by Mack Maloney
Harry looked back at him in total bewilderment.
“Can’t what?” he asked. “Shoot them up here you mean?”
Nolan shook his head. “Can’t shoot them at all,” adding quickly: “Or hang them or burn them or drown them.”
Harry just didn’t understand—and neither did the growing crowd of sailors on the bank.
But strangely enough, Ramon understood, and so did the Senegals. And Twitch. And even Batman and Gunner, who were standing in the shallow water nearby.
Ramon said, “We kill them like that, mon, we become as bad as they is.”
Nolan looked at the others and just shrugged. “Exactly…” he said.
But Harry was devastated. “I’m so confused,” he moaned.
Nolan collected his thoughts, then spoke again. “We’re better than this. All of us—because we’re Americans, in spirit if not in body. I know it seemed like a good idea at the time, freaking these guys out, screwing with their heads, and intending to get our pound of flesh when we finally got our hands on them. But we have to remember who we are, and what country we call home—and what the hell we’ve been fighting for all these years, two hundred and thirty years and more. Fighting these traitors, defending ourselves against them—that’s a different story. But if we pop these guys now, taking justice into our own hands, then we’re no better than the tyrants who run Iran or North Korea or the Taliban or bin Laden and his mooks. Like our very good friend here just said, if we kill them now, like this—we become like them. No … We’re civilized. They’re not. We’re Americans—and now they’re not. And that’s what makes all the difference.”
The sailors on the muddy bank were stunned at first. But slowly, Nolan’s words began to sink in.
“We’ll turn them over to the Navy,” he went on. “They’ll get a trial—and then, they’ll get their punishment, guaranteed. But until then, we’ll do this the right way.”
Many of the sailors on the bank started to applaud. A few even cheered. And though a few remained silent, Nolan had given them all something to think about.
Standing near the muddy bank, watching it all, Batman lit up a damp joint, took a puff and passed it to Gunner.
“That was an interesting speech,” Batman said, letting out a lungful of smoke. “Especially from a guy who’s not allowed to step foot inside the U.S.”
At that moment, the sun finally broke through on the horizon, bathing the top of the tilted sub and illuminating Nolan in particular.
Harry took note of the atmospherics and just shook his head. “Oh for Christ’s sake!” he exclaimed. “If you got the Almighty doing your special effects, how the hell can I argue against that?”
Harry then turned back to the still confused but much relieved SEALs, now sitting on the slanted deck, their hands tied behind them.
He leaned down and spit in both their faces.
“What do you know?” he hissed at them. “Today’s your lucky day.”
40
THE SUNRISE TURNED out to be especially spectacular that morning. The hurricane was entirely gone thirty minutes later, taking its wind and rain and heading north to brush the Atlantic coast, but ultimately to die at sea.
After binding and gagging Beaux and Smash and then lashing them to the sub’s top tail fin, the Whiskey team, plus Harry and Ramon, went down to the blue hole and helped sort out the sick sailors from the very sick ones. But even the crewmen who appeared the most ill were starting to look better. Maybe it was being out of the sub and out of danger, or maybe it was the water from the mysterious blue hole, but everyone seemed to be improving, including Nolan and Twitch. When Ramon told them the blue hole’s water was rumored to have healing powers for both mind and body, both men drank a gallon each.
* * *
THE FIRST C-130 appeared over Big Hole Cay around 10 A.M.
It was a Coast Guard plane out of Miami. It circled a few times, then dropped three flares. Nolan had exactly three flares left in Bad Dawg Two; he fired them in reply.
The C-130 wagged its wings and flew off.
* * *
THE FIRST NAVY copters arrived about an hour later. There were five of them in the initial wave. Three were filled with heavily armed Shore Patrol police; another was carrying Navy investigators, engineers and medical personnel. The fifth copter was the command aircraft.
The CO of the landing party was a Navy captain from Fleet Forces Command named Billias. Sitting in the cabin of his large Sea Stallion helicopter, he listened to Whiskey’s account of what had happened, first warning everyone involved that they would still have to do a full debriefing starting the next day on a Navy ship yet to be determined.
This debriefing would take at least a couple days, but as Billias told them, the team couldn’t complain very much. After all, Whiskey was still on the clock.
Batman asked him how the Navy finally figured out where to look for them. Whiskey sure didn’t call them—even if they had wanted to, their sat phones had crapped out long ago.
“Someone on a passing airliner saw the sub in the lake and asked the pilot about it,” Billias replied dryly. “They thought it was a new amusement park.”
Meanwhile, Navy investigators dressed in hazmat gear had gained entry to the sub. They confirmed there were two dead SEALs inside, plus three dead sailors, including Commander Shepherd.
They also reported, after killing the balky generators, that the sub was more or less intact. The reactor was unharmed, as were the Trident missiles. This meant the Navy still had an aura of plausible deniability surrounding the incident. One of its subs had simply run into a little mechanical trouble east of the Bahamas, no big deal. That would be the official story—at least for the time being.
Unofficially, Billias told them the Navy was thrilled that Whiskey didn’t destroy the sub in order to save it, like they did the Indian Navy warship, the Vidynut, in another adventure.
The weirdest thing of all, though, was that some of the Navy SP police had recovered the body of the fifth SEAL, the one nicknamed Ghost. It had washed up at the opposite end of the island.
Whiskey had told the Navy investigators that he’d been blown off the bridge during the battle for the sub. Yet when the SPs found his body, it had been torn apart, right down to the bones. These were not wounds consistent with someone who’d been shot.
“It’s the chickcarnie,” Ramon said, on seeing Ghost’s gruesome corpse. “The monster that lives out here. They wreak havoc on anyone who disturbs their nesting place, dead or alive. He’s been out there all night watching us.”
It sounded crazy—yet no one had any other explanation why the renegade SEAL’s body was found in that condition.
* * *
THE NAVY FINALLY finished with Whiskey by midafternoon.
More Navy helicopters had landed by this time. One took Beaux and Smash away to a high security lockup in, of all places, Guantanamo Bay.
“Haven’t you heard?” Billias told Whiskey. “It’s where we put all the professional terrorists.”
Two Navy repair ships were on the way to Big Hole Cay. The naval engineers were already studying ways to disassemble the Senegals Bridge, intent on letting the water back into the lake gradually and, with any luck, floating the sub out for a tow back to King’s Bay.
Meanwhile, Whiskey asked for and received full tanks of aviation gas for their gunships. While they were all aware of the formal debriefing the following day, they told the Navy there was something they just had to do first.
So, after bidding farewell to the three dozen or so sailors they helped free from the Wyoming, the two Whiskey copters finally took off from Big Hole Cay.
* * *
BATMAN WAS FLYING Bad Dawg One; Nolan was piloting Bad Dawg Two. The Senegals, Agent Harry and Ramon were all with them—as well as another passenger. Crash’s body had been wrapped in plastic and temporarily buried on Big Hole Cay, away from the fighting. It was now lying on the floor of the passenger compartment of Bad Dawg Two, a borrowed U.S. fla
g draped over it.
The two copters flew west until they reached the coast of Florida. Night was just falling.
Using Agent Harry’s directions, they found a military cemetery right on the coast near Fort Lauderdale. They landed on a beach nearby, and climbed up to the darkened graveyard. The four remaining Whiskey members carried the body. The rest of the group carried some of the rusty shovels from Big Hole Cay.
They found an empty spot and dug a grave, with everyone pitching in, including Harry and Ramon. Adhering to an ancient custom from their country, the Senegals dug with their hands.
Then they finally laid Crash to rest.
There were no prayers, just five good minutes of silence. Crash had no family, so he would stay here, in good company with other fallen heroes, until his friends could make more permanent arrangements.
When they were done, Harry used a sat phone borrowed from Billias to call ONI headquarters in Washington. He asked for the status of the three other crisis points around the world.
The reply was brief. “No nukes have gone off anywhere in the past forty-eight hours,” he said. “So things must be heading the right direction.”
So, positive news all round.
It was time to leave. The group headed back down to the copters on the beach, but Batman and Nolan stayed behind for a moment.
“Well, you got your wish,” Batman told him. “Bad way for it to come about, but at least it happened.”
Nolan didn’t know what he meant.
“You’re on U.S. soil,” Batman explained. “For at least a little while anyway.”
Nolan looked around and took in a long breath of the warm air.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” he said.
He reached down and took a bit of dirt from Crash’s grave and put it in his pocket.
Then he said, “I guess this will have to do—for now.”
FORGE BOOKS BY MACK MALONEY
The Pirate Hunters
Operation Caribe
Operation Sea Ghost (forthcoming)
For a free Pirate Hunters patch, visit
www.mackmaloney.com
Daring the Pirates to Shoot at Them!
The two attack copters came screaming out of the night sky, the pirate camp dead in their sights. To the dark amusement of all, Crash changed the MP3 blaring out the psyops sounds to a hyperventilated version of “Ride of the Valkyries.”
“Now comes the fun part,” Nolan thought grimly.
He armed all his weapons. The .50-caliber machine guns mounted on his winglets came back as ready; same for the huge 30mm cannon sticking out of the copter’s nose. Twitch had his M4 up on the portside weapons mount, fed by a continuous belt of ammunition. Gunner’s huge “Streetsweeper” was ready, too.
In seconds, both copters were down to just ten feet off the deck. Nolan went in first, with Batman just behind him. Whiskey was daring the pirates to fire at them so they would know where to fire back. Any brigand who showed himself to shoot at Nolan would find himself in Batman’s crosshairs an instant later.
It quickly turned nuts. The noise of the two copters flying so low was deafening, yet Nolan could still hear the energized strains of “Ride of the Valkyries” over the roar. Everything was loud and fast, and smoke and flames and flashes of light were going off in all directions.
But … something was wrong.
Nolan knew it right away.
Read on to see what people are saying about
The Pirate Hunters.
Advance Praise for Operation Caribe
“A topical tour de force. This is a great read that will keep you on the edge of your seat!”
—Walter J. Boyne, bestselling author of Dawn over Kitty Hawk and Hypersonic Thunder
Praise for The Pirate Hunters
“Mack Maloney’s The Pirate Hunters is more like a thrill ride than sit-down-and-read novel. You open this book, and you’d better be strapped in. [It’s a] hell of a read, reminiscent of some of the early Cusslers where the good guys seriously kick the bad guys where it counts. I can’t wait until Maloney’s next book.”
—David Hagberg,
New York Times bestselling author of The Expediter
“I really enjoyed The Pirate Hunters. It kicked butt. Team Whiskey makes the A-Team look like Girl Scouts.”
—Operations Specialist Philip Motoike, USN, USS
Antietam (CG-54)
“The Pirate Hunters is full of action. The story progresses smoothly and leaves you wanting more. Can’t wait to see what happens in the next book.”
—S.Sgt. Tony Pluger, USA, 3rd Armored Cavalry
Regiment, Thunder Squadron
“The Pirate Hunters rocked! Action-packed and jammed with genuine military gear and tactics.”
—Sgt. David Graves, USA, 82nd Airborne Division
“The Pirate Hunters—lots of action and adventure fueled by adrenaline.”
—Cpl. Rick Kolan, USMC (ret.)
“With clever plotting, scorching pace, and ‘from the news’ situations, Maloney’s straight-ahead style makes the reader realize the high seas can be filled with unusual and unpredictable danger.”
—Boatswain’s Mate George Mann, USCG (ret.)
Praise for Mack Maloney’s
Superhawks Series
“Maloney’s page-turning plots are what everyone would like to see in real life: direct, decisive action against Al-Qaeda killers, without ceremony or pretense. Maloney has his finger on the pulse of the nation. As he sends his Superhawks heroes into the global fight against terrorism, his grasp of modern technical detail combines with the most authentic presentation of terrorist forces, making this the top action series in the marketplace.”
—Walter J. Boyne
“Superhawks is a great adventure series … a perfect blend of rage, humanity, and occasional flashes of dark humor.”
—Jim Morris, author of War Story
“Mack Maloney has created a team of realistic characters that pulse with patriotic fervor. He hasn’t just crafted a great war story, he has set a new standard for action-packed thrillers.”
—Robert Doherty,
bestselling author of the Area 51 series
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
OPERATION CARIBE
Copyright © 2011 by Mack Maloney
All rights reserved.
Edited by James Frenkel
A Forge® eBook
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-6522-4
First Edition: February 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-9364-7
First Forge eBook Edition: February 2011