Right to the Kill (Harmony Black Book 5)

by Craig Schaefer

  “Not exactly black-market merchandise,” Aselia said. Jessie and Harmony walked down the Imperator’s cargo ramp to join them behind the plane.

  He gave her a pained look. “‘Legal’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘easy to get on short notice.’ Anyway, what you got here is a four-twenty model.”

  Jessie arched an eyebrow. “Four-twenty?”

  Wexler shrugged. “Hey, no idea why they chose that model number. I’m only saying that it’s a very nimble, very quiet boat that’s good for running shallow waters and slipping around certain authorities who might want to question you or look at your potentially shady cargo. She’s inflatable, aluminum frame, fifty-horsepower engine with a twelve-and-a-half-gallon tank.”

  “Which you fueled up on the way here, right?” Aselia asked.

  “Even got a receipt, so you can reimburse me.”

  He waggled a tattered printer ticket at her. She responded with a flash of green, but she kept her cash tight in hand until she saw the rest of the goods.

  Wexler hauled a heavy duffel bag from the passenger side of the Bronco and laid it down on the edge of the tarmac. They clustered around as he pulled back the zipper and showed them the goods. Two onyx shotguns, with pistol grips and their modular stocks removed to shorten them down.

  “If you’re hunting big game, I got you covered. The Benelli M3. Removable stock gives you more maneuverability in tight quarters.”

  He hefted one of the shotguns, showing it off, keeping the barrel pointed to the asphalt.

  “Lock the pump”—he shoved it forward, demonstrating— “and now it’s in autoloader mode. Under-barrel magazine holds eight rounds of very nasty buckshot, and you can fire almost as fast as you can pull the trigger. Careful, though, recoil’s a bitch. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should, right?”

  “But it’s nice to have the option,” Jessie said.

  * * *

  By two thirty in the afternoon, Kevin’s little electronics lab at the console’s edge had blossomed. Now a host of detonator plugs clustered around the circuit board, and he’d marked the tips of their tiny lights with dots of paint in three shades; some were green, some yellow, and the last few stragglers were red. He waved Harmony and Jessie over as he fiddled with his phone.

  “Bobby’s a technical genius, but he didn’t work too hard on the safety protocols for the detonation code,” Kevin said. “I cracked the transmission method and the password.”

  “He was probably pressed for time, after what went down in Tampa,” Jessie said. “And now that Dominguez reported in, he knows we’re on his trail. What do you have for us?”

  Kevin showed them his screen. It was a no-frills, rush-coded app, no art or style, just static colored boxes and big command buttons. He gestured to his testing board, then tapped the One icon on his phone. A pop-up window demanded a confirmation tap.

  The tiny dome light on the detonator flashed bright white.

  “Electrical impulse triggered,” Kevin said. “If that was a brick of Semtex, we’d all be dead right now.”

  “That’s reassuring,” Jessie said.

  “It gets better. Figured you might need to stagger your booms, so I reconfigured the detonators.” He pointed to the blobs of paint. “One, two, three is green, yellow, red. You can set them all off at once or just the particular batch of detonators you want.”

  “And you’re certain they’ll work?” Harmony asked.

  “Ninety percent certain. I need to keep debugging.”

  Jessie crossed her arms.

  “Be sure,” she told him. “We’re going to be ass-deep in mermaids, which is nowhere near as much fun as old-world sailors thought it would be. Less naked frolicking, more human-devouring frenzy. If this doesn’t work, we aren’t coming back.”

  “By the time you leave, it’ll be perfect. Just one thing: reach is a problem on these transmitters, especially out on the water. You’re going to need to be close when you set it off.”

  “How close?” Harmony asked.

  “You might lose some eyebrow hairs. I’m going to try to code a viable-range detector, but it’s got to come second to making sure the trigger code works perfectly each and every time. Let me keep working on it. I’ll see what I can do.”

  * * *

  A convoy of black SUVs rolled in with the turn of the mist-shrouded sun. Their cargo was men in dark suits and dark glasses, lugging heavy duffel bags and jet-black ballistic crates. Jessie met them down on the tarmac. A two-by-two stack of rough-sided plastic crates formed a makeshift table, and she spread out a map for the briefing. A clammy wind ruffled the map, corners held down with loaded pistol magazines.

  “Beach Cell is going to be stationed here,” she said, short-cropped fingernail rapping a stretch of road north of town. “Redbird, your team takes up position here on the southern road. Only other easy way out, besides the water.”

  Redbird’s new cell leader was Roberts, a thick-jawed vet with hard eyes behind his dark-tinted Aviators. He gestured to the right half of the map, all inky blue nothing dotted with tangled islets.

  “And the water?”

  “We’ll handle that. Agent Black and I are the advance team; taking out their docks is part of the infiltration plan. We’re going in first, and we’re going in quiet until we have to get loud. When we get loud, you’ll know about it. This is important: no matter what you see, no matter what you hear, you hold your positions. Judah Cranston is brewing up a metric fuck-ton of doomsday gas in his secret lab, and if things go sideways, I want you and your people outside the blast zone. Your job is to intercept any runners if Cranston’s cult tries to flee town.”

  “Rules of engagement?”

  “We have to assume that everyone in Graykettle is a member of the cult. They’ve done a good job of killing and eating anyone who wasn’t on board with Cranston’s agenda. Also, at least a hundred of them have signed up to play suicide bomber for the cause, so conduct yourselves accordingly. If they try to surrender, and if it’s safe in your judgment, take them into custody. Otherwise, exercise lethal force. Once Cranston and his bioweapon have been neutralized, I’ll report in with further instructions.”

  Roberts nodded, sharp. “And if you don’t report in?”

  “Then presume that Agent Black and I are captured or dead,” Jessie said, “and Dr. Cassidy is the acting commander of Vigilant Lock. She’ll call the shots from that point on. Don’t try to rescue us. Stopping Clean Slate is your one and only priority, and if that means turning that entire village to glass with us in it, you do it.”

  He snapped a salute. “Understood.”

  * * *

  While Jessie briefed the field teams, Harmony studied the fruits of April’s research. The video screens above the command console were an antiquarian’s treasure trove of faded maps and sepia-toned photographs.

  “Turns out Graykettle was quite the pot of sordid revelry in the nineteen twenties,” April said. “Not only did bootleggers use those islets for smuggling purposes, but they also had a solid foothold in the village—which, back before the waters went sour from overfishing, was a prosperous little place. Plenty of wealthy fishermen with money to burn and thirsts to quench.”

  She gestured to one of the sepia photographs. A beaming, dapper man with a pocket watch dangling from his trim two-button vest stood by an oddly familiar doorway.

  “Geary Chandler, acquaintance of the Boston mob, opened a thriving speakeasy near the heart of town. Despite raids by the local authorities, and even the FBI at one point, not a drop of liquor was ever found. Chandler’s biographer says he bragged, in his later days, about digging out a honeycomb of tunnels beneath the streets.”

  “If they’re still there,” Harmony mused, “we could use them to move around without being seen. Of course, the cult could be using those same tunnels. Where was the speakeasy?”

  Two maps sat side by side on one screen, one old and one vintage. April dragged them together with a slide of her mouse and highlighted one building
in fluorescent green.

  “We’ve been there,” Harmony said. “That’s Sally Ann’s restaurant.”

  “Might be worth taking a peek downstairs. But more importantly, I took Kevin’s conglomeration of data points and compared them to the historical record, trying to narrow down a likely location for Cranston’s lab. There are only a few buildings in town large enough to hold an operation like that, and you’ve been inside most of them. One standout is the old cannery, which used to rely on the fishing fleet—when there was a fleet. It’s fallen into disuse, and it’s stocked with industrial-size tanks, making it perfect for repurposing. There’s one problem.”

  She brought up a satellite view of the village. Even with the grainy, black-and-white resolution, Harmony spotted what she meant.

  “There’s no roof.”

  “Apparently caved in from a storm, and no one’s bothered to repair it. Not a good spot for clandestine activity. Now here’s the interesting thing: Kevin found a host of shipping records going back three or four years. Construction equipment, heavy machinery, all of it delivered to the cannery’s address.”

  Harmony pointed to the satellite-eye view. The gaping roof, the shell of the old cannery, and dry, rusted tanks. “But there’s nothing there.”

  “Nothing we can see. Those old bootlegger tunnels, plus the proximity of the docks, suggest old Geary Chandler kept his secret liquor warehouse somewhere in the vicinity. A warehouse that would require a sizable underground construction, one that could easily be converted into a hidden laboratory. You want to look under the cannery.”

  Harmony almost jumped as Jessie’s fingers curled on her shoulder.

  “Sorry,” Harmony said. “Nerves.”

  “More like you’re exhausted. I already took a catnap. Your turn.” Jessie pointed to the long row of jump seats on the far side of the plane. “We’ve got a couple of hours before go time. Get some shut-eye.”

  “I don’t need sleep. I can keep working.”

  “Hey,” Jessie said. She tugged Harmony’s shoulder, turning her around. “I need my partner at her best tonight. And you know I hate pulling rank, but I’m making an exception. Go. Rest. That’s an order.”

  * * *

  Stretched out on the stiff, springy seats, Harmony chased sleep. It danced just ahead of her fingertips, out of reach, leading her though a dark abyss. And on the edges of the abyss, the first icy crackling of dark hungers, beginning their slow and relentless creep across the borders of her mind.

  A gentle hand shook her arm. Her eyes flickered open. Jessie crouched over her. Behind her, the loading bay ramp was down, and the sky beyond was cold and dark. She’d slept through the sunset.

  “Ready to kick some ass?” Jessie asked.

  “Ready,” Harmony said. Her cheeks tightened as she pushed herself up, a stab of muscle pain shooting down her arm.

  “Figured we’d go save the world, then maybe stop for ice cream on the way back,” Jessie said. “I mean, I don’t have anything better to do tonight. How about you?”

  Everyone, Harmony had learned, wore their own style of mask. Hers was cold and hard, a shield against the world. She’d been confused by her partner’s casual, flippant attitude when they started working together, until she realized that Jessie had a mask of her own. Her own style of coping with the evils they faced, like a cop cracking jokes at a murder scene. She could work with that.

  “If we actually manage to survive this,” Harmony told her, “the ice cream is on me.”

  36.

  The Zodiac cut across the foam-flecked waves, the sea turned to choppy onyx. Bottomless and vast, with mist clinging to the horizon like the shreds of a mourner’s funeral gown. The eye of Graykettle’s lighthouse turned, rhythmic, sending slow slices of light across the water. They rode in the shadows between, turning hard along the coast, closing in on the target.

  They’d reloaded their pistols, sound suppressors on, HUSH rounds in the magazines for added stealth. The loud option, their Benelli shotguns, dangled from nylon straps on their shoulders. The rest of their mission gear, the Semtex blocks and color-coded detonators, had been divvied up between a pair of slim bike-messenger backpacks. As they rode in, the perimeter teams were getting in place out on the roads, but their only job was catching the stragglers and stopping anyone from fleeing with the Clean Slate formula.

  The rest was on Harmony and Jessie. They had to get it all. The bioweapon, the records of how it was made, and the mind that created it.

  They docked at the lighthouse, dragging the Zodiac up onto the wet rocks, and made their way inland. Fast, low, silent, navigating the streets by memory and following the route they’d agreed upon. A winding, circular path that avoided the occasional streetlamps and clung to the alleys. A few times they had to freeze, pressing their backs to crumbling, damp walls and holding their breaths as villagers ambled past, but it didn’t look like anyone was hunting for outsiders tonight. As long as they managed to keep things quiet, it would hopefully stay that way.

  They reached Sally Ann’s restaurant right on time. Closing time. Sally Ann was coming out the back, turned toward the door and fumbling with a heavy ring of keys. The muzzle of a sound suppressor pressed to her temple, and Jessie’s hand clamped down over her mouth.

  “You scream, you die. You fight me, you die. You do anything I don’t explicitly tell you to do, you die. Nod if you understand me.”

  Her head wriggled up and down, as much as Jessie’s hand allowed it.

  “Good,” Jessie said. “Let’s go inside, have us a little chat.”

  They marched her back into the restaurant. Harmony found a stairwell behind the kitchen, leading to a cluttered cellar and the steel slab of a meat-locker door. Shelves of canned goods lined the musty shadows. From the rancid smell in the air, half of them—mostly open and shrouded with sheets of plastic wrap—were well past their prime. Jessie shoved Sally Ann to her knees and strolled in a slow circle, keeping her gun trained on her.

  “Damn it all to hell,” Sally Ann seethed. “They said you wouldn’t dare come back around, not after the welcoming party you got last night. I knew better. I told them I knew better.”

  “Understand this,” Harmony told her. “You are only valuable to us as a source of information. We’re going to ask you questions. Some of those questions we already know the answers to. You won’t know which ones, so it’s a good idea to answer them all truthfully.”

  “I got nothing to say to you, heretic.”

  Jessie moved in, one brisk step, and pressed her muzzle between Sally Ann’s eyes hard enough to force the woman’s head back.

  “Fine. Then you’re useless. Harmony? Any objections?”

  There’s a difference between a believer and a true zealot, someone willing to die for their cause without hesitation. In Sally Ann’s eyes, in the flicker of terror that betrayed her, Harmony knew what she was before she even opened her mouth.

  “Wait,” Sally Ann stammered. Her gaze flicked to Harmony, latching on to the woman who could grant a stay of execution. “What do you want to know?”

  “The old bootlegger tunnels. We know that Cranston’s lab is under the old cannery. We also know those tunnels honeycomb the entire village. How do we get there from here?”

  In reality, Harmony didn’t know any of those things, not for certain. Old interrogation trick: go where the evidence points and speak with authority. Nine times out of ten, if you were wrong, human nature would push the subject into babbling out the right answer. If you were right, they’d confirm it without ever realizing they were helping you.

  “You can’t. Not from here.” The muzzle of Jessie’s gun dug in deeper, and Sally Ann’s hands fluttered at her sides, frantic. “You can’t, I swear it! Swear it on the water and all beneath! You could back in the day. There was a cave-in, in the early nineties, cut the whole tunnel system in half. We were afraid trying to dig it out would make it worse, so we just let it be.”

  “Can you get to the church basement from here?
” Harmony asked.

  Sally Ann hesitated, but only for the space of a breath, before she pointed a trembling finger.

  “Second shelf on the left, the empty one.”

  Jessie covered the prisoner while Harmony studied the shelf. She grabbed hold of the metal and strained, hauling it back. Inch by inch, a chunk of painted drywall peeled away with it. Beyond was the yawning, jagged mouth of a rough-hewn tunnel, a cord of dirty intestine winding through the bowels of the village. Musty, stale air rustled from the darkness.

  “Good news,” Harmony said. “Your odds of surviving this have just improved considerably. Let’s keep it going. If we can’t get there through the tunnels, how do we get into Cranston’s lab?”

  Sally Ann bit her bottom lip.

  “I won’t be doing you any favors telling you that,” she said. “Think he’s down there all by his lonesome? He ain’t. You’ll die down there.”

  “We’ll take our chances,” Jessie said.

  “The old cannery. There’s a storage tank still standing. Empty. Hatch on the side is fake, it’s not really welded shut, and there’s a ladder down like a silo. Door’s at the bottom. And there’s a small army of local boys with guns, standing right on the other side to greet anybody coming through. They’ve been on standby since last night, working in shifts, making sure nobody interrupts the doctor while he finishes his work. Second you open that door, they’ll turn you into Swiss cheese.”

  “Like I said,” Jessie told her, “we’ll take our chances. Now tell us about the mermaids.”

  Something new rose in Sally Ann’s eyes, a glimmer of fervor as her voice dropped low.

  “You mean the priestesses,” she said.

  “Where did they come from?”

  “The Ocean Behind the Ocean. Far, far away. They came to teach us. To show us the light. You couldn’t understand. You don’t have the blood in you. If you did, you’d hear them singing.” Sally Ann’s flat eyes went glassy and distant. “I hear them, when I lie down to sleep at night. They send me dreams of the Old Man Below. Of his driftwood palaces and the glories to come.”