“Thirty seconds!”
We were now skimming barely above the water’s surface at high speed. I had my right foot buried deep in the thick black coil of rope positioned at the lip of the helo’s flooring, holding it in place until it was time to kick it out and away when the helo flared to a momentary hover over the boat’s foredeck. I’d directed the pilot to place us no more than fifty feet above the Wind Storm so the ride down the rope would be as fast as possible. By now Nemesis had to know we were inbound and a reception party was no doubt assembling to greet us. Blanchard would want to wax our uninvited asses before our boots hit the deck so I knew we needed to rip down the fast rope like chicken-lickin’ raped apes if we were going to survive the first contact. On the plus side, it’s harder than you might think to shoot a black blur dropping out of the night sky. At least, that’s what I was counting on.
Shit! The ’hawk suddenly pulled pitch and shuddered to a crazy kind of stop over the Wind Storm. The change in “Gs” nearly blacked my ass out but I fought the wildly fluctuating pressures pounding against my brain and body and then felt the helo assume a bone-jarring hover. With a guttural roar I kicked the fast rope out and immediately grabbed a chunk of line even as it was free falling toward the hand-laid teak decking below. I threw myself out of the ’hawk and with a slight twist like I’d been taught to execute when inserting by FRIES, I began spiraling downward, holding the thick braided rope loosely between my Rogue-sized mitts. I wore my Hatch assault gloves with Kevlar palm padding to protect me from serious rope burn, but my descent was so fast and nearly out of control I still felt immense heat building up. I kept my boots completely off the rope since I had no intention of braking anytime soon. With my feet spread shoulder-width apart I slammed almost dead center on the ritzy little landing pad the Wind Storm had on its deck for hop-and-pop pleasure runs and catered partygoers.
Damn, I’m good!
My smug attitude was kicked right out of me as the SEAL only one boot heel above me on the line smashed directly into my fucking shoulders and upper back. I went flying forward and off the raised platform just as a stream of red tracer fire arced upward at the ’hawk. “GO! GO! GO!” I yelled at my operators as they came flying down the rope one after another. I landed hard on the deck hitting my face, hands, chest, and knees. FUCK! I rolled up into a kneeling position and swung my M4A1’s muzzle onto a figure one deck above me. Slapping the selector switch to AUTO I pressed the little carbine’s trigger and emptied my initial thirty-round magazine at the motherfucker who was trying to shoot down my aircrew.
Cocksucker!
The figure disappeared and I had no idea if I’d hit him or not. But at least his outgoing fire stopped and I watched as the lead bird slipped portside so the second chopper could maneuver into position and drop its load of operators onto the Storm. Off in the distance I could hear the distinct thumpa-thumpa-thumpa of the ’47’s twin rotor system as the 160 helo orbited above us. They’d be painting the Wind Storm with their onboard infrared capability allowing my airborne assets—especially the gunship high overhead—to monitor the action on the decks and in the surrounding water. We’d dropped in on Blanchard with our night vision goggles at the ready, but I knew Nemesis would be likewise equipped. They—like us—would take advantage of the IR spotlight Trace was now working the boat with. Sure as shit someone inside cut the electrics and the boat went dark from stem to stern. Goggles on, everybody. Now we were fighting in the odd green-black glow of night vision and that, dear reader, is some really weird outer space shit.
“MOVE FORWARD AND PUT SOME FIRE DOWN ON THE UPPER DECKS, GODDAMN IT!”
Even as I gave the order, all three M240s cut loose from behind and beside me, their muzzle flashes near blinding as ribbons of tracer-led steel began chewing the expensive luxury boat apart. The noise was deafening and I thanked the war gods watching over us we were all using New Eagle International’s most excellent facial bone tactical headsets. I could hear my operators despite the intense volume of firepower, and I could communicate with them and the birds simply by switching frequencies with the flick of a finger on my Saber. Make a fucking note! Commo in battle is key! It keeps a team shooting, moving, and thinking as a team. In my business, teams survive where individuals die. And I say dying is a fate reserved for the other guy.
“Dick! You’ve got movement on your left flank! On the main deck. He’s moving fast.”
I keyed my Saber. “Roger that, Danny! Trace, put some mini-gunfire down around this tub. Do a 360 and make it close. I want this son of a bitch to know we’ve pulled the fucking stops out on this one. It’ll put the fuckers’ heads down, too. GO!”
High above me and to my two o’ clock I heard the buzz saw throb of a mini-gun. A solid sheet of fire lit the sky up as the ’47 banked hard to port and began tearing up the river all around us. Through my NVGs I could see impressive geysers of water exploding into the air as hundreds of rounds slammed into the river’s surface at thousands of feet per second. At the altitude Trace was firing from and at the velocity of the incoming ordnance it was like shooting at concrete from an arm’s distance away. I heard ricochets pinging and zinging over us, many of them slamming into the Wind Storm’s hull. Suddenly the firing stopped and was replaced by a momentary weird-ass eerie silence.
I ended that little interlude by going after the man Danny warned me about.
Rolling over and over until I was looking down the long walkway on my left flank, I saw him. He’d gone to his belly when the mini-motherfucker had opened up and was just pushing himself up to his feet when I bracketed him with two rounds to the chest. Fuck me to tears if he didn’t just stagger backward under the two hammer-like blows and then let loose with a 5.56 Squad Automatic Weapon, or SAW, on my big ass! I heard a grunt in my headset and knew someone behind me was hit. Shit! The Nemesis operator must have been wearing trauma plates inside his soft body armor, otherwise my two spine busters would have cut through him like crap goes through the proverbial goose. Fucking Murphy again! God, I hate that Mick! I willed myself to melt into the deck as a second long burst from the SAW roared over my back. I felt the TT-assault pack being ripped apart and then away by the angry little steel hornets my asshole buddy up yonder was sending in my direction. Suddenly a flash bang grenade went off between the shooter and where I was lying prone like a whore after a good hour’s gangbanging. The WHUMMFF-BANG! of the diversionary device seemed to lift me off the deck. The SAW ceased sawing and I took the opportunity to roll an M26 baseball grenade down the passageway toward the Tango’s last known location. When the fucking little ballistic globe went off, I heard a shrill scream followed by a series of grunts and sucking wheezes. I knew I’d nailed the bastard good and in an instant I was up and running toward him.
“GO—GO—GO!” I yelled into my voice-activated mike. I saw the downed man just as I was about to trip over his ripped-up body. The frag had torn one leg clean off below the knee and peppered the asshole’s lower body with hundreds of shards of splintered steel wire. His head, encased in a black balaclava, was lolling from side to side as he continued to moan and gasp for breath. I hopped over him, landed in a growing pool of blood, slipped and fell to my knees, swore like the goddamn sailor I am, then pushed my M4’s muzzle against the Tango’s forehead as it lolled into view and pressed my goddamned trigger on full auto.
Adios, motherfucker. Better you than me.
Two SEALs darted around and past me. I could hear more firing coming from the other side of the fucking boat and then Trace was laying down a second ring of steel on the water. This one was so close I felt the spray coming off the boiling surface as she hammered away on the mini-gun now less than 300 feet above us. DELTA trained that bitch well, I thought. Fletcher appeared at my side.
“Skipper! You okay?” he asked.
“Right as fucking rain, Lieutenant! We got anyone hit so far?”
The young SEAL officer nodded quickly. “One dead. Simpson. Took a burst from the SAW amidships. Near cut him in ha
lf. I got another man down with a broken leg. Fast rope accident. He lost his grip and did a thirty-foot freefall to the deck. He’s conscious and providing good cover on our six. Everyone else got in okay but Banner.’Hawk #2 shimmied when it should have shook and he roped into the river. Cut away his gear and we fished him out using the fast rope the crew chief dropped before they pulled pitch. He’s still in the fight. I gave him my 240 to play with.”
I nodded. Teamwork. That was what had got us in here and saved a few of our asses so far. It was good to be back with my SEALs. “Let’s start digging the bastards out! I’m going to have Trace hose this fucking boat from amidships to stern. Then we go below decks and root through each fucking nookie and cranny for the nuke. We brought plenty of flash bangs so tell the men to use them, and to use them a lot. The nuke is the priority. Fuck Blanchard! We’ll deal with him only if he pops up on the radar screen. Copy?”
“Roger that!” Fletcher keyed his voice mike and relayed my orders exactly as I’d given them. I heard the ’47 way out over the water as it swung around and prepared to carpet the unsecured portion of the Wind Storm with mini-gun fire. It was not in our best interests to fight these fuckers one-on-one. We were too evenly matched on all levels and time was working against me where the SADM was concerned. The boat was still making headway up the river and at a fair rate of speed, too. That meant someone was still at the helm and that meant the gap between Ground Zero and the bomb was closing.
This was a bad thing.
I kill bad things.
It’s just my nature.
“Everyone down, we’re hosing the stern and the wheelhouse from the air,” calmly ordered Fletcher. He then slid down the inside bulkhead of the main deck and propped his Joint Service Combat Shotgun atop his knees. With a forty-meter effective range and seven-round, three-inch Magnum ammo capability, the new SOF ’gauge was a nasty little bit of hardware any way you sliced it. “Anytime now,” mused the lieutenant.
No fucking shit! I instinctively tucked my chin deep into my chest as the mini-gun opened up just a hundred feet off the starboard side of the Storm. Everything from gigantic chunks to tiny splinters of deck, trim, and anything else the gunfire hit went spinning through the air and out onto the river like a Texas hailstorm. Trace was hitting the wheelhouse first in an effort to bring the Storm to a halt. Whoever was topside and sailing this poor bitch could not have survived the greasing she was applying in long, accurate, hellish hundred-round bursts. I heard the ’47 moving forward and through my night vision goggles I could see my she-cat in the open gun window. The damn mini opened up again and this time it was the back half of the boat she was raking in long, lazy strokes. I knew Trace would rotate around the stern of this now seriously fucked up pleasure palace and hose the shit outta the props. That would effectively disable the Storm and guarantee it would be here and now that this matter would be settled by moi and my chain dogs from SIX. Sure enough, I felt the vibrations of the pounding the screws and their shafts were taking as Dahlgren stripped them clean away from the hull. The ’47 then moved again and Trace repeated the pounding of the decks, this time from the opposite side of the boat.
“All clear, Skipper! I’m outta ammo, so you’re up!” she announced over my headset. The Chinook rose and lifted away into the darkness. Anyone who’d survived the scrubbing Trace had just given the Storm would have to have been holed up below decks. It was rat-hunting time for the boyz and me.
“Get ’em moving, Lieutenant!”
That’s when my fucking cell phone rang. I couldn’t resist—I fished the little fucker outta a utility pouch and punched the “TALK” button. Remember what I said about commo? “MARCINKO! GO!”
“Dick, it’s Karen. Can you talk?”
The absurdity of it hit me like a punch from Mike Tyson. “Sure,” I said, even as Fletcher fired off a short burst at someone I couldn’t see, “just taking a fucking break when you called. Whazzzz up?”
I feared my attempt at humor had gone awry when Karen angrily replied, “Fuck you and listen up! I just left the president and that asshole Mulcahy. I’m at a fucking bar in Alexandria in the women’s bathroom. I think that prick Clay is outside shadowing me!”
The stubby little black hairs on my ears stood straight up as I heard the venom in her voice. Warning bells were going off in my skull even as a bevy of automatic weapons fire rushed over and past me, the craaak-THUD of flash bangs accenting the ferocity of the combat now beginning to take place below decks. “Spill it. Shit’s going down and I’m playing the back-field by myself right now!”
“Dick, you watch your six! Clay plans to order the gunship to sink the Storm with all aboard if he feels you’re losing control of the situation. Worse, the president sees you as excess baggage and a possible political liability if what you had to do to get this far ever becomes public. Your pardon means squat right now unless you’ve covered your ass in some way I’m not aware of!”
Hmmmm, I thought to myself. The beltway bandits strike again. “Fuck him,” I barked into the cell. “Anything else?”
“Yes. There’s a plan taking shape to do an end run around the Constitution using Blanchard as the fall guy whether you get him or not. Telling you all this will probably cost me my career but…”
“I’ll handle it,” I told her, and I meant it. “Play nice-nice with Mulcahy. I’ll deal with him when I get back. Gotta go, my long distance card is about to run out!”
I punched off and shoved the cell back into its holder. Fuck me to tears! Cross, cross, and double cross! I could handle the president because I’d followed his directive to the letter. By any and all means, he’d told me during our telephonic chit-chat at OISA. I love my microcassette recorder and use the little bastard all the time these days. You never fucking know when someone is going to say something you’d just dearly love to have available later on. I’d covertly taped the silly SOB and then made half a dozen copies and sent each one to a trusted friend—including my first editor who is now working for the FOX network—and my mean-ass Doberman of an attorney. If the president wanted to fuck with Dick, then Dick would fuck with the president—but in the public forum. I’d never brought down a presidential administration before but I’d always wanted to, just to say I did. Not a bad pickup line in a bar. As for Mulcahy, I’d deal with him in my own way and in my own time. You find rats everywhere. Karen had come through for me and at great personal and professional risk to herself. I wouldn’t forget that. Loyalty is Numba One to me. She’d surely earned mine tonight.
“DICK! Need some help down here!”
Back to work.
“Whaddaya got, sailor?” I barked into my mike. I’d fired off half my magazines and was doing a hands-on check of my gear while I moved toward the sound of the action taking place. I stumbled over a body, or what was left of a body, on the rear deck. The mini-gun had hacked the pleasure cruiser’s upper decks to sawdust. From the boat’s slight list, I guessed we were taking on water. Trace had probably opened up the hull when she’d raked the screws on her last pass. Uncle Sam could pay for the damage; it’d be a bargain compared to rebuilding Portland. I took up a security position and scanned the decks and wheelhouse above me. The Storm was smoking from a hundred small fires, thanks to our ample use of tracer rounds, as well as the flash bangs my SEALs had been using in great numbers to flush any Nemesis rats out of the cabins below deck. “SitRep!” I barked into my mike.
Fletcher’s voice came through my earpiece. “We’ve got two additional KIA. Another two with serious wounds and I need MedEvac ASAP off the foredeck. One with light injuries from flying glass but still operational. Three unhurt, including me. What’s your status, Skipper?”
Damn it! My force of ten had been thinned out to four motherfuckers with all their eyes, ears, and fingers properly functioning. “What about Nemesis?” I asked the lieutenant.
“I think we got all of ’em, except the Colonel… and the nuke. I haven’t seen either down here but that’s not to say he isn’t curl
ed up under a bunk somewhere with his favorite toy.”
I shook my head like an angry lion. Goddamn Blanchard to Hell! Where was the fucker? Where would I be if I were him? I’d keep the fucking nuke with me, that much was certain. No one reported seeing any one or thing leaving the Storm and with the amount of night imagery we’d laid down from both the ’47 and the AC, I couldn’t imagine Blanchard getting away from us unless he swam out using a Drager or SCUBA system. I hadn’t given the rotten bastard enough time to do that.
“Trace?”
“Dahlgren here! Whatcha need, boss?”
“Bring the fucking helo down on the deck and drop off the security team. Fletcher needs shooters to secure this piece of shit, which is sinking beneath our feet thanks to your fine aerial gunnery skills!”
“Inbound, Skipper…and thank you. I aims to please!”
Christ, it was like having Jerry Fucking Seinfeld on the team. But much better looking.
“Danny! Get those ’Hawks in here. Have one hover off the foredeck so we can get our wounded out and away. Advise the PANG we got hurt people inbound. Then get the fuck outta here and call Karen on her secure cell, the one I gave her. She’s got some info you need to hear.”
From off in the distance I heard the two PAVE ’Hawks pounding the air toward us as Barrett complied with my orders. I wanted my wounded SEALs off the terminally damaged Wind Storm before it went belly up. I’d seen ships go down before and I knew that when it happened, it happened fast. No five-minute warning bell.
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