by Slaton Smith
Sergei took the International Speedway exit off of I-95 and made a left at the bottom of the ramp. They passed the Daytona International Speedway, which seemed to go on forever. Sean gazed at it from the front passenger seat and wondered how fast he could push Brian’s E63 around the track. They crossed over the intercoastal waterway and eventually made a right onto A1A. A strip club sat on the corner with a dozen Harleys parked out front.
“Looks like some of your buddies are getting an early start,” Sergei said to Sean.
“What? Are you a biker?” Pavel asked him.
“Yeah. He’s an outlaw. That’s what the patch on the pack means.”
“An outlaw . . . ” Pavel was impressed.
“A friend gave it to me,” Sean replied. He was a little embarrassed.
“They don’t give those away. I know you earned it and the loyalty of the men you saved,” Sergei explained. Again, he caught Sean off guard. He seemed to know everything.
“Pavel, he also saved Ana,” Sergei added, as he headed south on A1A. Pavel slapped Sean on the shoulder from the back seat. He had a misty look on his face. Apparently, even old Spetsnaz sergeants can get choked up.
They drove to the end of the peninsula to a series of docks at Ponce Inlet. They parked the truck and got out. The wind had picked up considerably. The sky was dark. Sean was not happy about getting out on the ocean. It was going to be rough.
He knew he needed to eat before they got on the boat. His body really began to tire on an empty stomach. Across the parking lot there was a dockside bar.
“I am going to get something to eat.” he said, heading for the bar.
“Fine. Meet us back here in thirty minutes.”
“Sergei. Pavel. You want something?”
“No thank you. Just be back here in thirty minutes.” Sergei and Pavel were pulling the duffels out of the back of the Mercedes.
Sean strode across the crushed shell parking lot to the restaurant, where he saw a woman in her early twenties behind the bar.
“There’s a storm coming in,” she announced, without caring if he really wanted to know, while wiping off the bar top in front of her. She had on cut-off jean shorts and a low cut, red tank top with the restaurant’s logo on it showing plenty of her deep tan. Sean took a seat on a worn stool. The bar top was one step above plywood and was smooth from years of plates and beer bottles being placed on it. The whole bar area was designed to be packed up if the weather turned really bad. Every section of the bar had a hood that came down and locked to keep it safe. The bar had a rugged looking metal roof. Behind Sean was the intercoastal waterway. Seagulls circled around the fishing boats docked nearby, making a terrible racket.
“What do you want to drink?” she asked, sliding a menu in front of him.
“Just one of those bottled waters.” He gestured at the cooler.
“You sure you don’t want a beer? We have a special?” she pressed, leaning on the bar towards him. Her top was indeed low cut. Sean glanced up from the menu at her.
“Tempting.”
“Really?” she asked.
“The beer. The beer is tempting. Water is just fine for now.”
“You’re an awful flirt,” she said, laughing and snapping her towel at him. He smiled at her.
“How is the Mahi sandwich?”
“Great.”
“I’ll take two.”
“You want two sandwiches?”
“Yeah. That OK?” Sean said, leaning his arms on the bar. She was checking out his arms and shoulders that were tight against his shirt.
“You got it,” she said, looking shocked, placing the liter of water on the bar and hitting a few keys on the register.
“That will be a couple of minutes. What are you doing down here in the middle of the day?” she asked. The place was empty and it was obvious that he was her entertainment for the afternoon.
“Just visiting.”
“You some sort of body builder?” She poured herself a soda from the gun behind the bar as she talked.
“No.”
“Could have fooled me.” She made her eyes wide when she said it and reached across the bar and squeezed his arm.
“Are you supposed to be handling the guests like that?” he asked.
“Sure. It’s practically a policy.”
“What a great place to work,” he said, taking a long drink of the water.
“Not too bad. What’s your name?” she asked, with a big, “I like you” smile.
“Mason.”
She frowned.
“No it’s not.”
Sean froze. How did she know that? What was he supposed to do? She spoke before he could hurt himself thinking too hard.
“That’s the name you give out to girls that you don’t want calling you the next day.”
“That’s my real name.”
“Let me see your ID.”
Sean handed it over to her. He figured it was a good ID if it could fool a bartender. She looked at it, then at Sean, handed it back and made a face at him.
“See. Legit. I am also hurt that you think I hand out bogus names to women I meet.”
An older man brought out the two sandwiches on a large plate with a double order of fries.
“Enjoy,” she said and walked away. Sean devoured the sandwiches and just munched on the fries. To his left towards was what looked like a storage room. A fat squirrel was sitting in the doorway with a cracker in his mouth. Sean leaned over and looked closely at him. The squirrel just stared back.
“Hey! Your boss saw the whole groping,” Sean said to the bartender, who turned and leaned on the bar.
“What?”
“That’s you’re boss, right?” he asked, pointing with a fry at the squirrel that had now finished off the crackers.
“Funny. He works here but he’s not the boss. But he thinks he is.” She made a kissing noise and the squirrel ran over, jumped on a stool and then up on the bar. Sean was surprised he could jump that high with the belly he was carrying around. His fluffy tail flicked back and forth. She opened up a pack of crackers and slid one down to the squirrel. He gobbled it up.
“I think I’m all set. May I please have two more waters and the check?”
“Here you go.” She put it down in front of him. He placed Mason’s Visa down to pay for the meal. She turned and ran the card. He left her a fifty percent tip, or rather Mason did. He signed the receipt and slid off the barstool.
“Enjoy your day,” he said and headed back towards the dock.
“Thank you!” she said, looking at the tip.
He turned and yelled back, “Half is for the squirrel!” The bartender smiled as she cleared Sean’s empty plates off the bar.
XVII
Nice Night For a Swim
Daytona Beach - Atlantic Ocean – Early Morning Hours - Wednesday
The Mercedes was gone. Sean found Sergei busy on the deck of a 60-foot fishing boat called the Crazy Mary. Sean thought of the Pearl Jam show he caught at the Igloo a couple of years before it closed. He remembered that it was a great show. He had forgotten about the girl he went with, however. He climbed aboard and placed the waters on a bench near the stern.
“You know how to operate this?” he asked Sergei, knowing the answer.
“Yes.” It was not a “yes” I think I can do this. It was a “yes” I won the America’s Cup last year, “yes.”
“Pavel not coming along?” Sean asked, as he sat down in a captain’s chair that was bolted to the deck.
“He has other matters to attend to.” Sergei climbed to the upper deck and started the engines.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Cast off.” Sergei pointed at two ropes at the stern.
Sean untied the boat and tossed the ropes on the dock. Sergei gave the engines a little juice and eased out of the slip. He kept the boat at idle through the small marina. Sean climbed up the ladder and stood next to Sergei. Outside of the marina, Sergei opened up the engines a bit. T
hey were in the intercoastal for only a few minutes and then moved into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, headed north. The wind really picked up and it was beginning to rain. The sun was setting and the clouds hung low over the water. Sergei was less than one hour from the marina when he killed the engines. They were 900 meters from the shoreline. Sergei hit a button that dropped the anchor.
“Is it going to reach the bottom?” Sean asked. He really knew next to nothing about the water, or boats.
“Yes.” There really was no arguing with Sergei when he answered like that. It was black and white. Yes or no. No maybes. In his line of work “maybe” did not factor in. Sean was starting to get it.
Sergei took a set of binoculars off the chair to his left and scanned the shoreline. There were a dozen or more tall condos along the beach and then nearly a mile of dunes with smaller houses behind them. Sergei did not move for several minutes. He finally spoke.
“Price’s house is the fourth from the right of the yellow condo.” He handed the binoculars to Sean. Sean held the high-powered binoculars up to his eyes - these were not the binoculars you picked up at Wal-Mart. Price’s house was nice. He had clearly poured money into it. Sean thought it was a Cape Cod, but he was no architect. Too nice for a government salary, but then again, people sometimes marry well. He could clearly see men in the yard and on the roof.
“There are six men on the property, plus Price.”
“I only see five,” Sean said, surveying the property. It was getting dark and the low light was not helping.
“Number six is inside,” Sergei corrected as he pulled a second device out of a bag. It looked like a scope.
“What’s that?”
“Thermal scope. Follow me.” It was getting darker by the minute. The rain and wind were also picking up. The boat bobbed up and down in the water. Sean followed Sergei down to the cabin. The cabin had two bedrooms off of the main room. The main room was mostly white with wood trim. There was a galley off to the side. The cabin smelled of salt water and fish. Not unpleasant, if you were a fisherman. Inside, Sergei had already laid out the gear for the night. There was not much. Four guns. Two knives. Two pairs of fins, two pairs of gloves, two masks and two waterproof bags. Sean sat down at a table that was bolted to the floor. Sergei slid into the other side and looked at his watch. They had several hours until they deployed.
“Thanks to the late Robert Waters, we have a pretty good idea of the layout of Price’s house. His bedroom is on the second floor - the one you saw with the balcony, facing the ocean.”
“OK.”
Sergei pulled a syringe out of his pocket.
“We stick him with this.” He placed it on the table in front of Sean.
“I am new to this. I am assuming there is something that will kill him in there?”
“There’s a chemical in here that will send him into cardiac arrest. The chemical is un-detectable.”
Sean frowned.
“That’s too good for him. Can’t we just shoot him from here?” Sean asked.
“I agree, but it’s how it is going to be done. And no. This would test even my marksmanship. Shooting from a boat being tossed around the sea and hitting a target a thousand or more meters away would be difficult. No. This needs to be done up close. We must not fail.” Sergei looked straight at Sean, waiting for another reaction. Sean leaned back, put his hands behind his head and let out a long breath.
“You have shot someone from this distance before?” Sean asked, now curious.
“Yes. Farther.”
Sean mulled this over. That was a long way.
“You have too,” Sergei added, still looking at Sean.
“WHAT?” Sean shouted.
“Like we talked about, you need to come to terms with this. I have read the action reports. You know how to shoot.”
Sean leaned his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. “Action reports? Who the hell is writing action reports?” The guilt, plus, the fact that he was now beginning to realize what he had become was taking a toll. He tried to tell himself that he was still Sean. If he kept saying it enough, he believed it would be true.
“There’s a complication,” Sergei said, looking at him.
“What?”
“Those men protecting him are not mercenaries. They are part of the CIA’s protective service group. They are doing their job. I doubt they know anything about Price and what he has done or what he is going to do.”
“So?”
“No harm can come to them. They are not to be killed. If we have to put them down, it is with non-lethal force.”
“Thank god! Agreed! I don’t want to harm them. Price is another matter,” Sean exclaimed. To him, these guys were no different than Brian. Doing their job. They just happened to get the short straw and had to pull duty guarding Price on a night when two guys were going to crawl out of the sea to kill their boss.
“There are two sets of weapons over there. One with tranquilizers. The second is the one we don’t want to use. The goal is to get in and out without them seeing us. The weather is our friend and there should be one hell of a storm tonight. We will have the advantage of night vision gear and close to total darkness. Pavel is in a hotel down the beach and will disable the security system and all phones. We will enter Price’s room and inject this into his system and leave.”
“Sounds easy.”
“Glad you agree. Go get some rest. We are in the water in less than five hours.”
Sean entered one of the small rooms off the main cabin area. There was a double bed against the wall. He flopped down on his back and stared blankly at the ceiling. The motion of the sea rocked him right off to sleep.
Sergei reviewed the house schematics, checked the equipment and got a few minutes of sleep as well. While he dozed, the storm picked up. Large round raindrops were pounding the boat and waves were crashing over the bow. He awoke and changed into a thin neoprene wet suit. It covered just the lower half of his body. The legs stopped just above the knees. He picked up a can of black body paint and smeared it on his chest, face, lower legs and arms. He knocked on Sean’s door and tossed a suit identical to his own onto the bed.
“It’s time. Put this on. You’ll need it tonight.”
As Sean sat up in bed, he could feel the severity of the storm. He didn’t like it. It felt like a giant fist was pounding the boat, over and over again. He put on the suit and went into the other room. Sergei looked like something from a horror movie with his blonde hair, black paint smeared on his chest and face and those ice blue eyes, eyes that cut right through him and were enough to put fear into the hearts of most men. Sean was no longer most men. Sergei pointed to the black paint on the table. Sean let out a sigh and began applying it.
“This weather is exactly what we needed. We should be able to slip in and out.” Sergei packed the weapons into a waterproof bag as he spoke. He placed the night vision equipment into a second bag. He had already attached the sheaf for the knife to his leg. The boat was being tossed around violently and Sergei noticed Sean’s apprehension.
“Getting off is the easy part. The tough part is coming back. If the boat is being pounded by the waves, it will make getting back on board very tricky.”
“That’s great news,” Sean said, sarcastically.
“We will be fine. Based on my calculations, we will be back on the boat in less than sixty minutes. Thirty minutes in the water. Ten minutes on the beach. Ten minutes in the house. Ten minutes just in case. The water is warm tonight as well.”
“Why so long in the house? I thought we were just sticking him with the pen?”
“We need to make sure he is dead,” Sergei said and continued packing the bag.
“Of course, what was I thinking?” Sergei let Sean’s comment and tone go. Sean picked up the fins and looked at them. New. Expensive.
“I took a look at the weather patterns. The storm should start to pass as we are making our swim back out.” Sergei pulled one of the black water
proof bags over his shoulder and across his back and tightened it until it was snug. Sean watched him and did the same.
“Make sure it is tight as you can get it. You don’t want it to slow you down in the water,” Sergei said, checking his mask.
“Nice mask.”
“Same thing the SEALs use. Make sure it fits,” Sergei advised.
Sean shook his head. “Naturally! The SEALs use them!” he said to himself. He tried on the mask, made some adjustments and was satisfied. The wind and rain continued to pound the boat. Sergei did not seem to be affected.