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“Wait for it, Gary,” McCarter promised.
The Sikorsky swooped low, like a hawk plucking a field mouse from the ground. The first of the two motor launches erupted in fire as the machine guns touched off something on the deck. McCarter waited for the arc of the chopper’s travel to take them over the smoking, flaming deck of the Filipino ship. Then he pushed off, signaling James to follow.
The line caught him and jerked him up a few feet short of the deck. The Briton hit his quick-release lever and landed on the deck, hard, rolling out and bringing up the Tavor rifle attached to his single-point harness. Every member of Phoenix Force had been equipped with one of the high-tech Israeli assault weapons. The bullpup-configured rifle fired NATO-standard 5.56 mm ammunition and was modular, configurable for different missions. Manning’s Tavor had a 4.0mm grenade launcher affixed, while all the rifles had close-quarters red-dot optics.
Each man also carried a 9 mm Glock handgun. At least, that was the plan John Kissinger, the Stony Man armorer, had had when he’d outfitted Phoenix Force for the mission. Kissinger had also seen to it that each man had a full-size, drop-point combat, fixed-blade knife to mount on his gear. But McCarter, as he usually did, had insisted on his beloved Browning Hi-Power. Kissinger had known better than to argue the point.
Outfitting the team with foreign weapons was part of the drill. In the shadowy world of politics and plausible deniability, everybody knew what was going on, but everybody pretended they didn’t. That was one of the reasons even allies routinely spied on each other. There would be no doubt, if Phoenix Force was captured or killed, that they were likely a Western commando team. But as long as there was no concrete proof, they could operate outside established international laws. The very notion was ridiculous to McCarter. There were no international laws that were not enforced behind the barrels of guns. Like the one he held now.
The deck of the Filipino ship was on fire. The crew was doing what they could to douse the flames. McCarter threw them a salute, hoping they would understand he was on their side. They regarded him suspiciously if they noticed him at all; for the most part, they were too worried about survival to spare him much time. He immediately went to a section of the railing that was clear of debris, braced his Tavor and started tracking the second motor launch.
The first of the two fast-attack boats was trailing a thick plume of black smoke. As McCarter watched, the Sikorsky flew past, turned and lined up the grenade launcher.
“Now, Gary! Now!” McCarter said.
Manning made no reply. He did not need to. The automatic grenade launcher began spewing 40 mm death at the already crippled motor launch. The grenades blew the little boat to cinders, biting off great chunks of it, as if the vessel were being devoured from stern to bow. The flaming bodies that were thrown into the sea bore horrible testament to the destruction being wrought. McCarter turned his attention back to the boat that was still moving.
Grimaldi did the same. While the second boat, the moving boat, was out of position, he had pursued the wounded first vessel, but his strategy was a sound one. He was harrying the motor launches to keep them from targeting the Filipino ship again with their handheld rockets. From what McCarter could see of the men on the decks, they did not look military. At least, they did not wear uniforms. But there was something more to it. Military men had a certain bearing and, from what little he could see through the smoke of the carnage on the water, the sailors on the motor launch didn’t have it. They were casual. That meant they were pirates, or at least, civilian contractors. But how would such men get their hands on the latest high-tech weapons from America, weapons that were strictly controlled when it came to export to foreign powers? Either RhemCorp was careless or RhemCorp was dirty. But they did not yet know which.
McCarter let the red dot of his Tavor optics fall on the moving motor launch. It continued to fly through the water, making widening circles around the Filipino ship. The crew, around McCarter, was starting to bring the fire under control. James took up a protective position at McCarter’s back, looking in toward the deck, and started shooing sailors away from his position with a collection of hand gestures and dirty looks. The sailors seemed content to give the two Phoenix Force members plenty of room, especially when McCarter started firing on the pirate launch still rolling through the waves.
“David, this is G-Force,” said Grimaldi over the transceiver frequency. Phoenix Force typically used first names as code names for missions like this. Surnames could be tracked, but first names and nicknames would yield little if overheard.
“Go ahead,” said McCarter. He did his best to lead the speeding motor launch and started squeezing off short bursts with the Tavor, knowing he had little chance of hitting any of the men on the deck of the small, fast-moving craft from this distance.
“From up here,” said Grimaldi, “it looks like their circuits are getting wider. They’re going to try to break off at some point, once they think they’ve got enough range not to get cut apart when they give us their backside.”
“You’re right about that,” McCarter said. “Keep them moving. Our friends here have had enough Thorn rockets for one day.”
“Roger that,” Grimaldi said. “What do you want me to do once they start running?”
“Let’s follow them back to wherever they’re going,” McCarter said. “Small ships like that, they’re going to have another, bigger craft somewhere around here. Plenty of ships in these waters. It will make it easier if we know precisely which one we’re looking for. Have the Farm do some serious real-time imaging of what’s moving, too. If we lose them, maybe they can sleuth out what we’re hoping to find.”
It was the Farm’s satellite imaging technology that had given them the priority target list they now had. Kurtzman and his team of computer jockeys had found a crazy kind of pattern to the pirate strikes, or whatever they were, and had accurately predicted the assault on the Filipino ship. McCarter wondered what other wizardry the Farm’s personnel might come up with once they had some actual combat data to work with.
“David?” Grimaldi’s voice sounded again in McCarter’s ear. “Something’s up. I’ve got unusual activity on the deck of that ship. They’re dumping something into the water.”
Something white under the churning waves caught McCarter’s eye.
“Calvin!” McCarter called over his shoulder. “What do you make of that?” He pointed.
“Oh, hell, no,” James said. He looked at McCarter.
The Briton swore, grabbed James and threw them both to the deck. The action came none too soon. Whatever was in the water struck the side of the Filipino ship and exploded, shaking the vessel and throwing shrapnel up over the railing. McCarter flinched as something burned his cheek.
Some kind of klaxon began to sound belowdecks on the Filipino ship. The sailors trying to put out the fire on the deck became even more agitated, several of them disappearing below.
“What the hell was that?” James asked. “Some kind of torpedo?”
“We’ll figure that out later,” said McCarter. “Right now we’ve got to keep them off us. G-Force, did you copy that explosion? They’re using some kind of submerged hardware to target us. We may be going down. Do what you can to keep them off us.”
“On it,” Grimaldi said. “G-Force, out!” The Sikorsky immediately took a more aggressive posture, driving the motor launch farther and farther out.
McCarter didn’t know what kind of range the submersible weapons had, or whether the enemy had more of them, but when no more came spinning through the waves, he figured they were doing okay.
Grimaldi finally reported that the motor launch was heading off and asked for orders. “Should I follow as planned?” the pilot asked.
“Negative,” McCarter answered. He and James were making their way below now. Their weapons hung on their slings. The Filipino sailors looked at them strangely but seemed to understand that these men in combat fatigues without insignia were somehow on their side. If nothing else, the fact that McCarter had fired on the pirates had established that. Eventually, the two men encountered a man directing a work crew. Water was rushing in through a rupture in the hull, but the crew was moving fast to patch it. The man overseeing the action wore the uniform of a captain in the Filipino navy.
“Captain!” McCarter called. “English?”
The captain whirled and fixed them with a wide-eyed look. “I speak,” he said. “Who are you?”
“Friends, Captain,” McCarter said. “I’m with a regional counter-piracy force. Your government was told we would be in the area.”
“Chopper?” the captain asked. He pointed above his head, as if Grimaldi’s bird could be seen through the bulkheads.
“Yes,” McCarter said. “That was us. We’re here to help. Tell us what to do.”
The sailors were struggling to manhandle metal plates into position, which the other members of the work crew were bolting down. The captain gave up on finding the words and simply pointed. McCarter and James joined the Filipinos and began heaving metal plates from one side of the compartment to the other, fighting against the rising waters already swamping their boots.
“This is G-Force,” announced Grimaldi’s voice in McCarter’s ear. “The pirate craft has withdrawn. Repeat. The enemy vessel has withdrawn. I am flying standby cover to make sure nothing else creeps up on us. I’ve also alerted Filipino naval command that one of their ships is in distress, although I suspect the folks aboard her have already done that. I’m told help is on the way.”
“Good,” McCarter said. “Get ready to touch down on the deck if it looks like we can’t keep this thing afloat. We didn’t see any wounded, but if they’ve got them, we need to be prepared to evac.”
“Roger,” Grimaldi acknowledged. “Wait. Wait, I have contact again. The launch—”
A burst of static made McCarter grab his ear in pain. He tapped the transceiver as suddenly there was nothing on the line.
James looked at McCarter and pointed to his ear. “Do you have anything?” he asked before going back to helping the Filipinos mount another metal plate.
“Nothing,” McCarter said. “G-Force? Come in, G-Force!”
The klaxon, which had been quiet, started up again. Red lights mounted in protective steel cages began to blink above the compartment hatchway.
“Captain?” James asked. “What is it?”
“Pirates!” the Filipino shouted. “Pirates come back!”
Another explosion, somewhere under the water and near the hull, caused the entire beleaguered ship to tremble beneath their feet.
“Oh, man,” said James. “I do not like the sound of that.”
“Captain!” McCarter called.
“We die now,” the captain said.
CHAPTER FOUR
“You owe me twenty bucks, Gadgets,” Lyons growled.
“I’m pretty sure,” Blancanales said, “that you two established that.”
The members of Able Team were zip-tied by wrist and ankle to straight-backed wooden chairs. They sat in a storage room on the basement level of Rhemsen’s headquarters. There was no other furniture in the locked room. The walls were bare cinder block. The only light was a bare energy-saver compact fluorescent bulb plugged into a light socket hanging by its wire from the ceiling.
“It’s good to know that RhemCorp is committed to keeping the world a greener place,” Schwarz said, looking up at the bulb.
“Shut up, Gadgets,” Lyons and Blancanales said in unison.
“Not for nothing,” Schwarz continued, ignoring them both, “but I really enjoy these pre-interrogation banter sessions.”
“If I had a dollar for every time we’ve been captured and worked over by some goon squad,” Lyons began.
“I do,” Blancanales said. “I’ve been investing my captured-by-goons dollars. I’m going to leave Able and retire early. Now seems like a good time.”
“Don’t you start, Pol,” Lyons warned. He opened his mouth to say more but the door to the storage room was thrown open. In it, framed by the scant light from the overhead bulb, stood a man in a gray Blackstar Corporation T-shirt and a pair of tiger-striped fatigues. The pants were bloused into polished combat boots, probably steel-toed. Lyons took special note of the chromed .45-caliber automatic in a drop-holster on the man’s thigh. The man was big, as big as Carl Lyons, with swollen biceps and sinewy forearms to match. He cracked his knuckles through the half-fingered leather gloves he wore.
“Well, well, well,” the newcomer said. His head was shaved smooth, his features craggy and thick. His jaw was square enough to cut diamonds. “Three little pigs, trussed up as nice as you like. Feel flattered, little piglets. I’m a commander in the Blackstar Corporation, which means you rate the big guns.”
“You got the wrong room, Tinkerbell,” Lyons said. “Stripper-gram delivery is down the hall.”
That brought a frown to the Blackstar man’s face. “The name,” he said, his tone low and menacing, “is Fitzpatrick, Jason J. ‘Jay’ to my friends and the lovely ladies I always leave wanting more. And to you, I answer to ‘God.’ Because that, my little pigs, is what I am—God of your universe, until you beg me to kill you.”
“Oh, no,” Schwarz said. “He’s going to douche us to death.”
Fitzpatrick quietly closed the door. He turned and fixed Schwarz with a stare Lyons could only describe as bloodthirsty. That was bad. Lyons had seen that type before. Fitzpatrick was probably a vet, but one of those who had done his tour or tours just at the edge of crazy. There were always men who took a war zone to mean that there were no rules…and that meant there was no need for humanity. Fitzpatrick had the look of a man who enjoyed killing…and who knew he did because he’d indulged the urge. As the big Blackstar man came closer, Lyons noted the clip of a folding knife in his left-hand front pocket.
“Say that again,” Fitzpatrick said to Schwarz.
“Are those weight-lifting gloves?” Schwarz said, looking up at the Blackstar man. “Please tell me those aren’t weight-lifting gloves. Nobody is that gigantic a douche nozzle.”
Lyons winced despite himself. He saw Fitzpatrick draw back his hand; saw the motion telegraphed from a mile away. Then the big Blackstar mercenary pimp-slapped Schwarz so hard that, for a moment, Lyons feared his partner’s jaw might be dislocated. The Stony Man Farm electronics expert did his best to ride the momentum of the strike, but there was only so much he could do strapped to a chair. Blood sprayed from Schwarz’s lower lip.
“You’re going to find,” Fitzpatrick said, “that I’ve got no sense of humor. No sense of humor at all.”
“That explains the dude-bro body spray,” Schwarz said.
“Stop it, damn you!” Lyons barked. Schwarz turned to Lyons and managed a bloody grin. Fitzpatrick did the same then slapped Schwarz across the face again. This time, the electronics whiz did not manage a witty retort. Lyons felt fire begin to smolder deep in his stomach.
“Now,” Fitzpatrick said, “this is relatively simple. You came onto this property representing yourself as federal agents. You claim knowledge of Mr. Rhemsen’s export activities. Obviously you have connections. I want to know what those connections are. I want to know exactly what government agency is looking into Mr. Rhemsen, and I don’t for a second believe it’s the Justice Department. Who are you with? Intelligence? CIA? Homeland Security? NSA?”
“NSA,” Schwarz said, spitting blood. “And we need to talk to you about all the porn you’re downloading on your wireless phone.”
This time Fitzpatrick cuffed Schwarz on the side of the head. It was a casual blow, almost contemptuous, but there was a lot of muscle behind Fitzpatrick’s strikes. Schwarz could not take that kind of punishment for long.
“You’re a coward,” Lyons heard himself say.
“What’s that?” Fitzpatrick said. He sounded genuinely curious. Fixing his attention on Lyons, he took a step closer. “Let me guess,” he said. “You’re the leader of this little band of heroes, aren’t you? You have the look.”
“You want to beat on somebody, Tinkerbell,” Lyons said, “you beat on me. Only a coward picks the skinniest guy in the room.”
Fitzpatrick looked at Blancanales, then back to Lyons. “I don’t know,” he said. “The gray-haired fellow there doesn’t look much more substantial. But I have this thing about beating up senior citizens.”
“I doubt it,” Lyons said.
“Okay, you got me,” Fitzpatrick replied. “I don’t care who I beat up. But you’re missing the point, hero. This isn’t a fight. It isn’t even schoolyard bullying. This is an interrogation. You’re going to tell me who you work for. You’re going to tell me what the government knows. And when you’ve finished telling me, I’m going to kill you quickly, and you’re going to be grateful.”
“Fat chance,” Lyons said.
“I’m sorry,” Fitzpatrick said. He flexed his fingers together, cracking all his knuckles at once. “I might have given you the idea that we were debating that. We aren’t. I’m telling you exactly what’s going to happen. I like to skip to the end.”
“Funny,” Schwarz said. “We were just talking about that.”
“Enough,” Lyons growled. He admired his partner’s courage, but now was not the time. Provoking this psychopath was just going to make things worse.
“Still,” Fitzpatrick said, “I get your point. And, yeah, this is hardly sporting.” He drew his folding knife from his pocket. Lyons realized it was one of Able Team’s knives, taken by the Blackstar guards when Lyons and his team were searched and then tied up. Fitzpatrick snapped open the blade with a flick of his wrist, ignoring the thumb stud that would have let him snap it open more securely and with less grandstanding. The Blackstar man examined the edge against the tip of his finger. “Nice and sharp,” he said. He went for Schwarz again.
“Over here!” Lyons shouted, straining against his zip ties hard enough to make his chair shift beneath him. The wood of the chair creaked in protest. “Over here, you son of a bitch! Try me!”
“Cool your jets, Captain Ham-hands,” Fitzpatrick taunted. “See? I can make funny jokes, too. You like jokes, little man?” He was talking to Schwarz now. “You’re going to love this one.”
Lyons braced himself for what was to come. The men of Stony Man Farm were no stranger to the types of horrors that could be visited on an imprisoned man. In years past, when the Mafia had held sway, it was nothing to their torturers to carve up victims so badly that a mercy killing was the only option. It was an art with some of those jackals. Fitzpatrick didn’t have that kind of finesse, but he was probably no stranger to stabbing helpless victims. Able Team’s leader told himself that he just might have to watch Schwarz die in front of him.
“You do this,” Lyons said, “and you’re going to die with your neck under my boot.”
“I’ll do what I can to live with the fear of that,” Fitzpatrick said. He reached out and, in one smooth slash, cut the zip tie securing Schwarz’s left wrist.
Lyons’s jaw dropped.
Fitzpatrick wasn’t finished. He cut the tie securing Schwarz’s other wrist, then the ones at the Stony Man commando’s ankles. Stepping back, he struck a martial arts pose and beckoned with one hand. “Come and get it, little man.”
“Perry,” Lyons cautioned, using his cover name. “Don’t.”
“Sorry, boss,” Schwarz said. “But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t kick this jackass in the—”
Fitzpatrick danced close as Schwarz was rising from the chair, lashing out with something concealed in his left hand. The tick-tick-tick of the electric transformer was unmistakable. The Blackstar man had just lit up Schwarz with a stun gun that he had concealed on his person. The effect was immediate: Schwarz’s muscles clenched and he went weak in the knees. Fitzpatrick grinned and threw down the little black plastic box.
To his credit, Schwarz did not fall, but Fitzpatrick followed the jolt with a knee to the Able Team operative’s groin. As the electronics expert doubled over, the Blackstar commander drove both his massive elbows down onto Schwarz’s back, knocking the much slimmer man into the floor.
“Stop this!” Blancanales called out.
“You’ll get your turn,” Fitzpatrick said. He threw a savage kick to Schwarz’s ribs. Schwarz grunted in pain and tried to roll out. Then he was up, on his feet, shaking but game, his hands raised and ready. “Hey, we’ve got a player!” Fitzpatrick said. “Come on, boy. Show Uncle Jay what you’ve got. I promise, I won’t cripple you so badly that you’ll have to have somebody feed you for the rest of your life. But then again, my promises usually don’t mean jack.”
“You are such a dick,” Schwarz said, and kicked Fitzpatrick in the face.
It was a good kick, and Schwarz might have laid low a smaller man with it, but he was weakened from the stun gun and had already had his brain knocked around inside his head for a few rounds. Fitzpatrick absorbed it, shook it off and slammed a Muay Thai round kick into Schwarz’s flank that dropped him to the floor again.
“Tell me what I want to know,” Fitzpatrick said to Lyons. He stood with his foot on Schwarz’s chest as Schwarz gasped for air. “If you don’t, I’m going to beat this man to death in front of you. I’m guessing that the idea of that bothers you a lot, big man. You hero types, you live and breathe for this kind of thing. Seeing your buddy get his guts stomped out…well, I’m betting that’s more than you can handle.”
