Rogue elements, p.17
Rogue Elements, page 17
Bolan took the grenade. “Why don’t you hold on to the dagger. I already got one.”
“Thanks, Blue!”
Bolan looked around at his team and considered what had to be done. Everything would depend on keeping Gorn, Burns and Tyler from getting a message out. He was very tempted to break one of the Golden Rules and divide his forces. Big Abe read his mind. “You and me take Gorn. Laz hunts down Tyler. Eise takes the geek. Maybe make those other three assholes that offer first? Bolster our numbers?”
“It’s tempting,” Bolan admitted. “But no, we do it like a test. Solve the easiest problems first.”
“The geek?”
“You got it.”
Team Blue moved as silent as wolves for the captain’s and officers’ quarters. They stopped at the first mate’s cabin. Bolan scanned for surveillance in the hall but couldn’t detect any. “Laz, this is on you. Knock on the door.”
Laz shrugged with Luger and dagger in hand. “And say what? He’s just going to tell me to fuck off. That’s all these guys do.”
One corner of Bolan’s mouth quirked up. “Tell him you’re having a problem with your laptop.”
Laz beamed. “Oh yeah!”
Big Abe was beaming, too. “You want me to kick the door?”
“Like it’s the Olympics, and you’re Team Samoa’s ‘catapult the geek’ event gold medalist.”
“Oh yeah!”
“Eise, left side of the door.”
Bolan took position on the right. “Laz, go.”
He rapped on the door. “Hey, Burnsey!”
Burns snarled like a man who did not like being interrupted. “What!”
“It’s Laz! I got a problem!”
“Go fuck yourself!” Burns’s voice dropped to a barely heard mutter. “Viking assholes...”
“It’s my laptop! I’m trying to download the latest patch and I can’t access the ship’s Wi-Fi! I thought maybe you could—”
“What in the blue hell!”
Bolan could hear the rollers of a chair shooting backward and boots slamming on steel deck. The bolt on the door shot back. An enraged redheaded man wearing glasses opened the door. “What the fuck are you doing with a laptop, Laz? I swear Gorn will—”
Burns took one of his two available heartbeats to go slack-jawed at the sight of Team Blue. He took the second one to try to slam the door shut.
Big Abe’s size sixteen boot hit the door like a medieval siege engine.
Burns flew across the berth and crashed back into his workstation. The main desk collapsed, and he fell forward to the deck in an avalanche of monitors, keyboards and equipment.
“That’s a medal,” Bolan observed.
“That’s a world record,” Abe countered.
“I won’t argue.”
Burns rose to his hands and knees shakily. “You assholes are dead, do you hear—”
Big Abe kicked Burns in the teeth. The redhead collapsed again. “Eise, I need him. Babysit him for me. If he reaches for something?”
“Shoot him in the hand.”
“If he tries to rise?”
“Shoot him in the knees.”
“Jesus!” Big Abe grinned. “The Big Eise, trouble with a capital T!”
“With a capital E,” Eise corrected.
“Bolt the door,” Bolan continued. “If for some reason Tyler knocks, open the door and take him down.”
Team Blue flowed toward the galley. The door was open. Pop music was playing in what sounded like an Eastern European style. Bolan smelled Namzi’s coffee and pulled the pin on the grenade. He stepped into the doorway. Namzi gasped from behind his counter.
Gorn raised his head from his laptop.
Bolan opened his hand and the cotter pin pinged away.
The giant’s face was a horror show of bulging planes and hollowed-out angles. Neanderthal chin and cheekbones revealed a case of gigantism that was still young and could function. He was never going to pass the United States Army Ranger PFT, but he looked like he could shoot skeet with a crew-served weapon from the shoulder.
“Namzi!” Bolan ordered. “Down!”
The cook dropped to the deck.
“You!” the giant boomed.
Bolan bowled the grenade across the floor, aiming to roll it right between the huge man’s boots.
Gorn rose and uprooted the eight-foot mess table from the bolts that held it to the floor. He slammed it down sideways, and the grenade bounced against it.
“Shit!” Abe announced.
Bolan ducked back behind the doorjamb as the grenade detonated and pulsed smoke and shrapnel.
“Take him!” Bolan shouted.
Team Blue came through the door firing. An eight-foot steel mess table seemed to fly toward them vertically as if it had invisible wings. A gigantic paw snaked around the edge of the table holding an HK G36 rifle with the stock folded, and held the trigger down on full-auto. Gorn was firing blind, and his shots went everywhere. Team Blue unloaded on the man, but they were all armed with small-caliber weapons. Sparks flew off the steel mess table. As the Gorn-powered table charged forward roaring, the rifle racked open on empty.
“Fuck this!” Big Abe threw down his empty PDW and countercharged. He hurled his shoulder into the advancing table, bouncing off like a suicidal buck taking on a station wagon head-on. Mendez dropped to one knee and tried to shoot Gorn’s feet out from under him. The giant seemed to sense it, and the table dropped low and slanted. It scooped up Mendez like a cowcatcher, and the Latino got crushed between bulkhead and the table.
Bolan slapped a fresh magazine into his submachine gun.
The suppressor tube crumpled like a tin can as Gorn buffeted Bolan with the table like a gladiator smashing his opponent with his shield. Bolan’s feet left the ground, and he saw stars as he met the wall. Gorn tossed the table aside. He stalked forward with his head brushing the ceiling like Talos about to stomp some Argonauts. Bolan barely kept his feet and righted himself just in time for Gorn to seize him by the throat. The giant pulled Bolan to him and choke-slammed him against the wall.
The soldier’s lungs made fists in his chest.
Gorn held Bolan pinned in place like an insect, his left hand squeezing his adversary’s throat like a vise. His voice sounded like a voice scrambler with an Eastern European accent. “Word’s out, Blue. There’s a bounty on your head.” The giant cocked back a big fist for the kill.
Before Bolan could even try to effect a countermove, Namzi charged across the mess screaming and wielding his cleaver overhead. “Blue! Blue!”
The cleaver sank into the back of Gorn’s neck and stopped. The giant’s fist stopped its trajectory abruptly and snapped back to clothesline Namzi off his feet.
The giant’s eyes suddenly widened, and his face went white. Gorn made his first human noise as his pinning arm trembled. As Bolan ripped himself free from the titan’s grasp, Gorn staggered. Blood poured down his neck and shoulder. His right hand shook as it reached back and pawed at the steel invading the carotid nerves and arteries of his neck.
The khanjar dagger hissed from Bolan’s belt.
Gorn’s huge hands reached forward for a double choke. Bolan took his dagger in both hands and stepped into Gorn’s embrace. He surged upward and the dagger punched under the giant’s chin to shear up through his soft and hard palate. The tip caught a bit of the limbic region before the horn handles slammed to a stop against his acromegalic jaw.
Bolan suddenly dropped to one knee against his will.
A part of him thanked fate that Gorn fell backward rather than forward. Bolan’s hand went to his bruised throat, and it took him three painful tries to speak. He was probably going to be talking in a low rasp for a week. “Laz, Abe.”
Mendez lay on his back wheezing. “I got cracked ribs.”
“Abe.”
The Samoan sat up. Bolan watched the man’s eyes roll and thought he was probably concussed.
Bolan found his weapon and unscrewed the squashed suppressor. He took up Gorn’s HK and handed it to Abe. “Here, you can have his rifle. That make you feel any better?”
Abe rose and nearly swooned. He squared his shoulders and stood tall. “Right as rain.”
The landline on the wall of the galley rang. “Get Gorn’s phone and laptop.” Bolan limped to the galley and picked up. “This is Blue.”
“This is the captain. I heard a bit of a ruckus. What is your status?”
“Burns is secure. Gorn is dead. We’re a bit beat-up but no casualties.” Bolan asked the million-dollar question. “Don’t suppose we have any word on Tyler?”
“Oh, we have him.”
“We do?”
“Yes, forgive me, Mr. Blue, but I decided to take some initiative. Spread the word among the crew to keep an eye out for our errant Mr. Tyler. He entered the latrine and insulted our Mr. Houston as he was exiting.”
“And?”
“And so I had Mr. Houston and several of the more likely lads kick in the door to the commode Mr. Tyler was occupying.”
“And?”
“Mr. Houston and the lads applied open-ended wrenches to Mr. Tyler in a liberal fashion.”
“Hard to defend yourself in that situation.”
“It did seem opportune.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“So am I to assume you wish to go take Rampart One by storm?”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Well, the fact that they are sailing this way with the intention of ‘ghosting us,’ as you put it, does get the blood boiling.”
“How does the crew feel about it?”
“I believe Mr. Houston spoke for the crew when he asked how much?”
“What’s your complement?”
“Twelve, all told.”
“I have roughly one and a half million euros.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and I’ll give you and your crew half.”
The captain did a rapid calculation. “About 62.5K per man?”
“I’ll give up my share. That’ll be just about another nine grand per man if that helps. Any of your crew who wants to join the boarding party gets a full share of anything and everything we take from Rampart One. What do you say?”
“Well—” Cleverly laughed across the line “—I’ll put it to the lads.”
Bolan’s phone chimed. “One sec.”
It was a text from Grimaldi.
My plane? It’s sinking.
Bolan typed back.
Where?
1000 meters to starboard.
On it.
“Captain?”
“Yes, Mr. Blue?”
“There is a small plane sinking in the water a thousand meters to starboard. I have a friend aboard. Could you pick him up?”
Captain Cleverly took this with uncommon unflappability. “Of course.”
Abe sat wearily at the surviving table. A remarkably uninjured Namzi solicitously helped Mendez, who clutched his sides, take a seat. “What’s the story?”
Bolan limped over and took a seat. “We have a ship, and it’s about to be full of willing pirates. I want a cup of Namzi’s coffee, then we make the newbs and Burns those offers you were talking about.”
“You know?” Big Abe gave Bolan a look that was more than a splitting headache. “I don’t care how many bottles of tuak Namzi has stashed away. We ain’t going to take Rampart One with Molotov cocktails, slings, knives and liquid soap.”
“Well, yes and no,” Bolan replied.
“What does that mean, brah?”
“Yeah, what does that mean?” Mendez echoed.
Bolan was already beginning to formulate a plan. “It means we’re going to have to go bigger.”
Chapter Nineteen
Rampart One, the bridge
“It’s not profound or anything,” Dwayne mused. It had been over a week, and most of the swelling in his face had gone down and the black bruising had reduced to ghostly whorls of yellow and green. Yard had set his nose for him, but it was going to take a visit to the plastic surgeon and some new teeth to get his face back to cable-news-commentary condition. He had stopped peeing blood three days ago and now walked with only a barely discernable limp. “But I just cannot wait to execute me some Viking Associate assholes.”
The captain lowered his binoculars. “There she is.”
Yard nodded. He was already watching video feed of the Alice from a drone flying about five hundred feet above her.
“What do you see, Hy?”
Yard’s fingers swept across his tablet to zoom and expand the drone’s video feed. He smirked. “Big Abe and Ketch are playing one-on-one on the helideck.”
Dwayne smiled to reveal his missing teeth. “I would describe that as a low state of readiness, you?”
As he watched the feed, Yard shook his head grudgingly. “Samoan sack of shit can dunk, I’ll give him that.”
“Let’s get this show on the road. Get OJ in the air.”
“You should let me do this,” Yard told him again.
“I want you right here until this operation is done. Besides, Gorn already has them shitting in their pants. OJ can take care of this, and he wants it, bad.”
Yard went out onto the bridge wing and looked backward over the helideck. The telescoping hangar was retracted, and the Huey was hot on the deck with her rotors spinning. Sergeant Oh Jae-suk, former Korean Blue Dragon Marine, stood waiting beside his bird. His six-man all-Korean team was aboard, armed to the teeth and waiting for the go signal. The Korean contingent were all either ROK Navy or Marines. They tended to mess and bunk together. They did not like the upstart Viking operatives punching holes in their ranks and wanted payback. They wanted the privilege of killing any Viking Associate who resisted and torturing those who surrendered. OJ looked up expectantly.
Yard shot a thumbs-up and spoke into his com. “OJ! You are go! By the numbers!”
OJ shot back a thumbs-up and clambered into the chopper. The Huey’s skids left the deck. Yard texted Burns.
OJ inbound.
Burns came back immediately.
Copy that, eyes on. Abe and Ketch are up top. Laz is in the mess. Newbs are confused and in their quarters.
Hy nodded and texted.
OJ will take command on touchdown. We will be transferring the packages to the Alice. Once Viking Associates secure, secure Cleverly and his crewmen. We have their replacements aboard Rampart One. Assume command of the bridge until relieved.
Yard’s tablet blooped.
Copy that. Gorn, Taylor, Tyler geared up and ready.
Yard stepped back onto the bridge. “Kill squad away. Burns and Gorn ready.”
“Copy that!” Dwayne took up his binoculars as Rampart One’s embarked helicopter swept across the water between the Alice and Rampart One. Yard minimized the chat window and expanded the drone feed. The chopper orbited the Alice once. The basketball game stopped, and Big Abe raised a hand and smiled at the aircraft. Yard sneered. “Fucker’s waving at his own firing squad.”
OJ’s voice broke across the link. “Situation appears normal. I can take Abe and Ketch now.”
“Negative,” Dwayne responded. “I want all my little Vikings in a row, and then I want the standard social experiment for the newbies.”
“Copy that.” OJ laughed unpleasantly. “Understood.”
The chopper came in and seemed to hover as it matched speed with the freighter for landing.
Dwayne lowered his binoculars for a moment. “What the hell are they doing?”
Yard swept his fingers on the feed window to take in more than just the helideck. Abe suddenly flung his basketball against the chopper’s windscreen. He and Ketch turned and ran for their lives toward the superstructure. One of OJ’s men leaned out of the cabin, leveling his rifle. Yard’s eyes flared. Abe and Ketch were the diversion. Behind the hovering Huey the portside loading crane spun about toward the helideck, extending its boom.
“OJ!” Yard roared. “Abort! Abort! Abort!”
The helideck on the Alice was an add-on. The aft cranes had been removed, and the fore cranes had to turn their booms toward the prow to make room for a chopper to land safely. The Huey’s nose faced the superstructure. She could not zoom forward to safety. She had to rise. The chopper’s tail rotor rose straight in the crane boom and snapped away in a shower of sparks. Yard heard men screaming across the link.
“OJ!”
Deprived of her rear stabilizer, the chopper spun on her axis. The main rotors flailed against the boom, snapping and flying away like giant knives through the air. The chopper tilted and dropped like a rock as it lost all lift. The Huey crashed to the deck on its side, crushing the rifleman who had leaned out.
“OJ!”
OJ did not come back.
Men boiled up out of the Alice’s hatches like ants and swarmed the stricken aircraft.
Yard’s voice dropped low. “Motherfuckers...”
Dwayne’s voice rose. “Goddamn it!”
“Mr. Dwayne?” The captain of Rampart One rose with concern. “The Alice is changing course.”
Dwayne watched the bow of the Alice turn to point at Rampart One as if in accusation. Black smoke belched up out of the stack behind the bridge as she went to full power. “She’s coming straight for us.”
Yard brought up the drone app on his tablet. “It’s Blue.”
Aboard the Alice O’Kieffe
“Team Blue!” Bolan strode out onto the deck. “Go! Go! Go!”
Eise stuck to Bolan like glue as the rest of Team Blue swarmed the fallen chopper. Big Abe and Ketch were the first to arrive. They vaulted up onto the side of the Huey and ruthlessly shot the stunned occupants. Everyone on the Alice knew the men in the chopper were a hit squad. There was no mercy for them. They wore armor, and Abe’s and Ketch’s every shot was a headshot. Blood sprayed against the cracked windows. Big Abe clambered down inside cabin and stripped corpses. He tossed rifles, pistols, body armor and com-links to Ketch, who tossed them down to Mendez.
