Scorpion Strike

by John Gilstrap

  She touched her card key to the pad and the guard opened the door for her.

  Venice headed directly for the War Room, the rectangular teak conference room that housed every techie gadget that a girl could want. She settled into her seat at the end of the table opposite the massive projection screen. As the systems booted up, she lifted the landline receiver and dialed Boxers’ number from memory.

  * * *

  “Mother Hen’s on it,” Jonathan said to Gail. “She’s rallying the troops, so maybe we’ll have some useful intel within a couple of hours.”

  “Who did you call?” Hunter asked.

  Jonathan hadn’t seen him coming, and the voice startled him. “It’s a universally bad decision to sneak up on me.”

  “Noted. And nonresponsive. So, what, are you like military or something?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “Look, Digger—”

  “Don’t call me that,” Jonathan snapped.

  “What, then?”

  Jonathan knew what would follow, but he answered, anyway. “Call me Scorpion.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Jonathan settled himself with a deep breath. “Please don’t push me. Truth is, I’m in a line of work where real names are never used. In fact, they’re liabilities. I’d consider it a personal favor if you would forget any other names you’ve heard.”

  “If they’re such liabilities, why were you using them in the first place?”

  “We didn’t expect to be working on this trip,” Gail said.

  “So, do you have a super cool code name, too?”

  She clammed up. Gail hated her handle.

  “It’s Gunslinger,” Jonathan said.

  Hunter recoiled. “Holy crap. That’s a little on the nose, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t cross her,” Jonathan said. “Trust me. It’s a handle well-earned.” He chuckled when he said it.

  “So, you do security work for the government,” Hunter concluded.

  “Just don’t ask me to confirm or deny,” Jonathan said. The guy clearly liked the conclusion he’d drawn for himself, so he let it go. Besides, it was more true than it was false.

  “If you’ll excuse us,” Jonathan continued, “we need to do some work here.”

  “Go ahead,” Hunter said.

  Jonathan wanted privacy. He wanted to roll back the clock and avoid the Edwardses altogether, but he realized he had to resign himself to the fact that neither was more likely to happen than the other. And why not? Everybody was as deeply into whatever this was as everyone else.

  “Hey, Jaime,” Jonathan called.

  The kid perked up. “Yes, sir?”

  Jonathan beckoned him over. “Have a seat with us. Everybody can gather around if you want. Tell me everything you know about what you think might be happening here.”

  Jaime gave an exaggerated shrug. “I have no idea. Like I said, I was up here when the shooting started. I don’t even know—”

  “What goes on here at the Crystal Sands that might attract the attention of terrorists?” Jonathan asked.

  “Many rich people come here,” Jaime said. “That’s a lot of ransom taking, no?”

  It was a possibility. Hell, at this point, everything was a possibility.

  “Wait a minute,” Jonathan said, snapping his fingers. He looked to Gail. “Whoever these guys are, they had to get here by boat, right?” He turned to Jaime. “There are no airstrips here, correct?”

  Jaime nodded. “That is correct. Mr. Sinise does not like the sound of aircraft. Plus, he thinks that the long boat ride calms people.”

  “Maybe they came in on helicopters,” Tyler suggested.

  “No.” Jaime was emphatic. “We never hear helicopters out here. If there’d been one, I would have known it. I hear everything.”

  “By boat, then,” Jonathan said. “Given their numbers, it would have had to have been a big one.”

  “And it should still be parked at the dock, right?” Gail said.

  “They’ve got to have an exfil plan,” Jonathan said. Back to Jaime: “I’m turned around. Where do the ships come in?”

  Jaime pointed to the jungle. “About a mile, mile and a quarter that way.”

  “Along this trail?”

  “No. Well, for a while, but then this trail joins the main roadway. The one you came up on.”

  “I imagine they’ll have left guards,” Jonathan mused aloud.

  “What are you thinking of doing?” Lori asked. The dread was heavy in her voice.

  “We need to get an idea of what we’re involved in,” Gail said.

  “It’s dark,” Hunter said. “I think that’s too dangerous. Why don’t we just hold out until daylight?”

  “Because we’re more detectable when we can be seen,” Jonathan said. He delivered the line laden with irony, but it seemed to have missed its target. “Once the sun comes up, we’ll need to go to ground. That’s when the serious hiding starts.”

  “Do you think they’re going to come looking for us?” Tyler asked.

  “Most definitely,” Jonathan replied. “I killed two of their men and they know we have guns.”

  “Then what will we do?” Lori asked.

  “Hide until and unless they find us.”

  “And after that?” Jaime asked.

  Jonathan thought the answer to be so obvious that he just let it hang unanswered. He checked his watch and said to Gail, “It’s zero one-fifteen now. That gives us six hours to explore and gather whatever intel we can.”

  He turned to the others. “Tyler, we’re taking your golf cart. Jaime, is it easy to navigate our way to the boat dock?”

  “Just follow this old trail till you get to the roadblock. Drive around that and turn left. That road will take you all the way—”

  “Wait,” Hunter said. “You’re going to just leave us here?”

  “Sure, why not? It’s out of the way and it looks reasonably safe. We’ll be back before daylight.”

  “Then leave us with a gun.”

  “That’s not happening,” Gail said.

  “Suppose they come for us?”

  “Hide. And if they find you, hope they play nice with you. If you see a third option, I’d be happy to listen to it.”

  “We can go with you,” Tyler suggested.

  “No, you can’t,” Jonathan said. “I don’t know what we’re getting into. I don’t know if there’ll be guards, and I don’t know if there’ll be shooting. Gunslinger and I have done this stuff before. I don’t want to have to worry about you if things go south.”

  “I promise I’ll give you a full accounting when we get back,” Gail said.

  With that, they turned and headed to the big golf cart. Jonathan half expected to have to fight the others from climbing aboard, but was relieved when they decided to stay in place. Gail slid into the driver’s seat and grinned up at him. “You can ride up front with me, if you want,” she said, and she stuck out her tongue.

  “Oh, so it’s going to be that way, is it?” He walked to the shotgun seat and they took off.

  The path was every bit as rough on the back half as it was on the first half. Jonathan hung on to the roof post to keep from getting bounced out.

  “I’m not used to these kinds of bumps,” he said. “Normally, Boxers drives, and his mass smooths it all out.”

  He got the laugh he was trolling for. Boxers was Jonathan’s longtime friend and battle buddy from back in the days when they were both in the Army. Nearly seven feet tall and built like a tree, he was the most lethal human being Jonathan had ever known. As much as Big Guy had no place on a romantic retreat to an exotic island, it would have been great to have him on board now.

  They drove with the headlights off, but there was enough ambient light to make out important things, like shifts in the road and obstructions. Holes were a little tougher to spot, explaining some of the bigger bumps.

  Gail pointed ahead. “Think that’s our roadblock?” The berm appeared as a horizontal black s
tripe across the path, maybe twenty-five yards ahead.

  “It’s clearly man-made,” Jonathan said. He whispered very softly now, his words barely audible. “Stop here and kill the motor.”

  They sat in silence in the cacophony of jungle night sounds while Jonathan listened for anything out of the ordinary. Mechanical sounds, battle rattle, voices, anything.

  “I think we’re alone,” Gail said.

  “I think you’re right. You know, we’ve never done it in a golf cart.” He got the glare he expected. “I’m going to walk up to the berm and make sure things are clear.”

  “Find a route for me to get around that thing in this thing,” Gail said.

  “Yep.” He slid out of his seat and walked down the path, using deliberate steps, heel-toe, heel-toe, in a fluid rotation that looked odd as hell to those whose survival had never depended on stealth.

  The berm was taller than he thought it was going to be, every bit of eight feet. Because this was the goddamn jungle, where if you dropped a seed today you’d have a tree tomorrow, it was thick with vegetation. It was hard to make out detail on this side of the berm because of its moon shadow, but the darkness moved as the flora moved with the breeze. He considered climbing over to peer at his surroundings from the top, but opted to walk around the side, instead. He had to blaze a trail for the cart, anyway.

  He followed the base of the berm around to the left. If Tyler and Jaime had passed this way in their carts, you couldn’t tell from the foliage, at least not in the dark. But the plant life near the base was of the fern variety—as opposed to the tree variety, which was the total limit of Jonathan’s spectrum of horticultural knowledge—so with a little momentum, the cart shouldn’t have any trouble navigating around it.

  Jonathan brought his rifle to his shoulder as he rounded the berm to the front side. Old habits died hard, and he’d never seen a downside to being ready to shoot, just in case. He moved slowly, as ever aware of his footfalls. Over the centuries, while human eyesight hadn’t adapted its acuity to the dark, it had evolved to sense motion perhaps more readily in darkness than in light. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wandered at night with a rifle, yet without NVGs—night-vision goggles. Without that kind of force multiplier, he was just another guy with ammunition and a bang stick.

  The far side of the berm—the front side—looked pretty much like the back, with more crumbling pavement at his feet.

  He scanned continuously for targets as he advanced forward, but saw nothing but night. Finally, about twenty yards out, he found the fresh pavement of the main road. It intersected the old path at a right angle. He looked left and then right, but saw nothing worrisome. He closed his eyes and stood unmoving for the better part of a minute, letting his ears earn their keep. Nothing there, either. That was good.

  He walked back and summoned Gail to come on through.

  Twenty minutes later, the grade of the road shifted steeply downhill, and the darkness ahead brightened. “I remember this from the day we arrived,” Gail said. “The docks are just down at the bottom on the right.”

  “Look at the way they’ve got the place lit up,” Jonathan said. “They’re clearly not worried about being spotted or getting caught.”

  “Caught doing what?”

  “Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Can you find a spot to pull this off the road and behind some bushes? I want to approach on foot.”

  The perfect spot lay about thirty yards closer to the light, where a tree had fallen, but never quite made it to the ground because of interference from nearby foliage. The effect was to create a leafy cave that was just about the width and height of the cart. Gail pulled it in until it could go no farther, and they set off down the hill on foot.

  They walked on the pavement as close as they could to the edge. If someone approached, they could jump out of sight. That assumed that their opposing forces continued to disregard light and noise discipline.

  “Has there been much radio traffic about us?” Gail whispered.

  “They know our names—well, the names we gave them—and they’re trying to find likenesses of us. They’re not pleased to be missing rifles and ammunition.”

  “And tell me why, exactly, you think it’s important to check out this boat.”

  “To gather intel,” Jonathan said. He didn’t know how to state it more clearly, because he didn’t understand how it wasn’t obvious. “As they say at Faber College, knowledge is good.”

  “You know there’s only two of us. We can’t possibly fight them all.”

  “I don’t see that we have a choice. These people are terrorists. They’ve already killed. If we surrender, we’re sure to die. If we fight, we’ve got a chance.”

  “Just remember that I’m not Big Guy.”

  Jonathan scowled at her. “Surely, that was not an apology,” he said.

  “No, just an observation. I’m not a ‘fight first, ask questions later’ kind of girl.”

  “Got it,” Jonathan said. It was a quirk of Gail’s personality that he could not understand. He got that she was a lawyer, and that she’d cut her teeth in law enforcement and not the military, but she had trouble adjusting to the significance of her skills and abilities in the world of door-kickers. They’d talked about this many times before.

  If he had his way, they would not talk about it again tonight. They had way too much work to do.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE INVADERS’ BOAT, IT TURNED OUT, WAS MORE PROPERLY CLASSIFIED a ship. Jonathan wasn’t much of an expert on things that floated, but to his eye, this vessel looked like a retired minesweeper. He couldn’t see the flag on the fantail from this angle, but under the circumstances, he wouldn’t trust the declared registry, anyway. As far as he was concerned, they might as well be flying the Jolly Roger.

  “Wow,” Gail whispered. “That’s a lot bigger than I thought it would be.”

  High at the bow and low at the stern, this vessel was capable of carrying significant cargo. “Me too,” Jonathan agreed. “That thing is designed to float more than just troops.”

  “Like what, do you think?”

  “Let’s think about that. How many commodities are worth the expense of transporting a small army?”

  “Drugs?” Gail guessed.

  “It’d take a shit ton of drugs to fill the hold on that ship.”

  “Gold, then?”

  “I vote weapons,” Jonathan said.

  Gail looked at him, clearly waiting for more. “Because high-end resorts are famous for attracting gunrunners?”

  “I just can’t think of any other terrorist-worthy cargo that would require that much boat.”

  A long silence followed in which Jonathan could feel Gail’s glare. “You’re staring at me,” he said.

  “Are we going to board that ship?” she asked.

  “Can you think of a better way to gather intel?”

  Gail sighed. “Unfortunately, no. Doing nothing really isn’t a viable plan, is it?”

  “Die hiding or win fighting,” Jonathan said.

  Gail knew better than to offer up the obvious third option—die fighting. First, it was head space where Jonathan was famously reticent to go. Second, there was no denying that dying while fighting was demonstrably better than dying while curled up in a ball, begging for your life.

  “Have you ever taken down a ship before?” she asked.

  “I’ve trained for it.”

  “Dare I ask how big the assault force was?”

  “Are you sure you want to know?”

  She waited.

  “Twenty-three,” he said with a chuckle. “But the scenarios were all about a vessel at sea with a full complement of bad guys. This ship is, like, parked.”

  “I believe the term is moored. Or maybe berthed.”

  Jonathan gave her a long look, and then reached out for her hand. “We joke about this, but it’s serious shit. Are you really up for it?”

  “Is there a choice?”

  �
��Don’t do that,” Jonathan said. “I’m not in charge. I don’t want to push you beyond—”

  “Whoa, cowboy,” Gail said, covering his hand with her own. “I wasn’t being passive-aggressive. I really don’t think we have a choice. ‘Win fighting,’ right?”

  He covered her hand, too. Hands all in. “You know, this is not the trip I planned.”

  “Glad to hear that,” she said. “Otherwise, there’d be some serious counseling in your future.”

  * * *

  “This Scorpion guy,” Hunter said. “You know that’s not his real name, right? His real name is Digger. Who said he was in charge?”

  Tyler had spent countless days and nights dealing with boundless egos and senses of entitlement, but Hunter and Lori were of a class all their own. “They seem to know what they’re doing,” he said.

  “Having guns doesn’t make you an expert in anything,” Lori said.

  “How’d they get their guns?” Jaime asked.

  “By killing their previous owners,” Tyler said. “With knives, right?”

  “Suppose they find the terrorists’ boat and sail away without us?” Hunter said. “The only way to be sure that doesn’t happen is to be there with them.”

  “They’re gonna pick a fight with the people on the boat,” Tyler said, “and the people on the boat are going to fight back. I don’t want anything to do with that.”

  “They left us defenseless,” Lori said. “Suppose the terrorists come here and find us—”

  “They won’t,” Jaime said. “No one knows of this place.”

  “No one knows of this island,” Hunter said. “Yet here we are being invaded. Whoever these people are, they seem to know a lot, whether you think they should know it or not. If they do figure out that this shantytown is here, and they do come to clear it out, we’ll be doomed. Scorpion and Gunslinger—and what stupid names those are—care more about themselves than about us. Why else would they leave us unprotected and insist on going ahead without us?”

  “Maybe when you kill your own terrorist, you can keep the gun,” Tyler said.