“They didn’t say anything about being able to see you guys so hang tight and run silent and dark. Maybe they’ll get an answer from Mom if they stay afloat long enough. There is a Reaper in the air and heading your way. We’ll send it to take a look at Mom if the pirates get through from the skiff.”
Lucas had us positioned so we could see the skiff plainly from nearly a hundred yards distant with night-vision. Casey kept track with the spotting scope as to whether we were drawing their attention. Jafar made coffee and passed us each a mug. The skiff crew managed to get the fires out below decks because the smoke thinned out considerably, but it was still taking on water. Denny kept us apprised as to what the outgoing chatter was about but it was mostly a call out for help.
Once the smoke cleared, they did something to pump out the water because the skiff began to sit higher in the water. Then they spotted us with their own night-vision equipment. Lucas sped away as they started taking potshots at us. Casey ran out to the Browning nest and cut down the gunmen. They tried hiding behind the railing, not having noticed prior rounds going through the ship easily. They didn’t get back up. That only left five survivors we could see scurrying around. Denny came on shortly after.
“We’re done guys. The Dutch have a Naval ship on pirate patrol heading for you. They received the call from the Dutch sport vessel. Clean up on isle seven and then get moving away from there.”
I ran up to where Casey was sitting with the spotter scope watching the pirate skiff. “Toast ‘em, Case. Denny said the Dutch Navy’s in route to rescue the already saved sport vessel.”
Casey nodded, handed me the Leupold Mark IV and eased into the XM307 nest. He vaporized the skiff and pirates. We felt the boat gaining speed as Lucas noted the demise of the local pirates and returned us to our previous course.
“Get some sleep,” I told him. “I’m on watch and you have extra rack time comin’.”
“Okay, John. That wasn’t as satisfying as our last pirate encounter, but we did intercept them scumbags before they caught the Dutch.”
“Tomorrow’s another day. We’re in the right area. There’s another Mother Ship out there so there’ll be more pirate skiffs. It’ll be another wonderful day in the neighborhood, Mr. Rogers.”
“I’m getting to be a pussy, John. I miss my new girlfriend. Her and I connected. I’m going to pop the question at Christmas. Are you still glad you asked Lora?”
“There’s been no downside so far. Does she know what you do?”
“Are you kiddin’? Yeah, I can hear it in my head now. How was your day, dear? Not bad, honey. I killed a couple dozen men in cold blood and talked like a pirate for laughs afterward.”
I laughed. “Lora’s sister Tess tells her I’m a cold blooded killer and a professional leg-breaker every time they talk now. They don’t have to know every detail, but it might be a good idea if they know some of the basics. This is why most of us are bachelors. If we have a family, we better never get divorced or cheat on our spouse, because she can rat us out just like Tess is doing to me. Secondly, if the bad guys find out about our secret identities they can kill or threaten everyone we care about. It worked on Chardin.”
Casey headed down. “Thanks for the pep talk, you wanker.”
“Don’t kill the messenger, Case.”
Casey glanced back at me with a smile. “How about I sever his Achilles Tendons?”
“Ouch.”
* * *
We cruised for two gorgeous days. The fishing only netted some dinner, but the weather day and night could only be described as balmy heaven. Denny of course wanted action every day and every night. The pirates didn’t cooperate. The pirate skiff disappearing in pursuit of the sporting vessel may have made the rats run back in their hole for a while. We took turns giving Jafar gunnery lessons with my M107 sniper rifle. I couldn’t tell if the pirate extermination so far bothered him or not. He hadn’t mentioned it and his only reaction had been to join in the after action pirate talkathon. His skills improved with every try, and hitting floating targets at a hundred yards became standard procedure for him.
The third night out proved our theory in being obsessive about having a lookout at all times. At near midnight, running slow and steady on auto pilot with our lights on, I caught a glimpse of something on the horizon. The dark shape was there one moment and then it was gone. I called it in, but home base wasn’t picking anything up, and they weren’t able to get a satellite image at the time. We don’t take chances. On calm, still nights like this one you don’t want to make any excessive noise so I rounded up the guys personally rather than sounding an alarm.
We kept out of view going back to the bridge. With four of us scanning, we picked up movement our way with Jafar spotting the small skiff first. Tiny was more like it. We could see eight heavily armed pirates in a twenty foot open launch powered by what must be an electric motor. It made very little noise on approach because we had the outer sound boom pointed at them to see if we could pick up any chatter.
I went up with Casey spotting for me. We let them get to about a hundred yards away before I put a few holes through whatever that thing was propelling them at the launch’s fantail with the M107 sniper rifle. That got their attention. A couple of them immediately aimed AK47’s at us and I blew their heads off. The remaining blood and brain matter spattered pirates hugged the deck. They decided to surrender after a quick conference when I didn’t fire anymore rounds off. I could see one of them with my night-vision talking to someone on an old style field radio. Weapons began cascading over their launch railing before they tentatively stood up again with hands behind their heads.
“If they headed toward us in that thing you can bet Mommy must be nearby. Cap’n Blood is probably already on the horn with Lucas. You saw that guy callin’ it in, right?”
“Yeah, Case, but if home-base couldn’t pick anything up when I called it in at first glimpse, Mommy must be running silent and dark too.”
To put an exclamation point on my statement the eerie whistling sound of an incoming shell heralded a mammoth splash twenty yards off our port bow. Lucas immediately turned full speed toward the pirates in a zigzag pattern. Casey had already popped out both nests, and manned the Browning .50 caliber. He swept the launch deck with fire leaving nothing on the water but floating debris. Lucas turned us away from the unmistakable sound of incoming shells raining down around us. Just when it seemed we had stymied the attack, Lucas turned into the fire, making wide turns while again becoming live target practice.
“Hey, what is this, a suicide mission?” Casey called out to me.
Jafar, his head ducking at each round landing in the water, arrived moments later. “Denny says they’ve launched a Reaper drone. The ship firing at us had to light up to attack and home-base has it pinpointed. We are to-”
Lucas swerved to starboard a split second before a round hit where we would have been.
“Give them something to shoot at for a while?” I finished for him.
Jafar nodded in tightlipped angst, his eyes wide as he looked off in the direction the attack originated from. “We can’t survive a hit from whatever they’re shelling us with, can we?”
“We’re still holding over two thousand gallons of fuel so I don’t think so, but it’ll be quick,” Casey replied with a grin. “What’s the ETA for the Reaper?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
That’s a long time to keep lucking out. If they’d had anything with a chip in it we’d be dead already. “Well, we may as well go below. Lucas will be cussing out Denny for putting his boat in danger I’m sure.”
“He already is,” Jafar said as we headed to the bridge.
Lucas used a random series of maneuvers, varying turns and speed. One round hit so close it knocked us off course. Then the horizon lit up with two distinctive explosions carrying clearly to us. The shelling stopped abruptly. We watched the pulsating glow in the sky while Lucas corrected our heading. Denny checked in a moment later.
; “That sucker had deck guns and an Iranian flag guys. Head back toward Mumbai. We’re going over the films now, but I don’t like it. We may have to cut this excursion short. Is everything okay on board?”
“We had a couple real close ones,” Lucas answered. “You’ll be the first to know if we notice any problems. Another thing, John went to sleep on watch, and we nearly woke up with pirates in our racks.”
That got a couple minutes of laughs and eased the tension.
“Okay… carry on. Blood out.”
Needless to say, we all stayed in the bridge area and took turns dozing off for the rest of the night. Denny ordered us on to Mumbai the next morning. Chatter had it an Iranian military vessel supposedly on pirate patrol had been sunk by unknown assailants. The Iranian Navy was in the process of sending a flotilla toward the incident, hence our departure. Denny steered our carrier group in between the approaching Iranians and our course to Mumbai. Unfortunately for Jafar we had to get the hell out of the region, which meant no visits to the lovely Samira. Our assets took charge of The Sea Wolf when we arrived at the port of Mumbai. We landed at Travis Air Force Base a couple days later. After the debriefing, Jafar and I were back at my house sleeping off the jet lag when my doorbell kept ringing incessantly until I had to give up, throw on a pair of jeans, and go answer it. I looked through my peephole. It was Lora. Only way she could know I was back is her and Denny are friendlier than I thought. I open the door. She rushes into my arms without a sound, hugging me as if I’d been gone two years instead of two weeks.
“I missed you so much,” Lora whispered in a husky, feather soft urgency that wiped my mind clean of all thought but her body pressed against me and moving in all the right places.
“Your sister would have demanded to know where I’d been and what I was doing before she even said hello.”
Lora giggled, easing away slightly so she could look up into my eyes. “I don’t give a shit where you were or what you did. I want you inside me so bad I think I’m dribbling down my leg.
Oh… my… sweet… Jesus…
* * *
Much later, Lora went with me to the Warehouse for dinner. It turned out Grandma Connagher was staying through Christmas before returning to Boston. Alice and Grandma were spending some quality time together while Lora welcomed me back. We’re sitting there bathing in the afterglow of the greatest afternoon I could ever remember having when what to my wondering eyes did appear but the Grinch who stole Christmas: Denny. He waves and comes over with a big smile on his face like he was our favorite uncle or something.
“Hi John. Lora, always nice to see you.” Denny shakes hands with Lora. “Was he glad to see you?”
Lora blushed which nearly made Denny’s unanticipated arrival worth it. “I think so, Denny. Thanks for letting me know he was home. Would you… like to join us?”
Denny pulled over another chair without a word and sat down. Marla brought over a menu for him right away, but he ordered without a look. “I’ll have the turkey sandwich and coffee. Thanks Marla.”
“The quality time I spent with you at Travis wasn’t enough?”
“A couple details came up that I’d like to speak to you about, John, if Lora could give us a few minutes.”
Lora wasn’t having any. “This better not be something about shipping him out, Denny, or-”
“Nope, not happenin’,” Denny assured her. “I need only to give John a heads up on a couple of things. I guarantee it will be only five minutes max.”
Lora nodded reluctantly while trading glances with me. “Okay then.”
We left the bar and walked a little ways down the dark sidewalk.
“The Iranians lodged a complaint with the UN. It seems they had your boat under surveillance after the first day’s pirate playtime. They had their own contacts with the pirates we suspected for some time, hence the nighttime pirate visit with them playing Mother Ship.”
I got the drift. The suits lost their stones because Iran complained. “So ends our pirate gig later, huh?”
“I’m afraid so. Luckily, nothing tying us to the sinking of their ship was found. The only tie-in is The Sea Wolf, which will be retired to the San Leandro Marina. I have some other plans for it in the future possibly along the Gulf Coast. We’ll see. Who knows, I might even manage another pirate op for the Wolf if someone grows a pair. Second thing is Alexi will be coming by to get your official signature on a contract for the Dubai UFC meet up with Rankin. Sign it. It’s all good. They’ve moved up the date to late February and Alexi told me Rankin’s improving way ahead of schedule. Rankin’s destroyed a couple guys already in tune-ups.”
“You and Alexi sittin’ in a tree, k i s s i n-”
“I can’t waste a proven link like Alexi, John,” Denny quickly cut in to defend his partnering with a Russian mobster. “We have an agreement. Anything of interest on the terrorism front Alexi hears of we get instantly.”
“And he gets?”
“A free pass on whatever way he found it out.”
I hoped that was all it was. “This better not have any strings attached to the Rankin fight.”
“Are you stupid? I’m conniving, not suicidal. Alexi has some very interesting info about Dubai’s proposed guest list for the UFC hoe down. They moved up the date because I guess when you tuned up Abdul, his beat-down went viral all over Europe and the Middle East. They don’t care whether you lose the Rankin fight or not – you’re to meet with a fatal accident after the bout. They recruited Ahmed Quadir.”
Shit! I walked away from Denny, my fists tightening into white knuckle land, and my teeth clenched while I endeavored to get the acid in my belly from eating right out through my skin. We’d heard the Taliban had sent an assassination team out after Badee led by a world class assassin named Ahmed Quadir, but there wasn’t much we could do about it. He caught, tortured, and gutted Stan Donnelly, one of the guys I’d been with for months in Afghanistan guarding Badee Karim, when Stan went down into the village for supplies. We repulsed the attack that came shortly after through dumb luck. A warthog helicopter was in the area when Quadir’s crew attacked our cave complex. They wasted them in seconds. Quadir wasn’t with them. The villagers led us to Stan’s body. We got shipped to Saudi Arabia with our charges shortly afterward. Quadir had filmed my buddy Stan’s torture and execution. He sent it to our embassy in Saudi Arabia.
“We’re sending you, Lucas, Casey, and one other in two weeks early through Saudi Arabia. Quadir is due to arrive there a week before the fight. Your fight team will arrive a few days before the UFC match. You’ll meet up with the team as if you arrived with them. We know where Quadir will be staying. You guys will have a week to figure out how you want to take him out.”
I turned back around with the bile rising. I swallowed. “Who is it you’re sending as a fourth for our bridge club, Denny?”
“The only guy who knows what Quadir looks like: Claude Chardin. He knows his face, his mannerisms, and his old habits. They’ve worked together before.”
I needed to kill something. “And why, pray tell, would Chardin come along and point out Quadir for us?”
“Quadir’s next contract after you is Chardin’s daughter.”
“How the hell would you know that, Denny?”
“The Iranians employed Quadir for both assignments. They had controlling interest in Abdul. Alexi Fiialkov has a contact with the Iranian hierarchy. Quadir takes his assignments without any contact directly. We know the names he and his crew will be registering under because the Iranian interest hiring him supplies the passports. I know what you’re thinking, John. Listen, Chardin can barely walk. He’s crippled for life. It’s the only way we can get Quadir.”
Denny was right. “Let’s go back inside before Lora sends a search party.”
“Will you do it, John?”
“Yes.”
* * *
I married Lora two weeks after Christmas in Reno, Nevada. Only her Mom and Alice were there along with my best man, Tommy, an
d his family. We had taken an Amtrak train over the mountains together. When we returned to the Bay Area, life settled into a comfortable pattern through January. Training for my fight with Rankin began the day we returned. Plotting out details with Lucas and Casey, while cruising around on the recently returned Sea Wolf, became a weekly family outing. Claude Chardin and his daughter joined us the first Sunday in early February when we sailed south for some warmer weather.
Denny set up the added company on our excursion. A thin, bearded Chardin arrived with leg braces and dual metal canes. His daughter, Karen, an attractive woman in her early twenties with long blonde hair, and a beautiful smile, approached the Sea Wolf with Denny as escort. Chardin let Denny introduce them while switching both canes to his left hand. We all shook hands like amiable citizens. The women went below while the conspirators went up to the bridge where Jafar navigated us out of the marina and on course south. Yep, I knew we were in the process of dealing with a monster to get a monster. Casey went over our planned route to get to Dubai by way of Saudi Arabia. Chardin listened intently while studying the map handed to him.
“I see places all along this route where I have contacts we can use.”
I spoke up because this was going to be a rough trip. “Are you good to go on a convoy over the desert?”
“I will have to be for my Karen’s sake.”
Good answer. “Is Quadir as familiar with your mannerisms as you are with his?”
“We will be in full Arab dress. I have lost much weight since last he and I worked together. The canes will be an added disguise element. I see you have grown a beard as have I. With darkened skin, Quadir will not recognize either of us unless we call attention to ourselves. He will be expecting you to arrive later. Quadir employs three Iranians as bodyguards and accomplices. They’ve been with him a long time. One stays inside his room at all times, even if he is with a woman. What is your plan for taking him?”
“The rooms adjacent to his will be ours,” Casey explained. “We are going to gas him and his guard. John will slip in then while Lucas and I keep watch. He’ll have a syringe cocktail for Quadir, impossible to detect, that will take that murderous bastard to hell.”
Hard Case: Boxed Set Books 1,2 & 3 (John Harding Books) Page 28