Once Is Never Enough

by Haris Orkin

  In times of high danger, when bullets flew and engines raced, the music would often play in Flynn’s head. A deep, dark electric guitar pounded out a rousing, thrilling, relentless rhythm that promised danger and excitement. It filled Flynn with intoxicating joy. The music mingled with the roar of the ATV as it tore through saw palmetto, sea oats, and beach grass. As the sun was barely up, the lights of the Space Go launch site blazed ahead, perhaps a mile in the distance.

  The most vulnerable point would be one of the fuel tanks. If Flynn could hit the right spot, he knew he could intermingle the oxidant and the fuel and create an explosive chemical reaction. But he had to be in range; and the effective range of the Heckler and Koch MM110 Semi-Automatic Sniper rifle was roughly half a mile. Flynn figured he was about a mile away and needed to close the distance. He’d never survive the blast. But he also knew he had no choice.

  The .50 caliber round tore through the engine block of Flynn’s ATV before Flynn even heard the rifle crack. The engine seized and the ATV flipped. Flynn went flying. He hit the ground hard, eating dirt as he crashed and rolled. Now he heard the chopper and saw it silhouetted in the sky. Another .50 caliber round slammed into the ground a few inches from his head. A little to the left and it would have decapitated him.

  Bleeding and bruised, Flynn forced himself to his feet and started to run. But there was little cover and nowhere to hide. He ran in a serpentine fashion as bullets hit the sand all around him. In between the shots, the shouts of the soldiers from the beach pierced the air. They moved closer and were probably in communication with the helicopter pilot.

  An amplified voice boomed from the chopper. “On your knees! Now! Hands in the air!”

  A blazing spotlight shined on Flynn as the soldiers surrounded him on all sides. He still had the Beretta, but he was badly outnumbered. Even if he could take out the soldiers, the sniper in the chopper would cut him in half.

  The tiny commander of the camo-helmeted, flak-jacketed security soldiers forced Flynn to his knees and took his Beretta. In the distance, more than a mile off, Flynn eyed the Serenity 2 and he knew he now had no way to stop it.

  Goolardo brought the Seawolf back to the surface and lifted the hatch. He poked his head out to see what had become of Flynn. Sancho and the women were still on the beach. The security guards were gone; likely on foot after his former nemesis.

  A helicopter stalked Flynn from above, shining a spotlight and raking the ground with gunfire. Goolardo recognized the colors of the Coast Guard. It was an MH-65 C, which he knew they used for their Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadrons. HITRONs were specifically designed to go after drug smugglers. Those assholes had personally cost Goolardo close to a billion dollars.

  Each chopper was equipped with a pintle mounted M240 machine gun with thermal sights and a sniper with .50 caliber Barret which they used to shoot out the engine blocks on his high-speed boats. He often fantasized about dishing out some payback and this looked like the perfect opportunity.

  “Mendoza!” Goolardo ordered. “Hand me the stinger! Hurry!”

  Mendoza handed his boss the man-portable air-defense missile system. Goolardo rested it on his right shoulder before hitting the activator switch. He put the chopper in his sight and the high-pitched beeping soon turned into one long constant tone—indicating the weapon had locked on. Goolardo hit the uncage button and fired. The rocket screamed out with a whoosh as the launch motor detached and the flight motor kicked in. The missile homed in on the helicopter, streaking across the sky before crashing into the rear rotor.

  The heat of the explosion washed over Flynn and he looked up to see the chopper smoking and on fire, spinning out of control. The pilot and the gunners jumped out as the helicopter whirled across the sky, over the electrified fence and into the launch area where it careened into the Serenity 2.

  The gas tank on the chopper blew. That explosion was loud, but nothing compared to the thunderous roar of kerosene and liquid oxygen combining and combusting and exploding with a stunning flash of light and heat.

  The blast blew Flynn right off of his feet, along with all the security soldiers. He couldn’t breathe or see or think or even understand which end was up as he tumbled through the air and landed a distance away, face down in the sand. He spit the grit out of his mouth and tried to see through all the smoke and dust. A deafening ringing filled his ears. He looked back at the launch pad. A ten-story column of fire and smoke rose into the sky.

  He had to move. If he didn’t, he’d die. The Serenity 2 was no more and he would follow it into oblivion if he couldn’t find a way to get his arse out of there.

  Shaky, dizzy, deaf and numb, he somehow made it to his feet. One step at a time. He staggered across the dunes and back towards the beach. Flynn could barely stay upright as he lurched ahead. Something shot that helicopter out of the sky and Flynn knew that whoever or whatever brought it down just saved the world. He couldn’t hear his own footsteps or the roaring fire consuming the launch site behind him, but he could feel the unbelievable heat.

  His legs barely worked, and he didn’t seem to have much control over them. Twice the ground rushed up and hit him in the face, and both times he managed to get his feet back under him to continue on. Somehow, though, the beach never got any closer. He kept wobbling forward through the poisonous smoke and heat and noxious dust. The acrid smell of burnt rubber, melted plastic, and toxic chemicals filled his nostrils and stung his eyes. Was he even still alive? Is this what Hell smells like?

  “We can’t stay here!” Severina shouted as she stood toe to toe with Sancho. “You want to stay? Stay! I’m getting back on the boat!”

  “We can’t just leave him!” Sancho pleaded.

  “He left us!”

  “I’m not leaving without him!”

  “Fine! Stay!”

  Anika was already on the boat. “Can we just go?”

  Sancho’s ears still rang as he watched the mountain of fire and smoke reach into the sky.

  “There’s no way in hell he’s still alive,” Severina screamed. She hurried onto the boat and marched up the landing gate planted in the sand.

  “Severina!” Sancho begged. “Please!”

  “You coming or what?” She raised the landing gate. Sancho knew she was right. If the helicopter and the soldiers didn’t get him, the blast definitely did. Grief gripped his heart as he looked back at the conflagration. Smoke and flames rose and billowed in all directions as smaller explosions continued to shake the ground.

  An apparition emerged from the swirling clouds of smoke and dust.

  “Wait!” Sancho yelled. “Look!”

  Covered in ash from head to toe, Flynn moved slower than a ninety-year-old man recovering from hip surgery. Sancho ran to him and took him by the arm. As he helped Flynn towards the landing craft, he was surprised to see Severina charging across the sand. She grabbed Flynn’s other arm and together they hurried him across the beach.

  Gunshots rang out behind them. Sancho turned. Two of the security soldiers above them on the bluff fired warning shots.

  “Get on the ground! Face down!” one soldier yelled.

  Severina stopped in her tracks but Sancho kept pulling and now he was dragging both of them forward. More rifle shots erupted behind them. A Stinger missile rocketed over their heads and exploded into the high bluff the soldiers perched on, blowing them sideways.

  Sancho saw the Seawolf, bobbing on the ocean. Goolardo waved to them from the open hatch, a spent rocket launcher resting on his shoulder.

  “Who the hell is that?” Severina shouted.

  “You don’t want to know,” Sancho replied.

  They finally dragged Flynn across the beach, up the landing gate and into the boat. As Severina raised the gate, Sancho fired up the engine.

  A bullet clanged off the landing craft. The security soldiers were back on their feet and firing from the bluff. Instead of two, there were now four of them.

  “Everybody down!” Sancho shouted as bullet
s whizzed overhead and ricocheted off the aluminum landing gate. He backed the craft off the beach, turning it about and gunning the engine. It picked up speed as it pushed forward through the waves, taking fire until they were finally out of range.

  As the sound of assault weapons receded, Sancho cut south toward Cocoa Beach. He looked at Flynn sitting against the gunwale; sweaty and dirty, dazed, exhausted and still covered in ash.

  “Dude, are you okay?”

  Flynn cocked his ear towards him. “What?”

  “I asked if you’re okay.”

  “Huh?”

  “You all right!”

  Flynn nodded. “Quite a fight.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “A shirt? Sure. This one’s in shreds.”

  “Are you having trouble hearing me?”

  “No!” He pointed to his ears. “I’m having trouble hearing you!”

  Sergei Belenki stood on the deck of the Argo and watched what was left of the Serenity 2 burn. A towering cloud of smoke and fire rose from his Cape Canaveral Launch Pad. Additional explosions sent the flames higher as Sergei gripped the railing and gritted his teeth to keep himself from screaming. The Serenity 2 and its entire payload was obliterated. Half a billion dollars up in toxic smoke.

  He was one of the richest men in the world, but half a billion dollars wasn’t exactly chump change. Worst of all, his orbiting corona of nuclear devices wasn’t yet complete and wouldn’t be until he marshaled the resources necessary to build another rocket. And another satellite. And another nuclear device.

  Space flight was always risky, and Belenki built the possibility of an accident into his plan. He figured that such an inevitability could throw off his schedule. But this was no accident. This was James motherfucking Flynn. All the goodwill Flynn engendered with Sergei for saving his life multiple times no longer existed. Severina had betrayed him. She sided with Flynn against him.

  He never should have told her what he was planning. She didn’t understand and probably never would. She was smarter than most, but apparently not smart enough to see the danger that Daisy posed. That kind of existential threat was just too difficult for the average human to grasp. The vast majority were dull-witted sheep who numbed themselves with alcohol, marijuana, fast food, and video games. He should know. He built the most addicting social networking app ever created and gave those lost souls the illusion their lives had meaning. That’s how he made his billions. That was why he knew for a fact they were lemmings. They didn’t have the brains or imagination to grok that a superior machine intelligence would soon eclipse them.

  He had raised the alarm many times, but no one else took the threat seriously. No one but a tiny cadre of true believers. It was up to him and him alone to save humanity from the authoritarian boot heel of an intelligence far beyond their own.

  Fergus joined Belenki at the railing and took in the rising column of smoke and flame emanating from Space Go’s Cape Canaveral launch site.

  “What’s our next move, sir?”

  “If Flynn indeed was the one who destroyed Serenity 2, it’s unlikely he survived. I can’t imagine how he would have escaped the blast radius. However, if by some miracle that idiot did make it through alive, you need to remedy that situation. I can’t risk him doing anything like this ever again.”

  “What about Severina?”

  “Find out if she’s alive or dead. If she’s still breathing, I’d like to talk to her.”

  “And Flynn’s sidekick?”

  “Like Flynn, if he survived, he needs to be removed from the equation.”

  “Anika?”

  “What about her?”

  “Do you want her back?”

  “Not especially.”

  Fergus nodded. “Are you off to Wembly Island?”

  “I am. We will rebuild. And we will finish what we started here today.”

  “I’ll send some men to bolster the security at Wembly. Then I’ll contact the Security Force Squadron of the 45th Space Wing and see if they found Flynn.”

  “I’m sure they’re searching the area as we speak. Of course, if he was close enough to the blast his body would have been obliterated. You may find remnants of one of the weapons he stole, but it’s also likely you’ll find no trace of him at all.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Bullets punctured the fuel tanks on both outboard engines. Their boat was dead in the water. Sancho could see Cocoa Beach, but they were two miles from the marina.

  “I can’t believe we don’t have a dinghy,” Anika whined. “The other tender had a dinghy!”

  Sancho kept trying to get the engines going, but without gas it was an impossible proposition.

  “Maybe we can contact the coast guard,” Severina said.

  “The Coast Guard’s likely already looking for us,” Flynn noted.

  “And when they find us, they’ll probably shoot us out of the water,” Sancho added.

  “But I didn’t do anything!” Anika said. “I’m not the one who blew up Sergei’s rocket.”

  “I didn’t blow it up either,” Severina said.

  “None of us blew it up,” Sancho pointed out. “It was Goolardo!”

  “Who?” Severina said.

  Sancho heard what sounded like a distant helicopter and looked north towards Cape Canaveral. A tiny black dot hovered on the hazy horizon. “Oh, shit!”

  “Oh, my God,” Severina said.

  “I’m going to say you kidnapped me,” Anika announced.

  “But we didn’t, did we?” Severina shouted. “You wanted to come! You insisted on it!”

  “That’s your story!”

  The black dot on the horizon grew larger as the sound of the distant chopper grew louder.

  “Maybe we should swim for it,” Sancho said.

  Severina pointed at Flynn. “I thought he was the crazy one!”

  Anika lifted up a leg to show off one of her shoes. “These are brand new Manolo Blahnik’s! I’m not getting these wet.”

  Sancho put on a flotation vest. “You want to stay? Stay! I’m swimming for it!” He sat on the edge of the gunwale and prepared to dive in when he noticed what looked like the lens of periscope just above the surface of the sea. Seconds later something much larger emerged above the swells.

  The Seawolf.

  The hatch opened and a smiling Goolardo poked his head out.

  “Anyone need a ride?”

  Anika gave Goolardo a sexy grin and wobbled over to the edge of the boat. He reached out, took her hand and helped her into the hatch.

  Severina hesitated.

  “He’s a friend,” Flynn said.

  Goolardo held out his hand and Severina took and climbed into the Seawolf, followed by Flynn and then Sancho who saw a distant ship on the horizon just below the helicopter. He climbed down into the mini sub and Goolardo closed the hatch.

  The Seawolf seated five, but there were six with Anika and Severina. Mendoza took up the same amount of room as two and that made the inside of Seawolf tighter than a Speedo on a sumo wrestler. Sancho sat on the floor just below Mendoza. The big man’s clammy, pale, perfectly round head glistened with sweat. His mouth pursed tight like he was trying not to heave. Sancho was grateful for the rescue, but suspicious of Goolardo’s motives. The head of the Goolardo Drug Cartel seemed to be enjoying this adventure with Flynn. But for how long? And when would he demand his pound of flesh for what Flynn did to him?

  “Can we turn up the air? It’s kind of hot in here,” Anika said.

  Goolardo scooched over to make more room. “I apologize for the close quarters. But we will soon be topside on my yacht. It’s not as large as the Argo, but quite comfortable and just as luxurious.”

  Severina pointed at Mendoza with her thumb. “Is he okay?”

  “Mr. Mendoza is not fond of tight quarters or the motion of the sea.”

  “So, who are you?” Anika asked

  “Francisco Goolardo, at your service.”

  “I’m Anika.”


  “Have we met before, my dear? You look familiar.”

  “That’s because she’s a movie star,” Sancho said. As annoying as Anika was, Sancho was still star struck. He had seen her so many times in so many movies and had fanaticized about her for so many years. She was physical perfection and a far better actress than he ever imagined as she was nothing like the characters she usually portrayed. In the movies she was sweet and naive, tender and vulnerable, self-sacrificing and heroic, while in real life she was selfish and whiny, spoiled rotten and unbelievably irritating.

  “What would I have seen you in?” Goolardo asked her.

  “Dark Seduction,” Anika said. “Journey of Fear.”

  Goolardo’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Of course! Anika Piscotti. It’s an honor to have you aboard the Seawolf!”

  Severina rolled her eyes.

  Mendoza made a gagging sound. Panic filled the face of everyone in the mini sub. His eyes bulged and they all tried to scuttle away, pressing themselves into the sides of the sub, even though there was precious little room to move. Goolardo handed Mendoza a wastebasket and he held it up to his face, the dry retching sound now echoing in the tiny plastic can. Everyone held their breath as the gagging gradually subsided and Mendoza finally lowered the can.

  Twenty minutes later, the Seawolf arrived at the Queen Anne’s Revenge and Goolardo opened the hatch. Mendoza shoved his way out first, squeezing his bulk through the little opening as fast he humanly could. The others followed and within minutes Goolardo was at the helm and steering his yacht back to Miami.

  Anika stuck like glue to Goolardo, standing with him on the bridge as he piloted his vessel south. It was instinct with her, Sancho decided. She found money and power magnetic and it didn’t hurt that Goolardo was also charismatic and handsome and had wi-fi. Besides, he had an authentic bad boy charm that most of those wannabe bad boys in the tech world couldn’t match.

  He wasn’t pretending to be a badass like the rock and roll drummers Anika often dated. He was an authentic badass. A mob boss. A drug trafficker. A kidnapper. A killer. In a world of pretend tough guys, Goolardo was the real deal. He had a good twenty years on Anika, but that might have been part of the attraction. Apparently, she had daddy issues.