“Where’s Brian?” asked Alex.
“Is that all you can think of?” replied Gretchen. “He’s not your kid anymore Al, didn’t you get the memo from the Judge Obregon?” Then, with her prisoners secured, she turned around and addressed her new boss. She was in an ebullient mood, still flying along after the thrill of her new team’s success with the street takedown. “Hey Bob, nice boat. Sweet. So, where do you hide the brewskies?”
“Down forward, in the galley. The fridge is on the left.” He was still examining their effects, laying them out on the dinette table in front of him. Ranya’s blond wig looked almost like a small furry animal when he pulled it out of the green bag.
She returned with two Karl Strauss Amber Lagers, twisted the caps off of them, and handed one to Bob Bullard.
She took a long drink, and then turned to Alex and Ranya. “You two really are a pair of fuckups, you know it? Fun is fun, ‘thanks for a wonderful evening’ and all that, but I think we’re going to have to call it a night. Even though you’re a lot of laughs, you’re both getting to be a royal pain in the ass. Ranya Bardiwell the Arab terrorist, and Al Garabanda, from the almighty FBI…whoop-de-doo, I’m so impressed—Not!” She took another long pull from her beer, set it on the dinette table, and began to rip off the Velcro straps and unfasten the plastic buckles holding on her assault vest and her body armor. She dropped them on the deck, and then sat on the high captain’s chair in the middle of the saloon by the forward windows, swiveling it around from the yacht’s controls to face her captives.
“So, did Bob tell you we’re going for a little boat ride tonight? Yeah, a moonlight cruise, right after the fireworks. Hey boss, what time do they start?” she asked, glancing at her watch.
“Anytime now,” replied Bullard.
“How long is the show?”
“I think a half hour. Real Chinese fireworks. The good stuff.”
As if he had been clairvoyant, a shrill whistling sound split the air, followed by a burst of light, a resounding thunderclap boom, and several echoes. Through the high pilothouse windows, glowing blue streamers could be seen cascading out like the leaves of a palm tree. Before the last blue embers faded just before reaching the water, another rocket exploded high above them. The third rocket continued racing high above the first two before detonating with a ker-umph.
Brian Garabanda came up through the forward galley and he saw Gretchen first, sitting on the high captain’s chair. He said, “Mommy is sleeping. Can I watch the fireworks up here?” His presence was a surprise to the adults, but he was even more surprised to see his father on the settee. “Daddy!” He ran to him, leaped on his lap, and hugged him around the neck.
Gretchen said, “All right kiddo, you can watch the fireworks. But after that you have to go to bed downstairs with Mommy. Is that a deal?”
“O-kay… But why is Daddy tied up?”
“Oh, um, we’re playing a grown up game kiddo.”
“An FBI game?” Brian looked doubtful and worried while he clung to his father.
“That’s right,” said Gretchen, “A grown up FBI game. It’s their turn to be ‘it’.”
***
Basilio Ramos drove the blue Homeland Security boat. He just barely nudged the throttles to keep its speed down. The Comandante was wearing the other black Homeland Security uniform, with the similarly dressed Chino standing next to him. Salazar and Genizaro were hidden, crouched down inside the cramped forward cabin with the two gringo crewmembers. The captives were all the way forward, stripped to their underwear, bound, gagged and blindfolded.
The bay was full of security boats with red and blue flashing lights, there to keep the area around the fireworks barge clear of civilian boat traffic. By keeping his speed at just enough to steer, Ramos was able to slip unnoticed past the civilian piers, and around to the end of the main government pier. Sure enough, a black SUV was parked behind a white SUV, alongside the long white motor yacht. A smattering of people wearing civilian clothes stood and sat near the end of the hundred-foot-wide pier, looking out and up at the fireworks show. One rocket after another blasted into the sky, exploded, and launched sparkling starbursts out in colorful streamers.
The white motor yacht was facing the open harbor. Ramos steered his vessel close to its bow, to come alongside parallel to it, as close to its side as possible. Chino had already prepared dock lines, and stood in the back of the DHS boat closest to the white yacht, ready to step across with a rope. Chino’s own MAC-10 was secured to his chest with a sling made of bungee cords.
The two low doors to the interior of the DHS boat were already open. Salazar and Genizaro, still in their jeans and windbreakers, were waiting for the Comandante’s signal to spring out and go on the attack.
A crewmember on the big motor yacht walked out onto the side of the deck at their approach, hailing them and waving them off. He was dressed casually in jeans and a white dress shirt, open at the neck. “No, no, not here!” he called out in English. “Don’t tie up here!” The man gestured and pointed to the open space on the floating dock behind the yacht, and kept yelling. Ramos pretended not to understand, and maneuvered alongside the big yacht’s cockpit, the lowest part of its hull, where Chino would be able to step up and across with no difficulty. As they expected, their Homeland Security boat and DHS uniforms allowed them to approach with a minimum of resistance. When the cockpit of the DHS speedboat was almost even with the very back of the motor yacht, Ramos waved Chino across, to tie their own stern line onto the larger vessel, and halt their forward progress.
***
Cesar Escoria, the Eldorado’s boat captain, was relaxing up on the flying bridge, halfway through smoking a fat grifa of strong marijuana. There was no better way to enjoy a fireworks show than sitting up on top of the yacht, leaning back in the padded helmsman’s seat, feet up on the instrument console, totally lit, buzzed—prendido.
Tonight’s sampling of sinsemilla came from Sinaloa, courtesy of an amigo who worked for Customs. The weed and the fireworks were both primo, but tonight’s boat parade on San Diego Bay was disappointing. He remembered the old days, when there would have been hundreds of private vessels out on the bay for a night of partying before, during and after the fireworks. But with the price of diesel fuel and gasoline as crazy as they were, practically the only boats on the water tonight were flashing the red and blue lights of the security services.
Fortunately, the price of fuel was never an issue for Captain Escoria. Tonight after the fireworks show they were going to make a quick run offshore, and the Eldorado would burn a hundred gallons of diesel, more or less. It didn’t matter, because he had a government credit card to refuel the boat. One of his standing orders from Bob Bullard was to always keep the Eldorado’s tanks topped off. Tonight the boss was involved in some dirty work, wet ops, a one-way trip offshore for some individuals who would not see the land again.
Well, that was the boss’s business. Cesar Escoria didn’t mind one way or the other—that was all up to Bob Bullard. Catch a buzz, watch the fireworks, feel that booming in your gut, see the reflections of the lights on the water…and then take the boat offshore, under the stars. The half moon was already sinking in the western sky above Point Loma. By midnight it would be gone, and the only light over the horizon beyond San Diego would be starlight.
Escoria noticed one of the DHS forty-footers coming around the end of the pier; it was the same type Bob Bullard liked to take out on the weekends. Probably somebody that knew him from their frequent weekend trips was coming by to say hello, and brown nose the regional director of Homeland Security. Whoever it was, he wasn’t steering too well, and he seemed to be a rookie by the way he handled the throttles: pushing them and pulling them off, causing the boat to almost porpoise forward with little jumps.
Now the Fountain racing boat was coming down along the Eldorado’s starboard side, very close. What was this idiot boat driver up to? The Eldorado’s white hull had a $700,000 linear polyurethane Awlgrip paint jo
b, and that was a lot of money, even in blue bucks, even if the government paid for it. Was this fool going to just come banging alongside, and with no fenders? Shit—amateurs! Cesar Escoria heaved himself up from his captain’s chair, and shambled down to the side deck to see what these DHS clowns were up to. They were really killing his buzz, these assholes.
“No, no, not here!” yelled Captain Escoria. “Don’t tie up here! There’s no fenders—you’ll scratch the hull! Down there, go down there!”
***
The vessels bumped, and Chino climbed up from the DHS boat’s stern with his rope, immediately looping it over an empty cleat on the Eldorado’s side deck. Ramos killed the engines and bounded across as Genizaro and Salazar burst from the small compartment, and followed him over into the big motor yacht’s cockpit.
“You can’t—” said the yacht’s crewman, coming back along the side deck from the middle of the yacht. He was cut short by a burst from Chino’s MAC-10 at a range of only six feet. Even with its suppressor, the noise was considerable. Red stains blossomed on the dead man’s white oxford shirt as he twisted and fell forward, hit the teak handrail below his hips, and flipped overboard into the water. The booming and crackling of the fireworks show continued without a pause, a quarter mile out on the bay.
***
Gretchen Bosch was returning to the main saloon from the galley with two more ice cold beers, when she felt a bang on the Eldorado’s hull, then heard some footsteps thumping on the deck above her, followed by a chattering metallic piston noise that she instantly recognized. She entered the saloon and looked through the pilothouse windows just in time to see Bullard’s boat captain fall overboard. She placed both bottles on the dinette table in front of Bob Bullard and turned toward the back of the saloon, already drawing her big H&K USP .45 from the tactical holster where it was strapped around the right leg of her black BDU pants.
She moved through the saloon to the cockpit door in the back and sidestepped to her left, getting cover behind the aft bulkhead and taking a half-second quick peek outside. There was a man in a Homeland Security uniform coming across the cockpit toward the door. There was another man in dark civilian clothes, no more than ten feet behind the DHS agent. He was holding a small submachine gun leveled at the DHS agent’s back! A terrorist!
Her entire awareness of the situation in the cockpit was the result of her split second glance. She threw her H&K pistol up to eye level in a two handed combat grip, supported against the left side of the open door as she looked outside again. She instinctively banged off three rounds at the terrorist who was creeping up behind the Homeland Security agent, two to the heart and one to the head, dropping him instantly. The unknown DHS agent was out of immediate danger, Gretchen was still integrating the battle information, making sense of it all, scanning for new threats. She stepped out into the cockpit when she saw another terrorist to her left on the yacht’s side deck, and she raised her pistol to fire again.
***
Basilio Ramos was the first into the cockpit, followed by Salazar and Genizaro. Chino had killed an unexpected crewman on the side of the yate with a quick burst from his MAC-10. Even using a suppressed weapon, and with the fireworks show as sonic cover, they had to consider their approach compromised. Now speed was everything: get inside the boat and take control, before they completely lost the element of surprise.
Half of a face appeared for a moment in the cockpit door, then a pistol and yellow flame fountained out—Bam-Bam-Bam! Salazar was down behind him, there was no time to check him, they had to keep assaulting through, had to keep the momentum. A black figure stepped out of the cockpit door, Salazar’s shooter, but he turned away, apparently not even seeing him, and Ramos understood: it was his DHS uniform. He wasn’t shooting, because of the uniform. The shooter turned left, toward Genizaro, and Ramos rapid-fired three shots of 9mm from his Glock, right into the center mass of the shooter as he turned. The shooter fell back against the cabin superstructure by the cockpit door and slid down, leaving a red smear on the gleaming white paint.
***
Piss-poor body armor, thought Gretchen Bosch. It shouldn’t hurt like this when you get shot in the old Kevlar. She was feeling terribly cold and heard a roaring, and at the same time her chest burned. Red-hot claws were ripping into her lungs as she went down and collapsed onto her side, while red white and blue rockets exploded over the bay in front of her. Body armor should stop this shit easy… Her last conscious thought was the memory of taking off her body armor inside the boat. Damn! Never take the armor off. Never. Next time… The rocket’s glowing cinders faded as they reached the water.
***
Ramos kicked the pistol away from the dead shooter’s hand with his foot, as Chino and Genizaro joined him in a hasty stack by the cockpit door. When he burst in, they were right on their leader’s tail, immediately criss crossing, going for the corners, finding cover, clearing the room as they had done a thousand times both in training and for real.
But there was no threat, no waiting team of enemy shooters. There was just one single gringo standing twenty feet across the room toward the front of the yacht, holding up a small child in front of his chest, and holding a pistol in his other hand. There was also another man and a woman sitting on a sofa on the right side of the room, their arms behind them—the prisoners—including Ranya.
The man holding up the boy said, “Look, I don’t know who you are or what you want, but there’s been some kind of a mistake. You should just leave right now and save yourselves. There are at least ten armed agents on the dock, and fifty more out on the water all around us. So just leave now, while you have a chance!” He held the boy with his left forearm across the child’s chest, a pistol held in his right, aiming at Ramos in the center of the three attackers. Genizaro and Chino slowly advanced along the sides, increasing their angle of separation.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Ramos, in English. “Are you out of your mind? Put that boy down!” Ramos continued moving forward slowly, his own Glock pistol aimed slightly above the man’s head.
Bullard rasped out, “If you’ve just shot a federal agent, do you have any idea of how much trouble you’re in? That’s a capital crime, under special circumstances!”
“Special what? Are you loco?” asked Ramos. “Put the boy down!”
“No way! You’re crazy if you think I’ll put him down. If I put him down, you’ll shoot me!” The man was holding his pistol extended in front of the boy, aiming it at the Comandante, while cutting his eyes between the other two gunmen. “Tell them to back out of here, or you’ll die. You!”
“Bullshit,” responded the Comandante. “If you shoot, it’ll be the last thing you ever do, and you know it. So put the boy down.”
“No.”
Ramos continued his slow, measured advance. When he was less than ten feet away he said, “Look, if you don’t put him down, I might shoot you anyway. I don’t care about the boy, and I don’t care about you either, dead or alive. I only care about them.” He gestured with his head toward Ranya and Alex, sitting on the settee couch. “I’ve come to take them, not the boy.”
“But if you’ve already killed federal agents, then you’ll kill me too.” Bullard held the terrified child in front of him, his left arm clamped across Brian’s chest, his pistol held out over the boy’s shoulder.
“Just put him down, you idiot!”
“You’ll kill me!” Bullard was starting to panic.
“I could kill you anyway, pendejo. Put him down if you want to live!”
“Listen—I’ll make a deal, I’ll make you a deal!”
“What deal? You have nothing to offer me that I can’t take.” Ramos was six feet away, his pistol aimed just above Brian’s head at Bullard’s face.
“Oh, but I do! Let me go, you’ll see, I have a lot to offer.”
Ramos hesitated a few seconds, and said, “Okay, enough bullshit: tell me now, or you’ll die in ten seconds.”
“And then you’ll
let me go, with the boy?”
“No boy! Tell me what you have to trade for your life, pendejo! Five seconds!”
“Okay—all right. I know where there’s gold. A lot of gold.”
The mention of his favorite precious metal immediately won the Comandante’s undivided attention. “How much?”
Bullard wailed out, “Hundreds of pounds.”
“You mean ounces.”
“No! Pounds, hundreds of pounds of gold. Thousands of ounces!”
Ramos stopped, and raised his Glock a fraction above Bullard’s forehead. “Okay, I’m listening: where is this gold?”
“Promise you’ll let me go…”
“Where is the gold? No promises, until I know that you’re not lying, gringo!”
“If I tell you where it is, you’ll let me go?”
“If you show me where it is, if we get this gold…then I’ll let you live.”
“You’re telling the truth?”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“What guarantee do I have?”
“Guarantee? You have my word, as a man of honor. I promise your life in return for this gold. Now, take us to this gold, or die where you stand—that is your only choice. Choose now!” Ramos leveled his pistol at Bullard’s forehead again.
Bullard’s right arm wavered and then fell, and he let the .45 caliber pistol tumble onto the floor. “All right. I’ll show you, but then you’ll let me go, right?”
Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista Page 71