Marked for Death

by Marked for Death (retail) (epub)

  ‘From what I’ve been able to learn he has no religious or political allegiance, unless you count the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria he once fought for. Even then, intelligence suggests he has no current affiliation with the CRI or any other Chechen rebel group, and until you mentioned his name he wasn’t on any Homeland watch list. Well, that isn’t exactly true: MPD vice and Customs and Border Control have been on his ass for years, but… well, you know how successful they’ve been.’

  ‘He is being protected,’ I said, as contritely as I could. ‘He is paying off certain key authorities, or blackmailing them, but there’s more to it. Is he a CIA asset, Walt? A fucking foreign national with ties to a terrorist group doesn’t get to run a criminal empire in the US without somebody looking the other way.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly say.’ He meant he wouldn’t. ‘So don’t press me. We have been able to confirm that Sean Cahill, Daniel StJohn and the others you’ve contacted are listed as private military contractors, but with the exclusion of Cahill none have raised an alarm that they’ve ever worked for our enemies.’

  ‘Cahill?’

  ‘His daddy was Real IRA. Cahill enlisted with the British Army, allegedly in rebellion with the sins of his father. He was suspected of getting involved in the drugs trade while serving in Afghanistan, but was never caught. After leaving the army he resurfaced as a mercenary, worked for us in Iraq, and later in Libya and Syria. Which brings us back to what we think this is all about. It’s unconfirmed, but through Viskhan, Cahill’s team have been hired to launch a counter-strike against the US for the recent bombings of IS bases, in particular the one where we took out thirty-six of their people when we dropped the MOAB.’ The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, more commonly known as the Mother Of All Bombs, was allegedly the most powerful non-nuclear explosive ordnance employed by the US, and it had targeted a cave system in Afghanistan that Islamic State employed as a base: use of the bomb had caused political furore and international condemnation, and even prompted fears of a Third World War when North Korea grew defiant at President Trump’s overt show of military power. ‘There’s also thinking that the Assad regime could be responsible for Viskhan’s actions, after we bombarded that air base in response to him gassing his own people.’

  ‘Yeah, well, whoever’s behind him is your job to find out. I’m not interested in the politics, only stopping the bastard.’

  ‘You aren’t listening, Joe, but why doesn’t that surprise me?’

  Rink had been party to the conversation throughout, and despite driving at speed, had absorbed exactly what Walter referred to. And made the connection where the Nephilim was heading.

  ‘Mar-a-Lago,’ he intoned.

  I shot him a look of incomprehension.

  He glimpsed away from the road long enough to explain.

  ‘The Southern White House.’

  Walter heard, said, ‘The Nephilim is headed towards Palm Beach and the presidential retreat. This could be an attack directed at the POTUS in response to him ordering those recent attacks.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me? Is the president even at his retreat?’

  ‘No. He’s safely out here in D.C., but it’s not about killing him, but hitting him where it hurts most personally. He bombed their house, so they’re going to return the favour.’

  ‘If that were true, why haven’t you had the Nephilim sunk already?’

  ‘We can’t. Not until we know for sure Viskhan’s intentions and that he poses a credible threat. We don’t know if he’s even on board, and until we do, and confirm an imminent attack, we can’t shoot him out of the water. The SEAL mission is as much about confirming the specific threat, and if they are unable to take the boat, they’re going to laser paint it for a missile strike.’

  ‘That’s what you meant when you couldn’t make any promises about protecting us from friendly fire?’

  ‘It’s why I warned you to only take an eyes-on approach,’ he confirmed. ‘If you’re on board and the threat to Mar-a-Lago is deemed credible and imminent, a fighter jet will be scrambled and I won’t be able to stop that missile: you’ll be burned along with everyone else.’

  37

  Mar-a-Lago is an historic estate in Palm Beach, built by a socialite called Marjorie Merriweather Post in the 1920s. Post envisioned the southern mansion as a winter retreat for American presidents and foreign dignitaries – possibly with the idea of currying favour from such highly placed politicians rather than through altruism – but it went unused by any president until purchased by Donald Trump. It was almost as if he’d foreseen the future when Trump, a successful businessman at the time, snapped up the beachside estate as part of his expanding property portfolio back in the 1980s. Since his inauguration as the 45th President of the United States of America, he had used it as his Camp David-style retreat.

  I knew little more about the estate as we headed for it except for a few snippets I’d watched on the news when last Trump was in residence. I’d learned enough to know Mar-a-Lago currently housed a private members-only club, guest rooms, spa and hotel-style amenities, and that the president maintained private quarters in a separate area of the house and grounds. I’d also heard rumours that the estate came equipped with bomb shelters and a sensitive facility for direct communications with the White House Situation Room and Pentagon. I did not doubt that at that moment, messages were flying to and fro from that facility, and that a lockdown of the estate was under way. When the POTUS was in residence, air and shipping operations were restricted in its vicinity, and the Coast Guard and Secret Service secured the two waterway approaches to the estate by sea and lagoon. The Secret Service also restricted access to surrounding streets. When the president was home, Mar-a-Lago was almost impregnable to outside threat. Unfortunately, Trump wasn’t in the house. Therefore neither were the resources to counter the abrupt threat, though I suspected they were being marshalled as Rink drove us at speed along Gateway Boulevard in Boynton Beach for the shore of Lake Worth Lagoon. At random Rink took a left into an area of lakefront property called Hypoluxo. As expected almost every man, woman and dog that lived on the lagoon owned a boat.

  Grabbing the carryall from the trunk of the car, I charged after Rink and we hijacked the first seaworthy vessel we could get going. A couple of teenage boys had to be chased off it first, and they hollered curses at us as Rink pointed the prow towards a narrow inlet from the lagoon, the only access to the open sea nearby. I trusted to Rink’s inbuilt navigation system, because I’d no idea where in relation we were to the presidential retreat when we roared out into the Atlantic Ocean. He got a fix immediately, sending the speedboat in a tight curve to take us north, then pulled down on the throttle. Time was ticking away, and every second wasted was a second closer Viskhan got to his target.

  There were other craft on the sea, but I gave them little notice. I watched out for the Coast Guard, and for an incoming missile. Primarily I searched the heat-hazed horizon for the super-yacht, even as I pulled from their bag two of the MAC-10 machine pistols and readied them for action.

  Mar-a-Lago, it turned out, was still a few miles north of us, situated at Palm Beach on the narrow strip of land between Lake Worth Lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean, another of those barrier islands that had featured heavily since my arrival in Miami. Beachfront condos, golf courses and tennis clubs dominated the land we scudded past. Rink didn’t spare the horsepower.

  ‘Do you see her yet, Hunter?’ Rink had to shout over the roar of the outboard motor and the slapping of the hull as it bounced over the waves.

  ‘Couple of ships out to the east, but I can’t tell if any of them is the Nephilim.’ I had braced myself against the hull of the speedboat to avoid being thrown overboard as we crested the higher swells. The ships I could see were little more than hazy blotches on the horizon. ‘I don’t see anything up ahead that is big enough.’

  ‘What if we got ahead of her?’ Rink suggested.

  We had no idea of the yacht’s cruising speed, or even
if Viskhan had flogged the engines. At some point as we hurtled up the coast we could very well have gotten ahead of it, despite its early lead. Another consideration: what if we were wrong about its destination and the yacht had swept on past Mar-a-Lago?

  ‘Wait!’ I said, and craned as tall as I could without losing balance. ‘There! Do you see it?’

  Rink was at the stern, which was at a lower point in the water. He couldn’t see what I’d spotted.

  I’d only been able to picture the Nephilim in my mind, and had overexaggerated its actual appearance. It was as long as I’d thought, but had sleeker and lower lines. From a distance its white hull blended perfectly with the spume cloud stirred in its wake as it forged north. Rink swung the speedboat side-on for a better look. ‘Sure looks like a super-yacht to me,’ he confirmed. ‘D’you see that? Not only has it a helipad, there’s a chopper on board.’

  The appearance of the helicopter didn’t come as any surprise. A narcissist like Viskhan didn’t strike me as the type to launch a personal suicide attack; he’d have a rapid escape strategy in place. I gave his getaway chopper scant notice, instead turning and scanning the heavens for any hint of incoming aircraft. As yet the Navy SEALs were still en route.

  ‘So are we doing this?’ I asked.

  ‘Never a backward step, brother.’

  ‘Then let’s go get the bastards.’

  Rink throttled up and sent the prow directly towards the distant Nephilim like a dart.

  38

  There was none of Fedor Stepanov’s regular crew aboard the Nephilim. Mikhail Viskhan had replaced them with a crew of his own choosing, each and every last man and woman as expendable as the yacht, in his opinion. They were a mixture of radicalised jihadists, criminals and other cannon fodder bullied into obeying him. Of the latter Viskhan knew that a slave would be defiant if they were the only one punished for their rebellion, so instead he threatened those dearest to their hearts: their wives, their children, their parents. Occasionally he caught dark looks from some of those coerced into his plan, and he knew that they would prefer to turn the guns he’d given to them on him, except for the genuine fear that his omnipotent reach would still extend to the throats of their loved ones. But should anyone decide the temptation was too strong to resist, he had given them unloaded guns. His quartermaster would pass around magazines to them only when they were approaching their target. In the meantime, the reluctant suicide assault team were under armed guard by those radicalised and chomping at the bit to give up their own lives – and to take as many innocents with them as possible.

  Sean Cahill had always been uneasy about using innocent people in the attack, though not through any sense of compassion: he simply didn’t think that they would be reliable when their hearts weren’t in the job. He fully suspected they’d throw down their weapons the instant opposition was shown. Viskhan thought otherwise. People terrified for the welfare of their loved ones were more determined fighters than any religious fanatic he’d ever met.

  They were quickly approaching Mar-a-Lago. The next fifteen minutes would tell who was correct.

  Because they were nearing their target, the activity on board had grown hectic. To avoid detection as they sailed from Miami, all signs of the yacht’s actual battle capability had been concealed under tarpaulins. The yacht had been retrofitted as a floating war machine. Those forced into – or willingly in the jihadists’ sakes – storming the beach were literally there to draw fire while Cahill’s people did the real damage from the decks. Dan StJohn had overseen the situating of a pair of L1A1 heavy machine guns, fixing them to the decks with weapon mount installation kits, and also a number of L16A2 81 mm mortar and 40 mm grenade launch points. With a range of half a mile, mortar rounds could easily be dropped within the grounds of Mar-a-Lago where most destruction was Viskhan’s desired result. This had never been about an assassination attempt on the president, but showing him that his house too could be bombed. Nor could Viskhan give a damn about the political ambitions of his Islamic State employers, because this was about payback on two fronts personal to him: the Yanks had almost killed him that time they pounded the Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan, where only Cahill’s selflessness had saved his life, but also bombs had murdered his father, mother and siblings during the Battle of Grozny. On that occasion it was the Russians who’d made him an orphan, but arguing was semantics when Trump and Putin were being too pally for his liking.

  He knew his decision to send Sean Cahill’s team after Trey and Joe Hunter had jeopardised his operation, in that he’d lost the professionalism of men trained in the weaponry on board, but he was a man driven by the need for revenge. His wife forsaking him, and being knocked on his backside by a lesser man – both were good reason to chase them to the ends of the earth, in his opinion. He didn’t personally regret the loss of Sean’s men apart from the fact he was yet to be avenged, but he did regret losing their expertise. Sean, though, assured him that the crew had been sufficiently trained in the use of the weapons, and all the land assault team need do was point and squeeze. In one matter the decimation of Sean’s team was fortuitous: there had always been an issue problematic to Sean, in that escape from the yacht of his entire team would become difficult once the attack was launched. Originally the plan was to attack the presidential retreat under darkness, and then abandon the yacht while the team escaped in RIBs to points on the mainland where they had vehicles waiting. Now Viskhan’s escape strategy had been altered for the better, where he and Sean would take to the heavens in the Nephilim’s helicopter, the rigid inflatable boats would not be required. If any of the surviving crew decided to take the spare skiff they’d brought, then that was on them – in daylight they’d be shot out of the water before they made landfall.

  Dan StJohn could have proved a sticking point in their arrangement. The Englishman had always shown loyalty to Sean, but he had placed a question in Sean’s mind when suggesting they slay Viskhan and take over his criminal activities. It would only be a matter of time before StJohn decided that Sean too was extraneous to his ambitions and would invite a bullet to his brain. Any attack made on Viskhan was to be treated severely, be that a sneaky punch in the manner of Joe Hunter or the suggestion of assassination by StJohn. There was no seat on the getaway copter for the treacherous son of a bitch, and Viskhan would take great pleasure in killing the bastard before he flew off. Last night he’d almost forewarned StJohn of his intent when kicking him in the head – a foolhardy thing to do, but he wasn’t lying when he told Sean he was finding it difficult containing the urge to murder the Brit. Though he had to admit, kicking him had offered a small degree of satisfaction and somewhat energised him after previous disappointments.

  Sean knew of his plan to murder StJohn. If he didn’t approve, he didn’t protest, and Viskhan was confident he never would. Sean’s loyalty to him was unquestioned; the man was smitten with him. Not in an unhealthy sexual manner that Viskhan could not tolerate, but Sean loved him with the depth of a brother. Viskhan’s feelings for Sean didn’t run as deep, but he let him believe so; it made Sean malleable to his will. Ironically, had he employed a similar pretext with Trey, perhaps his wife would not have betrayed him. He scorned the notion of irony. He would not lie to her; Trey was a whore to be used, and he had been determined she’d learn her place.

  It angered him that she hadn’t learned the supreme lesson yet: he was not to be crossed. Once he was done here and had returned to Chechnya, he would raise a bounty on her head. He’d toyed with the idea of having her brought to him alive so that her torment could be endless, but he’d be happy enough that she was dead because of the trouble she’d caused. But then, as had the slaying of most of Sean’s team, her betrayal had also brought opportunity. Through reports to Sean from Parkinson and Frost, the injured PMCs left behind in Miami, he’d heard the attack in SoBe was dominating the news and the nation’s collective attention was pinned to the aftermath of the short but shocking gun battle. His four-man suicide squad had managed to
kill six people, including one police officer, injure dozens of others and send a shockwave of dismay through the populace. As far as terror attacks went the results were negligible, but as a distraction it had worked as well as Sean promised it would: any pugilist knew that a swift jab was the best prelude to the knockout punch. The hammer blow he was about to launch from the Nephilim was the spectacular that would really have the world talking.

  He took a last lingering look at his surroundings. Stepanov was about to lose his boat, but Viskhan couldn’t give a shit. He’d played the Russian into loaning him the yacht on the promise of a fresh batch of nubile virgins on his return from the Far East. Instead, Stepanov would be forced into hiding or face scandal next time he set foot in the US; that or implication in an IS terror plot. Losing his yacht would prove the lesser of Stepanov’s concerns in the coming months, especially when Viskhan delivered proof of his sexual deviance to the FBI. Discounting personal enemies but above all others he hated Russians, and Fedor Stepanov wasn’t an exception.

  Rapid footsteps approached.

  Viskhan turned and greeted Sean Cahill with a rictus grin. The Irishman’s mouth was set in an equally tight grimace.

  ‘Is everything in order?’ Viskhan asked needlessly.

  ‘We’re minutes out, Mikhail. Soon we’ll be in mortar range of the estate, and Dan’s prepping the RIB to send the landing party ashore… but we might have a problem.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘We’ve a boat incoming on our rear.’

  ‘Gunship?’

  ‘No, but there appear to be two armed men aboard.’

  Viskhan laughed in scorn. ‘That isn’t a problem to us. In fact, let’s get things underway. It’s time to try those machine guns out; have your gunners shoot that boat out of the water for me.’

  Nodding sharply, Cahill turned away, hollering commands to the nearest men. The tarpaulins were deftly removed, uncovering the tripod-mounted heavy machine guns. The guns were belt-fed, fifty 12.7 mm rounds a time, and had an upper cyclical rate of six hundred and thirty-five rounds per minute: at full continuous fire fifty rounds could be expelled in seconds, reducing its target to scraps. The aft gunner swung the HMG on its gimbal, lining up the approaching boat, and let loose hell.