Jack Be Nimble: Tyro Book 2

by Ben English

  But Alonzo discovered he had untapped wells of that emotion, seas and oceans of it. He was too far from the chaff-and-flare dispenser, too far from the electronic countermeasures. Wouldn’t matter anyway. In the air, the Osprey had a chance of evading a surface-to-air missile, but they were dead on the ground.

  He turned without thinking, to run, and the American stood in his way, looking around sharply. The rotors were singing now, scooping acres of dirt into the air. Gravel skittered around their feet. Alonzo saw the shooter first, not a hundred yards away, a Stinger or some sort of missile system braced on one shoulder, absolutely unmoving, practically a part of the bone-white knoll on which he stood.

  “There!” he shouted, and the American swept the rifle around, and hesitated.

  No; not hesitation. Alonzo watched him take careful aim, let out half a breath, and practically caress the trigger. The single whip-crack of the shot sounded flat and heavy. Alonzo willed the bullet right down into the black dot of the launch tube.

  Force multiplier. The white knoll vanished in a sudden bright haze, bouncing more rock from the canyon walls.

  The American turned, exultant and incredulous for an instant. The flight deck trembled, and Lieutenant Noel found himself joined at the ramp by two other men, shouting something at the American, probably thanks. He nodded back, and wiped his face. “Allah be with you.”

  Something about the angles of his face, under the streaks of gunpowder and mud. The voice was dead familiar, but – nah.

  He looked pointedly at Alonzo “Be sure to get that package to your CO. There are notes and info inside to explain everything.”

  Someone inside threw him a belt of ammunition and other supplies, and he snagged it with one hand, quirking a smile at Alonzo. “Nice to see you again, buddy,” he said, almost offhand, then loped out into the billowing dust.

  Before Alonzo could reply, the Osprey gave a shudder, floundered in the backwash of sand, and rose into the air. Quick, quicker, to finally burst out over the wasted hills. Numbly, he stumbled into his seat at the tactical station, and cycled back to the earlier frequency. “Tyro, Tyro, say again, T—Jack, are you down there?”

  Only hiss from the radio, then a hard laugh. The voice of Mahmoud, a bit softer. “We will meet again, efreet! When the wheel comes ‘round again!”

  *

  “I saw Jack again a week later. We pulled him out of the water at Chah Bahar, and I left the Navy a few months after that.”

  Bata’an. Its squat, beautiful bulk cast a long shadow in the harbor.

  Major Griffin’s eyes hadn’t left his face. “But the wall of fire? How’d he manage that?”

  “Claymores.”

  “What?” said Steve.

  “Claymore mines. He’d set them earlier that morning, all up and down the walls of the canyon. Jack, see, he always works off a plan.”

  Chase the Girl

  He found Jack after dinner, after everyone else had gone to bed, alone in the crow’s nest. He’d switched to a black t-shirt and jeans, and sat crosslegged in one of the big chairs. Layers of reports and computers surrounded him.

  Alonzo expected to find his friend poring over the heaps of incoming intelligence, but he was actually reading through Wave Stochasticity and Linear PlasmaMaser Effect, by M. Adams.

  Jack looked up quickly, knowing he’d been caught, the expression on his face reminiscent of a kid with a secret.

  Alonzo stabbed out his cigar. Best to address this quickly.

  “What now, chase the girl? You want to go after her, don’t you? After the Goodwill Games are over and done.”

  Jack shook his head. “Not after.”

  “When? Tonight?”

  “Just you and I.”

  “Aren’t we a little busy right now?”

  Jack tapped a key on his computer, and activated the wall displays. The entire surface sprang to life, showing a multi-tiered organizational structure. Shell corporations, holding companies, revenue streams, money laundering via government contracts, and hard revenue. It looked like Raines’ entire corporate structure, both legal and otherwise. It was the whole damn shell maze, down to the finest detail.

  “Irene’s work made this possible. She found microcapsules from PicoMorph Pharmaceuticals in the blood you swiped. Another of Raines’ companies, manufacturing here in Cuba. We just tied Raines to Cuba—”

  “You worked all this out just today?”

  Jack killed the wall display.

  “If we hurry we can get ahead of her. Her plane left Havana an hour ago, but the western half of the U.S. is pretty much shut down by thunderstorms. She’s due to present her photos in person to a magazine editor tomorrow afternoon in”—he checked his notes—“Seattle or Spokane. Hey, that almost puts us back in the old neighborhood.”

  Before Alonzo could mount an argument, he continued. “The team is solid here. We can always shunt our intel over to the Bureau or the Secret Service. Mack and Vern have the locals up to speed.

  “Let the team follow up on a few leads by themselves while we’re gone. Nicole thinks it’s a good idea.”

  Alonzo frowned with his whole face. “Why am I coming with you?”

  “You have a high profile here right now. When the VIPs start to show again in a few days for the Games, we won’t be able to turn around without falling over a foreign intelligence agent who might recognize you, and realize you’ve been here a lot longer than any of the other intel planners. You need to spend a few days away.”

  “Just so I understand: this a shadow job, strictly follow, on somebody who knew us both fairly well once upon a time?”

  Jack waved a no. “More than a follow. I want contact, but she won’t recognize me.

  “We need to figure this out, Al. I need to know. Raines had a wetwork team in her house.”

  Alonzo hadn’t seen this expression in Jack’s eyes for years. No wonder he’d been distracted the past few days. “So you think you’re being given a second chance.”

  “She’s married.”

  “And you don’t think this is all a marvelous coincidence?”

  “There’s no such thing as coincidence.”

  “Allah, Buddha, the Great Pumpkin, whatever.”

  “Don’t come if you don’t want to.”

  Alonzo reached for the cigar, remembered it was out. Looked down at the reports. Tried to glare at Jack. “This is important work, Jack. I’m not your damn sidekick.”

  “Of course not,” Jack replied. “You’re not anywhere close to following the natural law of sidekicks.”

  Alonzo let that hang in the air. Waited for the explanation, got nothing. Exasperating. “Which is?”

  Jack kneaded his forehead, then made a self-mocking gesture. “You’d at least have a wife and child that I could look upon dramatically as I ponder my solitude.” He laughed shortly and went back to the sheaves of paper.

  The mountain of paper. It all translated into a tremendous amount of work for both of them. Timetables, situation reports, supplies, intelligence. It all sat before him waiting for balance. They simply didn’t have enough time.

  “I could work on the plane.” He looked back up at Jack. “You’re lucky I’m damn good at what I do. One day. One.”

  The story continues in Jack Be Nimble: The Crystal Falcon.

  Ready for more? Visit www.BenEnglishAuthor.com.

  End Notes

  Funny thing happened when the first book in the series, Gargoyle, was published: the ebook edition was the first version to go live, and within a minute, someone out in the world actually bought one. Whoa. Sure, I’d prepared for this in my head, but the reality of someone actually taking a chance on the book was a shock. It was overwhelming, on an epic level. It was like a first kiss. It was like Godzilla in Tokyo. And I hadn’t even told anyone it was available yet.

  So there I was, filled with a huge desire to personally thank this wonderful, anonymous someone, and of course with no way to reach them directly.

  Then I remembered th
at JBN is more than one book. And if you’ve read this far, I have more than one single, anonymous person to thank.

  I really hope you liked Tyro. I wrote it for you. The Masqueraders that Pete Dalton ran into in San Francisco are real, the Chatelet des Halles station is the biggest, most spy-friendly Metro station in Paris, and a person really could fill a swimming pool with guar so it looks lime Jell-O. The line attributed to James T. Kirk, “the more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play,” was spoken by the good captain in the Classic Trek episode, “Shore Leave,” but it really came from the amazing brain of that episode’s writer, Theodore Sturgeon.

  The Quiet Supersonic Transport was a real aircraft developed by the mad genius-nerds over at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, but sadly was put on the shelf due to lack of funding. I was so happy to be able to resurrect it for JBN as lifestyle accessory for the rich and famous, not just as a way to move Jack and team (and Raines and team) from Point A to Point B really fast, but also mostly because the QSST is just so cool.

  Lastly, quite a few readers have let me know, in no uncertain terms, that they expected Jack and Mercedes to be together again somehow by the end of the first book. If you thought so too, and you just finished reading Tyro, you might very well be a member of the pitchfork-waiving mob out on my front lawn right now, as I type this. If you are, and you do indeed have a pitchfork, would you mind getting the Frisbee out of our apricot tree?

  And for those of you who need a taste of the amazing things that Jack and Mercedes can do when they are together, as adults, well. You really should pick up the next book, Jack Be Nimble: The Crystal Falcon.

  Much thanks!

  Ben

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