Payback sts-17

by Keith Douglass

  It was ten minutes before Mahanani could sit up. He had to hold himself up with both hands. His car, where in hell did he park? He couldn’t remember. His vision cleared and he stared at the rows of vehicles. One car was only six feet away. He crawled to it and tried to stand. On the first three tries, he couldn’t get his legs under him. On the fourth, he made it only when a guy with a teamster’s hat and a month of body odor helped him up.

  “Hey, pardner, looks like you had some trouble,” the teamster said. “Know where your car is?”

  Mahanani shook his head.

  “What make and color?”

  The SEAL told the man.

  “Yeah, shouldn’t be too hard to find. Lean right there on this Cadillac and I’ll do a quick recon.”

  He was back three minutes later. “Got her, right over here about twenty feet. Can you walk, or you want some help?”

  Mahanani held out his hand for help, and five minutes later he was inside his car with the window rolled down.

  “Thanks,” he said to the trucker through cut-up lips and cheeks.

  “Hey, no problem. Had me a fight or two myself and didn’t always win. You sure you can drive?”

  “Yeah, I’ll take a break, then drive.” The trucker waved and went on to his big eighteen-wheeler parked at the far end of the lot. Mahanani sat there trying to figure it out. He’d been beaten up just because he’d made a small threat to Harley?

  After sitting there for a half hour and trying to think it through, Mahanani knew what he was going to do. These guys were going down, one way or the other. He would risk two more runs to TJ for them and bring back the drugs. Then, on the third one, he would bring in the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency, agents. The more he thought of it, the more certain he was that the tribal council and the people who ran the huge Casa Grande Casino did not know about the strong-arm tactics and the drug smuggling. They had too much at stake to risk it all. Now, all he had to do was figure out how to bring the DEA in on it without getting charged himself.

  He started the engine and headed for the exit. He was almost there before he realized it had grown dark and he hadn’t turned on his headlights. He stopped, turned them on, and put on his seat belt, then checked both ways and made sure his vision was acceptable. Yeah, okay. He pulled through the parking lot and back on the freeway driving at fifty-five mph in the right-hand lane. He didn’t want to have to make any quick decisions that fast driving might call for.

  The big SEAL tried to figure out how to do it with the DEA. He would say this was his first run for them. They’d threatened him, and were going to turn him in to his commanding officer for gambling, which could get him thrown out of the Navy. Yeah. Good start. He wouldn’t agree to wear a wire. The DEA would have to trail him. He’d make it easy. They could hang back when the car went into the garage in TJ. Yeah, and then tail him back to San Ysidro and the garage and take them down. Then go to the casino and arrest Harley and the Hammer and their wrecking crew. That is, if they could get to the casino without the San Ysidro men warning the Hammer.

  Mahanani settled down to drive carefully. He knew he was driving so safely a cop might think he was steady-drunk. He hadn’t had a drop, no problem there. He speeded up to sixty miles an hour and moved into the second lane. Yeah, he could do that. Now all he wanted to do was get home through the blacked-out four-way-stop intersections and across the bridge into Coronado and his condo. It was spooky driving with no house lights anywhere and no freeway signs lit. You really had to know where you were going.

  He tried to relax. Oh, yes, he’d give somebody half a month’s pay just to magically zap him into his own bathroom. Then he could start repairing the damage to his face and lips. For sure he’d have a black eye, and maybe a broken nose. He was going to look terrible by tomorrow morning. Maybe a little makeup would help, or some camo paint.

  He had stopped the car twice on the way home to vomit from the aftereffects of the kidney kicks. At last he cruised into his parking spot at the condo and sat there thinking. Or was he stalling, wondering if he could walk up the steps to his condo? He stepped from the car and threw up again. He wiped his mouth, and hurried up the stairs and inside so he could rinse out his mouth. His face was a mess. He washed it tenderly, then patted down the cut-open areas with alcohol swabs, and decided to let it be until morning. Then he’d have to decide what to do. Call in sick? Not an option unless he was half dead. He wasn’t even a quarter dead. He’d be there bruises, Band-Aids, and all.

  NAVSPECWARGRUP-ONE

  Coronado, California

  For the tenth time that morning, Murdock realized how much he missed the use of the Internet and e-mail. The damn lights were still out. A newsman on his battery-powered radio said it might be two more days before all sections of the San Diego area were powered up. Strange how he had come to rely on the Internet for several aspects of his job and his communications with Ardith in Washington, D.C. He looked at the sheaf of papers that the master chief had given him when he arrived that morning. Most of them were routine. MacKenzie had copied them down from SATCOM transmissions. It was still their only communications off base.

  The telephone still worked for local calls, but the military radio net had been vital to the whole operation. Murdock had worked through most of the stack of material when Master Chief MacKenzie rushed into the office about 0930 that morning. DeWitt and the platoon were at the O course running it again for time.

  The usually calm old salt MacKenzie had a sheen of sweat on his brow and his eyes were spiked open with alarm.

  “This just came in, Lad sir. It’s bad news.” He thrust a paper at Murdock who read it.

  “From Don Stroh. To Lieutenant Commander Blake Murdock, Third Squad, SEAL Team Seven. We’ve had tight security about the fact that the President and Vice President and his top planning staff have been at a secret retreat for the past two days. The President has kept on top of the attack on San Francisco and the hijacking of the cruise ship and has issued the required orders to deal with the matters. Communications had been with his usual travel group of high performance radios. When the power grid went down yesterday morning just after daylight on the Pacific Grid, it also blacked out the President’s radio communications from his retreat. He’s up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

  “Their only communications is by SATCOM, and their last report was four hours ago. It said that they were being attacked by an armed group of men operating like soldiers. They were having to scatter so they wouldn’t be captured. That was the last report we had from him. Something must have happened to the SATCOM.

  “One of the last messages reported that the three helicopters at the site were destroyed with what looked like RPG’s. So they couldn’t fly out. The SATCOM report said they were under a heavy military attack and were on the run. Then the transmissions stopped.

  “A rescue force is now being put together by the FBI and the military. It has been suggested that two Army Ranger platoons and one platoon of Navy SEALs be included in the package.

  “I have made a strong pitch that Platoon Three from SEAL Team Seven be assigned to the rescue force. Will keep you informed. If this plans flies, the forces will be activated almost at once today. Stroh out.”

  “The President,” Murdock whispered. He held up his left arm and looked at the homemade bandage. “I guess I should have had the medics take another look at this arm and get it ready for some action. Yes, it bothers me some, but my buddy ibuprofen is a real help. Show this paper to DeWitt when he comes back. Tell nobody else and ask DeWitt to keep mum on it until I get back. I’ve got to see the medics. I’m gone.”

  Ten minutes later, Master Chief MacKenzie called to Lieutenant Ed DeWitt as he came back from the O course.

  “Lieutenant, sir. Something for you to read here, if you have a moment.”

  DeWitt looked up, sensing a note of urgency and shock in the master chief’s tone and demeanor that he hadn’t seen before.

  “Right, Master Chief,” DeWitt said, and re
ached for the sheet of paper.

  He read it, his frown turning into a scowl. “The damn North Koreans knew the President was up there and are making a play for him. What a coup it would be if they could kill him. The bastards.”

  “This is not to be spread around. It’s for you and Murdock and me right now. If we get orders, they will come through channels. I’ll keep the paper. Commander Murdock went to the medics for them to look at his in-and-out gunshot wound to his left arm.”

  “I didn’t know he was hit.” DeWitt shook his head. “This could be a damn big problem. The North Ks must already be on the ground, and we’re just starting to get into action. We could be there in two hours if we had firm GPS coordinates.”

  DeWitt stood there a moment and his shoulders sagged; then he straightened them and stood taller. “Master Chief, I’m going to get the men ready for a call. If you hear anything about our going, yell at us. We’ll probably need the time.” DeWitt began running on his way to the small office of Third Platoon.

  He went to his equipment locker and checked his traveling gear. His Bull Pup was ready, the magazines loaded for both the twenty and the 5.56. He had filled his combat vest that morning. He set out his favorite floppy hat and gloves with the fingers cut out, and boots. He was ready.

  In the small office he looked over the roster. Everyone was fit and ready to fight. Mahanani looked like he had been in a fight, but he was on duty. He had done the O course in good time. The CIA would tell the FBI about Third Platoon. Don Stroh would get his oar in and the CNO would have some input. All they had to do was wait for the call through channels.

  His only worry was Mahanani. He had been acting just a little off center lately. Not like the happy-go-lucky island boy he usually was. Something was going on with him, but there was nothing DeWitt could do until the man wanted to talk about it.

  DeWitt paced the assembly room. Jaybird spoke up, and stared at the officer walking up and down.

  “Troubles, Lieutenant?” he asked.

  “Huh, oh, no, just thinking how to make the training sked tougher.” He sat down in the chair and stared at the telephone. No long distance, but something should be happening. It was the President and his top advisors up there under the North Korean guns. The Secret Service would have their Ingrams, for short-range stuff. But that wouldn’t be much of a fighting force against, say, a platoon of North Ks.

  When DeWitt looked into the assembly room the next time, he called the men around. De Witt looked at Mahanani’s beat-up face and frowned.

  “Who did you pick a fight with?”

  “A little old grandmother in a big Cadillac who was seriously confused about which one was the brake and which the gas pedal and just what right-of-way means. I took a fender bender in the Buick. Bumper got dinged, but I had a close encounter with my steering wheel. Lucky I didn’t lose any teeth. Figure I’ll heal up without any need for more than six or eight pints of O positive.”

  “What does the Cadillac look like?”

  “No serious damage. Mostly just hurt feelings. I said some rather unflattering things, and threatened to report her to the Coronado cops so they could yank her license.”

  “Well, take it easy and medicate those cuts. You’re the corpsman around here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  DeWitt told the platoon to check their traveling gear. They could get another mission at any time. He wondered if he should say anything. Before he had to decide, Murdock came striding in the room. One arm had a white bandage around it, and the other hand waved a piece of paper. “Gather round, Froggies. We’ve got a job to do, and we can leave our wet suits at home.”

  15

  Saddle Mountain Ranch

  Sierra Nevada Mountains, California

  President Milford Dunnington hunched over the polished redwood plank table in the luxuriously Western-rustic-style conference room at the ranch of his boyhood friend, and studied his top team. He could always trust his right hand and Chief of Staff, Walt Eddings. Eddings had been with him since his days as a State Senator in California. Walt was short and a little pudgy, but had a mind like a computer and a memory better than the best computer chip. The National Security Advisor, Major General Beth Arnold, was a wonder and exactly the right choice. She was still slender at fifty-one, tall, with dark hair, a perfect complexion, and a solid military mind that Dunnington needed. Vice President Grover Paulson sat in as head of the Special Presidential Social Security Task Force. The VP was tall and gaunt, looked older than his forty-six years, and was being groomed to run in two years when Dunnington’s second term expired.

  Maria Alvarez, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, was on hand. She was tiny, with dark, flashing black eyes, slender, and with an iron will to fight for every child in America. She was a Mexican American and proud of it. Social Security Administrator Leonard Gilstrap was the last one around the mirrorlike table. He had come up through the House and Senate, had been governor of Maine for a while, then been tapped as the man to save Social Security. He was sixty-one, had dark hair, and wore a full beard kept trimmed to a half inch. He had been a Recon Marine and his favorite expression was “Semper fi.”

  The President cleared his throat, and everyone stopped talking and looked at him.

  “Looks like we’re at a point where we need an hour break to think things over. We need to get together on one concentrated plan that will work for everyone. We must come up with a solution to this Social Security problem. Be back here in an hour.”

  President Dunnington watched them leave. Even though the lights had suddenly shut down yesterday morning, they had made do. The SATCOM kept working with its batteries. They heard that the electricity was out all along the coast. The right people would work out the problem. He had his own here. Two days and almost no progress. He had to have a bill to send to Congress when they went back in two more days. The President stood and looked out the large windows at a spread of gentle green timbered slopes that ran down to a ridgeline a mile away. He loved the mountains. They were magnificent, and always gave him strength, resolve, and a new sense of purpose.

  He frowned as he saw movement in the sky to the west. Two dots that became quickly larger, and soon he knew they were helicopters. Strange. This had been designated a no-fly zone for the length of his stay. He looked a hundred yards from the ranch house at a parking lot usually used for cars, but now holding three Presidential Super Stallion helicopters. When the President looked back at the choppers flying toward the ranch, he saw that they were not going to just fly past, they were heading directly for the ranch house.

  A moment later they were fifty yards away and three plumes of smoke came from them. “Rockets,” he said. “My God, somebody is firing RPGs at us.” As he said it two of the smoke trails ended in the parking lot striking two of the Super Stallions. Both exploded in large balls of flames as the fuel tanks erupted and detonated like two bombs. The flaming fuel immediately engulfed the third Super Stallion, and all three burned furiously in seconds.

  Two Secret Service agents rushed into the big conference room, grabbed the President, and ran him out the side door and down a long sidewalk that extended to the stables and a heavily wooded area just to the side of the front pasture.

  “This way, Mr. President,” Larry Sanborn said. He was the head of the Presidential Secret Service detachment. “We’ve been attacked and we think that they have troops in the choppers. We have set up a defensive perimeter here, but we have no heavy weapons. It will take them some time to find us. It’s only nine A.M. Soon we’ll move into better cover and get away from the ranch house. There is no way we can defend the house with the weapons we have. We must work our prepared emergency plan to disperse into the woods and hills.”

  The two men led the President into the timber for a quarter of a mile along a faint trail. Then they came to a clearing in front of a small log house. Behind it a sheer cliff rose fifty feet, and to one side a small stream chattered down the incline.

  “Inside, Mr.
President. We have some necessities including a SATCOM radio. As soon as it’s safe, we’ll tell Washington we’ve been attacked and lost all three of our choppers. We’re stranded here until some help arrives.”

  “Who did this?” the President asked as he entered the small cabin. It was rustic, but adequate. A bed sat in one corner, a small propane heater and cooking stove in the other. There were no windows, and firing slots had been bored through the foot-thick logs that made up the walls. It was part of a set for an Indian battle demonstration put on by the rancher’s staff for guests at the end of the tourist week.

  “What about the others?” the President asked.

  “I have two men with the Vice President. He’s in another secure location. One man was assigned to each of the others, but I’m not sure if they could find them or defend them before any men landed from the choppers.”

  “Who did this?”

  “We don’t know. We suspect the same ones who attacked the cruise ship and attacked San Francisco. North Korea.”

  “What do they hope to gain?”

  “Our only guess at a motive would be face saving. They were devastated by their defeat recently by the U.S. and South Korea and having to accept massive food supplies from the world to feed their starving people.”

  “We feed them so they repay us with sound Oriental logic by attacking and killing us,” the President said. “Not a good trade-off. How many men could they have in the two helicopters?”

  “The birds were small, eight men at the most. They used rocket-propelled grenades against our choppers. Now we wait and see what they do.” Sanborn paused and listened to his earpiece, then nodded. “I have reports that the Vice President is safe, and that three of the Cabinet are with their guardians. We have no report from the sixth member of our group. We’re not sure who the three are. I’ll get their names just as soon as their guardians feel they are safe.”