He’d go for close quarters, he thought, nowhere to hide. Left was the warehouse and though he was near the docks, the land was half a mile back from the shore. Between the heavy equipment and stacks of steel, he glimpsed the bow of the fishing trawler idling in the water, sea gulls circling overhead and diving for scraps. A dorsal fin rode the surf near the hull. They’re waiting, he thought, then focused on the neighboring cranes, and the path the guy took down. There were too many levels and places to hide but he had to risk it.
Riley darted toward the warehouse as a shot hit the steel wall. The ring of it brought heads up. There you are, he thought, and waved workers back, showing his weapon when they just gawked. He rushed toward the half-constructed building, keeping the machinery on his right, ducking once to search for movement and continue. He glanced around the warehouse, the equipment, then spotted a shadow inside the rear wall. It was the only wall completed alongside rows of unfinished storage buildings, and he hurried closer, sidling alongside the steel frames. He peered. Chains hung from the rafters and pooled on the floor.
“Finn?” Base said gently.
Call signs were necessary he supposed. “Go ahead.”
“Drac says the biomarker isn’t inside the target anymore. It’s gone.”
“Copy that.” He shouldn’t be surprised. He’d shot Vaghn in the leg and he’d needed medical attention. Obviously, it was thorough and the idea of picking the marker out of his butt amused him, though it was better care than Barasa gave his men on the bridge. While Safia thought Barasa was the key, Riley knew Vaghn’s brilliance would foresee every angle, and it magnified the feeling they were just breaking the ice on this cocktail. Nobody went to these lengths for a new gun or bomb without big plans for it. They still didn’t know what explosive Vaghn had used, but a little went a very long way in damage.
The catwalk hinges scraped and a figure swung down, then dropped to the concrete floor. As the man straightened, Riley recognized the threat before he saw the weapon. Riley fired first, the bullet chipping the sniper’s shoulder, and he staggered, losing the gun, but kept coming. Riley braced himself for the attack. Like a Brahma bull, the man bolted with his head down to ram him, and when he was close, Riley leapt aside. The man sailed past, staggered, and Riley threw a roundhouse kick to his kneecaps, clipping him off his feet. The guy hit the ground and bounced.
Riley rushed, grabbed his shirt, relieved him of his curved knife, then dragged him deeper inside the warehouse. He fought.
“Oh no, lad,” he said when the sniper tried to gain his footing. “You wanted this.”
The man curled himself up and rolled three times fast, breaking Riley’s hold, then jumped to his feet. He grinned, then slapped his chest. “Come get me.”
Riley smirked and raised his weapon. The man ducked to the side, and Riley followed him with the barrel and fired. It met its mark, lower rib cage, and the guy flung forward. No blood. Kevlar and damned unfair, he thought rushing along the wall. Water reflected movement in the puddles, and he swung his aim high. On a stack of lumber above him, the shooter let go of a bola whip and it snapped around Riley’s weapon, the clackers crashing his wrist and jerking the sidearm out of his grip, nearly taking his finger. The captured weapon flew, hit, then spun across the cement as Riley darted behind the ice machines. Leaning back against the metal wall, he flexed his wrist and fingers. The stun still vibrated up his arm.
“Hurting?” a voice said. The sound came from his left, near.
Riley spotted the gun and bola against the loading doors, but there wasn’t any cover to get to them and he had to assume the shooter was better armed. He freed the double-edged knives strapped to his calf, and flipped them into fighting position.
Riley rolled his wrists, kicked a soda can and waited for the gunshot.
Safia ran to where she’d left Riley, and as she approached, she heard gunfire. Please don’t be him, please, she thought and tried to pinpoint the location. It was distant, the report faint. She bolted past the fishery dock to the unfinished side. Men huddled back, pointed out the direction, and she hurried through the overgrown grasses. Her foot hit something and she stumbled, then turned back. She picked up the sniper’s rifle. The firing pin was missing. She slung it, ran to the warehouse and slipped inside. Metal sheeting and lumber were stacked high, making a corridor. She heard movement and moved toward the rear, then spotted the staircase to the catwalk. She mounted slowly, stopping at the top step to search below.
Beyond the piles of supplies, she spotted Riley near the scoops and curtains of chains used to swing buckets closer to the sea. He was armed with knives, and she inched up to search the area. His opponent was moving left and she signaled him, but he didn’t see her. Then it didn’t matter.
Riley’s expression was full of payback and the two circled, then clashed. Riley blocked, his leg swinging high and knocking the man’s head. He landed in a crouch, ready to spring again. He never let go of the knives. The shooter wobbled on his feet, shook his head like a dog, and Safia saw the cuts staining his clothes. The attacker threw his fist, and Riley blocked with an upward swipe and opened the other’s cheek, a swipe downward cut his stomach. Riley’s execution was like a man possessed, but his opponent was skilled, pushing him back by brute force until they were grappling, Riley’s long arms keeping his own knife from his face. Safia aimed, and put a shot at their feet.
They bucked apart, and the guy said something she couldn’t hear. In the next moment, he was stumbling back from a punch. Riley held his fists up like a prizefighter, each blow snapping the guy’s head back. He went down by the third hit. Riley stood over him, breathing hard, then stooped to search him. He pocketed what he found, then rolled him on his back.
Safia climbed down the iron steps and moved around the shorter stacks. She picked up Riley’s gun, then approached. The blast of a boat horn drowned out any noise. The man was up and bolting to the gaping doors, but Riley was on him. The sniper grabbed a dangling chain and flung it, hitting Riley in the chest. He caught it and using it like a fulcrum, sailed across twenty feet planting his feet in the guy’s chest. The sniper flew back, hit the cement, and was still only for a second before he rolled to his feet and bolted out the wide doors. The boat horn blast came again.
When she moved around the stacks of lumber, Riley was gone, running after his target. She followed, her direction wider, covering his back. The attacker raced down the half-constructed pier and dove off the edge. Riley was right behind him, gripping his knives as he hit the water in an arching dive. Safia rushed to the edge and sighted through her monocular. He didn’t surface. She scanned for the shooter, then saw a dorsal fin.
Riley swam, his eyes stinging as he plowed through the water to catch the sniper. He saw kicking feet and grabbed his ankle, then headed for the surface. He popped out for air, then went back down, forcing the sniper’s head down. The man curled his body and Riley caught the silver flicker before the guy swiped a knife, catching his clothing and across his arm. Blood colored the water. The sniper kicked free and swam. Riley crested the surface behind him and reached out. A man on the trawler deck fired into the water, and he dove, the shots streaming past him. When he surfaced, the crew hoisted the nets, the sniper lying inside with tons of fish.
“Well that was a bust,” he said, then started for shore. Then he heard rapid gunshots again. Safia stood on the pier, firing into the water. He glanced around as the tall fin neared. He hauled ass to the shore. The shark was faster.
Safia saw the shark lift its nose out of the water behind Riley and emptied her weapon into the big fish. Her breath rushed as she reloaded and aimed again, but the fin was gone, the water red and murky. She kept vigilant as Riley swam, then the shark, riddled with holes bucked the surface. No snack today, she thought, aiming for the brain and fired three rounds. The shark sank under the water and she bolted back up the dock, then worked her way down the scaffolding to the ground. She ran across the shore, the
sniper rifle and her bag banging against her hip. Riley was bent over, bleeding, and she called to him. He straightened and opened his arms. She slammed into him, clutching tight.
“Shark infested waters, Donovan.” She punched his back and he chuckled, leaning on her, still trying to catch his breath.
“He must like Irish sweet bread,” he said, “because the sniper was cut too.” He straightened and looked to the sea. The sniper stood on the bow and saluted them.
Safia flipped him off. “So how’s the egg on my face?” She looked at him. “Because we were royally suckered.”
They’d walked right into it with the marker. “We need to go at this more defensively. Raise the bar,” he said, still watching the boat.
“Base, get a mark on the trawler in the water. I want to know when it docks,” Safia said into her comm-link, then dug in her hobo bag for a tissue. She blotted the spots of blood and he slung an arm over her shoulder.
“He kicked my butt.”
“Not that I saw. You’re wicked with those knives, Irish.”
He watched his target sail away. “We’re left with Red Shoes and hope she uses the phone.” She handed him his weapon. Riley checked the sight and load. The clacker hit so hard it dented it. Useless, he thought and tucked it in his holster. “He was familiar,” Riley said. “The rescue guy from the river, maybe.”
She swung the sniper rifle forward and removed the magazine, then ejected a round still in the chamber. “He’s Barasa’s, for sure. This is from his shipment to Colombian FARC’s that Interpol confiscated.” She offered it.
“That’s Chinese,” he said, examining it. “You won’t get prints, he was wearing gloves when he was shooting.”
“Leaving it is intentional, then. But he took out the firing pin. That I don’t get. Removing it says you care who picked it up.” Then she looked past him. “Well it just gets better.”
Riley followed her gaze. A small speedboat crossed the delta to the trawler. The low-slung craft swept alongside the fishing boat, and the soldier stepped to the rail. He jumped from one boat into the other, then waved as it sped north on steep curls of water. She alerted Base.
“Arrogant little puke.”
“He was a Ghurka soldier,” he said and held out the curved knife. The handle was intricately carved and inlaid with silver. It was standard for Nepalese soldiers.
“I thought the Ghurkas wouldn’t stop fighting. To the death kind of guys.”
“That’s the rumor,” he murmured, watching the speedboat shrink in the distance. He recalled a few in Iraq had to be separated because they reacted with such speed that innocent people were wounded by just coming up behind them. “That soldier could have killed me at any time,” Riley said, then looked at her. “So why didn’t he?”
“A warning,” she said firmly. “It’s a game to him.”
He shrugged, digging in his pockets for the items he took off the soldier. “Apparently the joke is on us.”
The cell phone, keys, all of it were realistic looking plastic toys.
Sonsoral Islands
Bridget felt the jungle narrow around her and glanced back. The darkness swallowed, yet fifteen feet ahead, she could see green fronds dappled with sunlight. The fallen trees from past storms tented broad areas on the otherwise insignificant island. The skull inside Jim’s bag bounced against his hip as he walked and while she had some specimen bags and a few tools, she was truly only interested in retrieving the radio.
“Jim? Are you still tracking the prints?”
He glanced back. “I’m not sure.” He and Derek had gone further toward the center than she’d thought.
Her hand radio clicked, startling her until she heard Travis’s voice. “Everything right and proper?”
She unclipped it from her belt. “So far. We’ve made amazing finds.”
“Splendid. Why aren’t you heading back?”
She was about to ask the same thing, and realized she was alone. “Jim,” she called. “Jim!” He kept going, suddenly driven. Bridget made a rude sound and hurried after him. He stood near a boulder three times his height, vines concealing the jagged rock beneath. He was still and she crept closer.
“You don’t follow field orders very well,” she said, annoyed when she’d warned him already. Bloody lab rats, knackered in the brain, she thought, then signed off with her husband. Trav wasn’t pleased about it. She heard the worry in his voice.
“Sorry. But don’t you smell that?”
She sniffed. “A little mold maybe.” The air barely moved around them.
“No, over here.”
She took a couple steps nearer and still didn’t smell anything foreign. Then a breeze kicked up and she got a whiff. She pressed the back of her hand to her nose. “Oh, that’s awful.”
“Feces.”
Feces, however foul, meant living beings. “Saints preserve us, that’s brilliant,” she said, her gaze darting over the trees, the rock covered in vines. There was something here and a bead of excitement coursed through her, nudging aside her fear. Then Jim knelt and pushed at a cluster of fronds. She bent, blinking with surprise. Under a bush was the radio. It wasn’t turned on, but it had been chewed, the hard plastic scarred on the corners.
“I’d say this confirms it’s inhabited,” she said and still wearing the latex gloves, picked it up, then slipped it into a specimen bag. Inhabited by what, she could only speculate, and she wanted to preserve any DNA on the marks. Yet the fact was, Jim had lost it fifty feet in the other direction.
Jim pushed at the vegetation, exposing the ground, the black earth and sand appearing almost oily. He moved in a squat, circling the boulder, searching for evidence of life. “Few tracks,” he said, gesturing, then he sat back on his rear, and waved to her. “More bones.”
She crossed to him and he showed her a dainty pile. They were exceptionally small. She photographed it, then scooped up a few and bagged them. “That wouldn’t cause the odor, and it’s too heavy to be just these rotting trees and coconuts.”
Jim moved to the rock, walking left of it, then pushed at the thick vines trapping it. She was on his heels, not about to be left alone with no one to hide behind, she thought. Then she recognized what he was going for and tapped him, offering her knife. He hacked at the vines and the odor grew almost unbearable.
He looked at her. “It’s hollow.” He shined his flashlight inside and ducked a bit, then made a noise. “Oh yes, this is the source of the odor, definitely.”
“What is it?” she said, and on her knees, crawled up beside him. He held back the vines, but they were so thick it was an effort. She peered, then reared back, completely confused. She looked again. A carcass putrefied inside the cavity. She could see grayish hair and pointed teeth still anchored in a decaying jawbone. At this angle, she couldn’t pinpoint the species. “A monkey perhaps? Did this attack you?”
He frowned at it, shaking his head and chewing on his lip. “I thought, I mean, it felt . . . bigger.”
Her gaze swept her surroundings. Monkey or possibly just a rodent, it still didn’t answer how it arrived on such an isolated island. She looked back when Jim asked for a specimen bag and then crawled deeper. Shining his light, he gathered samples. The reek made her move back. She shined her light on the rock, trying to imagine it without the vines, then rushed to the right side of the clump and tried to get her hand under the inch wide vine. She held her shovel sideways, using the edge like an axe. The shape was too uniform on one side, and she chopped harder. The shovel clanged against metal.
Jim backed out, his expression startled. “You have got to be the most amazing archaeologist, Doctor McFadden.”
“I’ve me moments,” she said smiling broadly and he crossed to her. “It’s almost perfectly straight over here.”
They chopped at the vines stopping when the tools hit something solid. Bridget replaced the shovel in her belt, then felt the lines of the boulder that truly wasn’t. She pushed at a knot of feeder vines, an
d her eyes rounded. “Jim,” she said. “The knife.” She held her hand out like a surgeon, unable to take her gaze off the latch. She sawed at the vines, and he pulled, tearing them back.
“No,” she breathed. It was a metal crate of some sort, or part of one. The surface was black with fungus and she scraped at the latch, exposing rivets. “How could this exist in a rust eating climate?
“Galvanized?” Jim said, peering where she’d scraped.
“Has to be. It’s had to be here long enough to grow all this.” She photographed it, the rush of finding this pushing on her overkill button and the camera didn’t stop blinking.
A short pinched noise startled them, and she looked behind herself, her heart in her throat. Jim shined his light. The path was smashed from their footsteps, but nothing moved except the sweat down her spine. Then she felt an unwelcome pull on her skin, a knowledge that they weren’t alone in the copse.
Her gaze swept to him. “Let’s go.”
“I’m right there with you,” he said and met her gaze. Bridget swept hers meaningfully to the far right. She glimpsed movement, then suddenly turned and with the shovel, took a swipe at the brush. The spade hit something low to the ground and she stilled, then advanced.
“Bridget, no,” he said. “Remember my cuts.”
“I have to know.” She reached to push at waterlogged palms. A quick rustle of fronds shook the jungle in more than one direction. “Perhaps not,” she said and backed up beside him. “Slowly, retrace back to the boat.”
He nodded and they walked backwards a wee bit. Bridget cast a glimpse at the formation before Jim handed back her knife and led the way, familiar now. When they reached the edge of the jungle, she stopped, letting the comfort of the sun warm her face. Her heart pounded and she returned the shovel to her belt and replaced her knife in the sheath on her calf. Jim walked on ahead, his step lighter, and his arms full of bone bags. She touched her pouch, suddenly anxious to get in a lab.
Fight Fire With Fire. Page 19