Brute Force (24 page)

 

J
oey B let loose a flurry of curses, jumping sideways in the darkness as some kind of snake slithered out from under the beached skiff and disappeared into the heavy undergrowth along the muddy bank. Thibodaux took the opportunity to smack him on the back of the head on general principles.

“Couyon!”
the big Cajun hissed. “Calm your ass down!” He zipped up the diagonal closure of his black dry suit and shrugged on a “wing” type buoyancy compensator and small tank.

Emiko Miyagi moved fluidly around the skiff, stowing her short sword along the gunnel within easy reach of where she would be sitting. Joey swallowed hard as he eyed the glinting two-foot blade.

“Scary shit, huh, Cupcake,” Thibodaux said. “A gun don’t necessarily do it for some people.” He tipped his head toward Miyagi and her sword. “She likes to be more hands on when she works.”

Thibodaux adjusted the straps of his harness over a separate gun belt and thigh holster so he could dump the dive gear when the time came without interfering with the rig. He carried a Glock 19 with a Gemtech suppressor in the holster. With subsonic 9mm ammo, the weapon would make little more noise than a good handclap. A short-barreled H&K MP10 was on a breakaway harness across his chest. Also suppressed, the rifle would be sure to announce his position if he had to use the weapon.

Miyagi was also armed with a Glock 19, as well as the short sword that she preferred to any firearm. She also carried a small dagger in her sleeve that he’d seen her use with amazing effectiveness.

Chest still heaving like he was about to burst out in tears, Joey B spun the combinations on two heavy-duty padlocks, and reached under the lip of the gunnel back near the transom and flipped a kill switch in the fuel line, meant to discourage theft of the boats since they were left along the shore. The bow scraped against gravel as Jacques helped him shove the aluminum skiff out into the water.

“Um . . . ma’am.” Joey cleared his throat, holding a piece of black cloth out toward Miyagi as if she might bite him. “You’ll have to wear the bag over your head for this to work. There’s a gap in it so you can see.”

Miyagi grabbed the bag from his hand and tossed it in the boat next to her seat without a word.

Thibodaux peered into the darkness through a set of IR binoculars, watching another skiff come up alongside the prison boat. “Your boss just got there,” he said, his voice buzzing into his hands as they held the binoculars. “He’s getting onboard now.”

“Look,” Joey B said, wobbling on his legs, clutching the side of the boat to keep from keeling over in the mud. “I . . . I really can’t go out there.”

“You ever seen a man gutted, Cupcake?” Thibodaux asked, moving in close so there would be no misunderstanding.

Benavides gulped loudly enough that Thibodaux was sure they heard it clear out on the boat.

“Well, let me tell you,” the Marine continued. “I have and it ain’t pretty. Depending on how the belly is cut, the guts, they just come poppin’ on out. No way to hold ’em in really . . . try as you may.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Benavides began to hyperventilate.

“Think about it,” Thibodaux hissed, slinging spit in the other man’s face as he talked. “I come within an inch of shooting you in the eye every time I think about what you were going to do to my wife. There is literally one thing keeping me from opening you up right damn now, and that is you getting us out to that boat. So you want to see your own entrails today?” He paused for effect. “No? Then get your ass in the boat. But I gotta warn you, Ms. Miyagi ain’t as nice as I am.”

Joey climbed into the skiff. “My life is shit,” he sobbed.

“Yes, it is,” Thibodaux said, sloshing in beside the boat and pushing it out into deeper water. “And it ain’t likely to get better if you don’t quit with the boohoos.”

Once Joey was settled in next to the tiller with Miyagi, Thibodaux slipped on a pair of black jet fins to help steer his body as the boat towed him along low in the water and out of sight. The spring-steel heels on the fins fit easily over the rock boots he wore with his dry suit and would be easy to ditch along with the tank and harness once they got to the prison boat.

The water pressure increased against the thin laminated suit as they moved out over his head, pinching him in several unmentionable places. He touched the valve on his chest to jet a layer of air from his tank into the suit, relieving the pressure. It had been so long, he had forgotten that diving could be a cup sport.

“
Baka yaro!
” Miyagi said in sharp, dismissive Japanese, speaking to Benavides for the first time since they’d linked up in Salisbury: Fool! “You drive this boat slow and steady. If you lose my friend, your intestines will be the least of your worries.”

Thibodaux couldn’t help but shudder—but he was sure happy to have this little woman along. Wrapping a short piece of webbing around his wrist, he looked up at Miyagi.

“
Laissez les bon temps roulet!
” he said, before slipping the regulator in his mouth and giving her a thumbs-up.

Let the good times roll
.

T
he heavy steel hatch flew open the moment Ronnie turned the handle, knocking her backwards and sending her sliding across the metal floor on her butt. She tried to bring the Snake Slayer to bear on the dark form of a man, but the hard leads of a cattle prod impacted squarely in the center of her throat. The Snake Slayer skittered across the grating, useless and out of reach. She looked up to see Glen Walter’s smirking face as he loomed over her.

Boots stomped and clanged, sounding hollow in the small metal room. Focused intently on Walter and the blue arcs of electricity coming from the end of the cattle prod, Garcia was vaguely aware of other men climbing through the hatch.

Walter said something in an odd, disembodied voice. It sounded as if he was speaking in slow motion as he pressed the prod to her neck, driving her head backwards so it slammed against the floor. Someone kicked her hard in the ribs, stunning her heart and saving her from the pain of the crackling voltage as darkness closed in around her.

The effect of the heart shot was only momentary and Garcia came to with a gasp in a jerky panic. Another bag had been placed over her head. Cold metal cut into her wrists. The electric winch whined in the corner. The cable clicked and twanged as it drew the restraint bar up toward the ceiling, stretching her arms high over her head until only the balls of her bare feet touched the floor. Another shock came out of nowhere. She writhed sideways, nearly wrenching her shoulders from their sockets.

Screaming inside the hood until she could no longer breathe, she let her head loll forward, panting. The weight of her spent body hung against her wrists.

“Do you ever hunt, Ms. Garcia?” Walter’s syrupy voice buzzed next to her ear through the heavy hood.

“I . . . wh . . . I . . .” she gasped. “What?”

“Do you hunt?” Agent Walter said again.

“Hunt?” she said, trying to catch her breath.

” It doesn’t matter,” Walter said. “But if you had ever field dressed an animal, you would know that the shoulder is a unique joint.”

Blind inside the hood, Garcia recoiled as he ran his fingers along the shoulder of her scrubs.

“A little change in angle,” he continued. “A half an inch more lift—and you’ll never be able to lift your arms again. Do you understand?”

“Understand?” Garcia spat, her voice muffled inside the hood. “I understand that you are beating the shit out of me for no reason.”

“I only point it out about your shoulder,” Agent Walter said, “so you remember not to jerk too much during the procedure—”

“What procedure?” Ronnie could hear her heart in her ears. “What are you talking about?”

“No one told you?” Walter chuckled.

Garcia heard the scrape of boots against the floor and braced herself for another round of shocks from the cattle prod. The next sound nearly caused her to pass out—the slosh of water in a bucket.

Without warning someone grabbed the back of the cloth hood, catching her hair and yanking her head back and downward so she faced the ceiling. Suspended from the metal crossbar by both hands and standing on tiptoe there was nothing she could do to fight it.

She heard Walter say, “Go,” an instant before water began to splash against the cloth stretched over her face. She tried to draw in air, but the large weave of the bag made her get nothing but water. She’d seen this done before. All they needed was a thin stream. A trained professional could make a bucket last far longer than a person’s lungs could hold out. Ronnie coughed and spit and croaked for air, forgetting the pain in her shoulders or even where she was.

And then it was over. The water stopped and the unseen hand released her head, letting her fall forward to gain enough of a gap in the hood so she could suck in great, wheezing gasps. She gagged as much as she breathed, heaving, fighting the urge to vomit inside the bag—but at least she had air.

An instant later the bag was snatched away, causing her to recoil at the sudden brightness. She squinted at Agent Walter, who stood in front of her with a smug grin.

He touched her with the cattle prod, caressing her chest, but did not shock her this time.

Ronnie let her head roll back and forth, a line of bloody drool trailing from her chin. “What do you want from me?”

“The administration wants Winfield Palmer,” he said. “And the traitor Virginia Ross.”

“I can’t figure it out,” Ronnie said, her words slurred as if she’d been on a three-day drunk. “Do you even know who Drake and McKeon are?” She watched his face for any sort of reaction.

“Please,” Walter chuckled. “You’ll have to do better than some Internet conspiracy theory.”

“I got proof,
mijo
.” Ronnie sighed, tired of ducking questions, exhausted from the games. “These guys want us in a shooting war.”

Agent Walter brushed a flap of hair out of his eyes and patted the cattle prod against his open hand, smiling.

“You don’t give a shit, do you?” Ronnie said, genuinely surprised. She’d thought Agent Walter to be a more integral part of the plan, but something was off about the look in his eyes—a telltale glint as if he was processing some new information. “You’re not a mole, you’re just a pathetic thug, a sadist with a government sponsor.”

“I guess none of that really matters right now, sweetheart.” He waved the prod in front of her face, brushing her lips with the metal probes. “Tell me where Palmer is and maybe we can be more . . . civilized—”

“Glen Walters”—Ronnie gave a derisive laugh, spitting a clot of blood on the floor—“civilized!”

“The name is
Walter
!” the man snapped, leaning in to make his point. “No ‘s.’ ”

Ronnie lunged forward as far as the cable would let her, head butting him in the nose. Blood gushed from his nose as he reacted by grabbing her by both shoulders and kneeing her savagely in the groin. Screaming in pain, she slumped against the chains, putting all her weight on her shoulders, nearly passing out from the sickening shock of the blow.

Walter ripped a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his nose. His chest heaved in anger. “I’m going to break you in two, sweetheart,” he said.

Ronnie raised her head, blood and spittle drooling from cracked lips. The intense pain welling up in her groin brought on a new clarity, an odd peace of mind at what she knew she had to do. Her words sputtered out in a mix of sobs and maniacal giggles. “Why . . . why . . . you mad at me? ’Cause I hurt your nose or ’cause I forgot the ‘s’ ?” She let her head loll again, mimicking his Southern accent with a hint of Forrest Gump. “The name is Walter!” Her laugh turned to scorn. “No shit . . .”

“Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie,” Walter said, obviously working to stay calm as he dabbed at his bloody nose. “Everyone who could help you is either on a different continent or hiding to save their own skin. You have no idea of the things I’m capable—”

“
Maldita sea!”
Ronnie’s head jerked up so quickly that it caused Walter to take a half step back. “You gonna talk me to death? Go ahead and do what you gotta do.”

 

T
hibodaux let his body glide in the wake of the skiff as Benavides turned wide to come up alongside the prison boat, a looming shadow in the black water.

A halogen light turned on at their approach, illuminating Joey Benavides and a slouching Emiko Miyagi, who wore the cutout hood and held her hands together behind her back as if she was restrained. In truth, she held the short sword vertically under a light jacket to keep it out of sight. With the scuba regulator in his mouth, Thibodaux was able to stay low on the shadowed side of the skiff, with just his mask and the top of his head above the surface.

Two men, each wearing uniform navy blue polos and khaki slacks, waved up the new arrival, their grins visible in the light as they saw it was a female prisoner. Both had short weapons Jacques thought were H&K UMPs, but he couldn’t be sure from his vantage point.

“Who’s this?” One of the men said, throwing Joey a line.

“Miyagi,” Joey said. “She’s wanted as part of all that shit with Winfield Palmer.”

“Good catch.” The other man whistled under his breath. “Maybe this will calm down the boss. He was in a pissy mood when he got here and then that Cuban bitch killed Stig.” He snapped his fingers at Miyagi, ordering her to stand up.

“I . . . I am afraid I’ll fall,” she said, shuffling her feet. Jacques swam under the skiff, waiting just beneath the boarding steps.

“Clumsy bitch,” the man nearest the skiff mumbled, reaching to grab a handful of Miyagi’s shirt. Lurking in the shadows at the rear of the skiff, Thibodaux watched as the man dragged her aboard, assisted by the second guard. Neither of them checked her handcuffs, but Thibodaux knew that only postponed their deaths until they were past the cameras that covered the boarding ladder. Joey Benavides was all knees and elbows as he followed Miyagi up on deck—his face stricken with fear. He looked like he might topple overboard at any moment.

Once he knew Miyagi had everything well in hand, Thibodaux ducked beneath the surface and swam through the dark water to the aft swim-step where he would have a clear line of fire to the agent standing night guard up on the top deck. Bracing his elbows on the edge of the step, he tilted the barrel to let any water drain, then aimed at the orange glow of the cigarette where it illuminated the guard’s sweating face. He fired once, watching the man sway for a moment before slumping forward to disappear behind the metal railing. Far from Hollywood-quiet, subsonic ammo and a heavier recoil spring would render the suppressed Glock’s single report little more than a question mark to anyone who happened to be listening out on deck. The thud of the guard falling above was likely to raise more suspicion.

Less than half a minute from the time Miyagi stepped aboard, Thibodaux returned the Glock to the holster. Still in water, he shrugged off the dive gear and clipped it to a cleat on the rear corner of the step, leaving it accessible in the event he and Miyagi needed to make a wet exit in a hurry.

The dry suit didn’t absorb water like neoprene so he was able to move quickly once he’d pressed himself up on the fantail. He left the Glock holstered, relying on the MP 10 now that he was aboard. The suppressor on the H&K was really more to protect his hearing than silence the weapon. Harsh experience had taught him that the adrenaline-pumping environment of close-quarters battle made it all too easy for someone to assume they hadn’t been shot if they didn’t hear a loud bang—even with three or four slugs in the belly. Oh, they would go down eventually, but a man could stir up a lot of mayhem before he realized he was actually dead.

Miyagi met Thibodaux as he rounded the corner of the main house, padding up the narrow companionway past the boarding gate to the main entrance to the vessel. He had to step over the body of a very dead Joey Benavides.

He looked up at Miyagi.

“He lost his nerve the moment the door opened,” she whispered. “As I knew he would.”

Thibodaux wasted no more thoughts on the sleazy turd, following the little Japanese woman in through the open door.

Boats, even relatively small vessels in the seventy-foot range like this one, made acceptable black site prisons because they could be moved. They were basically surrounded by their own moat, making them difficult to approach. The disadvantage was lack of space, with no room for the two-door mantrap-style entries of a conventional prison facility. On a prison boat, there might be a camera on the main door and a guard behind it, but once inside, you were right on top of him. Miyagi had taken care of the inside man, the guards who had greeted her, and Benavides the moment the door had opened.

According to Benavides, they were holding Garcia belowdecks, forward, where Agent Walter liked to do his work. There were supposed to be other prisoners as well, behind the engine room in tiny cells that ran on either side of the boat all the way aft. Senator Gorski would be there if she was still alive.

Miyagi led with her blade, moving silently. Thibodaux brought up the rear, ready to employ the H&K when it became necessary. A circular staircase ran downward to their right, disappearing into darkness. It would lead to the cells Benavides told them about. A wooden bulkhead obscured the view to their left, toward the bow of the boat. Thibodaux could hear voices, laughing about something. It soon became evident they were playing some kind of card game.

Miyagi inched sideways, cutting the pie until she could get a visual on what was around the corner. She ducked back and held up three fingers—letting Jacques know there were three guards. The knocking thrum of the auxiliary engine, along with their own conversation, left the guards unable to hear their compatriots fall less than twenty feet away.

Miyagi let the blade of her short sword trail behind her, as if she was dragging it along. Thibodaux had watched her do such a thing many times, just before she attacked.