Autumn Assassins: [#3] A Special Operations Group Thriller

by Stephen Templin

  After Max cleared the back and lined up with Bane, June joined them. Behind the admiral’s car, Max spotted the NCIS assault car and a blue Kia Sorento behind them. It looked like the Kia might’ve tried to get around the NCIS vehicle, but the NCIS agents ran it off the road and into a tree. Now four enemies fired at the NCIS agents and fled. Max recognized one of them: “Zhao!”

  Max, June, and Bane ran to catch up with the agents chasing Zhao and his three men. One of the enemies stopped, dropped his weapon, and threw up his hands. NCIS stopped to apprehend him, momentarily taking them out of the chase. Max took a shot at Zhao, but the area around him was so thick with trees that the bullet hit a palm tree instead. Max’s team pursued Zhao and his two comrades deeper into the woods.

  They chased through front yards, backyards, and more trees before splashing into a stream that soaked their feet and lower legs. As Max and his friends dashed up out of the stream, Max slipped on the bank but caught his balance and stayed on his feet. Bane was still on his feet, too, but June had fallen back.

  Up ahead, the bad guys were nowhere in sight. Shit. Max stalked between trees before arriving at the edge of a spacious estate. An enemy popped up from behind a low wall and fired a shotgun, and the incoming buckshot zoomed at Max like a swarm of angry hornets, but he ducked behind a tree before they could sting him.

  Bane blasted in the man’s direction, and Max leaned out of the cover of the tree and blasted, too. Shotgun dropped behind the low wall.

  “Did you get him?” Max asked.

  “Not sure,” Bane said.

  The duo advanced into the estate, and when a dumpy-looking guy took aim at them, Bane picked him up, but he had aimed too low and struck Dumpy in the crotch. Dumpy shuddered and screamed out to his comrades before he fell to his knees, but Zhao didn’t come to his aid. Dumpy aimed his weapon at Bane. He fired at Dumpy again, and Max joined him in the shooting, and they put Dumpy out of his misery.

  More shots came, but they were so fast and the shooter disappeared before Max could see where they’d come from. Judging by the sound, the shooter was to his left, near the low wall. Bane twisted awkwardly, and his shoulder was bloody.

  If Max tried to help Bane before eliminating the bad guys, both he and Bane could end up dead. Max raced forward to the low wall, and when he reached it, he looked over the top, but Shotgun’s body wasn’t on the other side. Max ducked down, using the wall for cover, and crawled out to the edge, hoping to flank the enemy. When Max poked his head around the corner, he spotted Shotgun standing at the corner of the main residence, but Shotgun spotted Max first and fired. Max shot back. They both missed, but the frightening blast of the shotgun and its impact into the low wall warned Max not to poke his head out from the same direction again. Using the wall for cover, he fast-crawled to the opposite side.

  Bane lumbered across the lawn and took cover behind a massive concrete fountain. In spite of his wounds, Bane was still advancing in the enemies’ direction. Zhao appeared in a window of the second floor of the residence, and before Max could warn Bane, Zhao fired down at him. A chunk of concrete flew off the fountain near Bane, who hit the deck. Max blasted at Zhao, but Zhao peeled away from the window.

  Shotgun poked around the corner of the house and blasted at Max. Surprised, Max ducked. The next boom slammed into the concrete beside his head. Max aimed around the side, but Shotgun wasn’t there, so Max waited. Shotgun reappeared, and Max let the air out of Shotgun. He collapsed like a deflated balloon.

  Max glanced over at Bane. The Hawaiian giant’s head turned, but the rest of him was stationary. Something was wrong. “Yukon,” Bane’s voice called to him.

  “Yeah, buddy,” Max replied. He tried to hide his emotions, but it wasn’t a stellar performance. “I’m moving to your position.”

  “I’m shot in both arms, and I can’t use either one for shit,” Bane said. “Sorry.”

  Max dashed to Bane and kneeled at his side, using the fountain as a shield.

  “Pele, where are you?” Max asked.

  “I’m behind you, bringing up a pair of NCIS agents,” June’s voice transmitted in Max’s earbud. “I can see you and Bane.”

  Max checked over his shoulder and saw June and the two agents approaching him from the rear. “Bane is shot up,” Max said. “I need you and the agents to secure his position and patch him up.”

  “Roger,” June said.

  Max peered out around the fountain and watched the sides of the house and the windows for signs of activity, but nothing moved.

  “How come every time you and I get together, I get shot at?” Bane asked.

  “You’re just bad luck,” Max joked. He continued to scan for signs of Zhao. Still nothing.

  One of the agents went to work on Bane’s leaky plumbing while June and the other stood guard.

  Max looked into his buddy’s eyes, and his voice became serious. “Zhao is going to pay for doing this to you.”

  Bane sighed. “I don’t care if Zhao pays for capping me.”

  “You and my dad are both shitty liars,” Max said.

  Bane smiled. “Give him hell, brah.”

  Max turned to June and the agents and said, “As soon as you get him patched up, get him the hell out of here and to a hospital.”

  Max ejected his magazine—it still had rounds in it, but he wanted a full thirty rounds for what was about to happen. He inserted a fresh magazine. “I’m gonna ventilate this bastard.”

  26

  Max knew that Zhao was in the house, but that was all he knew. He wished he had a spy optic to look inside before he entered so he could check for booby traps, a gun aimed in his direction, or a hostage, but he didn’t have that luxury. He hoped the door was unlocked so he could make a soft entry. He grasped the doorknob and turned. No joy.

  A flurry of thoughts flashed in fractions of a second. He could search outside the building for a door that was unlocked, but while he did so, it would give Zhao more time to set up on him or get away. He could pick the lock, but if Zhao was on the other side waiting for him, Zhao would hear the unlocking sound and possibly shoot through the door and walls. Having seen the outside of the building, Max could guess the house’s interior size and shape, but without Team Six’s database of houses or the actual floor plan, he didn’t know for sure what was inside. Because the door was near the backyard, he guessed it led to the kitchen. In the absence of current intel, he didn’t know how the furniture inside would be configured: obstacles for Max—cover and concealment for Zhao. The flurry of thoughts only added up to a fraction of time, but each fraction was precious.

  He remembered his first day of school and how terrified he was of leaving Maman. Family was everything, and he didn’t want to separate from his mother. His shoulders had tensed, his heart beat swiftly, and his breaths became rapid. His teary eyes darted around the school, and the noises of strangers overwhelmed him.

  She knelt down in front of him. Prends une grande respiration. Take a deep breath.

  Max breathed deeply.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d cleared a room by himself—in practice and for real. Her voice returned to him: Prends une grande respiration. He breathed in deeply again.

  He kicked next to the doorknob, and the door flew open and hit the wall with a bang. Max burst into the kitchen. The air snapped next him, and a puff of heat blew past his eye. He turned left, and suddenly he came face-to-face with a pistol aimed at him. The surprise jolted Max’s muscles.

  Max’s rifle alignment was on the man’s heart, and he fired without conscious thought. The first shot burst the enemy, and he shrank to the ground. He figured his bullet must’ve struck the dude’s heart when his follow-up shot didn’t seem to matter. Even so, this guy wasn’t Zhao.

  The surprise of the face-to-face encounter shook Max. If his first shot hadn’t dropped the man, Max would surely be dead now. He shook it off. That was in the past; stay in the present.

  Max turned right and probed further into the house, but no
more threats appeared. In all the excitement, it was possible a bad guy lurked in his peripheral vision. He maneuvered around a kitchen table and pressed deeper into the space.

  Max exited the kitchen and cleared the hall. Part of his brain functioned on automatic to clear the rooms, but another part of his brain asked, Where’d the dude in the kitchen come from? Maybe this was a Chinese safe house—and there were more shooters waiting for them. Prends une grande respiration.

  He sucked in a deep breath and approached a door sandwiched between walls at the end of the hall. The space inside was likely a closet. Max turned the knob and threw open the door. Then Max sliced his weapon into the closet. Clear. He moved on to the next door. It was open. A bathroom, no one inside.

  Max entered a living room with an L-shaped couch and a couple of stuffed chairs. There were no enemies on the left side. Then he swept his rifle across the other side of the room. The air around him heated up and sounded like he was inside a popcorn popper. He aimed at the source of the popping, a shooter with spiky platinum-blond hair, and plugged him. The shooter’s spikes flattened as he smacked the deck.

  Adrenaline cranking, the world downshifted into slow motion as he ascended the stairs scanning for danger above and below. He neared the top, and shots fired, slamming into Max’s abdomen and knocking him backwards. As his lead foot shifted back to catch his balance, his foot missed the stairs, and he slipped and fell. He landed on his stomach on the steps. Max’s diaphragm seized up, and he couldn’t breathe.

  Maman spoke inside his head again. Tout va bien. Everything is okay. Her beautiful face was merciful yet fearless.

  He expected his breath to return any moment. More shots cracked the air above his head. Except for the origin of the muzzle flash, the rest of Max’s vision became a blur. Grateful he’d held onto his weapon, Max rapid-fired at the flash. A body fell and the flashing stopped.

  Max rose to his feet and stepped up to the open area of the second floor. His legs were wobbly, and he still couldn’t breathe properly, but he had to keep moving—had to deny Zhao a stationary target and time to think of an escape. A news program sounded from one of the rooms. Was someone watching the news before I interrupted? Maybe Zhao was using the sound to mask his movement. What is he doing that needs masking?

  Oxygen returned to his lungs, but he could only take short, shallow breaths. There appeared to be four doors on the second floor. He opened the first—closet—clear. A bathroom door was ajar, and he could see the vanity and the toilet but not everything. He took a knee and swung in low, just in case the enemy fired high. Nothing.

  Back in the hall, an electrical buzzing sound came from above—a fluorescent light bulb in its death throes. It’d probably been buzzing before, but Max was so focused on other things he hadn’t noticed it. The air smelled of fruity air freshener. He ignored the buzzing light and the fruity smell.

  As he neared the third door, it burst open and two pistol shots hammered Max in the chest, but he busted the noisemaker. When the noisemaker fell, his body blocked the door open. Max’s chest throbbed as if an elephant kept stepping on it. He fired a “security round” into the man’s head to make sure he stayed down and out of the fight. Then Max walked over his bloody corpse and ventured into a bedroom. No bad guys. Abruptly, a sound rang out, and Max’s aim snapped in the direction of the ringing. A phone on a nightstand.

  Max tried to breathe in, but his diaphragm seized up again, and he couldn’t get air. The phone continued to jingle as he exited the bedroom. Still unable to breathe, he eyed the last door on the floor, the source of the news program. You know I’m coming for you, don’t you? Maybe the door was rigged with explosives, but Max didn’t want to give Zhao any more time. He turned the knob—it was unlocked. He gasped for air, but nothing came. Then he flung open the door.

  Max swung inside. No one. He caught a short breath. Then he checked the closet. Empty. He took another breath.

  He’d searched the whole house, and Zhao was nowhere to be found. Max’s breathing was short and rapid. Both his chest and his gut pulsed with pain. The gunshots hadn’t penetrated his vest, and he didn’t think anything was broken, but he was going to have some hellacious bruises. His energy was spent—physically and mentally. Sweat drenched his bullet-resistant vest, which weighed heavy on him. He could breathe now, but the air seemed heavy. Standing became a burden. He leaned against a wall to regain his mojo. Hawaii was supposed to be the paradise of the Pacific, but now it felt like a vast desert in the Middle East. All that work and no Zhao to show for it sucked camel balls. He’d just endured a shit storm. And hunting for Zhao would surely lead to worse.

  He recalled the morning after his first two days of school. He didn’t want to leave the house, and he cried. Je ne peux plus continuer. I can’t continue this.

  Maman gave him a hug. Mon fils, je suis convaincue que tu en es capable. Son, I know you can. Her belief in him led to him believing, too.

  He stopped leaning against the wall. Then he took a deep breath and dragged his sweaty ass out the door.

  27

  The early heat and light of the sun softly entered Max and Tom’s room at the Navy Lodge on base. The sunshine tingled Max’s skin as he cleaned his rifle. Tom sipped a steaming cup of cocoa.

  “Bane was wounded, but he’s going to be okay,” Max said.

  Tom took another sip. “He got off lucky. All the NCIS on our protective detail are dead.”

  Max shook his head in sadness mixed with anger. “We really need to take Zhao out of action. With extreme prejudice.”

  “Both of the admirals are fine, but the Navy is reporting that they’re hospitalized and in critical condition.”

  Max pushed a cleaning rod through the barrel of his rifle. “NCIS is attempting to lay another trap for Zhao, this time in the hospital.”

  “If I were Zhao, and I thought the admirals were in critical condition, I’d take that as a success—that part of the chain of command is broken,” Tom said. “And I’d move on to my next target.”

  “Same.”

  “What is the next target?” Tom asked. “The remaining codes are Five and Country. Would Five be a five-star admiral? And Country the president of the United States?”

  Max continued cleaning his weapon. “The five-star flag officer rank hasn’t been used since World War II. And those officers are all dead now.”

  “So who is next in the chain of command?”

  “The chairman and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

  Tom nodded in approval. “Both are generals serving at the Pentagon—which has five sides to it.”

  “You do have your moments,” Max said. “Maybe Zhao will try to use the anthrax there.”

  “Or he’s saving it for the White House.”

  “I’ll contact Willy and tell him to contact the Pentagon and White House about the situation,” Max said.

  “Shawn Lok, the spy for Beijing, infiltrated the Honolulu Police Department, and Zhao recruited an agent in NCIS. There’s a chance that the Chinese government, Zhao, or both have infiltrated the Pentagon, too, particularly the chairman and vice chairman’s personal security details.”

  “I’ll talk to Langley about it,” Max said. “We’ll need cooperation from the FBI again for domestic surveillance.”

  Tom sipped his cocoa. “They’ll need to pay special attention to the code words Autumn Wind Five and Autumn Wind Country.”

  “I’ll tell them,” Max said. “I feel like we’re missing something, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

  Tom drank the last of his cocoa. “What we’re missing is more cocoa.”

  Max used a Q-tip to clean the bolt carrier to his rifle. “Where’s June?”

  Tom shrugged.

  “Now that we know what Zhao looks like, we don’t need her anymore,” Max said.

  “Why would you say that when she’s been so helpful?” Tom asked.

  Max reassembled his weapon. “I don’t think she’s up to this. It is what i
t is.”

  “Until it isn’t,” Tom replied.

  Three knocks, a pause, and two more knocks sounded at the door—their prearranged signal. In spite of the proper recognition signal, Tom drew his pistol.

  Max picked up his cleaned weapon, loaded it, racked a round into the chamber, walked over to the door, and looked through the peephole. There stood June dressed nicely in a figure-hugging dress, holding onto the handle of a suitcase and carrying a small, colorful bag with a red gift poking out of it. What the hell? He opened the door and invited her in.

  June smiled at him awkwardly before she entered, but it wasn’t her usual awkwardness—gravity seemed to press down on her.

  She rolled her suitcase to a stop in the middle of the room. “I want to say thank you to both of you for bringing me along this far. I’m just a newbie. But you gave me my first real-world experience with paramilitary ops, and I feel like I’ve learned much in this short time. The main reason you brought me along was to identify Zhao, and I did that—Tom has seen Zhao on video and Max has seen him in the flesh—so the original reason for me being here is complete. And I think it’s time that I return to my post in Hanoi.”

  Max and Tom were quiet for a moment. Then they stood.

  Max spoke first. “If you ever need a recommendation for paramilitary training or whatever, I’d be happy to help.”

  June’s nose twitched like a squirrel, and it wasn’t clear whether her nose itched or it was a nervous tic. Her dress looked gorgeous, but she fidgeted with it as if there might be a loose thread or a button missing. “Thank you.”

  “This is so sudden,” Tom said. “You’ve been such a great help to us. I don’t know what to say.”

  Max eyed her dress and the gift bag she carried. “I didn’t know you found a boyfriend,” he said with the air of a super sleuth. “We weren’t in Hawaii very long. Or is this for someone in Hanoi.”