Burmese Crossfire (Brannigan's Blackhearts Book 2)

by Peter Nealen

  “So, you want me and my boys to do it, because we’d be plausibly deniable,” Brannigan said flatly. “And expendable.”

  “Deniable, yes,” Van Zandt sighed. “Expendable…not if I can help it.” He sighed again, glancing down at the table in front of him. Brannigan honestly wasn’t sure if it was an act or not. “Look, I’m not going to pretend that this is going to be a milk run. That would be an insult to your intelligence if I even tried. Hell, if I thought it would be a walk in the park, I probably wouldn’t even have come to you. But you rather amply demonstrated a few months ago that you still have a knack for wreaking destruction disproportionate to the numbers at your command.”

  Brannigan eyed the man with some distaste. “So what you’re saying is that the same qualities that made you and your fellow generals run me out of the Marine Corps are now what make my services valuable.”

  Van Zandt’s lips thinned, and he swallowed. “Yes, I guess that is what I’m saying,” he replied grudgingly. “I won’t lie, John. I think you’re a bull in a china shop. I think that you made an exceptional NCO, but some of the subtleties of officer-level leadership were always lost on you. But I don’t need an officer for this. I need a team leader, and that’s what you’re best at.”

  Brannigan said nothing at first, only staring at the other man coldly. Chavez’ gaze was similarly riveted on Van Zandt, and was no friendlier. “Well, that’s a hell of a way to convince a man to go clean out a snake pit nobody else wants to go near,” Brannigan said dryly.

  He honestly wasn’t sure what to think. He knew that his dislike for Van Zandt was coloring his judgment regarding the job. And the all-too fresh memory of the sense of betrayal about the way his Marine Corps career had ended wasn’t helping matters, either.

  That didn’t change the very real concerns about the mission itself. Assaulting the Citadel on Khadarkh, a small island in the middle of the Persian Gulf, had been one thing. Extract had been a matter of getting back out to sea. Sure, they’d been outnumbered and outgunned, but they’d fought through with a combination of high explosives and sheer ferocity. He wondered if any of the Iranian commandos had ever made it back to Iran, particularly after Flanagan had blown up the Saudi Dongfeng-3 ballistic missiles that had been staged in the Citadel’s outer courtyard.

  Going into northern Burma was something else altogether. Insert and extract would both be vastly more complicated than on Khadarkh. The closest they could consider “friendly” territory would be Thailand, which would be at least a hundred miles away, over steep mountains and thick jungle.

  Yet at the same time, the challenge appealed to him. And after years of fighting Arabs, Afghans, and various poorly-trained, rag-tag Islamic militias in Africa, the North Koreans were an enemy that not a few warriors quietly wished they could test themselves against. That it would be shutting down a Communist-run criminal enterprise, specializing in trafficking human misery for the sake of aggrandizing a tyrant and funding his nuclear weapons program was another appeal. There wasn’t a lot of gray area when it came to fighting Communists in Brannigan’s mind, least of all North Koreans.

  Of course, that was all assuming that Van Zandt was on the level. He hadn’t identified who he was working for, but Brannigan had his suspicions. If this was a setup…but Chavez was apparently confident that the story was real. Brannigan might not trust Van Zandt an inch, but he trusted Hector Chavez. The man had earned that trust a long time before.

  “I’m not going to say yes,” he said, “not yet. I’ll have to run this past the boys first. But if we do decide to take the job, just understand that it’s going to cost.”

  “There are going to be certain limits,” Van Zandt began, but Chavez cut him off.

  “Don’t even try it, Mark,” Chavez snapped. “We discussed this.”

  “Them’s the terms, Mark,” Brannigan said calmly. “I’ll take the imagery and what you told me, run it past my men, and if we decide to take the job, then you pay our price, or there’s no job. Take it or leave it.”

  Van Zandt looked like he’d swallowed something sour. But he finally nodded. “This is too important to quibble over price tags,” he said. “Unless it gets really unreasonable.”

  “Don’t worry,” Brannigan said as he stood up, blanking the tablet and slipping it under his arm. “We don’t do fancy parties to tell politicians how important we are. We just go in, do the killing that needs to get done, and get out. As long as we get the necessary gear, and we get paid, that’s all we need.”

  Without waiting for Van Zandt’s reply to his barb, he turned on his heel and walked out. Neither man tried to follow him.

  ***

  Carlo Santelli was a happy man.

  It might have seemed a little strange to him, at first. He’d thought, before Khadarkh, that he’d been getting bored, and worse, that Melissa had been getting tired of him. After all, she was younger than he was, and was still a stunningly pretty woman. He was a short, stout, pugnacious guy from the old neighborhood in Boston, with a lifetime of soldiering and fighting showing in a downright ugly face with a crooked nose. He’d expected to return from the Persian Gulf with a fat paycheck to find an empty house.

  But she’d stayed, and had welcomed him home with a warmth that he honestly hadn’t expected. And in the months since, he’d found that both of them had really started making an effort to do more together.

  He’d been frankly horrified to discover that she’d never learned to fish, and had immediately taken it upon himself to teach her. She was only three years younger than he, but she’d been a city girl all her life. Of course, Santelli had been a city boy, too, but his father had always taken his kids out fishing on weekends during the summer, mostly out on the ocean. He had a lot of fond—and some not-so-fond—memories of fishing off the pier on Castle Island.

  He hadn’t wanted to take Melissa to a crowded pier for her first fishing trip, though. And since he didn’t own a boat, that had meant a charter. Fortunately, the money from the Khadarkh job was in no danger of running out just yet; Santelli had been raised to be frugal. It went along with his generally straightforward manner and work ethic.

  Right at the moment, he was leaning over the rail of the boat with a net, getting ready to snare the bluefish that Melissa was almost finished reeling in. She was almost jumping up and down with excitement, and Santelli couldn’t help but smile at the sight. She’d been hesitant about the trip in the first place, but as soon as the bluefish had grabbed her hook and started its run, she’d been as hooked as the fish.

  “Don’t lose it, baby!” she screamed.

  “I’m not gonna lose it,” Carlo told her, even as he scooped the bluefish out of the water. “He’s hooked good, he ain’t gettin’ away.” He pulled himself and the net back over the rail, and drew the fish out by the gills. “Congratulations, baby,” he said. “Your first bluefish.”

  Melissa clapped her hands and hugged him, fish and all, just as the cell phone in his pocket vibrated, and rang with, “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.”

  Santelli carefully extricated himself from Melissa’s arms and handed her the fish as he drew the phone out. Her face clouded a little as she saw it, and the ringtone registered. “Again?” she whispered.

  “Don’t worry, honey, it’ll be fine,” he said. He answered the call and put the phone to his ear. “Talk to me, John.”

  “I need you to get the boys together, Carlo,” Brannigan said. A year ago, this conversation wouldn’t have been possible; becoming a mercenary commander had meant that Brannigan had needed to finally get a cell phone again, for the first time in over three years. “We might have a job.”

  “You don’t sound convinced,” Santelli noted.

  “I’m not,” Brannigan answered. “Which is why we’re going to get the boys together and discuss this before I tell Van Zandt yes or no.”

  “Van Zandt?” Santelli was almost speechless. “General Van Zandt?”

  “The same,” Brannigan said grimly. “He says he’s
retired; that he’s not a General anymore.”

  “You think he’s cross-decked?” Santelli asked carefully.

  “He’s cross-decked to somewhere,” Brannigan replied. “I’ll get Flanagan, Curtis, and Villareal. Can you contact Childress and Aziz, and get out to our usual spot in thirty-six hours?”

  “Consider it done, sir,” Santelli said.

  “Thanks, Carlo. And tell Melissa I’m sorry.”

  “We’ll be fine, John,” Santelli assured him, and hung up.

  Melissa was holding her catch, trying to admire it, but her eyes had kept straying to Santelli during the entirety of the conversation. She slipped under his arm as he shoved the phone back in his pocket.

  “I’d hoped that the last job was enough,” she said quietly. “I realized while you were gone how much we were taking things for granted, but wasn’t the pay enough to keep you here, with your retirement?”

  Santelli sighed as he gave her a squeeze. He kissed her. “It’s not just about the pay, baby,” he admitted. “John Brannigan won my loyalty a lot of years ago, and those boys need me as much as they need him. It wouldn’t feel right, letting them go without me.”

  She looked down at the deck for a moment, biting her lip. Then she nodded, brushed a single tear off her cheek, and touched his own, before she kissed him back. “I guess I always knew that,” she said. “I just miss you when you’re gone. I like having you home.”

  “I might not even be gone for long, honey,” Santelli assured her. “John doesn’t sound sure about this job. It might only be a trip out west to see the boys.”

  He wasn’t sure, though. If he knew one thing about John Brannigan, it was that the man belonged in a fight, and if there was one to be had, he’d probably be heading into it, sooner or later.

  And Carlo Santelli would be damned if he let his old CO go running into Hell without him.

  CHAPTER 3

  Joe Flanagan was not a man given to many words or noticeable outbursts of emotion. He was often best described as “laconic,” and he took some pride in that fact. He was a quiet man, often a gray man, passing unnoticed through the crowd, and he liked it that way. He and Brannigan were of similar temperaments in that respect, as both preferred the wilderness to the hustle and bustle of the city.

  Right at the moment, though, Flanagan’s eyes were smoldering, and his jaw was tight under his thick, black beard. He was not a happy man.

  He checked his watch again. He knew he was in the right place. The Vegas apartment complex hadn’t been hard to find. It had been a long drive to get there, and now Curtis was late. He would have let the man make his own way, but he’d been hiking in Utah, so he’d been close enough to swing through Vegas and pick the other man up on the way up to Colonel Brannigan’s place in Idaho. But they still had a long way to go, and here he was, sitting at the curb, and there was no sign of the little man.

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Where the hell are you?” he typed.

  Joe! Just in time! I need extract! I’m in the Blue Lagoon! Hurry!

  “Son of a…” Flanagan had to fight the temptation to punch the steering wheel. “Leave it to him to go to a damned bar and get into trouble now of all times,” he muttered, as he put the truck in gear and headed down the street. Only having something of a working knowledge of Curtis’ favorite hangouts in Las Vegas gave him a general idea of where he was going, without looking at a map.

  Ordinarily, it would seem to be too early for anyone to be in a bar, but it was Vegas, it was mid-afternoon, it was a weekend, and it was Curtis. The man had never seen a bar that he hadn’t wanted to go into, and Flanagan was pretty sure he knew just why the little man was in trouble, too.

  He was fuming and ready for a fight when he stalked through the doors of the Blue Lagoon.

  The place was dim, lit by blue neon lights set above the bar and in abstract patterns on the ceiling. The walls, ceiling, and most of the floor were black, except for the mirrors behind the bar, which just reflected the blue light even more. The atmosphere was somewhat relieved by the Nevada sunlight coming in the tinted windows at the front, but not by much.

  It was easy enough to pick out where Curtis was, even though he couldn’t see the little man behind the knot of belligerents gathered around him. He could hear the gambler and erstwhile machinegunner’s slightly high-pitched voice clearly enough.

  Say what he will about Kevin Curtis’ judgement, he could never accuse his old friend of being a coward.

  “Oh, look at you, big man!” Curtis was saying. “Bow up all you want, it don’t matter to me. Or to her, apparently!”

  The other man said something, probably intended to sound threatening.

  “Oh, look at me, I’m so tough, in my Hard Rock Café t-shirt with the sleeves cut off,” Curtis mocked. Even without seeing him, Flanagan could picture Curtis puffing his chest out and pulling his chin in to ridicule the man. “Man, get outta here with that noise! If you were half the tough guy you think you are, she wouldn’t have needed to get to know me, now would she?’

  Flanagan was halfway across the floor when the man raised a fist. “Try it, bitch!” Curtis called. “See what happens!”

  The man let the punch fly. At the same moment, his half-dozen buddies also converged, fists flying.

  Flanagan waded in.

  Flanagan was not a fancy fighter. If asked what his preferred martial art was, he’d answer, “Brawling.” He made up for a lack of finesse with sheer ferocity and blunt-force trauma. He had said once, “I’m not a great grappler. But I can hit people.”

  He grabbed the first man by the shoulder, spun him around, and landed a vicious uppercut to his chin, following it up with a fast one-two to his face, rocking his already rattled brains with the powerful punches. He kept his elbows in, putting his full weight behind each punch, driving his fists through the other man’s face. His opponent, already nearly unconscious from the first blow, crumpled.

  A second man, realizing that they were suddenly under attack from a different quarter, turned and tried to grab him. Flanagan stomped down on the arch of the man’s foot at the same time he wrenched an arm free and smashed an elbow into his face. The man let go and reeled away, bleeding.

  Curtis was giving as good as he was getting, too. He might have been short, but Curtis was a solid, rippling mass of ebony muscle, and he knew how to use it. Out of the corner of his eye, Flanagan saw the smaller man hammer a rapid series of punches into an attacker’s midsection, then rear back and hammer a headbutt into the face of another man who’d grabbed him from behind.

  Another man, taller and leaner than either of the two that Flanagan had already laid out, stepped in, throwing a quick jab that got past his guard to strike his nose, making his eyes water. Two follow-up punches rocked him further, one of them opening up his cheekbone, and he felt blood trickling into his beard. He swung in reply, and the man blocked it with a forearm and hit him again.

  It wasn’t the first time Flanagan had gotten hit. It hurt, and his head was starting to pound, but it just made him mad. Since he’d already been angry when he’d walked in the door, that was saying something.

  Now, a lot of men get sloppy in a fight when they get mad. Flanagan didn’t. He just got more focused, more intent on hurting the guy who’d just pissed him off.

  Shrugging off any further blows, Flanagan walked straight into the man, swinging. Haymakers weren’t his style; they were short, vicious, hooking punches. The man fended off the first two, then missed the right to his solar plexus. He bent nearly double, and couldn’t even try to block the left hook to his ear. His head snapped over and he stumbled, falling into the man who was presently trying to get away from Curtis’ hammering fists.

  Suddenly, the fight was all but over. The attackers were staggering back, a girl was screaming, and the bartender was yelling about calling the cops. Flanagan grabbed Curtis by the shirt, caught a wild punch in a vise-like grip, and yelled in the smaller man’s face. “You wanted extract, it’s her
e!” he bellowed. “Let’s go, before your dumb ass lands us in jail!”

  With a strength unsuspected by anyone looking at his wiry build, he propelled his old friend and teammate inexorably toward the door, his jaw set, one eye already starting to show the beginnings of a good shiner, blood running into his beard and down his neck. He shoved the door open with an energy that suggested he’d much rather kick it open, and hurtled Curtis out into the sunlight before following.

  He didn’t say anything at first, but just jabbed a pointing finger at his truck as he stalked toward it, climbed in, and slammed the door. Curtis jumped into the passenger’s seat, already crowing.

  “Now that was a bar fight!” he said, pumping a fist. “Ow.” He shook his hand. “I must have landed one of those punches wrong.”

  Flanagan was furious as he started the truck and threw it into gear, pulling away from the curb. “Middle of the damned day,” he snarled, “we’ve got a meet with the Colonel tomorrow morning, and hours of driving to go before then, and you’ve got to go to a damned bar and get in a fight over a girl.” He spared his attention from the road just long enough to give Curtis a withering glare. “Let me guess; you just met her last night, or maybe the night before, but had to go ‘say your goodbyes?’”

  “Brother, if you had seen this girl, or better yet, spent the quality time with her that I did, you’d risk being a little late to say goodbye to her, too,” Curtis countered. “She’s mind-blowing!”

  “And apparently somebody else’s girlfriend,” Flanagan growled.

  “Not my fault he can’t keep her interested,” Curtis replied.

  Flanagan shook his head. “You can’t keep doing this, Kevin,” he said. “Sooner or later, you’re going to end up dead in a ditch, either shot by a jealous boyfriend—or husband—or stabbed by a Latina chick who finds out about your philandering.”