Torrez missed another one, and finally loaded up the count on Smitty, who still hadn’t moved his bat yet. Finally. McCoy snapped him out of it.
“Hey, Smitty! You gonna look at that fucking thing all day? Hit the fucking ball!” he screamed from third base.
It was unprofessional, uncouth, and just what Smitty needed. The fastball came right down the middle, and Smitty crushed it over the center field wall. His teammates were standing on the bench screaming and hugging each other, and the prince stood up to applaud politely, a very fake smile on his face as he acknowledged Coach Mackey and the batter with a slight bow of his head. He sat and picked up a phone that rang in the Saudi dugout. As soon as the Saudi coach hung up the phone with the prince, he turned back to the field and started screaming at his players in Arabic. The catcher jogged out to speak to Torrez as Smitty was mobbed by his teammates in the dugout.
“I got ‘em on the horn,” whispered Cory Stewart to Mackey in the back of the dugout. “It’s fuzzy, but they’re in position waiting for the delivery.”
Mackey nodded that he had heard and yelled some encouragement to Raul Santos as he jogged out to the plate, then looked up at the prince, delighted to see him so aggravated. “You’re pissed now? Wait till you find out your truck got whacked,” he thought to himself, assuming the prince was somehow connected to the fifty million.
Vinny Colgan, who they called Ripper, was walking up to the warm-up circle. He looked back at Mackey. “Hey, Coach, if we kick their ass, ya think they’ll raise gas prices another buck?”
That got a few high fives from the now overconfident dugout that had yet to take the field.
Chapter 9
Ambush
It was after ten-hundred hours when Cascaes announced that the GPS locator was appearing on his laptop. He was looking at an aerial photograph with a GPS map overlay. A red dot appeared on the fringe of his screen, and every few seconds would move closer to the centered triangle that marked their position.
Hodges checked in from his location up in the rocks using his throat mic. He was in his Ghillie suit and prone on the rocky ledge with his sniper rifle set up on a bi-pod mount. “I have a visual. Truck is inbound, maybe two clicks.”
“Roger that; positions everyone,” said Cascaes quietly. Perez was using high-powered binoculars to scan the road in the opposite direction to make sure they didn’t get any surprises from their rear. After a few minutes, Hodges was back on his throat mic. “Positive ID on the vehicle. It’s a match to our truck.”
“GPS confirms,” said Cascaes.
Hodges chambered a round in his sniper rifle and looked down the road at the approaching vehicle. It was difficult to focus too clearly because the truck was bouncing as it approached in the dusty road with heat roils distorting his view, but he could make out three occupants on the vehicle’s bench seat.
“I have a driver and two additional guys up front. Windshield is filthy. Can’t tell if they’re carrying weapons.”
“Roger that,” said Cascaes quietly. “Jones, when he hits the teeth, you yank ‘em out of the road and get on the SAW. (M249 Squad Automatic Weapon—a heavy machine gun. At one hundred rounds per minute, it is capable of effective suppressing fire.) Weapons hold unless someone starts shooting.”
Hodges whispered back every few seconds with the distance of the truck until they could hear it rumbling down the desert road towards them. It was still on the other side of the small rise, and only Hodges could actually see it. It was traveling at about fifty miles an hour, which probably seemed fast to the three occupants bouncing all over the road inside the ancient truck.
“Coming in now,” said Hodges, a little more excitement in his voice this time. A second later, the truck came over the small rise and hit the dragon’s teeth that lay across the road. The front and rear tires exploded and shredded into a million pieces, and Jones whipped the teeth off of the road to conceal them. The truck squealed and swerved as the driver fought to keep control of his truck. It was old and handled poorly enough with all four tires. Now it was on two, and the brakes were screaming as it fishtailed and slid up the road sideways not more than fifty yards from Cascaes and Perez, who knelt by a spare tire pretending to use a jack on their own vehicle.
The target truck finally came to rest in a cloud of dust, and at first no one moved. Hodges could look down at the dirty windshield, but he could hardly see through it.
“Skipper, looks like movement inside—one of them has a weapon,” said Hodges calmly, his southern drawl always more hidden when he was totally focused.
Cascaes stood with his hands on his hips, staring at his truck and then theirs, putting on an Academy Award performance as “the man with the busted truck.” He spoke into his concealed throat mic to his team.
“Just cover me. Don’t shoot unless you have to.”
Cascaes walked towards the vehicle. And the driver opened his door and began shouting in Arabic. Cascaes continued walking towards him, speaking back in English about the lousy road and his flat tire. The man was growing more agitated and reached back into the truck, where one of his passengers handed him an AK47.
“Weapon!” said Hodges. “I’m taking the shot!”
The rest happened in an instant. A single round traveled from Hodges’ sniper rifle exploding through the windshield, which spider-webbed, blocking Hodges’ view of the inside of the truck, and then through the man’s skull, which exploded. Cascaes hit the deck and yelled, “Cover fire!”
Perez fired a few bursts at the cab with his MP5 as Hodges fired a second .338 Lapua round through the dusty glass. A cloud of blood splattered against the inside of the glass. Jones opened up with the SAW over Chris’ head, putting hundreds of rounds through the cabin of the truck as Chris rolled over and over to the side of the road to find cover.
Hodges called down to cease fire, and everything stopped. It was silent again in the desert, except for the sound of the hissing, dying engine that had a few hundred rounds lodged in it from the SAW. Glass fell with a plink against the hard road. A second later, a body fell out of the cabin. It was the driver, or what was left of him. Perez ran up the road calling Chris on his mic.
“Skipper, you in one piece?”
Chris sat up and looked at the smoking truck. “Yeah, I’m good. Jones? Hodges?”
They both called back that they were fine. Perez and Cascaes ran to the truck and looked inside. They both were shocked to see two young boys lying awkwardly on the bench seat, their heads and bodies blown open. The driver did have an AK47, but that was the only weapon in the truck.
“Fuck!” said Cascaes out loud. He and Perez stood, stunned at the sight of the two kids.
“What is it Skipper?” asked Hodges from overhead.
“They’re fucking kids!” said Cascaes loudly. There was no reason to check for pulses, they each had been hit a few dozen times, including headshots that had torn them up pretty badly.
“Oh Jesus,” said Perez, crossing himself. “Is this even the right fuckin’ truck?”
Jones ran to them from his position, carrying the smoking SAW. When he saw the grisly mess inside the cabin, he abruptly turned and vomited. He started crying and knelt down in the middle of the road.
“Oh, God! Oh, my God! I just murdered two little kids!” He was on all fours, wailing.
Hodges checked in every direction, and when he saw it was clear, he started to scramble down from the rocks. Cascaes saw him move and yelled back to him.
“Stay where you are! Keep your eyes open up there—both directions. Jones, get your shit together and help me search this truck. The GPS tracker was on the vehicle, this has to be it!” He was praying to himself that it was.
Perez had already started to head around to the back of the truck and opened the doors carefully, his weapon at the ready. There were dozens of boxes of dates, which he started pulling out onto the road. He t
ore through the first couple of boxes, which contained only fruit.
“Shit!” he screamed as he ripped open box after box as fast as he could, a cold dreadful feeling in the pit of his stomach. Was this the right truck? The sunlight streamed into the back through hundreds of bullet holes, the light hazy in the smoky air. Cascaes hopped up into the truck with Jones following behind, his face still wet with tears.
Chris started throwing boxes to Perez and Jones, who stacked them neatly in the road as they checked each one and found only dates. They had calmed down a bit and realized that they would have to reload the truck, so they were slower and more methodical now. Cascaes threw down the last box.
“That’s it!” he yelled.
“There’s nothing here, Skipper, just fucking prunes!” yelled Jones.
“They’re dates, idiot,” said Perez, his mouth full of them.
“Hodges, how we doing?” asked Chris.
“Clean and green, Skipper.”
Perez ran back to the cab and started looking under the bloody shot-up seat. Cascaes called him back. “Perez, we’re looking for fifty million dollars! It ain’t gonna be in the fucking glove compartment!”
Cascaes stood in the back of the now empty truck, hands on his hips, totally pissed. “I can’t fucking believe this,” he screamed at no one in particular.
Hodges called down on his mic. “Hey, Skipper, were they really kids?”
“Shut up,” he answered quietly.
Jones was fighting back tears again looking at the wooden planks of the truck that Chris was standing on. One of them was sticking up a little bit, the end chewed up from bullets.
He pulled himself up into the truck and gently pushed Chris a drop to his left, then started pulling up the floorboard. There was something under it. As soon as Chris realized what Jones was doing, he dropped to his knees and pulled out his K-Bar knife. The two of them worked together, prying up the splintered board.
“Ernie,” yelled Chris to Perez, “get me that crowbar!”
Perez took off in a flash, while Chris and Jones continued ripping up the floor. The board snapped off, exposing a square brick wrapped in newspaper. They pulled it out and tore off a corner of the paper. American hundred dollar bills were neatly stacked in a little brick of money.
“Sonofabitch,” said Cascaes softly.
“Leave it to the brutha’ to find the quan, man,” said Jones quietly. He was trying to be cool, but he couldn’t get the image of the two young boys blown to pieces all over the front seat out of his head. He must have personally put a hundred rounds through them. His blank expression echoed the empty feeling in his chest.
Perez returned with the crowbar and whistled as he saw the brick of money in Cascaes’ hand. “Damn, man. They had it stashed in the floor,” he said out loud but to himself.
“Jones found it. Get up here and let’s get this stuff loaded into our truck. We gotta hustle.”
It took fifteen solid minutes of grunting and groaning to rip up the entire floor. When they were finished, they had over a hundred of the heavy paper bricks stacked on the ground next to the dates. Cascaes ran down the road and hopped into their truck, letting the spare roll off the road, and raced back to the rear of the other truck. Jones, now with his shirt off and his dark muscled body dripping wet, was quick to start throwing bricks into the back of their truck. They loaded up quickly, and Chris hopped out to help reload the dates into the back of the other truck.
Perez hopped up onto the running board of the truck, trying not to touch the mangled bodies that were still leaking blood. He tried the engine, but it was totally dead, with more bullet holes in it than the two dead bodies inside the cab. He cursed and hopped down, grabbing the driver and hoisting him up into the cab with the two young kids. He ran back to Chris, wiping his bloody hands on his pants.
“Skipper! The truck is totally dead. Now what?”
Cascaes wiped his sweaty forehead. “Shit. This wasn’t part of the simple plan. I’ll try and push it with our truck, but it’s only on two wheels. I dunno if this is going to work or not. Let’s get it off the road into those rocks if we can. Maybe it will go unnoticed at least till we’re out of Saudi. Get behind the wheel and try and aim it towards that depression off the road.”
“What about them?” asked Perez.
“Leave them in the cab. There must be a million rounds in this truck and all over the road—hiding the bodies isn’t going to fool anybody.”
Perez jogged back to the cab and looked in. Flies had already materialized out of thin air. Blood and hunks of flesh and brain were splattered everywhere. There was no way he was sitting in the driver’s seat, so he stood on the running board with the door open while Cascaes drove his truck slowly into position behind the dead vehicle.
The two trucks groaned with the sound of metal on metal as Cascaes slowly eased into the rear of the fifty million dollar fruit truck. Perez cranked the wheel with the gears in neutral as Cascaes used first gear to push. Sparks flew off the bare metal rim of the front wheel, and the last pieces of rubber fell off the back tire as the truck slowly inched forward. Perez fought the wheel as the truck turned off the road and picked up some momentum.
The truck slid into a small depression off the road and stopped moving. Cascaes gave it more gas, but it was no good and the tires on his truck began to spin and smoke. He could smell burning rubber. He gave up and backed away from the truck, yelling for Perez to get back to their own vehicle. Jones ran to their truck and Cascaes called to Hodges to rejoin the group. As Hodges made his way down, Chris went to his duffle bag and pulled out a white phosphorous grenade. When Hodges arrived, Cascaes told everyone to get into their truck, which he had turned in the direction of Eskan Village. He walked down to the cab of the other truck and tossed the live grenade into it, then sprinted back to his own vehicle down the road. The cab exploded in a huge fireball and burned wildly. By the time anyone found it, there wouldn’t be much of anything except some burnt metal.
He hopped into his own truck and gunned the engine. As they peeled off for Eskan, he told Hodges to try and call Mackey. Hodges did as he was told but, as happened earlier in the day, there was no signal. Jones craned his neck and watched the burning truck getting smaller in the distance. He fought the wave of nausea in the pit of his stomach as it exploded again, giving him one final stab into his heart.
Chapter 10
Top of the 9th
What had gotten off to a great start only lasted until the Saudi team came up to bat in the bottom of the first inning. Moose was throwing hard, but by the end of the first inning it was three to three. By the end of the fifth, they were losing seven to four. Now, top of the ninth, they were getting ready for their last attempt to come up with three runs.
Moose was the lead-off hitter, and he was exhausted. He had pitched the whole game, not expecting to be facing professionals. They had pretty much shelled him all day. And he had been throwing as hard as he possibly could. This was finally his chance to get some revenge.
No such luck. Torrez threw him curves, sliders, and finally struck him out with a knuckle ball that seemed to dance around in front of him before passing his huge swing. Moose surprised his teammates by giving the opposing pitcher a tip of his hat after he struck out. This guy was the real deal, and Moose knew he had been totally outclassed. Of course, Moose was a Navy SEAL, and he wasn’t getting paid millions of dollars a year to throw baseballs, either.
Top of the lineup again—Koches was up. He had struck out twice, flied out once and gotten a single. He walked out to the plate and tapped his cleats with his bat like he had seen the pros do growing up. He spit, again, for no particular reason and did his best to look menacing for the pitcher who had been killing him all day.
“Strike one!”
He stepped out, took a practice swing, and smiled broadly; then he looked back at the dugout. He mouthed th
e words “fuck ‘em” to his teammates, and then did his best Babe Ruth impersonation by pointing to the center-left alley. He teammates screamed encouragement, fired up by his bravado.
“Strike two!”
He stepped out of the box again, now really pissed after almost knocking himself over with the last swing. Then he remembered his college coach at Rutgers. “Don’t try and kill it on a fastball pitcher—just get a piece and it will go…”
Torrez, getting tired after pitching the whole game, something he hadn’t done in six years, and being made to throw a lot more pitches than he had anticipated, did his best to throw a fastball. He was throwing in the low eighties now, and Koches was able to get his bat on the ball with a solid line drive that bounced off the wall and got him to second base. His team was screaming and standing up in the dugout. Torrez wiped his brow and kicked the dirt. He had been quite sure he was going to throw a no-hitter against these Navy clowns.
McCoy was up next, and had been having a pretty good day with a bunt to start things off for their first rally, then a walk and two singles. Torrez threw him some chin music to back him up, but McCoy was a SEAL and not easily intimidated. The next pitch was a fastball, probably the slowest one of the day as Torrez grew more tired, and McCoy got all of it. He had never been a power hitter, but this sucker was gone, clear over the right field fence. Seven to six, with their best hitters coming up. The prince was back on the phone to the Saudi dugout, giving very calm, quiet death threats.
Woods walked out to the plate and smiled up at the prince, who did not return the smile. He stepped into the batter’s box. In the dugout, Mackey’s earpiece finally came on.
“Mack, you read me?” It was Cascaes, sounding a little tense with lots of background noise and static.
The Team Page 4