Kill Zone

by Jack Coughlin

  CHAPTER 9

  SIR JEFF WAS IN A GOOD MOOD. To mark the success of the Excalibur demonstration, which had won over the investors, he decided a celebration ashore was in order on the bright afternoon. His captain found a quiet, rocky cove on the northeastern coast of the Greek island of Corfu and dropped anchor into perfectly green water. The ladies and the venture capital guys went ashore in the runabout first, and Jeff promised that he, Kyle, and Tim would be right along when the inflatable motorboat made a return trip. The sneaky Brit had a surprise for the money men, who planned to leave soon and make their way up through Italy to Florence before returning home.

  When the little boat sped away, Jeff ducked into his cabin and returned with three bell-shaped bottles of thick glass containing a dark amber liquid. “Gifts for our departing friends,” he said. “Two-hundred-year-old Hennessy Richard Cognac. I picked it up from a wine merchant in Paris just for this occasion.” He handed one of the heavy bottles each to both Tim and Kyle, with a stern warning to handle them gently. Each cost $2,000. He liked to keep his business associates happy.

  The sheer green beauty of the island was stunning as they approached in the little runabout that bounced fast over the water. Olive trees were everywhere, millions of them, from the heights of Mount Pantocrator down to the white sandy beaches. Kyle was looking forward to a fresh salad with cheese from the local goats as Gladden swung to a smooth stop at a narrow pier. They tied up, grabbed the cognac, and headed ashore to where their group was seated on an odd collection of stools and wooden chairs around little tables at a psaro taverna, a fish restaurant. Like most eating establishments in Greece, this one was called the Café Olympia. Irregular weathered stones spread along the front, and tan walls were shaded by the spreading olive branches.

  There was a problem with the idyllic scene. Four rough-looking men also were at the tavern, obviously drunk and taunting the guys and making lewd passes at the women. The money men were sitting there, embarrassed, while the girls were trying, without success, to ignore the drunks.

  “Oh, my,” said Jeff, who wore cream-colored linen trousers, a soft blue shirt, and leather sandals. Tim Gladden had on a lightweight white short-sleeved shirt, creased white pants, and Converse sneakers. Swanson was barefoot, in wrinkled khaki cargo shorts and a brilliant blue Hawaiian shirt with orange palm trees. They looked as threatening as three lost missionaries.

  “I say, chaps,” Jeff pleasantly addressed the men as he carefully placed his precious cognac bottle on a table. “Would you please be off now? We are just here for a quick and a pleasant lunch and then will be on our way.”

  The four Greeks stopped pestering the visitors and stared at the newcomers, knowing that playtime was over. Kyle shifted his weight a bit as the drunks rose from their table, pushed aside the chairs, and formed a line, one-two-three-four. In any street fight, the tough guys lead, and the biggest of the bunch was slightly forward in the two position, shoulder-to-shoulder with number three, a husky man with a face scarred like an Ultimate Fighter. The remaining two flanked them. Kyle glanced at Shari and winked. Lady Pat sat back, took another sip of ouzo, and lit a thin cigar.

  The largest guy, around six-two, spoke. “You will fuck off now, you rich bastards, and take these three other queers with you. The women can go back to your big boat when we are done.”

  “Ah, I see,” said Jeff. “Well then, lads, I guess we are for it. I’ll take this big fellow, if you don’t mind.”

  “No,” Tim disagreed. To free his hands, he also put his bottle on a table and moved to a fighting stance. “I want Mr. Big. You can have that ugly one. Scarface.”

  Kyle smashed his heavy bottle over Big’s head, catching him on the left side of the forehead, and raked the jagged edge down across the eye, cheek, and mouth for a maximum cutting effect. Deep inside Swanson, the switch had clicked into combat mode and he was running on automatic. Speed and surprise. Don’t let them regroup. Eliminate the threats in descending order of importance.

  The first guy collapsed to his knees with a scream, the strong alcohol biting into the deep and bleeding cuts. Kyle already had spun away to his left and slammed his left elbow into the nose of Scarface, knocking him backward across a table. Blood spurted from the fractured nose, and the man’s head cracked against the paving stones.

  “He is going to be even uglier when he wakes up,” Shari said to Pat.

  Kyle’s momentum was still at work and he finished the spin facing number four. He locked Four in a bear hug, slid his clasped hands up behind the man’s head, and pulled the body weight toward him. When the man leaned back, thinking Swanson was going after his face, Kyle drove his right knee deep and hard into the crotch, sending the ruptured balls somewhere up between the eyes. The man gasped for breath and crashed over a chair.

  “An emergency surgical suite for that one,” Pat commented. “Kyle is very messy today.”

  Number one, who had been at the far end, came on fast as Kyle came to rest in a squared position, perfectly balanced. The man’s right leg locked as he ran forward, and Swanson leaned back, lifted his own left foot, and came straight down with a kick on the knee. The leg snapped sharply, with a sound like breaking wood.

  “Kyle! My God, man!” Sir Jeff screamed in anguish. “You broke a bloody two-thousand-dollar bottle of cognac!” He gathered the two remaining bottles, looking at Swanson with horror in his eyes.

  “Sorry,” Kyle said. The whole thing had taken about ten seconds.

  Tim walked to the stunned guests. Lady Pat and Shari were already standing and stepping over the bleeding debris on the stone slabs. “I think we had all best be leaving now,” said Gladden. “We will finish lunch aboard the Vagabond, all right?” He escorted them to the waiting small boat.

  The owner of the taverna was standing in his doorway like a statue, with fresh bowls of salad in each hand. Kyle took one, gave him more than enough money to cover the damage, and walked away. The big guy, number one, stirred and looked up with his bloodied face as if he was determined to rise. Since the man was no longer a threat, Kyle felt there was no need for a lethal blow and settled for kicking him in the sternum to take away his air. The large man passed out, gasping for breath. Kyle thought the goat cheese was delicious. He wished he had not had to eat it with his fingers.

  One of the Desperate Housewives looked back over her shoulder as she walked down the pier, her blue eyes wide in shock. She could not believe what she had just seen. “How did he do that? He was like a crazy man,” she asked Shari.

  “It’s the way he is trained,” Shari replied. “He doesn’t think, just reacts on instinct. Believe me, those guys got off easy.”

  “Do you mean he might have killed someone? There were four of them. Wasn’t he afraid?”

  “This is what he does,” she said, stepping into the runabout. As she took a seat, she gave a tight smile to the woman, who lived in pretty places far from the dirt of the real world. “Kyle is not afraid of anyone… but me.”

  Late that night, the Vagabond cruised through the narrow Strait of Messina. Since the dawn of written history, those waters had gobbled up ships, with the deadly whirlpool Charybdis at the edge of Sicily forcing captains to sail close to the very toe of the Italian boot, where the mythological monster Scylla prowled the rocks. Now the electronic eyes of radar and satellite navigation systems defeated the dangers of superstition.

  Shari leaned against Kyle’s chest as they stood at the port rail, and he buried his nose in her silky hair. It carried the gentle scent of an English flower garden. He wrapped his arms around her and she covered his hands with hers as they watched the boiling bowl of the distant volcano, Stromboli, erupt in flashes of bright orange, with red flame illuminating the underside of passing clouds.

  “I love this,” she said. “My favorite guy, a luxury yacht, a beautiful night, and an exploding volcano. What could be better?”

  He squeezed gently and she turned her head enough to give him a kiss. They were alone on the deck at two o�
��clock in the morning and the churning fire on the distant island made it seem that they might be the only people left at the end of the world. “Being able to stay out here with you a while longer would be better.”

  “Did Jeff offer you a job again?”

  “Yup. Says we ought to get married and make a lot of money and beget him and Pat some godchildren they can spoil rotten.”

  “Sounds like a plan. You turn him down again?”

  “I told him it was all your fault, because you make that white uniform with all the gold stripes look so good and you like people to salute you.”

  She sighed. “I make anything look good. Really, does he understand that we’re just not quite there yet?”

  “He understands. Both he and Tim put the full-court press on me tonight and threw in the promise of a share of Excalibur sales.”

  Shari turned in his arms, and the glow of the volcano reflecting off the water seemed like a halo around her. “Maybe we should reconsider, Kyle. I’ve had the strangest feeling that something bad is going to happen. And that I won’t see you again.”

  Sixth sense, witchery, hunches, woman’s intuition, or whatever, she had it in spades. Her ability to not only connect the dots, but the spaces between the dots, was what made her such a great intelligence analyst. Shari’s brain dwelled in a place where one and one did not necessary always equal two, and Kyle always paid attention when she got one of her feelings. This time, he downplayed it. “Fat chance. I’m like a boomerang. I always come back to you.”

  “Yes. But after that last mission, the cross-border incident, you caught a lot of flack and they tried to make you the scapegoat. A lot of people would just like for you to go away, Kyle. Who know what they may hand you next time? Maybe something where you’re not supposed to come back.”

  “Never gonna happen, Shari. I know how to play their game too well.”

  She kissed him, pulled away, and looked around. The deck was empty. “Then maybe I should give you even more reason to come home.” She slipped the straps of her black dress from her shoulders. “So look at me, I’m Sandra Dee!”

  “Who the hell is Sandra Dee?”

  “You know. Gidget?”

  “What’s a Gidget?”

  “Shut up before you ruin the moment,” she said, and slid the loose folds of her dress down to her waist. Her breasts gleamed gold in the volcano firelight. Kyle brought her close and lowered his lips to her nipples. Shari moaned softly, and he ran his hands over her soft skin. Then her hand moved along his leg.

  “Unless you want to be screwed right here on this expensive teakwood deck, young lady, I suggest we retire in great haste to our suite,” he whispered. Kyle saw a familiar impish look come into those dark eyes.

  “In a minute, Marine. In a minute.” Shari pushed him against the chill steel of the bulkhead and dropped to her knees, reaching for his zipper while Stromboli painted the night. In a few moments, Kyle thought that the volcano was not the only thing erupting that night. When he finished panting, they rushed off to wrestle between white silk sheets.

  There was a loud pounding on the door, and Kyle heard Tim Gladden calling loudly from the passageway. “Kyle! Shari! Geoffrey wants you in the main cabin right away to see this incredible news report on television! A Marine general has been kidnapped!”

  CHAPTER 10

  UNITED STATES SENATOR RUTH Hazel Reed of California-called Ruth Hazel by her friends and Rambo by her enemies-would replace her very dear colleague, the late Senator Graham Thomas Miller of Kentucky, as chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. She was an attractive woman with blond-going-gray hair that was as stylish as her tailored wardrobe. The slender body was kept under strict control through rigorous exercise three times a week and a delicious diet provided by her private chef.

  “Congratulations, Madame Chairwoman,” said National Security Advisor Gerald Buchanan, lifting a glass of seventy-five-year-old scotch in a toast. They were standing before a warm fireplace at the mansion of Gordon Gates, deep in the fox country outside Culpeper, Virginia. The huge room had thick wooden ceiling beams. Old furniture, old staircases, old books, old money. Lots of it.

  “A bit premature, Gerald, but thank you.” She clicked her glass against his. “The Senate president will make his decision in a few days.”

  “Oh, that’s just a technicality. I’ve already told him that the White House will be pleased to work with you.” Buchanan had reviewed her file again before coming out here tonight for the meeting. So much depended on this woman! Was she really up to it?

  She had graduated from Stanford and married a helicopter pilot who was killed in Vietnam. Ruth Hazel buried her grief along with her pilot, obtained her real estate license, and opened an agency in Del Mar just as the sunny coast of San Diego County became the hottest housing market in the nation. She made a fortune before turning her boundless ambition and energy to politics. A single term on the Del Mar City Council led to a big leap into the House of Representatives for two terms. Reed had been in the Senate for the past eleven years.

  Land speculation and the military, the twin engines of the dynamic San Diego economy, formed her primary political base. The senator was adamant in getting tax breaks for land developers and big business and voted for any military spending proposal. Nobody gobbled up more taxpayer dollars for the Pentagon than Rambo Reed of California. The defense contractors and housing industry tycoons at the receiving end of the money pipeline showed their gratitude with campaign contributions.

  Despite all of her money, power, good looks, and adroit phrasing, Buchanan considered Reed to be just another politician to be used like a sweet-smelling bar of soap until there was nothing worthwhile left to be used. There was always another Ruth Hazel Reed out there waiting to be groomed like a colt in training for the Kentucky Derby. This filly might break out and actually win the race for the roses, but a wise owner would have a lot of colts. She had been carefully selected for the role she was to play.

  Senator Reed moved to a soft chair and sat down, putting her drink on a small Chinese-style table with a polished marble top inlaid with intricate stonework of precious gems. She considered Buchanan to be a competent number-cruncher and an above-average strategist. It was quite helpful to have him around, and he could be discarded the minute he did not deliver the goods. Headlines hailed him as a genius, but these guys were plentiful in Washington. Arrogant, too. She hoped that Buchanan did not let his pride get in the way of the job he had to perform. Was he up to it? The senator wondered how much the table was worth.

  Reed had also spoken with the Senate president, and knew her appointment to succeed Miller was a done deal. Buchanan had to make a big show of everything. To chair that committee was definitely another rung up the ladder, but it should be only temporary. Reed had no plans to run for reelection. By this time next year, she planned to be President of the United States.

  “As they say, Ruth Hazel, we live in interesting times,” mused Buchanan.

  “True enough. And during such difficult times, our country needs very careful guidance. Not knee-jerk action based on snapshot poll numbers.”

  Buchanan caught the insult. He was the most famous consumer of polls in Washington. “Indeed. That is precisely why you will be so valuable in your new position. From the untimely death of one senator can come progress for all.” Unspoken was the barb that Reed was also just one senator of fifty. Only one-fiftieth of one-half of one-third of the United States government. They were even.

  Buchanan poured himself a refill and offered her one with a smile. A peace offering. He found politics rather loathsome and did not want public office of any sort. He was a scholar and much too good, too intelligent, to have to explain himself to common voters and fools. Nothing lasted forever, including what he viewed as the American Empire. Buchanan believed that it was his destiny to shepherd the troubled nation to a new level of political evolution, which included writing a new Constitution. His Constitution would replace that antique Jeffersonian p
iece of parchment displayed under glass in the National Archives. What had been unique and powerful ideas for a democratic republic in the eighteenth century simply did not apply in today’s complex world. It would be even less relevant in tomorrow’s. Thomas Jefferson had been dead for a long, long time.

  Rambo Reed could sit in that big chair in the Oval Office, but Gerald Buchanan would run the government.

  “You two should hear yourselves talk! What total bullshit!” A slight, whippy man with the build of a marathon runner came into the big hall, walked over, and gripped their hands with the enthusiasm of someone who relished life. “We’re the first of a new generation of leaders, my friends, and we are going to kick a lot of ass and make a ton of money while we save our country.”

  Gordon Gates IV had an easy, confident smile that indicated he did not have a care in the world. He wore a loose white shirt of Chinese silk, dark Armani trousers, and soft black Prada boots. A slim, clean Louis Vuitton Tambour chronograph was on his left wrist, and thick sandy-blond hair swept down over his forehead. He was fifty-five years old and looked ten years younger. The intelligent green eyes missed nothing.

  He was very rich. His great-grandfather, the original Gordon Gates, was a grease-stained machinist who had invented a tiny part for aircraft engines before World War II, built on that modest success as aviation grew, and within five years owned a giant corporation. America’s fighter planes and bombers could not stay in the sky without Gates equipment. Gordon Gates Jr. expanded military production when jet propulsion came along, established offices abroad, bought a shipbuilding company to make nuclear-powered submarines, and renamed the international company Gates Global. When “GG III” came along, a brilliant engineer in his own right, he seized the early days of the rocket age. Gates Global helped man walk on the moon, provided the electronic brains for missiles that could reach anywhere on the globe, then got into Area 51 secret weapons development with lasers and sound. Markets were locked up and money poured in. When politicians spoke of the military-industrial complex, they were talking about Gates Global. The company always rewarded its friends on Capitol Hill, and its executive ranks were loaded with former generals and admirals, and ex-members of Congress.