Dead Six (17 page)

After a few moments, Hal finished packing up his bag and shouldered it. With that, Hunter, his security, and the medic left, leaving the three of us alone in the big house. Sarah flopped down on the couch where Gordon had been sitting.

“This isn’t looking as good now,” I said after a long moment.

“At least we’ll have full chalk this time,” Tailor said. “What happened today was
bullshit
.”

“What are you going to do?” Sarah asked.

“What can we do?” I said. “We’re going to do the mission and hope we don’t get killed.”

“I don’t know about y’all, but I’m going to
bed,
” Tailor said, standing up. Without another word, he disappeared up the stairs, leaving Sarah and me alone in the dimly lit living room. I stood up and sat down next to her on the couch. The metal folding chair was making my butt hurt, and I was still sore from the crash.

“Where’d you get the tattoo?” she asked, breaking the awkward silence after a few moments. She’d seen it while I’d had my shirt off. “Were you in the military?”

“Air Force.”

“Really? Me, too. What did you do?”

“Security Forces. You?”

“Radio Communications Systems. I cross-trained as a Cryptologic Linguist after four years. Did three years of that after a year at the DLA,” Sarah said, referring to the Defense Language Academy in California.

“So that’s how you speak Arabic,” I said. Sarah nodded. “Hell, I was all proud of myself for learning
Spanish
. And I only did that after all the time I spent in Central America.”

“In the Air Force?”

“Uh, no. I was in Afghanistan for six months, but I got out after that. I was hired by, um, a contractor, after that.”

“You did construction?”

“No, not that kind of contractor. I worked for Vanguard.”

Everyone had heard of Vanguard. We’d been in the news a lot last year. “You were a
mercenary?
” she asked incredulously.

“Basically,” I said. “Tailor hooked me up here. How ’bout you?”

“I . . . This is embarrassing, but I ran into some financial problems. I had this boyfriend that . . . well, he was an asshole. Basically, he spent all of my money, ran up my credit cards, stuff like that. He got into drugs. I tried to help him. Before it was over, my credit was ruined. The cops arrested him, found his cocaine in my apartment. I lost my security clearance. My career was over. I got out last year. There’s plenty of work out there for people with my background. Almost none for people who can’t get a clearance, though.”

“So how’d you end up here?”

“I was living in a crappy apartment, working a crappy job, when I was contacted with this offer. How could I refuse? A chance to go do something again, to use the skills I learned.”

“And make a pile of money while you’re at it,” I suggested.

“Obviously,” she said, smiling again. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. You’re easy to talk to. So, where’d you get the tattoo?”

“What? Oh. I got it in Nevada.” I turned toward her and rolled up my left sleeve, showing her the tattoo on my shoulder. It was a skull clutching a switchblade knife in its teeth. It had the words “Abandon All Hope” written around it. “It was after we got back from Bosnia. This is the Switchblade logo.”

“Switchblade?” Sarah asked. “Didn’t you just say you worked for Vanguard?”

“Vanguard Strategic Solutions International,” I said. “But the Switchblade teams were the best the company had. We were the lifers. Most guys worked short-term contracts, six months to two years. A few of us stayed full-time. We got better training, better benefits, better equipment, and much better pay.”

“Sounds good,” Sarah said, sounding unconvinced.

“It was dangerous as hell,” I said honestly. “But my team was lucky. We did really well. Then Mexico happened.”

“You were there?” Sarah asked. “During the fighting, I mean?”

“You could say that. Our last mission was an absolute clusterfuck. We lost . . .” I trailed off for a second. “Well, we lost damn near everybody. Our chopper was shot down in Cancun, and the UN came after us.”

“Wait, what? Why?”

I paused for a moment. “It’s . . . complicated.”

It must have been obvious I didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “How are you feeling? You had a pretty rough night tonight.” She lightly placed her hand on my leg.

“I’m . . . fine,” I said, my heart rate suddenly increasing.

“I was worried about you.” She didn’t break eye contact.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve been shot. I got lucky. This will heal up okay. It’ll just be another scar,” I answered, obviously full of shit.

“Whatever you say, Mr. Tough Guy,” she said, that devilish grin appearing on her face again. A moment later, the smile faded. She stared into my eyes for what seemed like a long time, her mouth open slightly. “Hi,” she said, leaning in a little bit closer. The tone in her voice was ever-so-slightly different now. Then she leaned forward and kissed me,
hard.

“Sarah, I—”

“Just relax,” she whispered, her mouth inches from mine. “It’ll be fun. I promise.” This had all come out of nowhere. I was so dense about stuff like this and was never much of a ladies’ man. I wasn’t sure what to do. But as Sarah pushed me back onto the couch and climbed on top of me, it became pretty clear what
she
wanted to do. I wasn’t about to argue.

LORENZO

March 26

Reaper was clicking away madly, his Rob Zombie T-shirt stained with energy drink, head bobbing back and forth rhythmically to whatever was on his iPod as he glared at the gibberish on Falah’s laptop screen.

“He looks kinda like a
galinha
when he does that,” Carl said from the kitchen table. Then he moved his head back and forth, except Carl had no rhythm to speak of, and no neck, either, so it was more like he moved his face back and forth in a very poor imitation of the scarecrow-like Reaper.

“He does have that chicken vibe going on,” I replied as I moved the ice pack to a different spot on my face. That airbag had really clocked me. As soon as the swelling went down enough, I was going to go shave. The police were already looking to question Khalid about today’s events. Too bad he no longer existed.

“I can still hear you guys,” Reaper said without looking up from his multiple screens. He had been engrossed in those since we had gotten back.

“How?” I asked incredulously. I could hear the metal coming out of his earpieces from across the room. That mystery was going to go unanswered as Reaper suddenly pumped his fist in the air.

“Cracked it!”

Thank goodness.
This was big, but I had faith that Reaper could do it. “Well, that’s a little anticlimactic,” I said. Carl grunted in agreement and popped open another beer. It wasn’t that you couldn’t get alcohol in Muslim countries; you just had to know where to look. “Me crashing a hundred-thousand Euro car was way cooler.”

Reaper yanked out the earpieces. “I’m in. I’ve got everything. His password protection was pathetic. I own you, punk-ass bitch! Ha!” he shouted like he had just won a multiplayer death match rather than broken into a terrorist financier’s personal files.

I approached and stood over Reaper’s shoulder. “Look for anything on Adar. We need his contact info. If it isn’t under Adar, look for the Butcher. It’s time for Al Falah to call his pet psycho home.”

I called the Fat Man at the number provided in the folder from Thailand. I’d already had Reaper take a shot at figuring out where it originated, but it was even more secure than my personal communications, bounced off of who knew how many satellites and scrambled in every way imaginable.

The Fat Man knew who it was before I even spoke. “Hello, Mr. Lorenzo. How goes it?”

“Phase One is complete. We’ve implemented Phase Two,” I said.

“I shall pass that on to our employer. We had heard that there had been a few complications.” His voice was without inflection. He wouldn’t even give me a clue if he had just woken up or if it was late at night. Nobody even knew what time zone Big Eddie was in. “Nothing you couldn’t handle, I assume.”

“Of course not.”

“By the way, some of our men attended your niece’s dance recital. Rachel, I believe her name was. Let’s see, she belongs to your brother, Robert. They recorded the recital for Big Eddie. He commented that she is very graceful and talented for such a young girl.”

“I told you. I’ll
do
the job,” I stated.

“Of course you will. Eddie just likes to keep track of his employees. It is what makes him such an effective leader. Keep up the good work.” Then he hung up. I carefully put my phone away before smashing my fist into the wall.

Chapter 6:
From Sea to Shining Sea

VALENTINE

Ash Shamal District

April 1

2005

“
Xbox, this is Shafter
,” Hudson said over the radio, breathing hard. “
We’re in position
.”

Tailor looked over at me. I nodded, and he spoke into his radio. “Copy that. Stand by. Control, Xbox, we’re standing by.”

“
Xbox, Control
,” Sarah said, sounding as calm and distant as ever. “
Execute. Be careful
,” she added, her voice softening just a bit.

I smiled to myself. “This is going to be a turkey shoot,” I said, observing our target building through binoculars one last time. “You think they’d have beefed up security after we snatched the Al Falah kid out here.”

“They did,” Tailor corrected. “Look. That guy right there, he’s got a rifle.”

“What is that, a G3?” I asked absentmindedly. “Look, another guy in the doorway. Looks like he’s got a sub-gun.”

“I think they’re wearing vests,” Tailor said. He patted the driver on the shoulder. “Let’s go. Shafter, Ginger, stand by to execute. When you hear shooting, enter and clear. Watch for friendlies—we’ll be coming in from the other side.”

Hudson acknowledged. Our driver, a guy from another chalk that everyone called Animal, flipped on the headlights and stomped on the gas. Our up-armored van roared down the narrow street toward the social club.

The little side street had several cars parked on either side. Tonight was the most popular night, and it seemed that the disappearance of Al Falah hadn’t deterred the enemy from using the place. The two armed clowns outside wouldn’t pose a problem. Our plan was laughably simple: take out the two armed guards outside, then enter and kill every son of a bitch in the place. Tailor and I would enter from the front, while Hudson and Wheeler would enter from the rear. The rear door led down into a basement, where we believed there might be a weapons cache. Animal was going to stay with the van. He was from Singer’s chalk; he’d been hurt and couldn’t run, but he could still drive.

The terrorist with the G3 rifle was meandering up the street, checking the parked cars when he was illuminated by our headlights. I saw him clearly; he was wearing black fatigues, a ski mask, a blue body-armor vest, and a chest rig for spare magazines. He looked pretty squared away, and our van’s windshield probably wouldn’t stop direct hits from a 7.62x51mm weapon.

That didn’t deter Animal. He swerved the van right at the terrorist. I braced myself. The man in the black fatigues dodged to the left. He wasn’t fast enough. Our heavy, armored van came to a stop with a crunch of twisting metal and shattering glass. The little Toyota sedan we hit crumpled and was pushed up onto the curb. The man in black was pinned between our van and the Toyota, his legs and hips crushed.

“Move, move!” Tailor shouted, pulling the van’s right-side door open. I shouldered the paratrooper SAW I was carrying and headed for the door. I heard two quick shots as Animal leaned out the window and blasted the pinned terrorist with his .45. I ignored it as I ripped off a short burst at the man guarding the door, my machine gun roaring loudly in the narrow alley. The 5.56 mm bullets punched through him, splattering blood on the wall behind. He was so surprised he hadn’t even gotten his weapon ready.

I came up to the door. Tailor was right behind me. Stepping over the body, I reached forward and yanked the door open just as a long rattle of automatic fire could be heard from behind the building. I held the door open, and Tailor tossed in a pyrotechnic distraction device. We would’ve used grenades, but we didn’t know where Hudson and Wheeler were. A couple seconds later the device detonated, blasting the room with a head-splitting concussion.

Tailor and I stormed inside, weapons at the ready. The doorway dog-legged around into a main room. We rounded the corner. The social club was in chaos. Men were running in every direction, shouting and screaming in Arabic. Billiards tables lined one wall, and couches lined the other. The air stank of smoke from cigarettes, hookahs, and our flash-bang. Terrorist propaganda and Islamic flags were plastered all over the walls.

Men ran toward us, trying to get out of the building. They were either too confused and didn’t realize we were there, or thought we were their own armed guys. It didn’t really matter. I leveled my machine gun and squeezed the trigger.

It was a massacre
.
Tailor and I moved laterally across the main room, firing at anything that moved. A door burst open and a pair of men came running in, armed with assault rifles, but we cut them down before they even realized what was happening. The crowd of terrorist recruits turned, trying to escape down the stairs, tripping over overturned chairs, bodies, and each other as they fled. It didn’t do them any good.

“
We’re in the basement
,” Wheeler said over the radio. The men trying to flee out the back entrance were gunned down as they came upon Wheeler and Hudson.

The whole thing was over in a matter of minutes. I stood amongst the carnage in the social club, pulling a fresh belt of ammunition onto my weapon’s feed tray. The machine gun in my hands was hot to the touch; I’d gone through a hundred-round belt in less than two minutes. Probably two dozen bodies lay on the floor, ripped apart by gunfire. The air stank of powder, smoke, and death.

Tailor lit a cigarette, his carbine dangling from its sling. “April fool, motherfuckers,” he said, snapping his Zippo lighter shut. My hands started to shake.
The Calm
was wearing off, and soon I’d be hit with a flood of emotions as adrenaline dump shocked my system.