through the gap or do we try to get in?” he asked.

  Mecho shrugged. “If we had more than one gap, with multiple fire lines, then I would say yes to the gap, but we don’t.”

  “So how about we shoot from the gap and we also break in and attack from down there?”

  Mecho nodded approvingly. “I like that plan better.”

  Puller said, “I say you, me, and Landry form the penetration team. Diaz and Carson provide cover from up here. We’ll do the ingress through that doorway over there.” Puller pointed to his left. “Once we breach as stealthily as we can, we form a triangle attack. I’m point, you’re left, Landry right. We clear each section and keep moving. Any guards shooting into the cages get priority fire.”

  Mecho nodded at this plan. “I like it. I think it will work. And after we have killed all the guards?”

  “Not all. We need a couple to testify.”

  “They will know nothing about Rojas or Lampert.”

  “Still, on the off chance they do.”

  “And the prisoners?”

  “We’ll get them out as previously discussed.” Mecho checked his weapon. Puller handed him his M11.

  “Fires straight and true,” he said.

  “I will count on that,” said Mecho.

  Puller hefted the MP5 and put it on two-shot bursts. He wasn’t going to do full auto. He had to manage his ammo carefully. And taking the time to switch out clips was problematic in the middle of what would undoubtedly turn into chaos. For luck, and a combat ritual of his, he tapped the Ranger Ka-Bar knife in its leather holster three times. It felt both odd and exhilarating to do it.

  He saw that Mecho also had a knife stuck in his waistband. He assumed the man knew how to use it with maximum lethalness.

  Puller called the women over and explained the plan to them.

  “I’d prefer to go in the penetration team with you,” said Carson.

  “You have the sniper rifle, General. I’m counting on you making good use of it.”

  Puller looked at Diaz. She still looked nervous. “You going to be okay?”

  She nodded but her features were not in agreement. “Still seasick,” she replied in a hollow tone.

  Mecho put a big hand on her shoulder and looked directly at her. “No time for sick. Time to fight.”

  She nodded.

  Carson said, “Good luck.”

  Puller glanced back at her. It might be the last time they saw each other; he didn’t know.

  She said, “I know, it won’t be about luck.” “Actually, this time it’ll be a lot about luck.” He looked at Landry. “Round chambered?” “Always.”

  He glanced at Mecho. “Good to go.”

  He nodded.

  The three headed down the metal stairs to the breach point.

  CHAPTER 89

  The opening assault went according to
plan. The breach door was not locked.

  Carson and Diaz had been instructed to lay down fire as soon as the door opened.

  It did open, and they opened fire a millisecond later.

  The guards were stunned by the attack, jumping to their feet, dropping cigarettes and beer cans and snatching up weapons.

  By then of course it was too late.

  Carson and Diaz took out five of them with the opening salvo.

  Then Mecho and Puller hit them like an Abrams tank at full throttle.

  They used their guns, their knives, their fists, and their legs.

  Guard after guard dropped under their overwhelming attack.

  They were an army of two.

  Puller killed and moved on to the next target, a seamless flow of compartmentalized savagery.

  Next to him Mecho was doing exactly the same thing, perhaps with a bit more savagery.

  Precise gunfire rained down from above as Carson aimed and shot, aimed and shot, dropping guard after guard.

  From below Mecho and Puller hammered the enemy relentlessly, shooting, stabbing, killing to such an extent that the superior force of guards was quickly turned into an inferior force through sheer terror.

  That’s when things started to go wrong.

  A round fired by a guard hit a vapor-filled fifty-gallon fuel tank and it ignited into a flame ball. Oxygen-fed, it flared to twenty feet high. Thick, toxic smoke engulfed the room.

  The remaining guards, giving up all hope of defeating the invaders, started pumping rounds into the cages, dropping prisoner after prisoner.

  Puller and Mecho did their best to shoot them down, but the smoke was making it difficult to find the right targets. The last thing Puller wanted to do was kill any of the prisoners.

  Diaz and Carson’s vantage point from above was quickly turned to a disadvantage because of the smoke. They could no longer fire because they couldn’t see what they were firing at.

  Mecho and Puller kept low and moved through the smoke and haze.

  They killed what they could.

  Puller reached the first cage, shot the lock off, and the prisoners started streaming out after Puller motioned to them to keep low.

  Mecho did the same with another cage.

  Puller next reached the cage where Diego and Mateo were.

  Diego saw him and shouted, “Behind you!”

  Without looking Puller whirled with his Ka- Bar in hand.

  The guard fell forward with his throat cut, jugular to carotid.

  Mateo saw this and started screaming.

  Diego grabbed him and pulled him through the opening.

  Puller snagged Diego by the arm. “Nice work on leaving your ring behind.”

  “It was the only thing I could think to do.”

  “You both okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go out the door we came through. Take the steps up. There are people up there who’ll help you.”

  Diego nodded and he and Mateo fled.

  Puller shouted at the others in every language he knew to follow the boys to safety.

  All the prisoners still alive were free now and escaping the room through the door.

  Meanwhile, Mecho gutted one guard while he shot another. A pistol round tore through his left forearm, but he kept fighting with his right.

  Puller was slashed on the leg by another guard’s knife an instant before he put a bullet in the man’s head.

  The two men looked around and saw no more opponents.

  Mecho grabbed blankets and attempted to beat the flames down. Puller snagged a fire extinguisher off the wall and hit it from the other side. Smoke poured out of the now dying fire.

  Puller dropped the empty extinguisher, turned, and stopped.

  Landry stood there with smoke misting around her. She looked like the sole survivor appearing from an apocalypse.

  Puller noted that her gun was pointed directly at him.

  He said, “I wondered where you had gotten to.”

  “Sorry about this,” she said.

  “Like hell,” said Puller.

  She pulled the trigger two quick times.

  The gun fired just as it was supposed to.

  Yet Puller still stood there, unharmed.

  She pulled the trigger two more times.

  Again, her pistol fired twice.

  And again Puller simply stood there.

  “No body armor,” he said. “You can take a head shot if you want.”

  She did, right between the eyes.

  Nothing.

  She turned when she sensed him behind her. Mecho ripped the gun from her hand and bent her arm behind her back. She cried out in pain as he drove her elbow to an angle it was not designed to go.

  Puller took the gun from Mecho and slid out the clip.

  “I carry blanks in my duffel, as a means to fire warning shots without doing any damage. I substituted them for your live rounds when I was getting the weapons ready. And if you got your hands on another gun and tried to kill us, Diaz up there had orders to take you out. It was probably why she was nervous, killing a cop and all. Goes against her instincts, I guess. Even when the cop is dirty.”

  They all looked up to see Diaz pointing her weapon directly at Landry’s head with a determined look on her features.

  Landry gasped, “If you knew, why did you ask me to come out here?”

  “Simple. Friends close and enemies closer.”

  “I don’t understand how you could have known.”

  “It’s all a matter of timing, really, Cheryl. Just timing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’d explain now, but we’ve got a few more things on our to-do list. And you’re going to help us cross them off.”

  “I’m not helping you.”

  “Yes you are.”

  “Go to hell.”

  It only took a second, but Landry whipped her body around and slammed a knee into Mecho’s crotch. He doubled over. She grabbed the knife from his belt and was about to deliver a killing strike to the back of his neck when the blade was knocked from her hand.

  She turned in time to see Puller’s fist coming at her.

  That was the last thought she had before Puller slammed his fist into her jaw.

  She fell to the floor, unconscious.

  Puller stood over her.

  “Yes you are,” he said quietly.

  CHAPTER 90

  They had refueled the boat and were racing back to land.

  The freed captives were still on the oil platform, but a Coast Guard cutter was-despite the storm-powering toward them as fast as it could. It had enough space to take them all on board and to safety on the mainland.

  Diego and Mateo had wanted to come back on the boat with them, but Puller had refused. “You’ll be much safer on a Coast Guard cutter,” he explained. “I’m not even sure we can get this tub back to Florida.”

  However, the tropical storm had made landfall and quickly lost much of its energy. The ride back was bad, but not nearly as bad as the ride out had been.

  On the way Puller had gotten a cell signal and managed to make one more call. Carson had gotten on the phone when the conversation started to go downhill. Puller had watched in admiration as the one-star didn’t ask the man on the other end of the line what she would like him to do. She told him what he was going to do.

  “This is a national security issue, Lieutenant. And the United States Army takes those very seriously. You have your orders and I expect they will be carried out with all the dispatch and professionalism that the uniform demands. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” came the immediate reply from the lieutenant, who was probably trying hard not to allow his voice to crack.

  Carson clicked off and handed the phone back to Puller.

  He smiled.

  She said, “What’s so funny?”

  “I guess I just like seeing you being a general.”

  Halfway to shore, Landry had regained consciousness. Carson
piloted the boat while Puller and Mecho focused on their new prisoner. Landry’s face was bruised by Puller’s blow and she looked angry and unrepentant.

  “How?” she demanded of Puller.

  “Like I said, timing.”

  “That means nothing to me.”

  “Lampert’s car blew up.”

  “So what? I didn’t do it.”

  “It blew up, according to Diaz, at one-fifteen. At one-sixteen you got a phone call while I was with you on the beach. You said it was from Bullock. But there was no way it could have been. Lampert would have had to find out what the hell was going on, call the police, and track Bullock down. He’d have to hear what happened and then Bullock might start phoning people. But you weren’t on duty. You wouldn’t have been the first person he’d call. All of that would take a lot longer than a minute. And just to be sure, I checked with Bullock by phone last night. He said you’d called him that night on the drive over to Lampert’s. Not the other way around. He said you’d heard something on the news about an explosion. The call you got was from Lampert.”

  Landry shook her head. “That’s not enough, Puller. There’s no way you’d make a decision like this on something so skimpy.”

  “I didn’t. I started to connect the dots. Lampert is from Miami. So are you. You both arrived here around the same time. After I started thinking about the timing of the call you got, I went into detective mode and started making a lot of phone calls. Your father. You said a guy on PCP shot him down at a bar.”

  “That’s what happened.”

  “I know. But I talked to your former police sergeant. What I found out was from that moment forward you were a changed person. You didn’t seem to care so much about doing the right thing. It seems that instead of wanting to get the scum even more badly after your father was killed, you went the other way. You ended up just not giving a shit. And then you got into business with Lampert and things really took off.” He paused. “I also checked on your condo.

  Four hundred thousand. And your mortgage is less than fifty thousand. Cops don’t make that kind of money. At least honest ones. Maybe that’s why you wanted to live in Destin. I take it you never had anybody from the police force over for drinks. It was stupid of you to have me over, Landry. It made me start thinking.”