Northern Sun: Book Four in The Mad Mick Series

by Franklin Horton

  Just before she lost consciousness, the woman in the shadows screamed again, then Bushra’s eyes went wide. Barb caught a flicker of movement, then Bushra was hauled off of her. She rolled to her side, choking and coughing, struggling to right herself. Her headlamp, still crooked, provided just enough illumination to catch the glint of a combat knife, its razor-sharp blade raking across Bushra’s throat.

  The bearded man’s jaw went slack and his eyes wide. Conor released him and the man fell to his knees. He clasped at his throat with both hands as if he could somehow restore its integrity and put himself back together, but he was too far gone. His blood ran freely, saturating his beard and the front of his shirt. It ran onto the floor and pooled around him. All the while, the terrified woman, so rudely pulled from her cocktail party, screamed and screamed and screamed.

  61

  After a lot of explaining to the terrified partygoers, much of it outright lies, Conor directed Doc Marty to the house where they’d killed Bushra. They used the terrorists’ van to haul Bushra’s body back to the Bass Springs Resort. Barb sat in the front seat while Conor rode alongside the leaking corpse.

  As soon as they were back at the resort, Conor checked the status of his prisoners in the walk-in cooler and found them to be fine, though a little green around the gills from the smell. While Doc checked out Barb in the kitchen, Conor stepped outside and rang Ricardo on the sPad.

  “Conor?” Ricardo answered, unable to hide the desperation in his voice.

  “It’s done,” Conor said. “It’s over.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Ricardo said. “We couldn’t get a clear picture of what was taking place after you guys went into the house.”

  “You should probably get the drone to make a pass over the general area just to make sure we haven’t missed anyone. If they spot anyone wandering around, let us know. If not, then we’re done with it. Pull them off and send them home.”

  “We’ve just completed a sweep,” Ricardo said. “I think everyone is accounted for.”

  “Roger that. How’s Shani?”

  “In surgery. I don’t have an update yet.”

  Conor sighed. He had some issues with the woman, but they’d worked well together this time. Maybe he should think about putting the past behind him. She and Barb had worked well together too. Perhaps there was the potential there for her to learn a few things from the older woman.

  “Doc gathered what documents he could, but there’s a lot of stuff here that may help tell the larger story. Guns, vehicles, and who knows what else.”

  “We’re on that too,” Ricardo said. “Trent has two birds headed in your direction. We’re dropping some intelligence analysts to document the scene and some security to keep out any gawkers until we’re done.”

  “What about the prisoners?”

  “I need your team to escort them back here on one of the choppers. The analysts will photograph and fingerprint the dead, then we’ll torch the place with the bodies inside. There’ll be nothing left to tell the story.”

  “Listen, Ricardo, I don’t care what kind of information you squeeze out of these prisoners, we need a break. Shani is out of commission and Barb is a little tweaked. Don’t even think of sending us out again without some rest.”

  There was a pause. “We’ll talk when you get back, Conor. Be safe.”

  Ricardo ended the call. Conor scowled at the contraption before shoving it in his pocket. He went back inside the kitchen.

  “What’s the word?” Doc asked.

  Conor lifted his chin toward Barb. “More importantly, how’s my girl?”

  “I’m a little banged up, Dad. My throat hurts and my neck is stiff. There’ll be some bruises. That’s it.”

  “Yeah,” said Doc, “what she said. She’ll be fine. She’s tough as nails.”

  “I’m going up to the LZ and meet a couple of choppers. We’re supposed to escort the prisoners back to Ricardo’s compound. Teams are coming in to deal with the rest of this.” Conor gestured around him. “They’ll take those documents you found, document the dead, and sanitize the scene.”

  “You need help?” Barb asked.

  “No,” Conor replied. “I’ll bring the teams here and then we can square away the prisoners. If everything goes according to plan, we should be at Ricardo’s place by sunup.”

  62

  The choppers were already within earshot by the time Conor reached the landing zone. In less than an hour, they were lifting off with their prisoners and burning across the early morning darkness. Conor, Barb, and Doc Marty were all exhausted. Each urged the others to sleep but no one wanted to be “that guy” so they all remained awake. It was only them, the flight crew, and their prisoners. Everyone who’d ridden in on the choppers was back at the resort, sorting through the mess they’d left behind.

  They sipped from their water but everyone felt too dirty, too tired, and too bloodstained to eat. They wanted nothing more than to stretch out on any available flat surface for a few hours of sleep. No one cared if it was a bed, a bare floor, or even the ground. Anything would do. With their adrenaline ebbing, exhaustion and a flood of aches overtook them.

  After a couple of hours of uncomfortable sitting, the pilot’s voice crackled across their headsets. “Two minutes out. Ground advises they’ll take custody of the detainees on the pad.”

  Conor yawned. “Acknowledged.”

  Everyone perked up a little at that news. The long night would soon be over. In one minute the chopper began to lose airspeed and thirty seconds after that settled into a hover over an array of infrared landing lights. Sensing the change in velocity, the prisoners shifted nervously, cocking their hooded heads like chickens, trying to get a sense of what was taking place.

  When the helo touched down, the pilots killed the engines and everyone waited a moment for the chopper to spin down. When the crew doffed their headsets, Conor’s team did the same. The crew chief slid the door open and a team of six men in camo fatigues was waiting for them. Each of the security team was wearing a headlamp. Conor took that as a sign he could use his, so he clicked it on. He politely directed it toward the ground so it wouldn’t be shining in anyone’s eyes.

  The prisoners were shackled in teams of two. Conor got them to their feet, one pair at a time, and steered them toward the door. Doc and Barb helped transfer them to the security team. Each pair was led toward the back of a waiting truck. When all the prisoners were offloaded, the security personnel climbed into the truck and hauled the prisoners off for processing. Not a word was exchanged between any of the parties.

  When the truck departed, Conor and his team dropped out the door. With the crew chief’s help, they hauled their gear out. Their mission was catching up to them, their limbs growing heavy from exhaustion. A black Suburban rolled up to the chopper pad and parked. The doors popped open and Ricardo emerged from one side, Trent the other.

  “Cracking good job!” Trent said.

  “Agreed,” Ricardo said. “Excellent work.”

  “We’ll have to debrief tomorrow,” Conor said. “We’re all beat.”

  “That’s fine,” Ricardo said. “You guys hop in the back and we’ll haul you to your quarters.”

  “Any news on Shani?” Barb asked.

  “She’s out of surgery,” Ricardo replied. “She lost a lot of blood but she’ll be fine. The bullet struck the pelvis but didn’t shatter it. She’ll be kicking ass and snapping necks in no time.”

  Barb smiled. “Glad to hear it.” She wanted to ask if they’d be seeing her anytime soon but didn’t know how to bring that up easily. She decided to wait until tomorrow to pose that question. The burden of what Shani had told her in that van weighed heavily. She didn’t want to be the one to tell her father the news. It needed to come from Shani and she needed to find a way to make that happen.

  Ricardo honored their exhaustion and hard work by not badgering them with questions, though Conor knew he was itching to. He’d worked with him long enough to know how his m
ind worked. Conor wondered sometimes if the man slept at all or if he was merely a twenty-four-hour intelligence processing machine.

  In a few short minutes, they reached the Quonset hut where they’d be staying and Ricardo opened the biometrically-controlled door to let them in. He didn’t follow.

  “There’s food, towels, and toiletries. I’ll be back in the morning.”

  “It’s already morning,” Doc groaned.

  Ricardo shrugged. “I’ll be back with lunch then. You guys get some rest.”

  There were bunks for each of them and clean clothes to change into. There was a working shower facility with hot water. They drew straws and Doc Marty won the first shower. By the time he got out, Conor and Barb were both dead to the world, laying askew on their cots. Apparently the allure of cleanliness was not as compelling as the irresistible pull of sleep.

  63

  As he’d promised, Ricardo was at the door by lunchtime, knocking before he entered. Everyone had showered and was in clean clothes, lounging on their cots with cups of hot coffee. Ricardo came in with a box of warm sub sandwiches and potato chips, Trent on his heels.

  Conor frowned at him. “You run out to the corner deli or do you travel with a personal chef?”

  “Don’t knock it,” Ricardo said. “Good food is a luxury and there are few luxuries in the world right now.”

  “Oh, I’m not knocking it,” Conor said. “More impressed than anything. You think you could get me one of those?”

  Ricardo raised a curious eyebrow. “A sandwich?”

  “No, a chef.”

  Trent smiled. “I bet there’s a lot of chefs out of work right now, Conor. You could probably get a damn good personal chef just for putting a roof over their head and keeping them safe.”

  “That’s something to think about,” Conor mused, then noticed Barb glaring at him. “I’m joking.”

  “No you’re not,” she snapped. “You’d do it in a heartbeat.”

  Doc was nodding in agreement. “He totally would.”

  Ricardo piled the food onto the plastic conference table. “There are drinks in the refrigerator. Help yourself.”

  Barb, Conor, and Doc Marty got to their feet. Conor started another pot of coffee. Barb grabbed a drink from the refrigerator and took a seat at the table.

  “Squeeze anything useful out of those shit-birds last night?” Conor asked.

  “We haven’t started interrogating them yet,” Trent said, “but we haven’t allowed them to sleep either. They’ve been listening to freeform jazz all night. It may have been a little loud for them. I don’t think they’re fans.”

  “We’re not equipped for this. We don’t have the space,” Ricardo said. “We’ll be shipping these men out over the next couple of days. Trent has a facility in the gulf that’s set up specifically for this.”

  “Old oil platform,” Trent said. “It’s perfect.”

  “The goal is that Kamil Farouq or one of the other detainees will help us find more compounds,” Ricardo said. “If we keep this up, maybe we can weed out all of these encampments before too many innocent people die.”

  “Is this ‘mission creep’?” Conor asked, unrolling a sub before him with the relish of a newlywed undressing his bride.

  “Excuse me for interrupting but I’m not familiar with that term,” Barb said.

  “It’s when the mission starts as one thing but becomes another,” Doc explained.

  Ricardo shrugged. “I don’t know if I’d refer to this so much as mission creep as a complete retargeting. The client originally had three operations in mind, all directed at financiers of the initial attacks. Obviously, though, the importance of the emerging intelligence supersedes the importance of some of the other projects we had lined up for you. We shook a tree and more fell out than we expected.”

  “Agreed,” Trent said. “We weren’t aware the terrorists were still here and had plans to continue running around acting like assholes. We need to put a stop to that. Using Ricardo allows the government to stomp out these cells without any paperwork, bureaucracy, or levels of oversight. People will only know about this operation if we choose to involve them. It won’t become a political issue. There won’t be hearings. Lawyers won’t be involved, accusing us of breaking US laws and not observing due process. We deal with this and it’s done. No one has a chance to slip away. No one has diplomatic immunity.”

  “You got any ranch dressing, mate?” Conor asked.

  Everyone at the table stared at Conor.

  “Were you even following the conversation?” Barb asked.

  “Yes, but I still need ranch dressing.”

  “Uh, you can check the refrigerator,” Ricardo offered.

  Conor got up, licking his fingers as he walked. “Eureka!” he said, returning to the table with a bottle, a wide grin on his face. He removed the top layer of bread from his sandwich, drenched it in ranch, then put it back together, his glee evident.

  Everyone at the table continued to watch him, mutually appalled at the volume of dressing he applied to his sandwich.

  “What?” Conor asked.

  Ricardo shook his head, perhaps trying to fling the memory from his brain. “Do you want the work, Conor? As I’ve explained, we have an interest in keeping this circle tight. I don’t want to have to bring in new people unless I have to.”

  Conor looked around the table and met Barb’s eye, then Doc’s. Despite not exchanging any visible cues, Conor saw what he needed to see. He understood their wishes. Like him, they wanted to see this through. They wanted to take out the men who’d inflicted damage on their country. They wanted to make the terrorists pay.

  “We’ll do it, but we need a week. That gives you time to work the detainees and see what intel you can squeeze from them. It gives us time to rest up and lick our wounds. Of course, you’ll need to replace Shani. I suspect she’ll be laid up for a while.”

  Ricardo and Trent both grinned, unable to hide their glee. This was a victory for them and they couldn’t hide their satisfaction.

  “There’s also some company business we’ll need to discuss,” Conor said, referring to the fact that he wanted Barb’s employment solidly locked down before they went into the field again. He also needed to confirm with Ricardo what supplies he wanted packed into the containers he was receiving for payment. None of those things were matters he needed to discuss in front of Trent. That stayed behind the curtain.

  “We can deal with that tonight if that’s acceptable,” Ricardo said. “For now, we need you to walk us through the op.”

  Trent opened his laptop and typed as Conor began to speak, picking up with their activity from the moment the chopper set them down near the Bass Springs Resort. For the next six hours, they replayed the entire operation in excruciating detail.

  64

  Four days later, Conor was on the roof of a building at his compound on Jewell Ridge, lowering a rope to the ground. “Tie on that bucket of tar, lad.”

  Ragus did as he was asked, then stepped back in case the heavy bucket came loose and dropped. It wasn’t something he wanted crashing down onto his head.

  They were patching a roof leak in one of the buildings Conor didn’t use much. It had been built for storing supplies back in the days when this compound was the headquarters of a mining operation. With dozens of other buildings on his property, Conor hadn’t found much use for this one, but that could change. With two Conex boxes of supplies coming in, they were going to need some space to stage and sort the items.

  Some of the materials Conor requested were for his people. They didn’t know how long they’d be in this period of deprivation and he wanted to make sure his family was taken care of. Other items, such as food, medicine, and vitamins, Conor had requested for valued associates such as Johnny Jacks’ family and Wayne’s people living at the firehouse. There were a lot of individuals making an effort to keep their community safe and Conor wanted to see them rewarded. He also wanted to have extra supplies to hand out to neighbors
in need.

  Conor popped open the bucket and was applying roofing tar to a troublesome seam when he thought he heard something. He hung his head back over the side of the building, not trusting his own ears. “You hear something, Ragus?”

  Ragus squinted and covered his eyes. “A chopper, maybe.”

  Conor scurried to the ladder. “I thought so.” He climbed down, shouting instructions to Ragus. “Get on the radio and put everyone on alert. Just because we’re expecting a chopper doesn’t mean there won’t be trouble.” Conor had a lot of enemies. It was always in the back of his mind that a chopper might show up one day with a team sent to exact vengeance for one of his past deeds.

  By the time Conor reached the ground, Ragus had carried out his instructions. Conor wiped his hands in the dirt, scrubbing them of any tar. He slipped his plate carrier over his head and took up his rifle. As he geared up, he continued to hand out orders to Ragus. “Tell everyone you and I will meet the chopper. They’re to hang back until we tell them it’s clear.”

  Ragus relayed that information, then fell in behind Conor, jogging toward the landing pad. The sound of rotors got louder and there was soon no doubt as to what was creating the sound. A massive Chinook hovered into sight, a blue Conex shipping container slung beneath it. Conor extracted eye protection from a pouch on his gear and slipped them on.

  “Cover me from behind the shed,” he told Ragus, pointing to a metal structure that held much of the compound’s solar equipment.

  Practiced at this by now, Ragus sprinted off in that direction. Conor stood in the clear by his LZ and waved his arms until he had the attention of the hovering pilots. He directed them to place the container away from the landing pad, in a row of similar containers. If they dropped it on his chopper pad, he might not be able to move it, and the landing pad would be blocked. The crew responded to his gestures, setting the container down with impressive skill.