Northern Sun: Book Four in The Mad Mick Series

by Franklin Horton

  The rest of the men had caught up with him. They could see the woman and her children piled onto the bed, everyone crying in terror. Recovering his balance, Sharif moved backward, away from the bed. He had both hands on his rifle, the weapon aimed at the family. His companions were in the room too and were doing the same, their powerful weapon lights and red lasers pinning the family in the crisscrossed beams.

  Sharif didn’t know who fired first but he pulled the trigger as fast as he could. The other men did the same. Caught in the stark illumination, the bodies on the bed jerked and screamed. Blood sprayed the walls and soaked the bed. Then, over the suppressed gunfire, a voice told them to stop firing.

  Bushra stood in the doorway, a hand raised in a halting gesture. “It’s done, my friends. They’re dead. Check every room. Make sure there’s no one else.”

  A scream moments later revealed that there was someone else. An elderly woman in a long nightgown huddled in a closet on the first floor, awakened by the cries of her dying family. One of the men grabbed her by the arm and dragged her from the closet. Another plunged a knife into her chest. By the second strike, her scream had dropped to a wet gurgle.

  Bushra put a sentry outside the front door, sitting on the dark steps to watch for anyone who might have overheard the attack. The remaining men plundered the house. They found a shotgun and a Glock, neither of them loaded. There was a single box of ammunition for each and the men took that, along with the meager supply of food the family still had.

  Contemplating the family’s dwindling resources put a smile on Bushra’s face. They were obviously well-to-do, owning such an opulent home located directly on the water. Yet, it did them no good. They were no more than paupers now and it was because of the work Bushra and his companions had done. Their attack on the US had worked. These people had little food and no resources for obtaining more. They weren’t hunters, farmers, or thieves. Their murders had in all likelihood been a kindness that had rescued them from slowly starving to death. They should have thanked him for putting them out of their misery.

  Fifteen minutes after entering the house, Bushra poked his head back out the front door and called to his sentry. “Time to go.”

  They left through the back door, their packs filled with the items they’d taken. They scurried down the steps to the water like roaches fleeing when a light is turned on. They cautiously boarded their canoes, precisely reversing the same procedure they’d used earlier, then launched into the moonlit lake.

  The men were calmer but understood their mission was not over yet. They maintained silence. There was no basking in their success, no reliving their operation. They could do that when they were back at the fishing camp, safe for the night. Tomorrow the scouts would work on finding them a new target. Then, in a day or two, Bushra and his team would do this again. It was not a bad life.

  38

  “So, what’s the word? Can you give me four operators?” Trent asked when he returned to the observation room. Apparently, that was the one factor that would make or break this deal for him.

  Conor and Shani were no longer present. Ricardo’s driver had delivered them back to the Quonset hut. They were exhausted after days in the field.

  Ricardo nodded. “Four shooters, just as you asked. I’ll have them here tomorrow.”

  “Who are the other two?”

  Ricardo shrugged and gave a wily smile. “Now, Trent, that falls under the category of proprietary information. It should be sufficient to tell you that I have two highly-skilled and fully operational contractors able to step in immediately. Is that good enough? Do we have approval?”

  Trent nodded. “I’ve got the go-ahead for an operation and a commitment that the funds are available.”

  “Available?”

  “The transfer of funds has already been initiated. Your money should show up in forty-eight hours,” Trent clarified.

  Ricardo smiled. “That’s good. These men don’t come cheap. They aren’t exactly divas but a lot of them have their own interests and are concerned about leaving them unprotected. I have to pay them well to get them off the bench and into the field.”

  “Understood. If you say they’re capable, I’ll take you at your word.”

  “Excellent. Now that you have a team, can you deliver the intel we need to make this happen?”

  “I’ve got an offshore team combing real estate records,” said Trent. “We should know something within the hour. I’ve also got someone working on drone support. Considering the importance of this operation, I don’t want to take a chance of missing someone.”

  “Agreed.” Ricardo nodded slightly. “Eyes in the sky would be a tremendous help.”

  “I’m also hoping we can take some of them alive. We’d have never found these guys without the help of our buddy Omar. If we can get a few more mouths talking, we may uncover more cells.”

  “I should be able to have my full team at this facility by 0800 hours. Hopefully, you’ll have your intel by then and we can get these guys on the road.”

  “We’ll make it happen.”

  Ricardo pushed back from the table and stood. “Then I’m turning in. It’s going to be an early morning.”

  Trent brushed his hair back over his head in a tired gesture. “I’m about to crank up the coffee pot. I’ll be pulling an all-nighter.”

  39

  Barb rode her horse along the centerline of the two-lane highway, the clomp of its shod hooves on pavement the only sound in the wee hours of the foggy morning. Her headlamp punched a hole in the mist, motes of moisture floating in its beam. It had been months since the road had seen any significant motorized traffic, and it was leaf-strewn and covered in twigs. Though dead and brown now, the kudzu had made progress after the highway department was no longer able to clear the road. Growing at nearly a foot a day, it would likely overtake the paved road next summer, erasing man’s mark from the slope of the mountain.

  When her horse climbed from the fog and the pre-dawn blackness enveloped her, Barb knew she was close enough to the compound to reach them. She pulled her radio from the nylon pouch and keyed the mic. “Anyone awake?”

  Ragus responded nearly immediately. “I’m up. Where are you?”

  “I’ll be at the gate in three minutes. Why don’t you haul your lazy arse out there and open it for me.”

  “Well, I don’t know, Barb. It’s cold and dark out there. Right now, I’m standing by a nice warm fire with a cup of hot chocolate. Why would I want to go outside?”

  “Maybe to avoid getting your ass kicked first thing in the morning?”

  Ragus laughed. “I’m teasing. I’m already on my way out. I’ll be waiting for you at the gate.”

  In the distance, Barb heard the heavy chain-link gate sliding on the rollers and nudged her horse to a trot. Shortly, she saw the glow of Ragus’s headlamp.

  “Morning, Ragus.”

  Behind her, Ragus rolled the door shut and padlocked it. “There’s coffee and hot chocolate in the kitchen. Hot biscuits too.”

  “Thanks,” Barb called, heading toward the former office building that had been her family home for the last decade. She slowed her horse, allowing Ragus to catch up to its long stride.

  “If you unload your gear, I’ll take care of your horse. I ate already.”

  “I appreciate that, Ragus. You sure you’re going to be okay here by yourself?”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ve done it before while you guys were gone for days at a time.”

  “I know but it feels different this time. We won’t be in the area at all. You can’t radio us if you need help.”

  “No, but I can get word to Johnny Jacks’ family if I need someone. I can send for Wayne or one of his people from the firehouse. I don’t expect I’ll need to.”

  “You never expect to need help,” Barb replied. “You usually need help because something you didn’t expect came along and fucked your shit up.”

  Ragus laughed. “You missed your calling, Barb. You should have been o
ne of those people who writes inspirational posters like my guidance counselor had in her office.”

  Barb reined her horse to a stop and climbed off. “My kind of inspirational posters might be more suitable for military barracks in a war zone or something like that.”

  Ragus helped her offload her gear onto the porch, then he led her horse off into the dark to settle it into the equipment shed they’d converted into a barn. Barb stepped onto the wide porch, wiped her boots on the doormat, then pushed through the door. Inside, she found Shannon fully-dressed, eating a biscuit, and drinking some hot chocolate. Doc Marty was double-checking his gear, a biscuit dangling from his teeth.

  “Morning, Barb,” Shannon said. “There’s hot water on the stove.”

  Barb wished them both a good morning, then went to the kitchen and found the simple drip coffee maker. She refilled the basket with coffee grounds, balanced it on an empty mug, and then returned to the woodstove in the living room. Standing by the hot fire, she poured water from the stove through the drip filter. It took a moment since she had to wait for the water to settle through the grounds. When she was done, she replaced the kettle on the stove and took the coffee maker back to the kitchen.

  “So tell me what you know,” she said to Doc, taking a seat on the couch. “Why am I here?”

  Lashing his pack closed, Doc Marty piled his gear by the door and joined Barb on the couch. He took a bite of his biscuit and washed it down with a sip of coffee as he collected his thoughts. “I don’t know what kind of op Conor is on but it appears there’s a lead on the terrorists who caused this whole mess.”

  Barb raised an eyebrow. “The terrorists who caused all this? The big attack?”

  Doc Marty nodded. “We knew there had to be a lot of cells involved to distribute the attack so widely. I don’t know what the intelligence agencies have come up with but I never heard anything about large-scale arrests of people suspected to be involved.” Doc Marty ran a hand through his hair. “Shannon and I were living in Dubai when it happened so I was watching the news every night. There was nothing. Some of the terrorists were killed during the attacks, mostly those driving truck bombs, but I think the disposition of most of the terrorists was unknown. Somehow Conor’s current op either uncovered something or this is a case where one op rolled into the next one. I don’t know. Either way, he said we’d be taking on some of those terrorists and he needed four shooters.”

  “And he’s including you?” Barb teased.

  Doc Marty narrowed his eyes at Barb. “Yes, he’s including me. The lowly dentist is actually being trusted with a weapon more dangerous than a dental drill.”

  “I thought he didn’t like to expose you to danger? In that last fight he didn’t want to risk losing his trained medic.”

  Doc shrugged. “I guess the importance of this mission outweighs those concerns. It sounded like they needed four people or it was a no go, and their options were limited.”

  “Clearly.”

  “Barb!” Shannon said. “That’s mean.”

  “I’m teasing,” Barb said. “Honestly.”

  Shannon looked at her uncertainly.

  “She can’t help it, Shannon. She’s inherited her father’s brutal tongue. It’s some sort of twisted gift that they pass down through the family.”

  “That’s it,” Barb agreed. “Some people inherit musical talent. I inherited a mouth that gets me into fights.” She meant it as a joke but she was the only one in the room laughing. Her mouth had led to some bad blood with both Doc Marty and his daughter in the early weeks of their stay there.

  “We’re used to it,” Shannon said, unsure of what else to say. “We don’t take it personally.”

  “If this is such an important operation, why are they using Dad?” Barb asked. “Why is this not a top tier assault team? The US government has SEALS and Delta and they send in the Mad Mick?”

  “This shit happens all the time. It could mean they want to keep this operation low-key.” Doc Marty took another sip of his coffee. “If deciding who gets to lead the operation turns into a pissing contest, there could be long delays. Some agencies could end up entirely shut out of any intelligence that’s gathered. My guess is that only one party knows about this and they want to keep it that way. That’s why you use a private army and not a public one.”

  “Makes sense, I guess,” Barb said, not wholly convinced. “It still surprises me that they’d include an amateur like me in an op this important. And a dentist.”

  “You think Conor sees you as an amateur?”

  “I’m never sure how he sees me. Daughter, troublemaker, or reminder of my dead mother,” she said honestly.

  “Our employer is a businessman,” Doc said. “He’s probably presented both of us as highly-trained and very experienced. He wants to justify his fee.”

  “I could see Dad presenting us the same way,” Barb said. “Bragging about my skills would be a form of tooting his own horn.”

  “Along those lines, there’s one more thing I’ll mention. I don’t know if I’m supposed to say anything about it, but I believe Conor saw this as an opportunity for you to meet the boss.”

  “Ricardo?”

  “Yes,” Doc said. “Not that you’re supposed to know that name, but yes, that’s him.”

  “Dad told me he didn’t want me following in his footsteps. I think he wants me to be a cosmetologist or something.”

  Shannon’s eyes widened and she fought to contain a grin, but she kept her mouth shut. She obviously couldn’t imagine the unrefined, unpolished, and violent woman across from her working in the beauty industry. It wasn’t a critical judgment, it simply didn’t seem like her kind of thing.

  “I think he may have felt that way once upon a time,” Doc agreed, “but I think he sees it’s too late now.”

  “Too late for what?” Barb asked.

  Doc shrugged as if the answer was obvious. “If he didn’t want to raise a killer, he shouldn’t have spent his every waking moment teaching you to be one. He didn’t take you to dance classes, he took you to martial arts. You didn’t go fishing, you went shooting.”

  “And I’ve killed more men than I’ve kissed,” she admitted.

  “Honestly, you’d be a natural at it. You’re unknown, you’re off the radar, and you don’t have a military background so you’re not in the databases. Have you ever been fingerprinted?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then hell, you’re perfect. You could go anywhere and do anything.”

  Barb grinned. “By ‘do anything’ you mean ‘kill anyone?’”

  “Exactly.”

  “I thought my dad worked for the government,” Barb said. “I’ve never been clear about that and he doesn’t talk about that aspect of his life too much.”

  “He was initially recruited as a government contractor. Same thing in my case. There were some changes to the intelligence structure after 9/11 that resulted in both of us coming under the umbrella of a private entity. We basically do the same thing but there’s an additional layer of separation between us and anyone in the government.”

  Barb was lost in thought for a moment. News of the operation they’d be participating in didn’t interest her nearly as much as this new revelation Doc had thrust upon her. She’d never considered the possibility that she might follow in her father’s footsteps. It was a mixture of fear and excitement.

  Doc Marty picked up on it. As the father of a daughter, he recognized that look and that silence. “It’s not a bad life if you’re cut out for it. It’s especially enticing when you’re young and don’t have any obligations. There’s money and adventure. You get to see the world and meet interesting people.”

  “And kill them?” Barb said, half-joking but half not.

  “That’s part of it...sometimes. It’s not all of it. I would guess that you’d be a much more versatile tool in Ricardo’s arsenal than some others. No offense against your dad but he was recruited because of his talents with things that go boom. He’s a big h
ammer and to him everything is a nail. Over the years, they’ve used him for a number of other things, but a young lady such as yourself would have amazing potential. With the right training, you could be more than an assassin. You could be anything they needed you to be.”

  “That’s intriguing, and a lot to think about.”

  “There’ll be time. Taking this one job doesn’t commit you to anything. Talk to your dad.”

  “Do you know any women in the business I could talk to?”

  Doc considered. “We’re fairly compartmentalized, Barb. We only meet the folks we’re teamed with for a particular operation. It’s not like there’s a company picnic where we all get to hang out and meet each other’s families.”

  “Well, if you think of one, see if she might be willing to talk to me. That might help me make up my mind.”

  Doc chuckled. “When Conor told me about this last night, I immediately thought of this one lady we worked with before. You’ve always reminded me of someone, but I wasn’t able to pin it down until last night. You remind me of her. Of course, your dad would kill me for the comparison. He and that lady didn’t get along at all.”

  “She still work for Ricardo?”

  Doc shook his head. “No, I think she returned to the Mossad. I haven’t seen her in years.”

  40

  “I think I hear it!” Shannon said.

  All conversation in the living room came to a halt.

  “She’s right,” Ragus said. “I hear it too.”

  Doc Marty and Barb moved quickly, gathering their gear. Ragus scrambled out the door to turn on the solar landing lights and guide the chopper in.

  Doc couldn’t resist giving his daughter one more hug. “I love you, Shannon. You be careful.”

  “You do the same, Dad. We’ll be fine.”

  Barb stepped outside into the cool morning air. It felt good on her skin after the warmth of the living room and its cozy fire. Doc was behind her. Shannon pulled on a coat and joined them. The chopper wasn’t above them yet but they walked toward what had once been the employee parking lot of the old coal company headquarters which now served as a combination goat lot and chopper pad.