He fought the other line that wouldn’t let go of his conscience … as good as it was. “Hatred is blind; rage carries you away; and he who pours out vengeance runs the risk of tasting a bitter draught.”
Breaking the tension in his body and the dark cloud in his thoughts, beside him, Knightley hogged Charlie’s binoculars and, like two warring teenagers, they bickered over who had it longest. The drunken, half-naked female partiers on the sunset cruise catamaran anchored a couple of hundred feet from them were oblivious to the spying by the “avid fisherman and divers.”
He shook his head wondering if Charlie, ever the smooth dog, would eventually truly commit to Jane, even though he had dropped the “L” word a few months back. Those two were cut from the same cloth, committed-yet-not-entirely, and he questioned just how monogamous their relationship was. They both seemed to have one foot inching toward straying. Whatever. It wasn’t his concern, but it did trouble Liz considerably. He only hoped that whatever happened between his buddy and sister-in-law, it would happen amicably and not affect the dangerous business they were both involved in. The last thing Obsidian needed was another Caroline and Rick … or him and Caroline … or him and Steele. And, if he was truly being honest, now was the time to admit … like him and Liz. How could he regret and, at the same time, not regret the best damn thing that ever happened to him?
“Hey, Charlie, what’s the story behind this Army drone?” he finally asked after an hour of silence.
“Hey look who’s come back to life.”
He just stared him down with what Liz referred to as his “stink eye.”
“The thing is righteous! With a few modifications,” and here he gave Darcy a poignant look, “made by your father-in-law, it can fly up to 400 feet elevation with a 300x digital zoom lens. He developed a mini-battery so that it can fly over two miles for an extended period. The grenades were my idea. Bennet is one bad-ass tech freak.”
Darcy grunted. He hated that Tom the Traitor was still working for Obsidian. But what else was a man to do when technically still on house arrest?—which, in truth, was bullshit because the man figured out how to manipulate the ankle bracelet’s GPS tracking.
“What else has he produced for Obsidian?”
“For starters, those satellite phones we’re all using now. Caroline let it slip that he’s co-opted some outdated, inactive communications satellite flying around out there. Ya’ know … something from like the Cold War.”
“Interesting …” He stored away that bit of information. Apparently, his father-in-law’s career with the Department of Defense could yield more fruit than he even considered, albeit still breaking the law! “So, what you’re saying is that it’s now an Obsidian satellite?”
“Sorta, but not really. We’re just borrowing it without their knowledge.”
“Darcy, you gotta see the night vision Ray-Bans he made me. Despite him selling out his country for a mint, the man’s got serious talent. He reminds me of Q in a James Bond movie,” Knightley added.
“Hmmm. I see he’s been busy still working as Quartermaster.” And I doubt Liz knows about it.
“When was the last time you saw your father-in-law?” Knightley asked.
“Months. I try not to. His recollection of my fist in his face and my recollection of how damn good it felt keeps us apart.”
“He’s got a girlfriend, I think,” Charlie blurted.
“What? Oh, Lord.”
“Yeah. I went out to see him last week to pick up the drone before leaving to scout, and I heard a woman’s voice coming from the kitchen, then I saw a flash of blonde hair in the window … ya’ know I came through the back door. When I asked if he was alone, he lied. Flat out fed me a line of crap. Maybe she was his assistant or his psych nurse—but then, why lie? I don’t get it; the geezer is like a four-foot-two computer nerd who can’t leave the house. How does a guy like him meet a British bird? It’s not like he’s some swingin’ hip, happy guy.”
“Another Brit? Has Obsidian sent out ‘Special Relationship’ invitations?”
Charlie snorted. “Sure seems that way. She called him ‘honeybun’.”
That shocked the shit out of him. Liz definitely didn’t know about Bennet’s girlfriend or she would have said something about that, too.
“Maybe they met online. Those sites are international, you know. I mean … I’m not saying I know anything about or signed up for online dating, but anything is possible about Bennet,” Knightley said.
Darcy chortled. If that wasn’t transparent he didn’t know what was. As Liz would say, “Me thinks thou dost protest too much.”
“Ha. Ha. I didn’t meet Fanny online.”
“What! Whoa. You’re dating my Fanny? Dance school Fanny? Holy-roller, plain-faced Fanny?”
Uh oh.
Knightley handed back the binoculars and stood in the boat, towering over Charlie with a glare he hadn’t seen in a long time. “Don’t insult, Fanny. She’s a nice girl.”
Charlie swallowed. “Yeah, of course she is. I’m just surprised.”
“Don’t be, and if you call her plain-faced again … well … it won’t be pretty.”
“Sit down, Knightley,” Darcy said.
“I’m sorry, Charlie. I’m just anxious to get this shit underway.”
“It’s cool. I get it.”
Darcy glanced at his wrist chronograph then raised the high-power binoculars again, zooming in on the mangroves. “They’ll be passing any minute. We better start putting our gear on.”
As they did so, he went through the dive. “Let’s go over this one last time. If we’ve timed this right, when the boat passes, well do this dive to the targets in 34 minutes at a shallow 60-foot depth. The three of us will triangulate from here. Charlie will relocate the fishing boat to the designated coral reef to engage Batman once we arrive at our targets.”
“Right. Darce, on recon …” Charlie added, “it took me four minutes to swim through the mangrove canal, and I’m giving you eight to get through the canal, wire your C-4, and get the fuck out of there. At my go, Batman will drop two non-signatory explosives on the far side of the house, 30 seconds later Knightley’s detonation will blast the dock and then, Darcy, you’ll rock the island in the submarine cave.”
“Got it.”
“The sub is most likely in there getting loaded—so we’re going radio silent on this. Knightley, make sure you’re far enough away from those babies when you discharge the remote. The shock wave is gonna be awesome. Remember—center of the hull, and the beginning of the dock. I’ll be monitoring everything transmitted from Batman, your head cams, and your individual GPS. All will be relaying real-time back to Rick in DC.”
“So, if all goes according to plan, we’ll meet before moonrise at the Apollo shipwreck in one hour, and if things go to shit, E and E. We’ll meet at the shack in Cox’s Bay.” Knightley added. “It’s 21:17 now, the Cessna leaves at 23:00 hours tomorrow after we’ve recovered from the dive.”
Darcy stood then pulled his wetsuit hood over his head, “Let’s do this.”
He and Knightley wearing closed-circuit rebreathers on the front of their wetsuits and waterproof rucksacks carrying their gear, explosives, and remote detonators on their backs stepped into the water. With nothing more than dive knives, compasses, and depth gauges leading them to their individual targets, the two Frogmen gave thumbs up, sending them on their course of mass destruction. Black as stone-cold, obsidian lava, they disappeared underwater toward the extinct seamount called Bermuda.
***
Twenty minutes into the dive, the party catamaran and any other boat life had moved on and the dark silhouette of Charlie’s boat bobbed against the last remnant of twilight. He pulled up the bait-less fishing rods, readying to disengage the cuddy’s GPS lock that kept it “anchored” for “fishing.” With Panama hat still in place, he sat at the edge of the cuddy, by all appearances, a relaxed, late-night fisherman about to relocate to better feeding grounds, but his heartbeat said ot
herwise. As an adrenaline junkie, he was so friggin’ on edge—in a good way—he could barely contain himself.
He loved this wild stuff, loved being in the thick of it. But damn!—he didn’t want to be one of those guys. Yeah, sure, he enjoyed diving—in the sky, in the Caribbean—but not with pounds of C-4 strapped to his back and only a narrow window of escape before detonation. There was always that thrill of something going wrong and cheating Murphy’s Law, but those were two of the hardest SEALs he knew—no prob for them.
Night’s falling felt portentous; he listened to the lapping against the hull, the only other sound besides the pulsing beat in his ears like the tick-tock of an old-fashioned clock bomb in a movie.
Glancing at the monitor on the dash, Charlie’s gaze switched back and forth on the split screen displaying the soup-like, mysterious world from the guys’ head cams: dark coral reefs, waving sea grass, gloved hands, and passing fish. Better them than him—he’d much preferred high altitude free-falling from a plane or body surfing. Deep-water, tactical diving wasn’t his thing, but he wasn’t above learning with a pair of propulsion jet boots! Now that would make it more interesting and a shit load of fun!
Even in the fading twilight, faint light pierced the surface of the water so that their night vision wasn’t necessary. Under the yacht and in the mangrove, it would be a different story, particularly since there will be no moonlight for a couple of hours.
“Who would’ve thunk it … Fanny and Knightley,” he chuckled into the salty air; that thought popping into his head out of nowhere. “I bet Caroline is freakin’ out.” Shaking his head, he rotated the chair, started the engine and left his position for the reef. In twenty minutes, Batman would be wreaking havoc.
Slowly, he trolled the inky water, watching the fishing sonar/GPS on another screen. Truth be told, he missed Jane’s companionship; she was a great navigator when she focused. He’d always been a solo, serious kinda guy when it came to the death business, but having her along certainly made him re-think the solitude. She’d love this, and he loved her; she made everything fun—even the deadly stuff.
He stopped the boat and shut down the engine, locking it above the deep coral reef below. They were three sides of destruction now—one at the north end of the estate, one at the south end and, he, navigating Batman from the west.
He narrowed his eyes at the split screens; Darcy entered the brackish water, thick with tangled mangrove roots covered with silt and sediment from the sea floor. Charlie shuddered, recalling his own difficulty getting through the roots on his recon dive. Even in broad daylight and being unencumbered by the weight of heavy scuba gear, it was a challenge. The tree canopy had blocked the sunlight, but still he had been able to easily locate the clear channel that the ten-foot wide narcosub traveled through. Darcy had only his night goggles and, hopefully, calm focus, because that shit under there could be claustrophobic. A minute passed, and the canal became black as ink on screen until Iceman’s gloved thumb rose into the lens of the camera. He’d located the access path, the deepest portion of the canal.
Charlie breathed a sigh of relief.
The image on the other side of the monitor was dark and murky. Knightley must be positioned below the keel. The head cam wasn’t picking anything up, just murky floating sediment until the red blinking GPS signal halted, positioned at the sea wall at the dock. Two hands, holding the carefully packaged explosives, passed across the camera lens before vanishing again into the darkness.
A faint light allowed Charlie to observe Darcy’s tactical skills when he arrived at the limestone mouth of the cavern ahead of schedule. The Frogman concealed himself within the surrounding mangrove as he steadily rigged the explosives to the entrance. Back on his SEAL game, the man operated methodically, quickly, without hesitation—and completely concealed to the guards he knew were within. When Darcy glanced down to remove his dive knife, Charlie had a glimpse of two white food-grade buckets and a soft beach cooler wedged into the silt.
“What the hell is all that trash? Drug containers?” But he disregarded it, instead switching his attention to Knightley wrapping up at the dock piling.
“Almost time,” he said to the inert drone waiting on the floor.
Darcy wiggled from the roots, his GPS signal tracking forward into the cavern, not away from.
“No, no—fuck no!” He yelled at the screen when the cam’s vision grew brighter and the mangroves disappeared. All he could see were underwater limestone walls and the hull of the submarine when it came into view.
“What are you doing, man? Get the hell out of there!” He shouted into the night air, abruptly standing up.
Foolish or brave? At least he was fast, and in only a matter of seconds, Darcy pressed another explosive device to the propeller, and swam back toward blackness. His GPS showed movement to safe harbor, but Charlie couldn’t see a damn thing through the head cam.
A long stream of air released from Charlie’s lungs and he noticed that Knightley’s GPS and cam were also on the move.
Two minutes passed; both men gave the okay sign.
“Let’s rock-n-roll, Batman,” he said, directing the drone using the remote control. It lifted into the air and flew off the boat, silently soaring across the darkened sky toward its destination: the mansion was lit up like a Christmas tree just waiting to be bombed the shit out of.
On the hand-held screen he lined up the bat, then pressed the red button, releasing two incendiaries filled with thermite. Sight unseen, they descended in the dark until the explosion lit the sky!
BOOM!
The aerial view in the darkness was a spectacular show.
He re-positioned Batman to over the dock and waited 30 seconds to capture Knightley’s handiwork on video.
BOOM!
Water, wood, and fiberglass blew into the air in an extraordinary golden geyser below Batman! Take that Morales!
The drone was now on the move to oversee the destruction of thousands of tons of drugs in the mangrove cavern. Hovering over the canal, it waited. Thirty seconds passed. Forty. Forty-five.
Nothing.
“Fuck!”
The red dot of Darcy’s GPS was immediately on the move toward the cavern, his cam showing the descent into mangrove blackness once again, and Charlie lost visual. He was going in either to replace the charge or to fix it, maybe he needed a closer range for discharge, but he would have known that from the start—
BOOM! BOOM!
The blast was so powerful, Charlie felt it in the cuddy. It threw him backward with a “Holy Fuck!”
Frantically, he ran to the dash examining the two side-by-side, split-screen monitors.
Only one GPS tracker remained: Knightley’s.
Darcy’s red tracker was gone from the screen.
Knightley’s head cam showed fast movement over hard coral.
Darcy’s head cam was out, replaced by static.
Rendered immobile by shock, Charlie’s heart squeezed—and then came the text from Rick. “What the fuck just happened?”
He couldn’t think—his mind scrambled at the unexpected. He couldn’t reply; his palm was frozen to his lips. It was right there in front of him—no GPS, no cam. Darcy didn’t make it out in time. There was no way he could have survived the canal in that double blast.
There was no possible way.
7
Pieces
August 11
North Carolina
Darcy hadn’t shown at the safehouse in Cox’s Bay … or at the Cessna.
In the course of a week, Obsidian’s three men had barely uttered a word about Darcy—or their fear of the worst—to one another in their haunting, disturbing search for signs of life. After day four, following the violent storm, all hope was gone, but they continued searching anyway, carefully keeping their distance from the local authority and cartel’s investigation above and below sea level.
It destroyed them all when they came to the decision to end the search. Both the preponderance of and th
e simultaneous lack of physical evidence determined the end of Operation Gombey’s search and rescue. Three men, all who had witnessed death on and off the battlefield, came back with the same conclusion: Darcy was dead.
As expected, Rick had taken the news the hardest. Battling his calm, reassuring confidence and the overwrought feeling of hopeless despair, he had hopped on the first flight to Bermuda—arriving eight hours after the destruction of Morales’s compound. Faced with the initial findings, the stalwart Marine bit his lip, nodded his head, fought back the tears, and suited up to join the dive in Hungry Bay. He had to see for himself, had to bear witness.
Bingley’s trademark affability was gone, and Knightley considered what a fucked up wake-up call Iceman’s death was to Bingley’s happy-go-lucky attitude. The guy was beside himself and unable to speak, even if he wanted to. While he hadn’t thought them the “best of friends,” they were “very good friends.” Maybe the emotionally stunted Bingley looked up to Darcy for the honorable man he was. Guilt could also be playing mind games on the guy, too. Operation Gombey had been Crash’s mission—his scouting, his plan—even if Darcy went off op by laying the second device on the sub.
That last bit would remain between the Obsidian men; they’d never tell Liz that Iceman made a foolish decision by increasing the explosive power. He might have survived. He should have known better—the man was a damned good Frogman!
As for himself, he could no longer proclaim that emotions were best when stored away. They were right there on his suit lapel, represented by the U.S. Navy SEAL Trident pinned to the fabric. He lost a brother that night and it eviscerated him.
In three distinct ways, they’d all lost a brother that night.
In Good Conscience Page 10