Red Horizon

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  Paulo looked into Nick’s eyes and saw his death. “I knew I should never have taken this fucking job. There are three women on board in the two cabins next to Carone’s master suite at the end of the passageway. He has two Cartel hitmen as bodyguards. They’re probably in the suite with him by now. The rest of us were ordered to repel boarders.”

  “Are the women part of the operation or entertainment?”

  “Crew and entertainment.”

  “I like you, Paulo. If you’ve told me the truth we’ll put you into the hands of a guy from the CIA. For now, I’ll give you something for your pain.” Nick retrieved a syringe from his bag and injected Paulo with it. In less than ten seconds, Riggs was dead.

  “Ah… Dead Boy,” Clint said. “You killed him.”

  “Sorry, Clint… was he a friend of yours?”

  “We thought you were going to give him over to Denny,” Lucas said.

  Nick met his old friend’s gaze with a grim set to his features. “No prisoners, Lucas. I don’t care what Denny and Paul want. Anyone we leave alive at our back will be a danger later, especially Carone. I’ll tell you what, if the women stay in their cabin until Kabong and I put on our black masks, I’ll blindfold them for Denny. If they see our faces, they get an eternity shot. Can we get Lynn landed for the interrogation?”

  “We’re on with you now, Muerto,” Lynn remarked. “Let me know when you get Carone secured and I’ll be right down.”

  “Thanks, Lynn.”

  “Do you have any ideas on the lower compartments,” John asked Nick.

  “If it’s like Paulo said we’ll stick to our original plan and let Tonto sniff the people out. I’m thinking the grenade trick would be a good one for Carone’s cabin. If it doesn’t work, we can throw in a live one.”

  “I swear you have me on my last nerve with the damn grenades!”

  “Calm down, Lucas,” Nick urged. “You have to admit the unloaded grenade trick works pretty well.”

  Lucas shrugged reluctantly. “It’s worth a shot.”

  Nick didn’t wait. Taking his MP5 from Harding, he slipped down into the interior corridor running from one end of the ship to the other. Ready to take weapon’s fire, Nick hugged the bulkhead until he was sure the corridor was empty. “C’mon down with Tonto, Clint. I think poor old Paulo was right. It looks like Carone and his banditos may be hiding in his room waiting for an all clear sign he ain’t ever getting.”

  Clint and Tonto, followed by John, Lucas, Casey, and Kabong joined Nick at the bottom of the decorative ladder staircase. Clint gestured Tonto into action. Tonto sniffed at every door, moving on while two men then searched the cleared room. With Lucas and Casey guarding for movement into the corridor, Clint, Nick, John and Johnny moved with Tonto, clearing each room, below decks kitchen, dining room, engine room, and every space where someone could hide or lie in wait. The work, tedious and at times nerve wracking, ended once again at the main corridor. Tonto showed no interest in any room until reaching the area housing the master suite.

  Harding knocked on the door from the side that Tonto indicated first. The rest of his companions stayed tight to the bulkheads on both sides. “Hello in there. If you are women, say so. Then, stay in your room until we tell you to come out.”

  “Who are you,” a woman’s voice asked.

  “Never mind that. Do as I say. Is there a man in there with you?”

  “No.”

  “Where are the other two women,” John asked.

  “Next to me, the one before the master suite.”

  “Stay put.” John moved to the next door, knocked and repeated his initial greeting. A woman answered and acknowledged another woman shared the cabin with her.

  Automatic weapons fire shredded the center top part of the master suite door streaming down the corridor. Nick dropped down in prone position and fired an MP5 burst through the lower door center at knee level. Screams wailed in shocked agony. Nick’s action drew general amusement from his companions as he rolled again to the bulkhead. When the screams softened to sobs interspersed with cries of pain, John moved to one side of the master suite door with Nick opposite him with the grenade. When Nick had fired into the lower door, he had made a nice round hole by design that would accommodate his grenade.

  “Hi there,” John called out. “Come out with hands locked behind your head and you won’t be shot.”

  “Fuck you! You’ll kill us anyway… you bastards!”

  Nick shrugged with a smile when John glanced over at him and mouthed. “He’s right.”

  John grinned and nodded. “If you don’t come out in thirty seconds, my companion will toss a grenade inside your cabin. It doesn’t matter to us if you’re alive or dead. We’re here to arrest you, Carone. You and your men will be questioned. Otherwise, we execute you.”

  They heard hoarse angry voices inside, accompanied by the plaintive cries for a doctor from the wounded man.

  “Ten seconds,” John began counting down.

  “I’m Carone! We are coming out!”

  “Fingers locked behind your heads or we shoot you in the head.”

  The cabin door swung open. A medium built man with thinning black hair and a mustache walked through the doorway with fingers locked behind his head as ordered. The man behind him was much larger with a full beard. His fingers weren’t locked. As they cleared the doorway, the second man pushed the first man aside, bringing a mini-Uzi to bear.

  “Kill, Tonto!”

  Tonto leaped before the man could get the Uzi down from his back, jaws locking on his neck, fangs ripping his throat out, blood spurting in a cascade of red rain. Tonto’s momentum jarred the dying man to his back where the dog ripped until certain of his kill. John had thrown Carone to his face, holding him there on the deck until Tonto completed his mission.

  Nick kept an eye from a crouch on the other man, huddled into a fetal position, gripping his legs with small yips of pain and pleas for a doctor. Nick waited until Tonto moved off his kill, returning to his master’s side with dripping jaws. He then went inside the cabin, securing it first with care, after which Nick killed the wounded man with another syringe from his pack. Nick tore the bedding from one of the beds and rolled both dead men into the bedding. After soaking towels in cold water, Nick threw one to Clint for Tonto and then swabbed the deck, leaving the towels to absorb the blood.

  “Thanks,” Clint said as he wiped Tonto’s face. “It wasn’t necessary though. I would have had Tonto wipe his face on Cheese as always.”

  “Thanks from me then.” John dragged Carone to his feet. “Was that your dumb idea, Fernando?”

  Carone remained silent.

  “How’s my toy, Cheese,” Lynn asked.

  “Very quiet, but I’m sure he’s waiting for the proper motivation to be your good little helper,” John replied to much amusement. “Come aboard, Crue.”

  “On my way. Sylvio has my mobile kit ready to go on one of the lounges amidships, so take Fernando to his interrogation site. Dr. Deville is on her way.”

  Carone’s eyes scanned the smiling murderous faces around him. “Who…who is this Dr. Deville person? You cannot torture me. It is against International Rights Laws!”

  “Oh… so only you Cartel lunatics and murderous Islamic horde frog hopping from one nation to another, can torture, huh?” John smashed Carone across the face with a bitch slap from hell. “Welcome to the new neighborhood, Fernando. I’m going to warm you for this meeting with the foremost torturer in the world today. She’ll be angry, but in your case, I don’t care. She will make you feel pain you thought impossible – pain so great you’ll crack the teeth out of your head. You’ll be able to make her pause by telling us every fact about how to get your untold fortune to put into our accounts, and every single detail about your terrorist connections. Then I’m going to ask Dr. Deville to take you to the undiscovered country of pain until you die!”

  Nick smiled, watching the transformation flowing over Carone’s features. Staring into the darkness o
f unendurable pain etched in John Harding’s grim features, Carone broke. Having measured the hatred Harding compartmentalized for these Islamic enablers and their murderous horde, the chances of any plea for mercy would fall on deaf ears.

  “Wait! I will give you everything! Take…take these numbers and account descriptions!” Carone began reciting his bank account numbers, passwords, and locations. Lucas grabbed John’s arm, whispering in his ear.

  Harding nodded at Lucas’s input. “Slow down. We’ll check. God help you if your info proves false. I will keep you alive as chum for the fish, feeding you to them one bite every few minutes for three full days until there’s nothing left of you but your beating heart and open eyeballs.”

  Fernando repeated everything, although Nick was sure Jafar had begun investigating the financial leads from Carone the moment he overheard them on the network from the beginning of their open network access. By the time Lynn arrived in person for her Dr. Deville foot inspection, Carone had spelled out every aspect of their operation and his financial transactions. Only when he began repeating himself, and reached the end of his helpfulness concerning terrorist connections, did John give him a pop in the forehead.

  Fernando shut up immediately. “How was that, Denny?”

  “Achmed and I are working it, DL,” Denny replied. “I will have confirmation within the hour. Relax if you can. We’re here on the Valkyrie, including Laredo and the Stealth. He says he can launch again in minutes if you decide to put the ship down.”

  “We’ve adopted the Tempest,” John said. “Call me the moment you get everything in order. I don’t like this guy. If anything doesn’t pan out I’m going to ask Dr. Deville to strip Fernando’s sanity from him.”

  Denny sighed. “What about the women? They’re still alive, right?”

  “They’re confined to quarters,” Nick answered. “When we’re sure of Fernando’s information, Kabong and I will cover our faces to get them. We’ll restrain, blindfold them, and transfer them to you where you will lock them down until transfer from the Valkyrie to wherever you want them. I want your word you’ll do so, exactly as I outlined, Denny.”

  Silence until Nick’s mouth began to tighten. John took a hand then. “We’re all a little tense in this operation, Denny. If you don’t agree with your word, I’m going in with Nick to relieve the little Tweety-Birds from life.”

  “You have my word… damn it. I should be able to get Fernando. You don’t understand the capital we can-”

  “One more word and even confirmation won’t save him for a heartbeat!” Nick had his blade against Carone’s throat. No one else moved.

  “Say something stupid, Denny! I want to see Fernando, ‘the butcher’, Carone get it,” Lynn called out. “We know what this bastard has done! None of what you say will matter though. Carone’s cut up kids in front of their parents, executed people at will who said one word against him, and killed whole underling’s families at the merest slight he’s felt. I obey the wishes of the Dark Lord. If he asks me to, I plan on keeping Carone screaming until morning light.”

  “Understood,” Denny agreed. “Please let me have the women for transfer.”

  “We’ll give it a shot. They better not give any hint of being involved. When we do a physical confirmation on Fernando,” Lynn replied. “We will be asking him.”

  Denny sighed once more… as if his audience cared. “Fine. I’ll talk with you soon.”

  “Are you ready, DL,” Nick asked.

  “Yep… I’m done coaxing answers. On the good side, Jafar figures we’re fifty million the richer from the text I just now received. I don’t want to wind up in jail, but God help the prisoners trying to get the Cheeseburger anyway.”

  Nick grinned. “We’re not letting anyone put you in a cell, DL. Let’s leave Fernando for the moment. I’d like to ask the only other ones alive a few questions. C’mon, Johnny Five. Let’s go see about taking prisoners.”

  “On your six, Muerto!”

  * * *

  Nick tapped on the door Gus Denova and Quays Tannous had been watching. They were the cabins where the three female crewmembers remained in hiding. “Open the door. You will be blindfolded and restrained during transfer to American soil.”

  The woman in the first room gasped audibly enough to be heard outside the cabin. “You’re nuts. Why the hell should I go along with that bullshit deal?”

  Nick’s affable request turned to dour threat in a split second of hearing the woman’s condescending tone. “You’ll obey every single order you’re given from this moment on or I will break through the door and slice your intestines out of you while my companion pours bleach on them. Want a demo?”

  The door flew open to reveal a late twenties blonde with no other attitude on her face other than survival. When she saw the two black masked figures with MP5s pointed at her, she dropped to her knees in begging tones, crying for mercy.

  “Shut-up!” Nick restrained the sobbing woman, yanking her upright. Johnny added a hood after taking her digital fingerprint and a mouth swab for DNA testing.

  They went then to the next door where Nick knocked and called out in comical voice. “Come out, come out wherever you are in there.”

  The door opened immediately. Both the women had 9mm handguns. Nick and Johnny fired simultaneously, instantly riddling the two women across chest and head from their positions at the sides of the doorway. Johnny repeated the fingerprint and DNA tests which would be repeated for all the bodies aboard the Tempest. The woman captive dived to the floor against the corridor bulkhead.

  “That did not go well, Muerto.”

  “I half suspected it, which was the reason I had the minions watching these cabins. We have one here I believe will provide valuable information once Dr. Deville works her over. I doubt she’s an innocent crewmember because there are no innocent crewmembers aboard this boat. We’ll keep her separate of Carone until he’s questioned.”

  Johnny helped the woman to her feet again, as Monster Squad members raced into the corridor. Johnny held up his hand. “We’re good, my friends. It appears the women were not so innocent as Paulo claimed.”

  “Bring her to my casting couch, Kabong,” Lynn said. “I finished with Carone already. He confirmed everything he told us so we cut him some slack. His laptop, he kindly gave us all the file passwords for, catalogued all his dealings, including with the Pilot Hill bunch. Fernando did mention the female contingent. He likes the ladies… dangerous ladies. All three of the women are Cartel hitters. The blonde is his favorite. I see the two bloody brunettes so blondie’s in the bag I assume. Her name’s Senta Bulgar. She’s from Albania. Senta is on loan from Al-Kadi. According to Fernando, Senta killed the heads of two Central American Cartels he passed her off as a prostitute to. Carone never bedded her. He’s scared to death of her. He gives her anything she wants and has used her to handle the women transferred through his hands on their way to Dubai and Saudi Arabia as sex slaves.”

  Nick glanced at his companions, wondering if they were thinking the same thing he was. Harding voiced it.

  “I’m reading your mind, Muerto. You’re considering using your number one status with Fernando and Senta at your side for an intro into Pilot Hill.”

  “That’s scary good, Cheese,” Nick said. “I’m slipping if I can get read like a four year old playing five card stud. What do you think, Lynn?”

  “Let me get a look at Senta, Kabong.” Lynn walked over to their surviving female prisoner with features in neutral observance for the introduction.

  Johnny removed the hood. Senta had been listening to the discussion of her real calling. She knew they would torture her to death no matter what she pretended now. She spit on the deck after looking into the eyes of another female killer. Senta made an error in judgement. She thought she had been captured by regular federal authorities, in spite of Nick’s threats. The woman in front of her looked down at the deck and sighed.

  “Gently, Cheese,” Lynn cautioned. “We need her face undamaged.
”

  “On it.” John Harding upended Senta as if she were a recalcitrant two year old. He lowered her slowly, with Senta cursing her heart out over her spittle. He forced her face directly into it, stirring and swabbing with gentle swirling motions to the amusement of his audience, ending the final wipe with her hair.

  “Recon!” Lucas enjoyed the show even more than the others. “Now that’s the way a Marine cleans the deck, swabbies!”

  Lynn grinned at the sputtering Senta as Harding righted her, caressing the side of her head. “Oh good. Senta still thinks she’s in charge of what happens. You’ll learn to obey, my dear one. Soon, you will pray never to hear my voice raised in anger. I already own your pal, Fernando.”

  Outraged instead of thinking through her situation, Senta made a second, more egregious error. She spit in Lynn’s face. “You will get nothing from me, Puta! Oh, I know how to handle bitches like you! I will die before ever helping your skank ass.”

  The men who knew Lynn fled backwards a few steps - not from fear, but because they could imagine what lie ahead of Senta at Lynn’s hand. Lynn sighed with contentment while taking out a handkerchief to wipe off her face.

  “Oh my. That was lovely. C’mon with me, honey. I think we need to get to know each other better. I like you already, sweetie. You’re going to love me.”

  “That’s what you think, bitch!” Senta tried to twist away from Johnny to no avail. “Why not take me on woman to woman? I’ll stomp your stupid Puta ass into a bloody pool!”

  “Maybe later after we visit Pilot Hill, sweetie,” Lynn replied without raising her voice. “We need your face in one piece right now. Hey, how do you like the blade?”

  “I love the blade, Puta. I know you’ll kill me after I refuse to help you so what does it matter?”

  Lynn laughed, a haunting titter of sound capable of freezing the hearts of lesser men and women. “Don’t worry about that, dear. You’ll help. In fact you’ll beg me to help. I’m thinking my cohort, Muerto, will need a female on his arm at Pilot Hill. We’ll be close friends by then, Cara Mia.”