Peace - A Navy SEALS Novel (DeLeo's Action Thriller Singles Book 3)

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  “Tony here will record everything you have to say, and ask for clarification if he hears something he doesn’t understand.”

  Peace stood up again, leaving Tony with the Chinese prisoners, and walking out. Tony took a micro-cassette recorder from his jacket pocket, motioning for the men to begin.

  “Let’s make memories, gentlemen,” Tony quipped.

  __

  “You really think this will work, Peace?” Bull asked, as they went down to one of the staterooms they had set up for the interrogation.

  “For big mouth’s sake, I hope so,” Peace replied. “Dan says we have maybe two hours before they’ll be dragging us back to the Reagan. He’s already made all the excuses for not transferring everything already. When the carrier gets here in a couple of hours though, the excuses are over. Is big mouth ready?”

  “Yep, all the ingredients are with him, including the body bag you asked for,” Bull answered, as he steadied a grimacing Peace, who had stumbled on the ladder. “You could miss a couple of those bulkhead guides with your bad shoulder if you want.”

  “Heh, heh, heh,” Peace replied through clenched teeth, as he stood waiting for the blinding pain to pass, before going on. “I’ll keep that in mind, Chief.”

  The Seals looked at each other as they could hear their interrogation subject shouting from down the corridor.

  “Why didn’t they gag the prick?” Bull mused.

  “I asked Dan not to let anyone do anything other than transport and watch him. I want Big Mouth to think we plan on kissing his ass, and providing him with everything from food to ACLU lawyers.”

  “What’s he yelling about?” Bull asked, laughing at Peace’s reference to what the Seals thought of as the American Communist Liberties Union, rather than American Civil Liberties Union.

  “Just the usual peaceful Islamic wishes for his captors’ wellbeing,” Peace replied. “Who’s watching him?”

  “Nick.”

  “Oh boy,” Peace sighed. “I’ll have to hear about that. We don’t do well as prison guards, especially Nick.”

  “Yea, I’ve heard about what he thinks of prisoner of war conditions at Gitmo,” Bull laughed, as the two Seals approached the compartment hatch.

  “If they weren’t alive,” Peace intoned in Nick’s drawl, “there wouldn’t be anything to complain about.”

  Bull paused at the entranceway with Peace limping up next to him. Inside the compartment, Nick Turner was pitching small metal ball bearings like darts, hitting the shouting man in the head. The room reeked of what Peace had ordered brought from the Carrier. Bull turned away to keep from laughing out loud. He turned back finally with a grim expression.

  “Petty Officer Turner!” Bull screamed, silencing the prisoner, and bringing Nick to attention. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Passing the time with this horse’s ass, locked in what smells like some slaughter house in Chicago, Chief,” Turner barked back.

  Peace limped over to Nick with a big smile. “Sorry about this, Nick. You can go now.”

  “Thank God, Peace,” Nick replied, obviously relieved. “I’d rather swim back to the carrier than listen to this prick another minute. The Lieutenant told me not to gag him, but I had to do something.”

  “Very ingenious,” Peace complemented him, looking around at the scattered ball bearings, and then at the prisoner’s red splotched face and forehead. “It looks like you were getting the range down.”

  “Yea, Peace,” Nick confirmed earnestly, starting to scoop up handfuls of the metal balls into the box he had dug them out of. “At first, I’d pop him only when he shouted at me; but when he wouldn’t take the hint, I started popping him whenever he shut up.”

  “Okay Nick, he don’t have to be too pretty anyhow,” Peace laughed. “Go ahead and get some air.”

  Bull grabbed Turner as he squeezed past. “When you get told to do something, don’t get cute. What would we do if this guy got put in front of some media types, tell them he caught the mumps?”

  “Hoo-ya,” Nick replied quietly. “Sorry, Chief.”

  “Go on,” Bull grinned, pushing him out the hatch. “Tell them to leave us be until we finish.”

  Nick nodded, waving as he hurried down the corridor.

  The prisoner began screaming the moment Bull turned back into the room, flecks of spittle shooting past the man’s unkempt black beard.

  “Shut up,” Peace said in the man’s own language, gesturing for him to be quiet. “We’re here to talk, and make a deal, but if you cannot control yourself, we’ll just forget the deal.”

  A cunning look swept over the man’s reddened face. “I am listening.”

  “We need to know everything about your operation. We need to know all of your contacts, and all of the people funding your little voyage,” Peace stated simply.

  “You are mad to demand this!” the man screamed, rage instantly masking his features. “I am a holy warrior. You…”

  Peace held up his hand again. “Silence please, you have not heard what we’re offering.”

  Peace nodded at Bull, who dragged over the black body bag Peace had requested be placed in the room. Bull then carried over the sealed crate, and opened the lid. It was immediately apparent where the smell, permeating the room, had emanated from. Peace pulled the protesting prisoner’s head over the crate. Masses of grease and pig parts were evident in the sopping mess.

  “Here’s the deal,” Peace said, letting the man fall back in his chair. “You tell us what we need to know, and we won’t seal you up alive in that body bag with everything in this crate stuffed in with you. I have a special container on deck to put the body bag in. You’ll be weighted in it to the bottom of the ocean, where you can rest unclean for all eternity.”

  “What of the Geneva Convention?” the man said, his voice shaking, and his face ashen. “I have rights, even as a prisoner of war.”

  “What war, what uniform, what country?” Peace sat down in front of the prisoner, leaning back in the chair, arms folded, Bull had placed there for him. “We know this ship has Iranian registry. Are you from Iran?”

  “I…I will tell you nothing. You are bluffing.”

  The man watched Peace’s face change from indifference to a scarred malevolent mask of menace. Peace leaned forward.

  “Here’s how it goes,” Peace whispered. “My partner here is going to slice your clothes off. We’ll put you in that body bag, and then I’m going to start packing pig parts in with you. Once I start, I do not care what you have to say. You will get sealed. You have three seconds.”

  The man stayed silent, his mouth trembling. After three seconds, Bull gagged him roughly, and took out his knife. When he pulled a piece of the man’s shirt free, the prisoner threw himself off the chair to the floor, shaking his head violently in the negative. Peace watched him for a moment, and then spoke.

  “My friend will remove the gag once. Begin speaking immediately, or you go into the bag, understood?” Peace asked.

  The man vigorously started nodding his head in the affirmative. Bull pulled him up roughly into his chair again. With the man seated again, Bull handed Peace a digital recorder, he had carried with him, capable of sound and video recording. Peace set up the recorder on a table nearby, and pointed it at the prisoner. Bull removed the gag. Peace attached a device resembling a blood pressure device to the man’s arm, after plastic tying the prisoner’s wrists in front of him. It incorporated a pulse readout with digital face, and red and green filament indicators. Peace had rigged it up himself. He carried a small device he could transmit a signal, which would light the red light.

  “Start talking, or by God you will be in the bag,” Peace ordered, as he switched on the recorder.

  The man talked for ten minutes, meandering around a point about his sponsors, when Peace turned the red light on.

  “You’re lying,” Peace barked, signaling Bull, who walked over with the gag.

  “No, wait!” The man screamed out in fear
. “I…I made a mistake. Do not…”

  Peace held up a hand, halting Bull as he began gagging the struggling man. “One more mistake, and it will not matter what else you say. Better watch the light. I see red again, you see black.”

  Peace rewound the recorder. Over the next hour and a half, Peace intermittently asked questions and clarifications, as he guided the man through the interrogation. The man never looked up again, simply sitting drooped over at the shoulders, staring at the readout on his arm. Only Peace’s mention of Benito Alvarez brought the man’s head up, glaring at Peace. He acknowledged Alvarez and Batiste handled their port connections.

  “Who is your main contact? Was Alvarez to meet you personally?”

  “No. Batiste was to meet us.”

  “Tell me your name,” Peace said.

  The man hesitated for a moment, staring at Peace’s pretend lie detector.

  “Osama,” the man relented.

  “No way!” Bull exclaimed out loud before seeing Peace’s quick head shake.

  Peace had noticed distinct features in the man’s face, having studied the Middle Eastern region voraciously over the years since his capture in Iraq. His efforts had intensified after his CIA recruitment in Syria.

  “A lot of your countrymen have taken that name,” Peace replied. “You’re a Saudi national.”

  “If you already knew this, why did you ask me if I was an Iranian?”

  “I had to do my own lie detecting to start off,” Peace replied. “Last name?”

  “Faisal,” Osama admitted dejectedly.

  “Royal family connections?”

  “Very remote,” Osama admitted.

  “How did you get in charge of this ship’s operation?”

  “I have been in Al Queda for many years. This was to be our greatest victory.”

  “Did you ever consider what would happen if you did accomplish your mission. The United States would wipe the Middle East off the map.”

  “The United States would do nothing,” Faisal sneered, some of his bravado returning. “You would all hold hands, and light candles, blaming yourselves because you do not understand our culture well enough. We…”

  Peace held up his hand. “That’s enough of that. Would Alvarez have you meet him somewhere when you get into port, or would he come aboard?”

  “I never leave the ship. I stay out of sight as much as possible,” Osama admitted. “Batiste, with his men, would come on board to direct collection of the cargo, and accept payment.”

  “You paid them in what?”

  “Drugs.”

  “Then you have done this before?” Peace asked, leaning forward.

  “Yes, twice in the past six months,” Osama answered after a hesitation long enough to bring Bull forward with the gag in his hand.

  “What was the cargo, at those times?”

  “The same as now. This was to be the last shipment. Batiste agreed to hold the materials in a specially built housing, within the port complex we paid for him to install, where we could gather it for shipment across the border.”

  “When was the last time you talked with anyone from Batiste’s organization?” Peace asked.

  Osama tried to look like he was considering the time frame.

  “You are making me angry again,” Peace said through clenched teeth, wondering whether to hit the red light again.

  Osama stared at the monitor on his arm for a moment more before answering.

  “We have had no communications since we left port. Your spy satellites betray our every word. We were to stay here until the day after tomorrow, and then proceed into Ensenada.”

  “Your friend, Batiste had a little accident, and Alvarez will be meeting the ship,” Peace replied. “Was Batiste to keep the other shipments in Ensenada until this last cargo reached the port?”

  “Yes, it has been arranged to transport it all in a produce shipment convoy. They will not be stopped at the border,” Osama answered in almost a whisper.

  “How could something like that be arranged?” Peace asked, trying not to betray how stunned he felt. Only someone way up in Mexico’s governing body could make such an accommodation in border security. “Batiste had it arranged.”

  “Give me a name,” Peace demanded.

  “I… I do not know his contact,” Osama said, holding up his arm. “Look, I am telling the truth.”

  “Do you always have guards with you when you meet these people, like Batiste?”

  “Yes, I meet them with three or four of my men,” Osama replied, eyeing Bull as he twisted the gag in his hands.

  “Make it so this prick cannot move a muscle, Chief,” Peace said tiredly. “We’ll leave him locked in here until we get into port, and take care of Benito.”

  Bull gagged Faisal as he tried to protest, tightening the gag painfully around the man’s head. He then added a number of plastic ties, cinching the man to the chair, and the chair to the bulkhead. Peace gathered his recorder and pseudo lie detector up, checking the small room over for anything remotely dangerous. He and Bull exited the stateroom, sealing the hatch behind them.

  “How’d we do?” Bull asked.

  “Not bad, but it looks like Osama in there is the main man on this operation. The good news is Alvarez doesn’t know Osama is the main man.”

  “I see that look in your eye, Wolvy, and I don’t like it,” Bull said uneasily.

  “Think about it, Cap,” Peace grinned, motioning for Bull to follow him up on deck. “We already have the Chinese advisors on our side. If we ship their crew off, we can get another crew of our own on here to bring her into port. Benito makes contact, and Shazam!”

  “With you as Osama,” Bull laughed, shaking his head. “Man, I think this superhero stuff has gone to your head, partner.”

  “Listen, Chief,” Peace said seriously, “We didn’t have a chance to marry Jill and Holly. My baby won’t have my name, as crappy as it is, if I screw up. I could bow out now, and maybe things work out. Or maybe I bow out, and things go bad, costing a bunch of guys their lives. You and Dan didn’t manage to pull me out of that hellhole in Iraq because you guys like playing it safe.”

  “Just a walk in the park, right Wolvy?”

  “That’s the plan, Cap. I may need some backup with Dan to get him to let me do it. You in?”

  Bull hesitated. “You know this will be on foreign soil, right? I think we’ll need more authority than the Lieutenant.”

  “I have to start somewhere,” Peace replied. “How about it? If I can’t get you on board with this, I sure ain’t going to get far with Dan.”

  “I’m in, but what about your ankle and shoulder?”

  “I’ll be able to do Osama’s grimace without faking,” Peace replied, grimacing for Bull’s benefit.

  “Oh, very good,” Bull laughed. “You’ll have to work on that psycho tone he has in his voice though.”

  “He kind of lost his edge when you were getting him ready for the pig fat bag,” Peace replied.

  “Yea, that was a hell of an idea,” Bull agreed. “Where’d you pull that out of?”

  “Remember when the Russians had a building taken over by their own brand of Muslim extremists, wired with explosives? Well, they gassed them, before they could blow the building; but the interesting part was they desecrated the terrorists’ bodies before burying them. They made it known they would desecrate any other terrorist before burying them. It made an instant impression on would be suicide bombers there.”

  “I think I do remember something about that,” Bull replied, nodding his head. “Now why don’t we do shit like that?”

  “Uh, we just did,” Peace reminded him.

  “Oh, hell, we bluffed good, but the Russians follow through.”

  “Bluff, what bluff?” Peace grinned over at Bull, who came to a dead stop.

  “Jesus, Peace, you mean the Lieutenant gave you the okay to seal that prick up alive in a body bag full of pig parts?” Bull asked incredulously.

  “Not in so many words.�
��

  “Just as I thought.”

  “He offered to help, because he didn’t want to hurt your sensibilities.”

  “Why, you little turd,” Bull said, reaching for Peace’s neck.

  Peace held up a hand. “I’m hurt, Chief. You wouldn’t beat up a man wounded in the line of duty, would you?”

  Bull dropped his hands to his sides reluctantly. “He never said that, you prick.”

  “Not in so many words,” Peace smiled. “Anyway, he said we could even dump the body if we had to get violent.”

  “Wow, the Lieutenant’s getting hard line.”

  “Hey, we’ll have wives and kids in the San Diego area too, real soon. Do you want these assholes making Southern California glow in the dark?”

  Bull was silent for a moment. “I see your point. It’s a new day in the neighborhood for sure.”

  “Hoo-ya,” Peace replied quietly, heading up the ladder.

  __

  “You’re serious about this, Peace?” Dan asked, sipping coffee across from Peace at a table set up on the bridge.

  “I think I can sell it to CIA, if I can use our satellite phone to call in,” Peace replied. “It will be a lot harder for you to sell Jessup and the chain of command. They probably want to port this floating disaster, and spend the next month carefully removing our cargo with full Haz-Mat teams. We won’t get the ones behind it like that.”

  “Part of the sell job is going to be your readiness to do it,” Dan pointed out after glancing at Bull’s face. “Porky, you don’t look like you’re up to the mark.”

  Peace chuckled at the reference again to the movie Hard Times, and his new nickname. “We stay put here until the day after tomorrow. We don’t get into port for at least a few days. I can let the doctors on the Regan look me over, and make sure I’m sealed up properly. After that, I can sleep it off on the way to Ensenada.”

  Dan looked at Bull. “How about it, Bull? You and the team will have to be up close and personal when Peace does his business with Alvarez. The whole thing could go bad in an instant, if Peace has made an error in his calculations.”

  “That question was rhetorical, Lieutenant, right?”

  Dan grinned. “Okay then, do you think Peace is up to it?”