Hard Case VI: The Killer Inside (John Harding Book 6) (36 page)

The formerly cringing Abdul al-Tracti straightened to his feet, deciding an air of superiority would be the proper way to handle his capture. “Take me to your superior. I do not speak with underlings.”

After we enjoyed that very entertaining statement, complete with Lucas’s braying laughter in our ears, Clint restrained al-Tracti, patting him on the shoulder.

“Good one, Abdul. We have an underling you’ll love speaking to. In between, I’m going to put you under the care of our prisoner care specialist, Agent Tonto.”

We were still chuckling at the prisoner care specialist line as we guided the three prisoners onto the main deck. Quays and Agent Tonto were keeping our captured crewmembers entertained, in that if one of them moved without permission, he grew a Tonto jaw clamp for a moment until he stopped moving. We had our two very uncomfortable guards join the others, but we kept the star of the show with us. Then I had Jafar in my ear.

“Company, John. Good and bad. You have a helicopter flying at you which is bad, but we know where it flew out of, which is good for later. Lucas and Crue are both on with us now.”

“You have the EMP gun, Lucas. Zap them as they near the ship. It will keep us from having a gun battle with our prize prisoner.”

“That would be my suggestion too,” Lucas agreed. “We’ll get it done, but just in case, you may want to move the prisoners to a safe place.”

“Will do.”

Casey had the prisoners on their feet by the time I finished talking. We guided them to the fantail in a group behind a stack of loaded containers. Quays stayed in charge of the usual suspects we had in custody, but true to his word, Clint put al-Tracti in the care of Agent Tonto, who relished the change of pace. He bonded with Abdul right away when al-Tracti decided to start speaking out of turn. Tonto grabbed his entire groin, shaking his head. Abdul shut the hell up and stood immobile, curtailing the squeal he had let out upon growing Tonto jaws.

Jafar relayed the direction of the incoming helicopter. We watched and listened for it to arrive out of the darkness. We did hear the approach. Then Lucas’s voice came on.

“They’re shielded, Recon!”

“Let them land, Pappy. Back us with the M107. We’ll ambush the suckers.”

“Understood.”

We didn’t need to compare notes. We moved in closer than we actually needed to. I don’t know how many they were bringing with them, but it wouldn’t be enough. The three of us had ambushed every vehicle known to man, including ships at sea. The helicopter would land with a gunner guarding the landing with a machine gun. Lucas would blow his head off, and we would take care of the rest. We didn’t make it into rocket science.

The helicopter hovered overhead with the machine gunner raking the deck, so Lucas pulped his head in the air in the dark. He stuck with only the machine gunner, but I knew he would be looking for the replacement. Lucas also knew we didn’t want a stray shot igniting the helicopter or killing the pilot. Then we would have wreckage that we wouldn’t be able to project destruction for. On the deck of the Sao Paulo, we would have a captive audience. As Jafar said, we now knew where the helicopter came from. If it was still flyable after we ambushed the crew, we would make this night’s work a bit longer with a flight back to its origin.

“Damn, Recon, it’s an Mi-24. If the pilot doesn’t land, we’ll have to blow it the hell out of the air. It’s got multiple internal weapons.”

“Understood.” If the Mi-24 went looking for targets, it would have to be splashed. It had room for a couple of pilots and eight soldiers. Like Lucas said, it had too many internal weapons.

The pilot went hunting, but it didn’t get fired on, so it had no idea where the Wolf was. Silvio would be laying low on the shuttle, but the helicopter pilot knew it could not have been the shuttle that fired on them. He decided to land aboard the ship, hoping he had taken fire from someone on board. The moment he landed, Lucas didn’t take any chances. He put a round through the pilot’s head, and then the co-pilot.

The half dozen soldiers came spilling out of the Mi-24, firing at anything and everything. They were all down within thirty seconds. The three of us knew what we were firing at. I ran over and climbed aboard. After making sure no one else was on board I threw the dead out on deck. I’d be flying it into danger, but there again, I’d know what I was shooting at, and this baby was loaded with a Yak-B Gatling Gun, a GSh-30k and GSh-23k twin barrel machine guns. Yep, we’d go hunting origin places in style.

“We’re all secure, Lucas. You take Abdul and his two bodyguards with you and Lynn. We’ll load the rest of the prisoners on the shuttle boat with Quays, Silvio, and Agent Tonto. I’ll fly the Mi-24 back where Jafar says it came from, and give them a big surprise. I want to take the XM25 with me too. We’re going to do a scorched earth ending to whatever is on the other side of his Mi-24’s flight plan.”

“Are you okay, Recon? Don’t lie to me, boy.”

“I’m good, Lucas. I smell bacon.”

Lucas chuckled. “Start loadin’. We’ll park the Wolf on the other side of the shuttle. March ‘em all down, and we’ll get loaded for home. I’ll pass the XM25 to you when we collect Abdul. Do you want a pickup?”

“I’ll call if we need anything, but I plan to fly this home to our hangar if everything works out okay. We have a company car there. I’ll drive Clint and Case back to Pain Central. We’ll settle accounts and take a final reckoning. Denny will have to collect these guys. We don’t have the room to stash them all, and I don’t want them around. Did you hear that, Achmed?”

“Yes, John. I’m patching Denny in, but I’ve already relayed the message and planned Mi-24 excursion. He texted me, backup will be available if needed.”

“Good, thanks.” I turned to Case and Clint. “You guys okay with a cleansing and a salt the earth format?”

“That was a rhetorical question, right brother,” Clint asked.

“Did you just insult us,” Case added.

Yep. Monsters. “Let’s off load, brothers, and go salt the earth.

It took twenty minutes to get the prisoners situated. Abdul was passed to the Sea Wolf with his two little buddies. Lynn handed me the XM25. “I wish I was going with you guys.”

“You have a job to do, Lynn. Besides, you killed more people tonight than the last ten caught serial killers. Be happy. They were all bad.”

Lynn giggled. “Thanks for keeping my little bunny Abdul in good shape. I’ll find out everything.”

Lynn waved at Clint. “Have fun, baby. I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah, you will,” Clint replied with a wave as the Wolf sped off for home port. He turned to me. “Hey, brother, it looks like you’re completely off Lynn’s shit-list.”

“Shhhh… not so loud. Say goodbye to Agent Tonto and let’s go kill some Isis lackeys.”

Clint knelt down to hug Agent Tonto. “I was supposed to give Agent Tonto the pee order, but I’m not flying with you in that damn helicopter smelling dog piss all night.”

“I appreciate that… I think.”

Chapter Twelve

An Ending

“Ain’t this some shit?” Clint held up his iPad as I flew us to target. Jafar had sent us everything on the hangar origin of our new Mi-24. It had flown out of an isolated patch of land west of Livermore. Jafar showed twelve hostiles and three converted Humvees. “We got us a damn Isis community training center just outside of Livermore. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting a little tired of finding these rat bastards camping out for weapons training right in our own backyard.”

After flying off the ship, I made sure we tried out all the neat weapons on board. Clint would be working the Yak-B Gatling gun while Case fired the XM25. I would work the forward mounted twin barrel machine gun. We tested them out at sea a ways before I flew us toward Livermore. I also noticed a port to connect sound feeding the outer speakers on the Mi-24. I grinned. If anyone finds out what I’m about to do in addition to exterminating an Isis compound, we’d probably be shot without trial.

“Clint. Tap into the YouTube. Find Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.”

Both my brother Monsters started laughing. Apparently they had seen ‘Apocalypse Now’ with the famous helicopter attack on a Viet Cong village with both bad guys and innocents. Clint immediately had a YouTube version of the straight classic. With his USB connector from the iPad Clint tapped into the Mi-24’s speaker system.

“You know of course if there’s any evidence of what we’re about to do we’ll probably be hunted down, right John?”

“Yep. In or out, Case?”

Casey grinned while smacking me in the back of the head. “That’s twice you’ve insulted me tonight. You should have directed that question to Snow White Clint.”

We enjoyed that statement, especially ‘Snow White Clint’. Casey attached a video cam to record the attack. If we ever did this kind of a thing without showing Crue a viewing and she found out, our brother Clint would be dead meat or in eternal combat. With only a mile more on our approach, Clint put ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ on repeat, playing through the Mi-24 sound system. Good Lord, it gave me goosebumps. We grinned at each other like a bunch of altar-boys using holy water in our squirt-guns. Clint readied the Gatling Gun while Casey moved to a position where he could fire our XM25 25mm airburst grenade launcher.

I did a strafing run over the main house and hangar with Clint following the attack with the Yak-B as I banked the Mi-24 to be clear when Case let loose with the grenade launcher. We were pounding our fists on things in between, yelling in accompaniment to ‘Ride of the Valkyries’. By the time I made the third pass there wasn’t a blade of grass or particle of sand not hit. I did a fourth pass just because it was so good. Clint disconnected the iPad. I turned the Mi-24 toward our private hangar. We rode in silence. It had been so good, we needed a Monster quiet time of enjoyment.

After we were through storing the new helicopter in our private hangar we drove to Pain Central in the company SUV the minions kept there from our fleet. Lynn had already finished her work on Abdul. Everyone was in the entertainment room watching a Tom Cruise movie ‘Edge of Tomorrow’. Lynn held Clint Jr with Dannie and Amara sitting on either side of her. Lucas, Jafar, and the minions watched with them. Lynn paused the movie immediately.

“How did it go? We received your text about it being done without details. You three know how I love getting vague messages about destructive salt the earth missions I should have been on. Denny already had the crew of misfits picked up by regular federal authorities beholding to him. I’m sure they will be traded for the Denny wish list. We of course have my helper Abdul and his two goons.”

Clint picked up Clint Jr and gave him a kiss. “Dannie? Would you and Amara take the baby into one of our back bedrooms for a few moments?”

“Sure, Clint.” Dannie took the baby to do as Clint suggested with Amara following.

Clint then used his iPad to link and play the video of the assault, with the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ blaring through our excellent sound system. To say the video was a success would be to put it mildly. Our audience came unglued. They hooted and hollered so much through the first two showings, it was played a third time with respectful silence. When the third showing finished, Lynn nearly attacked Clint. The rest of us turned away while our Monster couple from hell had a moment. Lucas approached Casey and me with more excitement than when I killed that idiot that nearly blinded me.

“My God! That was incredible. Tell me you don’t plan on destroying the video.”

Jafar and the minions gathered with us, echoing Lucas’s wishes.

“We’ll await the fallout, but I don’t care,” I told them. “Denny will have to clean up the mess we left behind. You let him know the details of death and destruction, right Achmed?”

“He knows. He texted he will have a team take over the site from any locals blundering around there. The team he’s sending in will be arriving there from LA so it won’t be long. I bet that felt good after all this Isis crap lately.”

“You have no idea, little brother. We did a fourth run when there wasn’t even a cockroach alive below us.”

Lynn finished saying hello to Clint. She walked with her mate to hear the last declaration. “Abdul turned out to be such a helpful boy I only gave him the Hassan treatment. We’ve been doing well. It was our successes lately that led to Isis trying to launch the nuclear strike with Alexi’s ship. We have a second in command who will be moving into controlling position in place of Abdul once he’s known to be in our hands which will probably happen shortly after the announcement you guys obliterated their Livermore training compound. Any ideas on how you want to proceed?”

Yeah, I did. “I figure if Abdul gets in touch with his second in command, he could convince him the authorities moved on the compound and the ship. Then he explains he’s in hiding, but they need to meet and plan a strategy.”

“Damn, Cheese… that’s really good,” Lynn replied. “It kind of pisses me off I didn’t think of it. I know someone who will love to help with the plan. He’s a little under the weather right now, but he’ll help us nail down the second in command. Guess what else I got from my helper.”

“I hope it has to do with where they got the damn bomb.”

“Bingo. I turned it over to Denny the moment I found out. It’s an active member of the Federation Council in Russia, Boris Federoff. He was paid off by the Albanians, who helped smuggle the bomb out of Russia through to the Croatian port of Dubrovnik. Abdul gave up the pipeline once Denny started feeding me questions. It seems the Russians have suspected the sale and illegal black market in nuclear weapons, but they’re in such a mess there, they don’t give a crap about anyone else. Denny claims if the right people are informed they will move to stop it, and we’ll be able to monitor their success or failure.”