by Rick Chesler
“Alpha 2, tie this guy up.” Liam removed his belt, which was actually a braided length of 550 paracord (“Don’t leave home without it,” was his motto). He unraveled a suitable length and used the folding knife Tanner had confiscated from his enemy to cut it. Then he quickly but effectively bound the prisoner’s hands behind him and his legs at the ankles.
Tanner pointed to the screens that showed a drone’s eye view of the president’s mega-yacht across the water. “Handle these two drones! I’ll take the two on the other side.”
“I don’t know how to—”
“Neither do I. Figure it out. Unless Mr. Jihad down there wants to help us out?” He eyed the trussed jihadist, who had no reaction. He could try to threaten him with torture into controlling the drones, but that could easily backfire. Knowing he was about to die, the terrorist could decide to crash them into the ship, or even the barge.
Tanner jumped up and went to the drone station on his side of the space, and Liam to his. Tanner eyeballed the two joysticks, one beneath each monitor. One man had been at each station, and now he would have to control two of the MUAVs simultaneously, as would Liam from the opposite side. Tanner looked up at the monitors. In each he could see a landing skid of the drone in the foreground, and then some water with the Lincoln looming larger by the second. It was coming up alarmingly fast. He estimated he had about ten seconds before the micro-drones reached the port side rail.
“A few seconds! Drop ‘em in the water!” Tanner pulled the joystick down on the right-side drone, to see if it would work before doing the same thing with both. It did, and that MUAV nose-dived into the harbor with a tiny splash. But now the other was nearly to the target. He swiped at the joystick without taking his eyes off the monitor and felt his hand slip off into mid-air.
Missed!
He tried again, this time slamming the micro-copter into the hull of the Lincoln, down low by the waterline. He was terrified to see a plume of mist eject from the craft as it slid into the water. At least it was far from the boat’s deck and below the concave hull shape, but it was a close call that chilled him to his core. He called out to Liam.
“How’re you doing?”
“One down.” Liam moved to the second of his twin drone stations. Tanner turned in time to see the video feed of the remaining drone. This one was running at higher altitude than its dispatched squadron-mates, perhaps twenty feet above the level of the yacht’s main deck. Tanner saw that this presented a huge problem, since the cocktail party was presently underway there. He saw men dressed in tuxedos dancing with women in evening gowns as servers circulated with trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres.
“Liam!” He forgot all about using the code name in the urgency of the moment. “Crash it. Crash it!”
On screen, the view of the deck grew more expansive. He watched as Liam jammed his thumb down on the joystick.
“It’s not working!” He pulled the stick in different directions but still the drone headed toward the yacht.
Tanner looked up at the monitor. “Target coordinates must be locked into an onboard chip.”
The quadracopter’s video feed now showed that it was above the yacht’s party deck. A couple of the guests apparently noticed it as their heads tipped skyward. Liam worked the station’s controls to no avail. In frustration he stamped his foot on the deck.
The prisoner started to laugh. Liam drew his foot back to kick him but Tanner stopped him.
Then, to Liam: “Stay here, watch him and keep trying the controls.”
He headed for the exit.
“What’s your plan?”
“Damage control.”
FORTY-NINE
Boothbay Harbor, Maine
Tanner emerged from the wheelhouse onto the barge’s deck. He drew his PM9 and focused on the MUAV now hovering over the mega-yacht’s deck full of VIP guests. It hadn’t yet released its STX payload but he was all too aware that any second now that’s exactly what could happen.
If Liam was unable to stop the drone via the controls, then he would have to take drastic action. He aimed his gun toward the quadracopter, which bobbed and weaved in and out of his sights. The Secret Service agents aboard the Lincoln were now on deck looking up at the potential threat, busily communicating into their radios. By the time they took action, it would almost certainly be too late.
Tanner squeezed off two rounds at the micro-drone, both missing. Knowing he would now draw the wrath of the Secret Service on him, he fired again, a single shot, but a good one. He watched as one of the MUAV’s rotors broke away from the body and flew off into the water.
“Take out the drone!” Tanner yelled to the Secret Service guys, but it was no good. They began firing on the barge as the MUAV, still airborne, struggled to maintain a hover with only three-quarters of unbalanced power.
Tanner ducked behind the structure and ran around to the opposite side, pounding on the wall as he went to let Liam know that the situation was critical. He came out on the other side and knelt on one knee, steadying his aim. He had maybe a couple of seconds before the agents became aware of his new position.
He squeezed off three more bullets, feeling relief more than satisfaction as two of them found their mark and pieces of the MUAV shattered into the air, the micro-copter plummeting toward the yacht’s starboard rail. Tanner held his breath as he lowered his weapon and scoured the MUAV for signs of a plume of STX ejecting from it, but he saw none as the contraption impacted with the rail. For one heart-stopping moment Tanner thought the micro-copter was going to fall back into the sea, where it would no longer pose a threat. But instead the broken machine tilted and fell onto the deck of the yacht. Those nearby stampeded away from the wreckage.
And then a Secret Service round splintered the wooden wall above Tanner’s head, and the OUTCAST operative wheeled away. He got to his feet and dashed to the door of the structure. Throwing it open, he ran to the inner room where Liam stood guard over the Hofstad prisoner, watching the monitors.
“Good work! It landed on the yacht but I haven’t seen any plume.”
Tanner nodded. “Secret Service is all over us, though. Patch a call through to Danielle and tell her we need comm. I’ll try the manual method.”
Tanner moved to the VHF marine radio that was part of normal marine vessel equipment. Maybe he could explain himself to the yacht’s captain and establish a line of communication with the president’s team that way.
They heard the thudding of lead slugs against the structure’s outer walls as they reached out to communicate. It was Liam who made contact first. Flashing on how much the communication system had cost to implement, Tanner was grateful for it now, and he made a mental note to look into having it upgraded upon their return. If they returned.
Liam quickly conveyed the situation to Danielle, who promised to contact the White House and brief the appropriate people on the breaking situation. She did not want to distract them with the horrible news about Jasmijn, but did say that the antidote had been developed successfully and that Dante, Stephen and Naomi were en route to Maine with doses of it now via supersonic air transport, should it be needed.
Tanner, meanwhile was having trouble raising anyone on the Lincoln. He was using channel 16, the one reserved for marine emergencies, and getting no response. He switched over to a vessel-to-vessel channel and hailed the president’s yacht.
“Barge to Lincoln, barge to Lincoln,” he began, wanting to make it crystal clear where he was transmitting from. A few seconds passed and then he received a reply from a stressed-sounding male voice.
“This is yacht, Lincoln to barge. You are ordered to surrender. I repeat, you are ordered by the United States Secret Service to surrender. Show yourselves on deck with your hands up!”
“Just tell President Carmichael that this is Tanner Wilson of OUTCAST. I’m on board the barge with Liam Reilly, my team member, and a suspected Hofstad terror operator we are holding until he can be placed in custody, over!”
The r
eply came quickly, suggesting that nothing was being done to authenticate Tanner’s story. “You will need to surrender regardless of who you are!”
Tanner looked over at Liam, who stared with concern at the remaining drone display. “Special Forces team incoming,” he noted, watching an assemblage of black-clad men aboard a black Zodiac inflatable boat approaching the barge at high speed.
“We better comply.” Tanner waved an arm toward the exit.
“What about him?” Liam pointed to the terrorist bound on the floor, who had become more alert at the sound of the gunfire.
Tanner considered using him as a human shield but decided it increased the risk that he and Liam would be seen as the terrorists.
“Leave him. Let’s go.”
Tanner and Liam tucked their guns into the front of their waistbands, where they would be visible, but kept their hands raised high as they exited the structure onto the deck of the barge.
FIFTY
Boothbay Harbor, Maine
“Do not move!” The icy male voice issued from a megaphone held by the driver of the inflatable boat that now deployed a special forces team onto the barge.
Tanner and Liam froze with their hands high in the air. They stood two feet from the barge’s rail, on the side facing the president’s yacht.
“We’re on your side,” Tanner stated as two of the team scouted the barge deck for more people.
“Former SEAL Team 6, here,” added Liam.
“Shut up! Keep your hands up!”
They were scared. They trusted nothing. Tanner couldn’t blame them.
“On your knees. Now!”
The pair of OUTCAST operators complied with the instruction.
Their hands were bound behind their backs with flex cuffs and they were taken aboard the small boat, which motored over to the mega-yacht. The entire inflatable was lifted aboard the yacht by crane, and then the two operators were dragged across the deck where the party had been happening, the guests having been cleared to other parts of the ship.
As soon as they were taken inside the door to the salon, President Carmichael was there to greet them, flanked by several of his cabinet and additional security personnel.
Tanner smiled as he looked at the president. The look on the face of the POTUS transformed with recognition. He addressed the Secret Service agents holding onto Tanner and Liam.
“Wait! I know this man! Tanner Wilson?”
Tanner grinned. “It’s a pleasure to see you, Sir. Wish it could be under better circumstances.”
Carmichael nodded before continuing to address his people. “He saved our asses during that god-awful reaper drone thing!” One of the men standing next to Carmichael said something softly to him that Tanner couldn’t hear, but they heard the POTUS reply, “Yes! That’s him!”
“Liam Reilly, here, was there, too, Sir.” Tanner cocked his head at Liam. Carmichael nodded solemnly before commanding his agents.
“Free these individuals at once. See to it that these two men are given five-star treatment. Have them debrief you and then show them to a suite. Now!”
“Yes, Mr. President.” While one of the agents cut the flex cuffs from his wrists, Tanner spoke.
“Mr. President, you should know that we detained one of the terrorists in the barge’s wheelhouse. He’s tied up in there now.”
One of the Secret Service men touched his earbud and nodded. “They just found him. They’re bringing him out on the barge deck now.”
“Can we go out and get a look at him?” Carmichael asked. “Maybe one of us knows who he is?”
The Secret Service agents locked gazes with each other for a second, one of them shrugging before quietly intoning commands into his lip mic. Then the agents held the salon door open while the president and his entourage exited to the yacht’s main deck. Tanner, Liam and the remaining Secret Service men followed.
The door to the barge’s wheelhouse opened and the terrorist was brought outside, literally dragging his feet. An evil grin occupied his face when he looked up and saw the line of people gawking at him from the rail of the Lincoln, but he said nothing.
“I don’t recognize him. Do we know who he is?” Carmichael asked no one in particular.
“Hofstad member,” Tanner said, preempting the Secret Service agent who shot him an irritated look.
“Speak English?” the president asked.
The terrorist said nothing. “Probably Dutch, but maybe English, too,” Tanner explained.
“Anyone speak Dutch here?” Carmichael looked around.
An elderly woman had just raised her hand when the terrorist called up to them.
“You will all die for failing to meet our demands!”
Two agents grabbed the terrorist and began dragging him to a waiting inflatable boat.
“Where will he be taken?” Carmichael asked.
“Your time is up!” The jihadist screamed.
Suddenly a powerful explosion rocked the barge.
FIFTY-ONE
Boothbay Harbor, Maine
“Down!” Tanner grabbed President Carmichael and flung him flat to the deck, several Secret Service agents dog-piling on top of them. Tanner looked to the side and saw Liam with his eyes open, crouched, watching the barge. He knew he had a lot of demolition experience, having been through BUDS training as a SEAL. If he felt comfortable to be in an upright position already, then he must be anticipating the force of the explosion to be non-lethal.
But with the exception of the Secret Service agents and the terrorist on the barge, the force of the explosion was the least of their problems. Tanner got to his feet and looked down on the terror vessel. A huge hole had been blasted in its middle, amidships. It was taking on water fast. Tanner felt fine droplets rain down on him. He assumed they were seawater from the explosion.
And then he saw with horror the pieces of white plastic floating away from the barge, and he knew.
The STX container!
Jasmijn had described the vat to him that Hofstad had stolen from her. Why else would Hofstad rig this barge to blow if not to trigger another neurotoxin blast? The previous attack — the warm-up act — had operated on essentially the same principle — exploding open a container of STX, but by sheer force of collision rather than incendiary. Tanner watched the slivers of white plastic drift away from the hole in the sinking vessel’s side. The terrorists had gambled everything on the yacht of the president, even more than Tanner had suspected.
He had thought they would be holding on to their precious supply of neuro-agent to milk the fear factor for as long as possible, to let the world know that they were capable of inflicting a deadly strike anywhere, anytime. But instead, they’d put all of their eggs in one ultra-poisonous basket, and now that basket had been dumped on the POTUS and everyone else aboard his yacht. Including Tanner. Including Liam.
No sooner had Tanner gripped Liam’s shoulder to break the news than he heard the first coughs of irritation start among those aboard the yacht.
“Liam. Liam!” The ex-SEAL looked up at his friend. Tanner continued.
“We have to assume that the explosion was an STX bomb using the rest of the stolen vat.”
“Shit.” Liam pulled his shirt collar up over his nose and mouth, but his eyes told Tanner that he knew it wouldn’t matter.
“I’ll see if I can get through to Danielle.” Liam stepped back from the crowd where people were still screaming and talking loudly. He tapped his earbud and waited. Meanwhile, he looked over the rail at the barge and counted the bodies floating away from it. He cringed when he spotted the stump of a leg bobbing by itself, then sighted the body of the man he’d tied up, minus a leg. Got what you wanted, I guess.
And what of his own fate? Liam thought back to the account Tanner had relayed from Jasmijn of how her lab assistant had died from the stuff, of the news-reel footage he’d seen of the victims in Hawaii and Florida clutching their throats…
“Okay! Yes!” He heard Tanner say with excitement in
to his bone conducting mic. “We are aboard the president’s yacht, the Lincoln, anchored in Boothbay Harbor. Liam—” He turned toward his colleague.
“Yeah?”
“Find out from the Captain if the Lincoln is preparing to move. Tell him we have help on the way but they need to be able to find us right away.”
Liam had questions of his own but he knew better than to stall things by asking them now. He moved to the president, who was kneeling between two Secret Service agents, each of whom had a hand on the back of the POTUS.
“Excuse me Mr. President—”
“Not now!” one of the agents growled.
Liam wasn’t deterred. “I need to know for sure if the ship will be at anchor for the next few minutes. We have a possible solution en route.”
The agent started to wave him down but Carmichael spoke. “You have help on the way? We’ll stay right here. That’s an order!” He turned to the agent who had told Liam to be quiet. “Tell the captain not to move us. Now!”
“Right away, Mr. President.” He picked up a two-way radio and spoke softly into it, used to keeping operational instructions on the lowdown.
Tanner walked over to the group, finished with his conversation with Danielle. “They’ve got an antidote and they’re in the air now to bring it to us.” His expression and manner didn’t seem to carry the same degree of optimism that uttering those words should.
“Is there a catch?” Liam wanted to know.
“Jasmijn’s dead.”
“What? How—”