by Seeley James
This time, the good guys win.
Carlos said, “Two more coming. One is big, the other smaller. Might be the kid.”
After a few long seconds, two figures stood in the moonlight out front. The boy with his hands behind his back, the other, a fat guy, holding the boy’s arm.
I resisted moving a muscle. The riflemen at the entrance were there to take me out and they were pros. Breathing would tip them off to my hiding place.
Adrenaline poured into my veins, icing my thinking. I set my rifle on full-auto, switched the infrared targeting laser to a frequency they would not expect, and turned it on.
After enough time had passed, and they decided I wasn’t coming out, the fat guy out front untied the boy and pointed to one side. The boy ran.
On my earbud, Carlos said, “Boy is running back down the road. He’s clear of the cars and heading for the houses in that village over the creek.”
I texted my containment element, Carlos. “Fire at will.”
Carlos instructed the others over the comm link. “Going hot.”
Four guns opened up on the riflemen from Carlos’ position. Two went down. One clutched his leg and screamed for a medic. The other was dead still. The fat guy took a couple rounds in the body armor and staggered for safety behind a forklift.
The only ones left were too deep in the tunnel for Carlos to reach.
It was me against four trained, deadly soldiers working together.
No problem.
I moved up to a stack of pre-stressed concrete beams and aimed.
One of the killers tapped the shoulders of three guys, who then peeled off to attack me. Classic military moves. I aimed for the guy giving orders but couldn’t get a shot off before his minions started firing. I ducked and waited for them to empty their magazines, but they were disciplined soldiers.
Keeping focused on the highest-value target first, just like the Rangers taught me, I moved, aimed, and nailed the leader.
Three against one.
I rolled to a new hiding place. One of them shot at my old spot and I took him out based on the flash from his muzzle. I rolled again.
I played deadly tennis with the last two. They fired and ducked and moved. I fired and ducked and moved. But they had the advantage of moving in different directions. Within a couple volleys, I had to shoot twice, exposing myself to one of them. After hearing a round of lead buzz my ear, I started tossing chunks of cement around. The tension was too much for the guy on the right. He fell for one of my rocks and rolled out from behind a sand pile. But my mag was empty.
I pulled my pistol and aimed.
Seven-Death reached over my shoulder and pushed the barrel a millimeter up.
I made the shot and nailed the assassin in the face.
What most people don’t understand about gunfights is that people don’t die when the bullet strikes them. Even men who’ve been shot in the head can live for ten or fifteen minutes and are able to talk. The man I shot stared at me, his mouth moving as if he wanted to say something. This was the perfect time to take out his compatriot, while he was in shock over the loss of his friend. But the not-yet-dead can still pull a trigger.
I put another round through his eye. Cold but necessary.
I popped up to find my last adversary folded in half, breathing his last.
Avi Damari and his two buddies—David Gottleib’s friends—strode into the entrance as if they were filming another remake of Gunfight at the OK Corral.
Mercury kicked my latest kill and said, Dude, that was the coldest thing I’ve seen since Domitian sentenced Epaproditus to a poena cullei.
I said, I don’t want to hear about it.
Mercury said, That’s when they sew you in a large leather sack with a bunch of wild animals. Like, badgers and wildcats and snakes and shit.
I said, Ah, the good old days.
Mercury said, Damn straight. None of this namby-pamby lethal injection crap. Hey, don’t let the fat guy get away.
Carlos was checking the dead and wounded. Behind him, on hands and knees, the fat shadow—the one who had accompanied the boy—tried to crawl away.
I ran over, grabbed him by the body armor and stuffed my Glock in his mouth.
My instincts were on target; it wasn’t Shane Diabulus. So where the hell was Diabulus?
Captain Cates walked up. “Tell me you have the evidence, Stearne.”
“Only more questions.” I caught his gaze and nosed down at the guy at my knee: Detective Lovett.
CHAPTER 36
Ashes and burning wreckage fell from the infinite blue above to the deep blue below near the sambuk that carried Pia, Tania, and Miguel. They leaned over the edge of the deck, silent and shocked, as each piece splashed in the sea. The boat’s crew was equally stunned when Faiz explained who owned the jet.
The captain said a heartfelt prayer for the prince, translated by Faiz, and then they all stared in silence for a long time.
Pia felt her stomach wrench and twist and boil. Her entire body felt suddenly hollow. Seeing someone shot out of the air took a toll on her perception of security. Lives had ended with no chance for survival, no hope of rescue, no miracles.
There was nothing she could do. The things that needed to be done were beyond her reach. She felt disconnected, out of control, alone. There were others in as much danger as the Prince. She had to get moving before LOCI chalked up more dead. But first, she had to find a way out of the region.
They sailed north, rounding the point at Kuzmar, then east into the Strait of Hormuz on their way to rendezvous with the Sabel Industries’ 360-foot yacht, Asteria. They would be out of the ship’s helicopter range for several more hours. Pia’s jet had been searched by the LOCI Emiratis in Khasab and released. Her pilot flew to Karachi to wait for her. For now, she was hours away with nothing to do but sit on the sambuk’s deck and watch the coastline recede.
Miguel and Tania soaked up the warm sun while Pia paced the decks.
A smaller boat trailed them, slowly narrowing the distance. The captain changed course twice only to have their shadow follow.
Eventually, the smaller boat came within hailing range. Arabic and Persian bounced over the waves on megaphones.
Faiz and the captain approached Pia.
“Emirati gain on you.” Faiz leaned on his cane and shrugged. “Also, offer money for captain. He give you them. So sorry.”
“Told you we should’ve tossed him.” Tania stared daggers at the old man.
Two crewmen raised ancient rifles aimed at Pia.
Miguel stifled a laugh. “Want me to take them out?”
Pia put her hand up to stop her people and faced the captain. “Faiz, translate for me. Tell him you saw me arrive on my own jet. And tell him who saved you at the fortress. Tell him to make a decision about whose side he’s on.”
The two men argued in Arabic for a long time.
Faiz broke it off. “Captain like cash. Jet nice but jet not cash, not boat. Faiz argue but Faiz like cash too. Difficult argument.”
“Tell him I’ll give him that boat,” She nodded to the approaching craft, “and all the cash on it.”
The Emirati ship narrowed the distance.
The captain scratched his beard and stared at Pia as if measuring her for a coffin.
Faiz shrugged.
The captain looked back and forth, then grabbed the gun from her holster, spun her around and held both her hands behind her back. He held her weapon high above his head, showing it to the approaching vessel, then shoved it back inside the elastic of her yoga pants. He continued to restrain Pia’s hands.
Over his shoulder, he nodded at his men who did the same thing to Tania and Miguel.
The smaller ship pulled alongside and lashed to the sambuk amidships.
Pia’s captain gestured and shouted and made the approaching captain identify himself and his crew. Then he insisted they line up to make sure there were no tricks involved. Three Omani crew and four Emirati assassins showed themsel
ves.
When the crew finished lashing the boats together, and the four body-armored assassins stood in a line, the captain let Pia go.
She whipped her Glock out from behind her back. Her first dart hit the other captain in the neck. The black-clad attackers turned, startled by the unexpected sound, and in that instant of curiosity, Tania and Miguel leaped over the railings and onto them. At six-four, 220 pounds, Miguel took down two, one under each foot. A more efficient method than shooting.
Pia followed, but lost her pistol when she hit the deck. She planted a right hook on the jaw of a man trying to raise his rifle. He staggered left and lost the grip on his weapon. She pulled a knife from her legging, slashed at him, and slit his bicep. His attention left the fight as he attempted to staunch the arterial flow.
She scrabbled around, found her Glock, and darted a man struggling to free himself from Tania’s grip.
Miguel threw one man into the sea while the last man jumped on him from behind. Tania turned and put a dart in the attacker’s leg. Miguel bent at the waist, tossing his drugged opponent overboard.
“Get him out of the water,” Pia shouted. “He’ll drown.”
On the sambuk’s deck, Faiz and the crew watched, chins resting on palms as if it were a soccer match.
The two remaining crew ducked into the wheelhouse before returning to the fight. One carried a shotgun, the other an iron rod.
Pia launched herself at the man with the gun, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Due to her momentum and angle, the barrel dipped when he pulled the trigger, sending the buckshot into his foot. Pia plowed him into the deck. She jumped up and landed her bodyweight on his stomach, making his eyes bulge out. She rested for just a second before darting him.
The last crewman made the ill-advised decision to hit Tania with his iron. Her left foot landed in his groin while the rod was still over his head and coming forward. The man lost his grip, in effect handing the weapon to her. She began probing the location of his kidneys with rapid strokes of the rod as he cried out in pain.
Pia grabbed Tania’s hand. “We don’t need to kill him.”
Behind her, Miguel splashed into the sea and rescued the darted assassin. Faiz threw him a rope and, with the help of the crew, pulled them aboard.
Pia strode over to the man with the sliced arm and darted him, then knelt and made a tourniquet to reduce the bleeding.
One Emirati remained in the water, struggling to keep his body and fifty pounds of armor above the surf. She called to Faiz and had the man rescued and disarmed. They pulled him aboard the Emirati’s ship and darted him. The captain’s men secured the pirate ship and crew.
Five minutes, start to finish.
Pia called out to Faiz. “Tell him this is legal compensation for disarming pirates at sea.”
The captain smiled and bowed to her. He sent a man to pilot the smaller boat.
They sailed into the Indian Ocean until late afternoon before the Asteria’s chopper came into view. It hovered over the sambuk’s stern and one by one, they climbed in.
Two hours later, Captain Chamberlain welcomed them aboard the Asteria.
Pia and her team had dinner on the upper deck before going to her stateroom on the owner’s deck.
They were too far from Sabel Satellite coverage for their phones to work, so Tania checked in via the ship’s systems.
She reported back. “Rip Blackson showed up in our Paris office asking for help and protection. Jacob went to exchange himself for the Zola kid. No word on the outcome yet. The guests have been leaving the rebooted Future Crossroads Symposium early. A reporter fished Paul Benning’s dismembered body from the Moselle River just below the castle. Your father has not been in contact for a few hours and his phone is offline. And the worst part is, just to piss each other off, every now and then the Iranians and the Americans jam each other’s radio and satellite signals in this part of the world, so we’ve lost ship communications. Captain Chamberlain says we’ll be clear of their problems by morning.”
Tania held out several sheets of paper. “We don’t have Internet, but Bianca figured out a way to get a report printed onboard.”
Tania had been up, popping Provigil—stay-awake pills—for several days. Pia sent her to get some sleep.
Bianca’s report described LOCI, a security firm working overseas. The founder was a soldier who died in combat three years before the company was formed. A company so bad even the founder was a straw man. Like the social welfare group Jago headed, it opened a bank account with $6 million. LOCI offered security services tailored to meet local laws and customs. Very little else about the company was available.
Everything in the report bothered Pia.
She texted Jacob: “I know Koven killed Duncan—but not Gottleib or the clients. I think you already figured out who did it, so tell me.”
She pressed send and watched the screen respond, “No signal.”
CHAPTER 37
Thick clouds hunkered down for the night, obscuring the last sliver of moon as Jago Seyton drove north on I-270 to Frederick, Maryland where he bought a movie ticket beneath a security camera, marched in, stuffed the stub in his pocket, and walked out the theater’s side door. He pulled his fedora down tight, turned up his collar, and wove a path to his car, avoiding the lighted areas.
After putting tape on his license plate to change the number, and covering part of the taillights to change the profile, he drove on back roads to Boonsboro and crossed into West Virginia at Shepherdstown. There he paid cash for a chemical sprayer at an old hardware store that didn’t have video surveillance. Staying on the back roads, he made his way to Lucketts, Virginia where he put four gallons of diesel fuel in the sprayer. From there he went back to the movie theater in Frederick, snuck in, and complained to the manager about the movie.
Then he drove to McLean, where he rented a car using Rip Blackson’s credit card. He drove through Blackson’s neighborhood once, noting there were two cars in Blackson’s open garage. He drove to the mall, switched hats and coats, then returned to Blackson’s street where he rolled slowly by, noting how many windows were lit up.
He switched to his own car, the plates still taped, and came back an hour later. The garage was closed and the pattern of light in the windows had changed; the occupants had moved upstairs.
He drove to Maryland and had a late dinner at Sandy’s where the waitress knew him because he never tipped. He asked the waitress for her phone number. She turned on a self-righteous heel and walked away. He tossed cash on his half-finished meal and left in a huff, throwing the door open.
Switching back to the rental, he put on a ski mask and drove slowly down Blackson’s street. All the lights were out. He parked at a darkened house a block away. He retrieved his chemical sprayer from the trunk and made his way through bushes and hedges to Blackson’s house.
He found the water main and shut off the supply that fed the fire suppression system. Then he pumped up the sprayer and coated the sideboards and shrubs and foundation with a fine mist of diesel fuel.
Most people think gasoline is the best fire accelerant, but diesel burns hotter and soaks deeper into wood. He paid special attention to the windows and doors to make sure there would be no escape. He found the cellar door locked and gave it a good soaking. He did his best to cover every inch of the ground floor’s exterior walls and as far up the second floor as he could reach.
When Jago emptied the last of the four gallons, he stood back for a moment to admire his work.
He lit a trail of fuel at the back stoop with a butane lighter and tossed the chemical sprayer near the garage. As the flames began to lick up the walls on the backside, he retreated into the hedge at the back of the property near a gate to the neighbor’s yard. He slid between the branches and crouched.
Modern suburban homes have evolved to become sound-proof and insulated cocoons, as if we would rather not know what’s going on next door. Had he torched the house fifty years ago, at least one neighbor
would have smelled the fumes before Jago could’ve finished his work.
But several minutes had gone by and not a single alarm had been raised. No one shouted, and no one came out. Part of that was due to his professional choice of accelerants. By choosing diesel, there would be no loud whoosh nor giant towering flames.
At least not yet.
The first scream of terror came from inside the house.
Every exterior wall of the home blazed in blue flame with bright yellow tips that reached the gutters. The best part was what he could see through the windows: lots of smoke on the ceilings of the lower floors. That meant the heat was building up to the flash point.
More and more yellow flames appeared in the flame, telling him the wood was burning more than the fuel. There would be no stopping it now.
The screams inside grew, everyone was awake and shrieking in horror.
Jago rubbed his palms together.
A woman came out of the house next door, her face lit yellow by the bright flames. She turned and shouted to her husband inside. Another house across the street awakened and a thirtyish man came forward brandishing a garden hose.
Perfect.
A jet of water hit the side of the house where it immediately turned to steam and carried unburned droplets of diesel into the air, raining fire in all directions.
The neighbors who lived behind the Blackson’s marched through the gate, an arm’s length from Jago.
He froze.
The man was older and wiser than the others because he carried a kitchen fire extinguisher. It was exactly the kind needed for this type of fire, a chemical retardant. The old man looked at his equipment, and looked at Blackson’s house, and instantly knew he would need a bigger extinguisher. But the valiant old man gave it a shot anyway.
When the old couple ran toward the flames, Jago slipped into their backyard.
Halfway across the space, he hesitated, wanting one last look, and snuck back to the gate.