Overkill

by Ted Bell

  Ex–French Foreign Legion, Ex-SAS, Ex-SBS, and U.S. Army Rangers, ex–Japanese 1st Airborne, ex–Royal Australian Spec Ops Command, you name it—all could be found among the ranks of Thunder and Lightning. The weapons they carried varied man to man. Most common was the MP5, the Heckler & Koch 9mm submachine gun favored by SEALs, and the Sig Sauer 9mm pistol. Both weapons fitted with what the Yanks among them called hushpuppies.

  Stun grenades and Willy Petes hung from their camo web belts in what looked like grape clusters. Willy Petes were terrifying weapons, white phosphorus grenades that spread unspeakably intense heat and fire wherever they ignited.

  Chief Charlie Rainwater was the one they called Thunder. He was a full-blooded Comanche, a true Plains warrior, and he held the distinction of being the best underwater demolition man in the storied history of UDT and the Navy SEALs. Team Six had nicknamed him Thunder, and the name had stuck.

  In Afghanistan, the chief was known for always scouting barefoot, saving countless lives in the doing, always finding trip wires no one else could see, hearing enemy footsteps no one else could hear, and smelling an ambush a mile away. He’d earned three Bronze Stars and one Silver Star for his valiant efforts.

  Chief Rainwater was nearly seven feet tall and bristling with muscle, with blazing black eyes and a long, narrow nose sharp as an arrow above his somewhat cruel lips. Shoulder-length raven-black hair fell about his copper-skinned shoulders. He fought bare-chested, with an old pair of buckskin trousers and a pair of beaded moccasins he’d sewn for himself as his uniform.

  And then there was the man called Lightning. FitzHugh McCoy was a big, strapping Irish chap, ruddy-complected and weather-burned. Along with flashing blue eyes, he had short red-gold hair, which also dusted his bulging forearms. He was a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, earning his stripes as a Delta Force war fighter in both theaters. He was also a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

  These days they ran their operations out of Martinique, located in the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean Sea. Lightning, as a student at Trinity College, Dublin, had discovered an old British fortress sited on a hilltop deep in the jungle while on holiday. He’d decided on the spot that he would acquire it one day and make it the home of all his operations.

  And, on the day he and Thunder officially commenced operations, he’d offered a five-thousand-dollar bonus to the man who came up with the best name for their new home.

  Thunder had won, hands down. The chief announced they would call it, from this day forward . . . Fort Whupass. And it stuck.

  Their old fortress headquarters was incredibly well sited and gleamed white in the morning sunlight. Sitting atop one of the many heavily forested hills that parade down to the sea, Fort Whupass looked to be late-seventeenth or early-eighteenth century, most probably English. Colonized by France in 1635, Martinique had remained a French possession, save three brief periods of foreign occupation by Britain.

  “Alex Hawke!” Lightning exclaimed when he heard a familiar voice on the phone. “Christ, man, I thought you broke up with me! Where have you been, your lordship?”

  Hawke laughed. “In trouble, mostly, Fitz. How the hell are you? Holding down the fort at Fort Whupass?”

  “Busier than a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs, sir, and glad of it. Got a little gig in Syria coming up in about a month, should be interesting. That new administration in Washington has boosted morale to the point where working with Yank troops might be fun again . . . Tell me what’s up.”

  “Hostage rescue. And the pressure is on.”

  “How many of my lads do you need, sir?”

  “Fifteen, twenty, minimum. There may be another action following quickly on the heels of the rescue. It’s a Putin thing. Big surprise, right? Anyway, I need you and Chief Rainwater and I need you now.”

  “Where are we flying into?”

  “Flying? Don’t tell me you’ve still got that old rust bucket C-130 Hercules of yours.”

  “Indeed, we do, sir. Archangel will be aloft long after this lot of us is gone. You remember how much runway she needs, though.”

  “I do indeed. I’ll start looking for a nice quiet little airstrip for you today, in fact.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Zurich. The hostage is being held captive in a fortified, walled compound on an island in Lake Zurich. CIA is now taking sat shots daily, thanks to our old pal Brick Kelly, who dedicated a bird to us.”

  “Attaboy, Brick!

  “Who are we up against? Anybody good?”

  “Russians. If I had to guess I’d say KGB spec ops boys, directly under Putin’s command. Spetsnaz, KGB, FSB. The bad boys. You know.”

  “Fuck.”

  “I try not to use that word, but my sentiments exactly.”

  “I thought Putin was dead.”

  “He thought so, too. Turned out not to be true.”

  “Who’s the hostage, Alex?”

  “My son, Alexei. They’ve held him since Christmas. Putin’s idea of a way to keep my lordly nose out of his business.”

  “I guess it’s not working. I’m so sorry you’re going through this, sir. Fucking Putin.”

  “It’s been sheer, unmitigated hell, Fitz, believe me.”

  “We’ll get him out, Alex. We’ll bring him home. You know that.”

  “Yeah, I do know. But if Putin gets wind of us making a hostage rescue move in his direction, and somebody in that house pulls the trigger and—”

  “Stop it! It’s not going to happen that way. Have we ever let you down?”

  “Of course not. But this thing’s been pushing me to the edge, Fitz. I have to be honest. Feel like I’m coming apart around the edges a little bit. Too much booze, too many cigarettes, too little sleep. You know the drill.”

  “God, do I. Can I have twenty-four hours to put this all together?”

  “Yes. Thanks for that.”

  “Weaponry?”

  “Bring everything you’ve got.”

  “Holy Christ, Alex. Are you serious?”

  “I am. I said there may well be a subsequent action. In the last few weeks, Putin has sent thugs to try and take out everyone close to me. Stokely Jones, maybe Ambrose Congreve next. They only got close with Stoke. He’s all right, but they got his best pal. You remember Sharkey?”

  “Ah, shit. They got that little Sharkman, did they? Only one arm, but all heart, that one.”

  “Listen, I’ve got to jump. The target is in a well-defended compound out on the water. Out on a point of a fairly isolated island. A thick forest screens it from the nearest adjoining estates. Lots of dockage. My thought is, we charter a few high-powered speedboats, as many as we need. There are gobs of the things on Lake Zurich.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “We go in full throttle, locate my son, kill anyone who gets in our way on the way in or out. Needs fine-tuning, this plan, but it’s fairly straightforward. They sent me a video of him last week. I’ll email it to you. He looks good, considering. Clearly not being abused, at any rate. You can see his room, the dimensions anyway . . . might help pinpointing its location inside the complex.”

  “Every little helps, Skipper.”

  “I know. Listen, Fitz, I don’t need to tell you how much I appreciate this . . .”

  “No, you don’t. Go get some sleep. See you day after tomorrow, sir. Tell all the lads Fitz says hi.”

  All was still inside Archangel, the old turboprop transport plane, built by Lockheed in the early fifties. Six hours earlier, the giant matte-black C-130 aircraft had lifted off from a secret airstrip buried deep in the jungles along the northern shores of Martinique.

  Aboard were some of the most dangerous men on the planet, killers trained to within a knife’s edge of their lives. These hardened commandos all had enormous respect, a feeling bordering on love in some cases, for Alex Hawke, the man who was leading them into battle once more.

  On they flew, lumbering along through the sunlit clouds at thirty thousan
d feet, on a northwesterly course across the rolling black Atlantic, black as night below their massive black wings. The aircraft’s entire fuselage, wings, and engine nacelles were always kept to a strict matte black for nighttime insertions or evacs.

  There were no nav lights winking on her wingtips, no lights showing at her tail or nose. Even the lights inside the cockpit were a muted shade of red, barely visible from outside the aircraft.

  FitzHugh McCoy was up front in the left-hand seat and driving the plane, with Chief Charlie Rainwater in the right-hand position.

  T&L commandos sat quietly inside the cold and cavernous fuselage, chilled and cramped on the rows of canvas sling chairs, alone with their thoughts. Some of the guys had just spread out facedown on the greasy pallets on the deck, resting or snoring the long droning hours away. For long periods, no one spoke at all.

  They didn’t have to. They all knew what the mission entailed down to the last detail. And most important, they all knew, each and every one, knew in their hearts that whatever may befall them in the violent hours ahead, they would gladly give their lives to save Alex Hawke’s only son.

  Archangel was coming once again . . .

  Archangel to the rescue.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Lake Zurich

  They would strike at midnight. The first black, moonless night since the team had first assembled at the Baur au Lac Hotel in the heart of Zurich. Buses had off-loaded the twenty-four-man hostage rescue team at Seepfadi Zürich, the old marina on the lakeshore south of town. Artemis Cooper had managed to locate and charter a half-dozen high-powered speedboats for the trip down the lake and back.

  The boats were moored side by side at the dock farthest from shore. On their sterns hung the three engines, triple 300hp Mercury racing engines. Hang nearly a thousand horsepower off the back of one of these things? Get out of the effing way, brother.

  And Artemis had identified the perfect staging area from which to assemble and launch the attack, a deserted warehouse right on the lakeside docks. He, Hawke, and Stoke had already commandeered the abandoned building. There the team would perform final weapons and equipment checks. Top off all the tanks with petrol. And have one last look at the intel gathered on the compound and the forces defending it.

  Eleven p.m. They had all gathered around a large wooden table, now littered with laptops, communication equipment, physical maps, blown-up reference photos of Alexei on that fateful Christmas Day when he’d been taken, checklists for weapons and ammo and—

  Alex saw someone enter through the rear door and instantly knew that the man had been heaven-sent. His friend and the director of the CIA, Brick Kelly.

  “Good evening, Alex. Good evening to you too, gentlemen. Sorry to drop in so unexpectedly, but my friend Hawke here said I’d be welcome if I could make it. I’m attending the G7 summit over in Davos, so it was an easy hop over to Zurich.”

  Hawke strode over and shook his hand. “Thanks for making the time, Brick. What have you got for us?”

  “Well, I’ve got a lot of brand-new CIA intel, including close-up sat shots of the target compound, thermal imaging of current guard changes, et cetera. May I?”

  The seasoned warriors looked at each other, incredulous. They’d never seen anything quite like this in all their years of combat. The director of the CIA had just walked into the room and now he was going to brief them?

  Brick put a heavy satchel on the table, leather worn thin by years of use. He withdrew a heavy black three-ring binder. A scarlet X on the cover identified the material as top secret. In a pocket inside the binder was an Apple MacBook Air in a hard rubber casing.

  And a complete set of construction and elevation plans for most of the buildings inside the walls, courtesy of the CIA’s secret digital construction crew.

  Brick said, “Let’s start with this. Have another look at the hostage video released two weeks ago by Alexei’s captors and emailed to Alex. I put a team of analysts on it and they did some fine work.”

  Kelly hit the play button and Hawke and the commandos huddled in for a closer look as he froze the frame and zoomed in on a window.

  “All, notice the sun in deep background. We don’t see much of it, but we see enough to notice that it’s settling behind those mountains in the far distance. Here I blow up that isolated image and you clearly see the Eiger. And nearby Der Nadel, the mountain called White Death. So, we now know the hostage’s quarters are on the western side of the primary residence. With a direct sight line to Der Nadel.

  “Now, I’ll pull out to look out all three windows visible behind Alexei in the foreground. Two windows on one wall with another one on a perpendicular wall. Voilà, mes amis, we now have pinpointed a corner room. The corner room on the northwestern side of the building. That’s where we’ll find your son, Alex.”

  “God bless you, Brick,” Hawke said, his heart racing. This man whom he’d once rescued from certain death at the hands of Iraqi prison guards had never once let him down.

  Brick said, “Finally, the trees visible in the windows. Those are mature fir trees. Grow to approximately fifty or sixty feet in height, and we’re looking at the very tops of them . . . Are you with me, now? We’re looking at elevations . . .”

  Hawke stretched his hand out across the table and seized the artist’s rendering of the Seegarten compound in his right hand, one that showed the primary residence in great 3-D detail.

  “Yes, Brick, we’re with you. The top floor. You’ve correctly identified the exact room where we’ll find my son . . . It’s this room right here, the one I’m pointing at. Alexei is being held in the northwest corner room on the top floor of the house!”

  “That’s where you’ll find him, men,” Brick said. “I’m certain of it.”

  Hawke grabbed Brick by the shoulders and hugged him.

  “Thank you guys for doing this last-minute stuff for us, Brick. You’ve cut through a ton of analysis crap for us tonight, and probably saved a lot of lives, too. You’re the best, man. You want to come along for the fun?”

  “I don’t think so, Alex. Got to get back to Davos tonight, get a little sleep. My big G7 presentation is the first one up in the morning, so . . .”

  “Understood,” Hawke said and squeezed his hand in a good-bye shake. “Give ’em hell, Brick.”

  The man started to make his exit, then checked that thought and remained at the table.

  “Hey, boss,” Stokely said, a big smile on his face, “now that we know exactly where Alexei is hanging out, shouldn’t we just go get his ass out of there? Booyah!”

  “Gentlemen,” Hawke said, looking at his combat watch, an old black-faced Rolex Commando he’d worn all the way through his Royal Navy combat tours in the desert. “Are we ready? Let me hear it.”

  “Ready!” they all boomed out in unison. “Born ready, sir!”

  “Well, hell,” Hawke shouted, “then let’s crank up those damn motorboats and roar like hell down this lake and kick some Russian ass, boys!”

  Brick said, “Alex, can I have a quick word? Outside?” They stepped out into the chilly drizzle. “Something’s up in Siberia. We don’t know what yet.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Sats are picking up major flurries kicking up at that old secret KGB headquarters in Siberia. Troops in battle formation, artillery rolled outside and being reconditioned, a damn fighter squadron being taken out of mothballs, et cetera. Preparation for an invasion of some kind, we think.”

  “Invasion of what? Not the Baltics again?”

  “No, he’s already done that and failed.”

  “Who then? The Kremlin oligarchs?”

  “No. Your pal Vladimir Putin. He’s up to no good again somewhere, that’s for damn sure.”

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Falcon’s Lair

  Uncle Joe couldn’t sleep. Despite all the planning, all the vast amounts of money expended, all the highly trained members of the Falcon’s Lair squads, and Beau’s Brigade, all his own assurances
to Putin that it was all “under control,” that he and Beau were on top of things, he had this nagging feeling here on the very eve of battle.

  A nagging voice right at the back of his brain was saying, “Is it, Joe? Is it really, Joe? Is it really all under control? I mean, think about it. Russia is about to invade fucking Switzerland!”

  Tossing and turning, he kept playing and replaying the dinner conversation he and Shit Smith had had with Colonel Beauregard the night before Beau left for Siberia. There he would fine-tune the troops and ultimately oversee the movement of his mercenary forces across Europe and deep into Switzerland . . . and commence Operation Overkill.

  Beau and Joe and Mr. Shit Smith had decided to dine together that night in the main dining room at Falcon’s Lair. Putin had been invited but had not shown up. Joe learned from kitchen staff that he’d ordered his meal sent up to his quarters. Along with three bottles of Château Lafite Rothschild and a case of Krug champagne to go with his “Pheasant Under Glass” or whatever.

  Beau was saying to Uncle Joe and Shit over dinner: “You know, Joe, it’s long been said that ‘Switzerland doesn’t have an army, Switzerland is an army.’ You see, the Swiss have not fought a war for nearly five hundred long years, and they are determined to know how so as not to have to fight one!”

  “Whut’d he say?” Shit said, already into his seventh beer.

  Joe looked at the sullen cowboy, shook his head, and said, “He means they’re determined to know how to fight a war so as to know how not to fight a war, Shit.”

  “Whut?” Shit said, still not all that clear on the matter.

  “Pay attention to what the man is saying, for crissakes. Go ahead, Beau, continue,” Joe said.

  “Okay. So in Italy, it has been said of the Swiss army, ‘I didn’t know they had one.’ Ha! When the Italian guy learns that the Swiss army vastly outnumbers Italy’s, the guido says, ‘That is not difficult.’”

  “Funny,” Shit mumbled.

  Beau continued: “The Swiss army has served as a model for nations a lot less languid than Italy. Get this, the fuckin’ Israeli army is a copy of the Swiss army. The Israelis, Joe! You think those bastards don’t know how to fight?”