by Tony Bulmer
As soon as the silent assassin had passed, the main party stood at the door, whispering conspiracies in an unintelligible tongue. They knew she was here all right, they just couldn’t figure where. Kellerman froze once again, her fingers pressing hard on the handle of the big knife. She could feel the rivets standing out of the wood, feel the hard, cold, steel rising up like a coffin nail poised ready for death.
Dark shadows flickered in the doorway. The first man was in the galley now, his shadow rising across the floor, the thin barrel of his assault rifle moving ever watchful, as he came forwards with careful steps.
The lights flashed on, harsh and
unrelenting.
Kellerman shrank back in her hiding place.
She could smell them now—sour cabbage and fish, mixed with body odor and the heavy smell of tobacco. The first man moved cautiously down the opposite side of the galley. Soon he would see her—packed tight into her little hidey-‐hole. Strike first—it was her only chance. She had to move quick—get the drop on the guy before he had time to swing his gun. Kellerman counted down the footfalls figuring she would wait until he was almost upon her, before she made her move.
A sudden disturbance and a muffled curse—like the second man had stumbled in the doorway. It was the perfect distraction. Kellerman rose up out of her hiding place and swung the knife with all her force. But the strike was badly mistimed. The dark figure before her stepped quickly backwards, almost like he had been forewarned.
A soft metallic noise echoed out Phut-phut. Kellerman had no time to think. Off balance now, she launched a second strike at her would be attacker, but instead of catching him centre mass, she caught him in the upper thigh. The knife sank deep, glancing off something that might have been bone. The effect was sudden and instantaneous.
The dark figure sank forwards, pulling the knife free of her enfeebled fingers, then toppled down, like a slow falling tree.
Kellerman had no time to pull clear, the man fell on top of her, his lifeless arms releasing his weapon as he fell. Sprawling on the floor Kellerman watched him come, struggling to escape, as his lifeless drooling face came level with hers. How could a stab wound to the leg cause such a dramatic result? As the puzzle flashed through her mind,
Kellerman stared into the lifeless eyes of her would be assailant and the cause of her miraculous reprieve became apparent. The hideous emaciated face had a bullet hole bindi, blooming wide like a third eye, right in the middle of his forehead.
31
Langley, Virginia Inside the lead lined operations room at CIA Langley, the Admiral relaxed back in his chair and said, “Golf is a good walk ruined, according to that pinko son of a bitch Mark Twain, but what the hell would he know, he was from Missouri for chrissake and by my reckoning, there isn’t a course worth mentioning in the entire state.” The Admiral was wearing golf clothes and a navy colored ball cap emblazoned with the legend HMFIC. As he spoke, he gesticulated freely, underlining each point with an emphatic flourish.
“We got ourselves a problem,” said Jack Senegar.
“Too right we got a problem Laddie; it is
almost five o’clock and this damn golf course of
yours doesn’t have a bar. You call that hospitality?” “We got coffee Bill, I am guessing you take it
straight up?”
“What in the wild-‐tarnation are you
thinking Senegar. Did you bring me here to poison
me or something?” the Admiral regarded Jack
Senegar with narrow eyes, then patted the breast
pocket of his golfing jacket and said, “I knew you
spineless land-‐lubbers wouldn’t have any grog in
this god-‐forsaken puzzle palace of yours, so I took
the liberty of bringing my own supply.”
Senegar gave the Admiral a level look and
said, “We are having communications issues with
the Islands. Power outages and surge interference
across the board. There has been a knock on to the
telecoms hub. Which means satcoms in the area are overloaded. Local word is a relay station outage caused the problems. But our analysts say no.”
The Admiral nodded, his face suddenly grim. “So it has started, Laddie, the organized interference you predicted.”
“I am afraid so.”
“The girl is on station?”
“Indeed. There have been deaths already.
Local police are saying there is no pattern. I think we can safely say that local law enforcement is entirely compromised.
“So it spreads.”
“Like a virus.”
“Then we must move quickly. No doubt
these conspirators will have eyes on our affairs. I take it you are watching our friends in the Bureau?” “And they are watching us—a battle of wits as ever, but the stakes are rising with each passing hour,” said Senegar.
“Then it will no doubt be a matter of time before our subterfuge is discovered, which is a shame, because thus far this golfing break of ours has proved most enjoyable. I suggest we go live on this operation, effective immediately.”
“The assets are in place?” “We have RQ-‐4 coverage online now, are the Predators in the air?”
“Full operational coverage.”
The Admiral nodded, “Carrier strike group nine is moving on station as we speak, they will be in full operational range of the target in twelve hours forty-‐three minutes and counting,”
“This won’t go unnoticed, our enemies are everywhere, including Government.”
“No need to worry about that Laddie CSG-‐9
are on active duty, I have simply brought forward
plans that have already been made, with the full
operational approval of Special Operations
Command, so there is no need to concern yourself
about congressional oversight. Those spineless
traitors in Washington will get to read about this
operation of ours in the morning papers, so far
after the fact it will be a matter of history, not a
cause for debate.”
“So no blowback.”
“Don’t concern yourself Laddie. Better to
come ready for a shooting war and not be needed,
than be needed and not ready. If we deploy, it will
simply be a happy coincidence that our forces were
in the area.”
“What about the SEALS?”
“DEVGRU have been briefed. They are
working towards an all points intervention.” The
Admiral sat back in his chair and breathed deep,
“Have no fear Laddie the elements involved in this
little conspiracy are about to find out just exactly
why the United States Navy is the most feared
fighting force in the world.”
“No collateral damage.”
“Collateral damage is my business Laddie. If
any sniveling civilians want to
sit ringside for this,
they better close their eyes, put their fingers in
their ears and prey to the Lord God Almighty for
deliverance, because anyone or anything that
stands between us and the freedom of the United
States of America is about to get hit by fifty-‐million
tons of kick ass.”
32
The Pacific In the galley of the Nautilus, Frank Buchanan squeezed down on the thin-‐faced attacker with a punishing neck lock. The hijacker writhed and twisted, his hands clawing desperately. But he was no match for Buchanan’s heavy-‐set ferocity. Holding his prey tight from behind, Buchanan kept squeezing and twisting and lifting, until the raggedy little killer was hanging above the floor, his face bulging purple. Still Buchanan held on, pulling a final twist with his tattooed bicep until a sickening fractured crunch sounded out. Then he let the corpse fall.
Kellerman watched the incident from the floor, as the man Buchanan had just shot dead oozed blood on top of her. Finally, as she caught her breath and pushed the lifeless corpse away, Buchanan looked down at her and said, “You don’t look too good. You hurt or something Princess?”
“Don’t call me that you bastard, I hate it when you call me that.”
Buchanan flinched slightly, gave her a tight look and said, “Welcome to the high seas
Kellerman. You just landed yourself a place in the major league. So, what are you going to do, lay there on your sweet little ass all day, or get up and make a play?”
“I think I am going to puke, if you want to know, so don’t feed me those bullshit lines of yours, or I might just hurl on you.”
Buchanan grinned. “Figures you would say that, but don’t think for a moment that you are going to light-‐weight your way out of this one. You are going to have to step up, like it or not. Are we clear?” Buchanan held out his hand.
Still lying on her back, Kellerman scowled up from the floor. I just bashed some dude’s head in with a fire extinguisher, and stabbed another in the groin, so be advised on those points if you think you are going to feed me Marine Corps witticisms for the rest of the day.”
“Take my hand and get on your feet. You keep up with that whining little sob story voice of yours and it’s me who is going to puke. Now get up, or I will pop a bullet in you too, just to put you out of your goddamn misery.”
“Álvares told me to decommission the gun cabinet,” said Kellerman. “Right before he caught a bullet in the leg. Heung was involved. He pulled a gun on the bridge. Tried to take over. The Captain wasn‘t ready to let that happen, so Heung started shooting.”
Buchanan nodded grimly. “Figures. I never liked that little weasel. He figured he was
something special. Turns out he was wrong.” He paused, regarded Kellerman carefully and said, “Please, tell me Heung was the worthless little punk you cracked in the head?”
“It all happened so quick—I just flipped, I wasn’t going to let him attack the Captain like that.”
“You did good Kellerman, real good. But this little pool party we got going on ain’t over yet, not by a long shot. So, if we want to see the other side of this, we are going to have to use our smarts
and beat down the rest of these raggedy ass creeps, then float ’em back to the land of Kim-‐Jong-‐Wrong.”
“There are a dozen of them at least, and they all have AK-‐47s, and other stuff too, like explosive belts. You think they are going to blow the ship?”
“If those creeps had wanted to sink us, they wouldn’t have taken the trouble to hop on board. They would have rammed that rust bucket trawler of theirs into our engine room. You ask me, they got some other kind of nutso motive to pull this little stunt, but that doesn’t concern me. Whatever they want, we are going to spoil their plans and make them wish they had never heard of the good ship Nautilus.”
Kellerman frowned, a question hanging on her lips. “None of this makes sense, it’s not like we have a cargo, or even anything of value on board— maybe they think that they can send a message to the government, we are on a Federally mandated mission after all.”
“Hey, forget about the government Kellerman. This thing is personal. These sons of bitches hunted us down, and now that they have hopped on board with their little pop-‐guns they think they are running things. Well, I am here to tell you that ain’t so and here is why—we are going to chisel them down into bite-‐sized pieces, make them realize the picked the wrong ship to mess with.”
“Are you kidding? We will need guns, and in case you hadn’t noticed, the gun cabinet has a giant padlock strapped over it. We will never break that off without explosives.”
“We don’t need to break it off.”
“We don’t? What are you talking about?” “I have the key.”
“Are you nuts? You have the key to the
goddamn gun cabinet and we are standing here shooting the breeze, like time doesn’t matter a damn. Open the damn thing up already and break out the munitions.”
“Hey, no need to pop a gasket Kellerman. I already broke out the weapons.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“Quit your bellyaching and open the oven would you? While you were popping our little friend on the bridge, I figured I would take the liberty of stashing the contents of the gun cabinet to prevent our noodle noshing pals from getting their nasty little maws on them.”
Kellerman shot Buchanan a look, “Pretty slick move for a grease monkey. What kind of shooters are we talking about?”
Buchanan sighed, then popped open the front of the industrial oven, revealing dozens of shotguns and rifles and a bunch of handguns too, along with dozens of boxes of ammunition.”
Kellerman grinned. “We should split the ammo, hide it in a different place, and pop the bolts on the guns we don’t use, just in case our friends upstairs have a yen to make pizza.”
“So what are you waiting for? The clock is ticking. Break them down. We have got to take control of this thing before out friends above decks figure out their environment and make themselves at home. While they are figuring out the layout of the boat, we got ourselves an edge.”
Kellerman looked at him now, his dark-‐ lined face etched with a thousand or more untold stories, his dark eyes burning with an unswerving
commitment to the mission in hand. This was a new side of Frank Buchanan that Kellerman had never seen before. Before the dawn of this hellish morning, she had always thought of him as a dirty and rude—a greasy tattooed sailor, the grizzled survivor of a dying breed. But there was more to Frank Buchanan, much more. He was steadfast and resilient in the face of adversity. He was a man of strength and honor, a man who could be relied upon. Yes, he was part of a dying breed all right, a warrior and fool wrapped up inside one
hardheaded package. But now, as his dark eyes stared into hers, earnest and fearless, Kellerman felt th
e sick-‐headed world of violence and insanity fall away, revealing a new hope of deliverance. Buchanan was on her side—after these long months of confrontation, he was with her and they were working together against a common enemy.
He saw her looking and frowned,
“Something on your mind?”
“Just wondering.”
“Spit it out for Christ’s sake, we got work to do.”
“That story about you getting married to a Korean girl in Gwangju—was that real, or was it just another one of your bullshit stories?”
Buchanan raised his 1911 and jacked a cartridge into the breech. “That information is on a need to know basis Kellerman.”
33
Oahu, Hawaii Karyn Kane stood on the Kahanamoku Beach quay with the other guests, looking out across the dark waters of Malama bay. Deng Tao’s glittering yacht Chánchú, lay at anchor beyond the reef, illuminated against the Pacific night, like a giant floating jewel. Karyn was impressed. The yacht was enormous, larger and more modern than anything owned by any Saudi Prince or Russian Oligarch. Up close, the boat was so big it looked like it belonged in a Navy dockyard.
With the neon city of Honolulu rising to the stars, the quayside provided an impressive backdrop to the grandest social occasion of the year. Armies of decorators, lighting engineers and high-‐end catering crews had been slavishly engaged to turn the boardwalk into an art show experience, that resembled an Academy Awards style soiree.