“I have three people moving from the house to the beach. Two tangoes are carrying the package,” I heard the SAD team with the callsign Hotel say over the open net.
Hawes had two personnel blocking the road from the house to Queens Highway. He had a two-man team overlooking the house and another two-man team closer to the shoreline overlooking the beach. He called the beach team Bravo, the house team Hotel, and the road team Romeo. Savage, Migos, and I began to slowly walk toward the house. If we were needed, we didn’t want to have to cover the full five hundred yards.
“Hotel, do you have a shot on the tangoes carrying the package?” I heard Hawes say over the radio.
“Affirmative.”
“Hotel and Bravo team, engage.”
The woods in front of us erupted in gunfire. As we walked toward the sound of the gunfire from the team covering the house, I could imagine the firefight to our front. It was essential the first shots killed the men carrying Cheryl to the boat. The snapping of rounds clipping the trees around us was our first indication of return fire. A louder, staccato burst of a machine gun drowned out all of the other gunfire. We hit the deck as orange tracers cut down the trees all around us.
I high crawled as fast as I could on my knees and elbows toward the edge of the tree line so I could see what was going on. Unlike the SAD operators, I didn’t have any tactical gear or night vision. My knees and elbows were a bloody mess by the time I reached the edge of the woods. The machine gun was still firing when I reached the open area. I could no longer hear any return fire from either of the SAD teams. I found a small earthen mound and began to pump rounds at the muzzle flash of the machine gun located at the rear corner of the house. Migos plopped down in the prone five yards to my left and opened fire. I was wondering where Savage was when I heard him over the radio.
“Cover me, I’m flanking on your right.”
“Changing mag!” I heard Migos yell. I continued to fire until machine gun bullets crawled up the mound I was using for protection. I ducked for cover while dirt and rocks fell all around me.
“Changing mag!” I yelled as I slapped in my third and last magazine. Migos picked up the firing.
“Lift fire!” I heard Savage yell over the net. I rolled to my right, jumped up and raced toward the house. Savage was a shadow seventy-five yards in front of me. He ran at a full sprint towards the firing machine gun that was concentrating on Migos. Savage shot and killed the man behind the machine gun and continued to race toward the beach without breaking stride. I followed Savage, but he moved like a deer and I couldn’t keep up.
We ran toward a cluster of people on the ground in the open lawn. One man raised a pistol and fired at the charging Savage. He missed. Savage, still in a sprint, shot the man twice and slid to his knees on the wet grass to a small prostrate body. I watched Savage touch the side of her neck in search of a pulse. I reached the cluster of bodies seconds behind Savage. Cheryl was lying face down on the grass. I put my hand on the back of her head and felt warm blood. I turned her limp body onto her back and tried to resuscitate her with breaths of air. She wasn’t breathing and there was no pulse. I cleared the airway again and gave her two strong breaths. Then I compressed her chest and repeated. I don’t know how long I tried, but eventually, Migos stopped me by putting his hand on my chest.
Migos sat next to me on the wet grass. My face and hands were sticky with Cheryl’s blood. My arms were around my knees and my head was buried in my forearms. I had a ton of regrets. Taking Cheryl to Eleuthera had been monumentally stupid, not expecting an attack on the beach house even more so. Letting the CIA’s obsession with security trump reasonable operations requirements to share communications was even dumber still. In a single day I got Cheryl killed, Sorenson killed, and McDonald was in Nassau fighting for his life. I was finding it difficult to breathe.
Eventually, I pulled my head up and surveyed the lawn in the moonlight. Next to Cheryl were the bodies of two Chinese agents. The Chinese were dressed in tactical gear and had died with weapons slung because their hands were occupied with carrying Cheryl. One of the two had drawn a pistol and shot at Savage. I grabbed his pistol and dropped the mag. I pressed it and found only one round had been expended. The other Chinese agent carrying Cheryl had died from the initial sniper volley.
Looking toward the house, I could see the silhouette of the machine gunner and his ammo bearer behind a support column. Both were lying on their backs where Savage had dispatched them. Cheryl wasn’t hit by a 7.62 machine gun round; the head wound would be much bigger than it was. I could tell that much. If the two agents carrying her didn’t kill her and the machine gun didn’t get her, then who did?
Farther down toward the beach, I could see a rubber boat at the edge of the sand and a few lumps that must have been the boat team. Two SAD operators were searching the bodies. It wasn’t very likely someone from the boat team was able to shoot Cheryl.
“What’s the original headcount on the tangoes?” I asked over my radio.
“Seven,” I heard Hawes say. He was inside the house with two other agents conducting a search.
“Did one of them get away?” I asked
“Let me check.”
I called David Forrest.
“Did you see a tango squirt south on the predator feed?” I asked.
“I have one track. I thought it was a friendly.”
“Where is he now?”
“In the woods, stationary, about two hundred yards south of the house.”
“I’m moving with Migos and Savage; vector us to the target.”
“ISR has a fix; Migos and Savage on me,” I said as I began to walk south. The crashing surf to our left masked our movement as the three of us left the open lawn and stepped into the woods. None of us were wearing night vision goggles or had any ballistic protection. We were in casual clothing carrying M4 carbines at the ready.
“Seventy-five meters south,” I heard David say over my phone.
The three of us formed a line, ten yards between us as we slowly walked through the pine forest.
“Seventy-five yards, due south,” I said into my radio microphone.
“Fifty yards, same azimuth,” I heard David say a minute later.
“Fifty yards,” I repeated for Migos and Savage to hear.
We slowed our advance. The forest thinned, allowing more moonlight to filter through. To the east, we could see the white bioluminescent surf. The sounds of crickets and surf filled my ears as we crept steadily on.
“Twenty-five yards. He’s in a prone position behind a tree directly in front of you,” I heard David say.
With my right thumb, I moved the selector switch on my carbine from semi to auto and pulled the trigger as I sprinted forward. I barely registered the muzzle flashes to my direct front. It took only three seconds to close the distance. In my hands, I felt the bolt of my carbine lock back when the magazine emptied. I pounced on the figure lying on his belly, I brought the buttstock of my weapon down as hard as I could bring it at his head. The man had cat-like reflexes. He rolled quickly to his right and evaded the blow. I snapped the collapsible buttstock in half when the weapon hit the ground. I dropped the weapon and fell onto the man. I drove my right elbow into his face as he tried to raise a pistol with his right hand. I grabbed his right wrist with my left hand, pivoted around and drove punch after punch into his face. A shoulder wound prevented him from moving his left arm. He dropped the pistol moments before he lost consciousness. I hit him another twenty or thirty times before my right hand grew numb and the fatigue slowed me down.
Savage and Migos walked up next to me while I was still sitting on the Chinese agent’s chest.
“Is he dead?” Migos asked.
I placed the index and forefinger of my left hand on the man’s bloody neck.
“No, not yet anyway,” I said.
“What was that all about?” Savage asked.
“This guy killed Cheryl,” I said as I stood up.
“Are you s
ure?” Savage asked.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Migos stepped in and delivered a wicked kick into the man’s side; the snap of his ribcage was loud enough to be heard back at the house.
“Let’s get him back to the house and turn him over to our overlords,” I said.
“Those guys are pros; what’s your beef with them?”
“The SAD operators are excellent; its prep school Pete from Broughton and Yale I could live without,” I said.
“You blame him for Cheryl’s death?”
“No, I just don’t like the guy,” I said.
Chapter 16
Eleuthera, Bahamas
Father Tellez celebrated Cheryl’s funeral in the tiny chapel behind the beach house. The Catholic Church would likely punish the good Father if they discovered he was using the Catholic rites to send off a Buddhist, but that kind of thing never seemed to bother Father Tellez. The Chapel only seats twenty-eight. With groups from Trident, Clearwater, and the Agency it was standing room only.
Mike showed up as the service was beginning. We didn’t have a chance to talk until much later when everyone was up at the house eating lunch. I was sitting on the porch, staring out at the ocean, nursing a Scotch when he found me.
“How are you holding up?”
“Good.”
“You blame yourself, don’t you?”
“Disaster follows me wherever I go, so I’ve become pretty good at understanding it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s never a single mistake—it’s always a chain of errors. Staying too long over the demo site because we wanted to remove the treasure, returning back here instead of going to a CIA safe house, failing to pick up the second team of Chinese, not having direct commo with the Agency people involved in the operation. This was just an unforgivable cluster fuck of epic proportions.”
“It was, but it’s not all on you.”
“I’m not looking for absolution. I screwed up, people died. It’s not the first time; I’ve been running teams for thirty years. It’s time to step away from it all and leave this kind of work to younger, sharper, more focused minds.”
“You didn’t kill Sorenson and you didn’t kill Cheryl; that was done by MSS.”
“How do you know that?”
“That Chinese agent you beat the crap out of is singing. Even with a badly broken face and a jaw that’s held together by wire.”
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“He’s going to eventually be swapped along with the other two minions we caught in this operation. Until then we’ll continue to interrogate him.”
“Was he the one who killed Cheryl?”
“Yeah.”
“He didn’t need to do that. He was beaten and he executed her, just so we couldn’t have her.”
“That’s exactly what he did.”
“We should’ve kept Cheryl under lock and key.”
“She never would’ve allowed it. You act you like you ever had control over the woman. It was always the other way around and you know it.”
“It was. I don’t think I ever said no to her.”
“You didn’t. She escaped from the Chinese regime and she died a free woman. Leave it at that.”
We sat in peace for several minutes, watching the Atlantic swells over the tree line from the high deck. I nursed my Scotch. It tasted bitter, much like the world at the moment.
“Go pick up that new boat you ordered. I’m coming back in a few weeks and I’m going to give you a chance at payback.”
“When did China become your problem? Are you no longer just the Middle East?”
“I’m the guy who freed the South China Sea from the grip of the Chinese Dragon. You’re talking to the new Chief of Clandestine Ops.”
“That’s a win for the good guys.”
“We have lots more to do, Pat. Go pick up your new boat. Decompress; I’ll be in touch soon. Getting back in the field is the best way to take your mind off your loss,” Mike said as he gave me a hug and then walked away.
The next few days were a blur. Savage, Migos, and I traveled to Wisconsin to attend Sorenson’s funeral. Almost everyone from my old unit is divorced. Guys like Sorenson—even though they only served twelve years—would have spent almost all of that time deployed in direct combat. It’s a lifestyle that’s not easy on a family, especially with the obsessive secrecy the unit imposes where you can’t share anything with anyone who is not in the unit.
I met Sorenson’s parents, his two sisters, his ex-wife, and his two young children. Unlike Cheryl’s service, the Sorenson funeral packed a five-thousand-seat church in the small town where they all lived in rural Wisconsin. Shrek was an immensely popular guy who, as I learned, was also a brilliant student-athlete in high school and college. He played football for Notre Dame and after graduation enlisted in the Army on an Airborne Ranger contract. He made Staff Sergeant in the 1st Ranger Battalion in only five years. The Rangers conduct a lot of missions with CAG and when the unit guys identify a Ranger leader with sufficient talent, they direct the person to try out for the varsity squad. Sorenson left the JV (Rangers) and went on to serve another seven years with the varsity at Fort Bragg before separating from the Army as a Sergeant First Class. The CIA recruited him out of CAG and placed him with Trident.
At Trident, we require everyone to have an updated will, which made the lawyers’ task of carving up Sorenson’s estate that much easier. Savage was able to recover Sorenson’s pirate bounty from the bank in Grand Cayman and we turned it over to a reputable law firm and a solid international coin dealer to liquidate and disperse with the estate. We no longer had to worry about the Chinese using it as a clue to find us. The Sorenson family were solid Midwesterners and they didn’t seem all that impressed with their newfound wealth. I stuck around for two days. I didn’t think it was possible to feel worse than I already did, but when I met Sorenson’s family, I discovered a new depth of sadness. I began to see the pirate treasure as a curse.
Chapter 17
Nassau, Bahamas
Mike called me earlier in the day to let me know that the boat was ready for pickup. The Agency handled the paperwork, making sure the purchase would never be traced to me or Trident. When I arrived at the marina, I gave the gate guard an alias ID and he let me through. I spotted the white yacht with the distinctive black hull as I stepped through the gate. In a marina filled with beautiful yachts, the AB 100 stood out. The sleek, hundred-foot yacht was docked at the farthest slipway from the entrance. As I approached, for the first time in weeks my spirits lifted, and I became excited. The profile of the boat exudes speed; it looks like a cigarette boat with three decks. The yacht is magnificent.
I found the keys where Mike said they would be, hidden in a chair next to the garage by the hydraulic ramp at the tail of the stern. I opened the garage, which was twice the size of the one on my old boat and found a thirteen-foot tender and a jet ski. A curved staircase flanked both sides of the garage. I went up the starboard side to the main deck. I unlocked the triple glass doors and went into the salon. The interior was white, with a beige carpet. A sixty-inch TV was mounted against the wall to the right of the entrance. Facing the TV was a modular set of two grey couches and two grey chairs arrayed in a horseshoe with a coffee table in the center. Farther in, the carpet turned to blonde wood and I moved past the living room to a dining area and then to the wheelhouse. The interior was bright, the walls of the main deck held large rectangular glass windows, and the wheelhouse cockpit had a huge windshield. Inside the wheelhouse were two big captain’s chairs and three impressive 42-inch monitors to display the ship’s controls. A small black steering wheel was mounted in front of the central monitor along with the thrust controls for the three V-12 1800 HP MAN engines and generator systems. The modern space-age design of the wheelhouse made it possible by camera to have a 360-degree view of the entire yacht.
Between the dining area and the wheelhouse, I took the spiral staircase down
to the lower deck. The walls and floors of the lower deck were the same clean blond hardwood as found on the main deck. In the center of the deck, I found the owner’s cabin and behind the owner’s cabin was the engine room. Forward of the owner’s cabin were the remainder of the staterooms and the galley. The owner’s cabin is the full twenty-two feet width of the boat. It’s a spacious living space with a king bed and a large modern bathroom plus a seating area and walk-in closet. All four bedrooms were carpeted with large picture windows. The galley was a long, narrow, stainless-steel professional kitchen with a small breakfast nook attached. I then took the stairs up to the flydeck, the place on the Sam Houston where I spent most of my time. The flydeck was huge— twice the size of the one on the Sam Houston. The flydeck had its own helm station to pilot the yacht, a king-sized sunbathing bed, and two couches wrapped around a stainless-steel table. It also had a bar, a fridge, and a well-equipped gas grill. Looking down from the helm station, I could see the bow of the yacht which had another sunbathing bed connected to a circular lounging area with a table in the center.
I spent a few hours studying the technical manuals of the engines, generators, navigation, stabilization, and jet propulsion systems. It wasn’t until just before five in the afternoon that I took the boat out from the Nassau Marina. The trip to Runaway Cove Marina in Governors Harbour, Eleuthera, took just over an hour. The yacht has a cruising speed of forty knots, and I couldn’t resist testing it at one point and getting it up to its full speed of fifty-four knots which was two knots faster than advertised. Squeezing the big boat into the tiny marina was very difficult; I had only two feet on either side of the yacht as I threaded the needle through the narrow marina entrance on the Caribbean side. The task was made much easier with the stitched 360-degree external camera system, warning sensors, and the side jets that allowed the yacht to move in any direction with great precision.
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