by A. J Tata
Someone had moved quickly from this boat into the tunnel, and up into the “village.” He also saw a toolbox with some basic boat tools and a three-foot length of heavy gauge chain, probably cut from the anchor line. He secured the chain in his rucksack and stopped. He remained motionless for a full minute, sure he was not alone. His senses were hyperalert, yet he was unable to pinpoint an adversary.
Remaining on guard, he moved up to the bridge and checked the waypoints of the boat’s GPS, waiting as it powered up. He saw that the Galaxy location was loaded as well as many others. He scrolled through and saw one destination loaded after the “Return Home” label in the destinations menu. He clicked on “Continue to Destination” and saw the route light up that would take the boat out of Milltail Creek into East Bay, north of Roanoke Island, into Albemarle Sound, into Currituck Sound, up the intracoastal waterway into the Elizabeth River, and into port at the Norfolk Naval Base. He zoomed in on the destination point and saw a street name.
Admirals Way.
He visualized the plan. Take the Arab and Pashtun prisoners by boat into the heart of the US Navy and let them loose on the senior-ranking officials who lived on the naval base. Asymmetric attack. Indirect approach. Brilliant, truly.
An endless pipeline of ghosts made for infinite possibilities of attack.
He powered down the GPS. He was wasting precious time. There was always that balance between gathering actionable intelligence and acting on what he already knew. Mahegan now knew enough to stop the larger plan, but not enough to find Locklear. He was going to have to barrel his way through the urban village if he was going to find her . . . and save her.
He stepped from the gunwale of the boat to the pier and carefully scanned the horizon. Still no activity.
He knelt on the pier next to one of the oblong shapes protruding from the water. It was about six feet long and looked like the cockpit of a fighter jet. He slipped his night-vision device on and switched on the infrared light, which illuminated the outline of what was precisely that: a fighter jet, but underwater.
Mahegan had little experience with submersibles, but had seen some used in Iraq in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. He slid across the pier to the other side and saw exactly the same thing. Two underwater fighter jets, essentially.
These would explain how Copperhead intended to escort the personnel carrier, the Lucky Lindy, to the objective, Admirals Way. He ventured that these devices probably could pump out some decent kinetic activity as well. They could shoot.
He moved back to the Lindy, quickly worked his Leatherman to remove the transom brackets, opened the engine compartment, and ripped the spark plug wires loose. He cut two with the wire cutter function of the Leatherman. He replaced everything else as he had found it, and then turned to head back to the manhole cover.
As he approached the tunnel entrance, he heard a voice.
“Who the hell propped this thing open?”
Mahegan moved quickly to the bank of the creek where the concealment was best. He flipped the safety off his M4 and tightened the night-vision goggle around his head. Making sure the infrared light was turned off, he conducted a quick pulse check on his PAQ-4C infrared aiming light. It worked.
He watched a man slowly emerge from the hatch of the tunnel. Quickly, two more men with backpacks and weapons followed and assumed firing positions, securing their positions against unwelcome intruders, or him. Next, a line of men with backpacks and rifles came pouring through the hole and ran onto the pier toward the Lucky Lindy. In all, he counted ten including the first three.
He remained motionless because they appeared to have good equipment and it wasn’t a stretch that they could have night-vision goggles. If he was detected, Locklear would be dead and it would take an average boat mechanic ten minutes to repair the spark plug wires and have the Lucky Lindy operational.
His mission at the moment was to avoid detection and to stay alive. He had to ignore the movement he felt across his leg. He was certain it was a snake, but he remained focused and did not look down. Mahegan’s knees were pressing into the mud and silt of the creek and he was surrounded by tall reeds and thick undergrowth.
“Maybe Falco or one of them dickheads did it.”
He had heard the voice before, when he had first seen the exchange at the Teach’s Pet. It was the captain of the Lucky Lindy.
“Aye. We’ve got to get moving if we’re going to make our time on target.”
“Let’s load the cargo and get rolling. You’ve got to drive the boat. I’ll lead in the jet—”
After a pause, the other voice said, “What’s wrong?”
“There’s two Vaders here. Just supposed to be one,” he whispered, more to himself than to his partner.
After another silent moment, the man continued as if there wasn’t an issue.
“Anyway. The radar will help us make up time. We want to hit those pukes just before sunup.”
Mahegan watched as the soldiers loaded the boat and one man lifted the windscreen of the submersible jet and stepped into the cockpit like a pilot of a fighter jet. He logged in the back of his mind that someone else was supposed to have already taken the first Vader. Interesting. He thought he might know whom.
Regardless, he couldn’t think about that now. The jet would get rolling and he assumed they could communicate between vessels, so his window was going to be very small to get back into the tunnel. Time was ticking and he knew that Lindy Locklear was bound and gagged and about to have her head severed with millions of people watching on the Internet.
The jet engine made a slight whirring noise under the water and Mahegan felt some vibration through the mud. Deerflies were biting his neck, but swatting them was not an option.
“Not working,” said a voice from the boat.
The jet had moved off the pier and was aimed west in the creek. Mahegan had seen wild dogs in Africa once on a mission to Tanzania in the Serengeti. He had studied how the alpha male owned the pack and if he was missing, the pack would wander aimlessly. He needed to create that kind of disarray.
He moved slightly and leveled his M4 at the boat thirty meters away at the end of the pier. Shots would be heard and would provide early warning to the enemy, but the initial confusion would be an advantage to him. Those at Copperhead would first think that the captain had just wasted another ghost or two. No biggie.
Mahegan heard the voice mutter something and saw the man begin to come down the ladder from the bridge. He thumbed the infrared aiming light, set it steady on the man’s torso, and fired a double tap, scoring on both hits. The man tumbled to the deck of the boat. Mahegan moved to the pier and crawled onto it, leveling the weapon at the jet, which was drifting slowly away.
Stay and wait, or go? The jet was probably bulletproof or at least had some kind of reactive armor. So why waste the shot or the time? He decided to leave the tough decision to the man driving the jet and get moving.
Mahegan was up and out of the reeds like the monster from the Black Lagoon, only sleeker and faster. He covered the twenty meters in five seconds and slid toward the manhole cover as if he were stealing third base against a catcher with a rifle arm. In one fluid motion, he had the cover up and was coming through the hole and down the steps. He ran the chain through the bottom handle of the manhole cover and secured it from reentry from above.
Checking the map in his mind, he moved quickly along the tunnel until he reached the original T intersection where he had taken a left instead of a right. So far, it seemed like the right move.
Only if Locklear were still alive.
Mahegan pushed forward, knowing the clock was moving fast, giving him a quick image of the basketball arena clocks where the seconds and tenths of seconds fall like sand pouring through a funnel. Ten minutes turned into fifteen after trying several different manhole covers, none of which gave him the access to Buffalo City.
Finally, whispering to himself, “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast,” his heartbeat remained steady as he
climbed the next ladder and pushed up on the heavy metal lid.
In the middle of a street staring at him were the headlights from two vans that were loading more prisoners. They were all fully armed with rifles and backpacks.
Like an apparition, the high beam headlights cast the goatee man’s shadow on the road, stretching from the van to the manhole cover.
Chapter 48
Vinny Falco stared at the dark street, wondering about the two gunshots. The urban village was a five-block-by-five-block square. There were stores, homes, apartments, and traffic circles looking just as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Not a tactical genius, but a determined criminal, Falco had a bad feeling. The gunshots could have been his friend, Dan Rogers, killing a ghost and dumping him overboard.
But the double tap. Bang-bang. That wasn’t Rogers, he didn’t think. It definitely sounded like the same weapon, so he didn’t think it was a gunfight. Double tap. Bang-bang.
Delta Force. Mahegan.
He turned around to speak to Chikatilo, subconsciously edging closer to his vehicle for protection, and said, “Better call Rogers. Haven’t heard anything from them for ten minutes. They were supposed to give us the cue that they are on the way.”
“Don’t like the sound of those shots,” Chikatilo replied.
Falco looked at the vans and saw five fighters huddled around his van and another five near Chikatilo’s.
“My motto has always been, ‘Live to Fight Another Day,’” said Falco.
“What are you saying? Hold up?”
“I’m thinking to live, we might need to circle the wagons here. If Mahegan is back, those shots could have been from him.”
There was a soft chirping from Falco’s cell phone.
“Go,” Falco said as he picked it off the seat of the van.
“This is Rogers,” said the voice coming from the speaker. “We were pulling out and I think one of the ghosts shot O’Leary. They are swearing it was someone else, but I’m not so sure. I was in Vader, but I turned around and boarded the Lindy to check it out. I checked their weapons and none appear to have been fired. Still. O’Leary’s dead.”
“Okay. That confirms it. We have a problem,” Falco said. “Here’s the decision. We’re on an official delay for twenty-four hours, except for Lars and the submarine, which is already near the Chesapeake Bay. I will tell Golden Boy. Bring those fighters back through the tunnel and come up on the west end. Set up a base of fire for anyone trying to move back toward the boats. We need them to defend the village tonight and then we can resume the rest of our attacks tomorrow.”
“Got it. Mahegan?”
“That’s what we’re thinking.”
Once he was off the phone, Chikatilo turned to Falco.
“Let me take these ghosts up to Norfolk,” Chikatilo said. “We can still execute. All those admirals and generals are in one spot. Their meeting is over tomorrow. This is a target of opportunity, my friend.”
Falco chewed on his lip and tugged on his earring.
“How you getting in there?”
“Got a Navy sticker and Navy ID. Hit it during rush hour. They always feel pressure.”
“How about the other problem?” Falco asked.
“Thought I’d leave that for you.”
Falco thought about it. If he was going to come out of this with any amount of fortune intact, he needed just a few more people dead.
“I can do it. But you know Rainbow, the gold, is probably gone, so our hand is forced into this bullshit here,” Falco said, waving his hand as if to indicate a future of military contracting.
“Don’t forget that there’s still about a million in gold in the river that we haven’t pulled up.”
“I get that. Not anywhere near what it was.”
“Remember, pigs make money, hogs get slaughtered.”
Falco smiled.
“Speaking of slaughtering, we need to get this show on the road. Okay, take your ghosts up to Norfolk and we’ll deal with Mahegan. Once he’s out of the way, we’re golden.”
“I will wait on the word. If I don’t hear from you by oh-eight-hundred, I’m going in with rush hour. Their meeting starts at oh-nine-hundred at the officers’ club. We’ve rehearsed it and are ready.”
“Then go.”
Falco watched Chikatilo step into the panel van along with the rest of his ghosts. He noticed the Navy sticker on the front windshield. It was a blue officer’s sticker. Chikatilo was smart. Officers received less scrutiny.
With Chikatilo moving toward Norfolk, Adham about to conduct some beheadings, and Mahegan most likely moving toward him, Falco did the only thing he knew to do.
He punched a remote control that switched on all of the MVX-90s he had placed throughout the urban village. The MVX-90s were connected to passive infrared switches at key locations. Falco stepped inside his van, opened a laptop, and typed in the code to have the MVX-90s at strategic choke points activate the remote sensors, bypassing the need for a radio signal. The transmitter/receiver did its job and Falco could see that seventeen infrared switches had been armed. Should anything cross one of those beams, the infrared switch would send an electrical impulse to a blasting cap embedded in an explosive found on the Dare County Bombing Range. One-stop shopping. The MVX-90s were in the warehouse. The bombs were on the bombing range. The gold was in the river. This little shit job of clearing some bombs had turned into a literal gold mine.
But it was all being threatened at the moment. Adham’s plan had always been a risk. But if they could keep him untraceable to Copperhead and “overseas,” then the obvious benefactors would be those companies that could immediately provide security. Of course, Falco had to keep the Adam Wilhoyt/Mullah Adham plan a secret from Nix, whom Falco suspected wasn’t quite willing to go as far as he was. Only Falco and his combat interpreter, Chikatilo, were there to interrogate Wilhoyt after watching Sergeant Colgate’s vehicle explode, and they would be the ones to benefit. Falco shivered at the thought of how close he and Chikatilo had come to death that morning a year ago, riding in the second Humvee behind Colgate’s vehicle.
In the end, Falco had only provided half of the Ghost Mission to Nix, who had begrudgingly accepted the idea of using ghost prisoners as slave labor in the marshes of Dare County Mainland. The other half they were training for combat, which would funnel even more money in security contracts from the government—money Falco and Chikatilo would keep for themselves. It was a double win, free labor plus government dollars funneled through ghost accounts. According to the Copperhead ledger, there were dozens of mine-clearing personnel being paid. In reality, the Copperhead team needed only eleven people, now going on seven after the last few days of Mahegan’s madness.
With seventeen bombs rigged to explode and maim, and his eight-man ghost detail dispersed in defensive positions in the city, Vinny Falco moved from his empty van to the inside of a concrete storefront in Buffalo City and headed for the stairwell that led down to Adham’s hideout.
As he descended the stairwell, it occurred to him that Chikatilo was gone, Rogers should be a few minutes away with his ten ghosts, and that Adham had already moved to a secure location. It was his ass that was hanging out right now. He had a creeping feeling that someone was watching him, the same kind of eerie sixth sense he would have after watching a horror film and returning home. He would turn on all of the lights, grab a knife, and walk around opening closets, expecting a vicious maniac to leap from the dark corner wielding a chain saw.
Mahegan was now that nightmare.
Chapter 49
Mahegan watched the van pass over his lowered manhole cover, and then he raised it again so that he could watch and listen to Falco. He heard the discussion about the admirals and generals and while he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about a bunch of soft armchair warriors, he had an obligation to get the attack information to someone who could do something about it.
But timing was everything and the attacks and bombings were hours away.
Locklear’s death could be only seconds away, if she was even still alive. Now was his best chance to confront Falco and find Locklear. He watched Falco punch a button on a transmitter and remembered the MVX-90s he had seen around the compound. He assumed they were now armed and connected to trigger devices that would be connected to large explosives. Certain that Falco had bypassed the need for a radio signal, Mahegan knew that simply passing through an infrared beam would detonate the bombs.
He figured his one advantage was that Falco did not suspect him to be so close so fast, if at all. If he followed Falco’s path, he would also be staying out of the line of fire of the rigged explosives unless Falco was switching new ones on as he progressed into the bowels of the urban village.
Quickly, he was moving down the steps inside the storefront, chasing the echoes of Falco’s footsteps. He heard a door open and caught it before it slammed. He saw Falco glance over his shoulder briefly and turn left into a dimly lit hallway. Pulling the door open and leading with his M4 as if he were clearing a building, Mahegan walked quickly along the middle of the hallway. He slid to the left and leaned against the wall, listening. He heard fading footsteps as if they were beyond yet another door.
And he heard voices.
Mahegan moved around the corner, leading with his weapon, and then closed on the door. There were voices on the other side.
“Things are moving fast,” Falco said.
“Then, we shall move faster.” It was the manic voice of Mullah Adham. There had been so many raids and missions where the goal was to capture the media sensation that was taunting America and leading to the deaths of so many Americans. And now, Mahegan thought, he was in America. And here he was, about to break through the door and put an end to the number-one security threat to America.