SEAL Team 666: A Novel (12 page)

“What the hell?” Ruiz backed away as the man began to dance in a circle.

Holmes moved to his left and put his back against a wall of crates. Seeing him do it, Laws mimicked the move on the other side. They both trained their MP5s on the man.

“
Nimen dou si le
 …
Nimen dou si le … Nimen dou si le…,
” he sang, repeating the words over and over in a singsong, off-key version of a nursery rhyme.

“What’s he saying, Laws?” Holmes asked.

“He’s saying we’re all dead, sir. It’s Mandarin. Beijing dialect.”

The man still danced as if he was being controlled by someone, but it was ridiculous really. There were no strings attached to him, nor was there anyone else nearby.

“
Nimen dou si le … Nimen dou si le … Nimen dou si le…”

“What do we do?” Ruiz asked, his eyes narrowing. He glanced toward the shadows at the tops of the rows.

“We don’t do anything.” Holmes adjusted the grip on the MP5. “Laws, why is he saying that?”

“Don’t know, sir. Want me to ask him?”

“Why don’t you do that?”

“
Weishenme ni shuo women dou sile?
” Laws asked.

“
Nimen dou si le … Nimen dou si le … Nimen dou si le…”

“
Zhu shuo! Zhu shuo!
”

Suddenly the old man did stop. He lowered his arms and crouched like a monkey. His head reared back and he gave a high-pitched scream that made the SEALs wince.

“What the fuck is he doing?” Fratty demanded.

“Take it easy, SEALs.” Holmes had pressed himself against the crates and now moved forward a few grudging inches.

“Everyone okay?” came Walker’s voice, slightly out of breath over the MBITR.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Fratty said.

“After the Stretch Armstrong, I’d believe anything.”

“Walker, stay put.” Holmes’s eyes narrowed. “And why are you out of breath?”

Before Walker could answer, the Chinese man leaped into the air and landed atop the lone crate. He ripped off his shirt, revealing a bandage wrapped around his torso. He reached behind his back and pulled out a knife.

“Knife!” Fratty yelled.

The appearance of the weapon sent everyone into a crouch, fingers itching to pull their triggers.

20

MACAU WHARF.

Hoover sniffed at the body next to the gangway and gave Walker a look. For a dog, she had a pretty remarkable ability to render readable expressions.

Walker shouldered his Stoner and, working with Hoover, pulled both bodies to the edge of the wharf and shoved them over. After they hit the South China Sea with a satisfactory splash, he turned, got the Stoner back in hand, and followed the dog up the gangplank.

He’d been listening to the operation in the hold over the MBITR. He wondered what the man looked like. By the comments from his teammates, things had entered crazy town on a freight train. He remembered listening to some of the tales of ship boardings the SEALs had conducted in the Red Sea against Somali pirates. His father had talked about when he was a kid and how he’d sneak the radio to bed at night and listen to faraway broadcasts of
Mystery Theater
and
Science Fiction Theater
, the words painting pictures as big and bold as any multiplex screen. That was how the tactical radio broadcasts were to Walker. He could imagine, based on his training, where the SEALs stood in relation to the crazy man.

A square of light from the hatch punched away the darkness in front of him. It was the hold, and the closer he got, the more electric his body began to feel. He shook it off as pins and needles from lying in a prone position too long.

He found what he’d spied from his previous position—an air vent. The cowling was about two meters off the ground and a perfect place for him to keep overwatch and see through the hatch into the hold. It was positioned in such a manner that the communications mast next to it would block him from surveillance from anyone other than the partygoers on the cruise ship far out to sea.

As he climbed into place, he heard all hell break loose as the man drew a knife. He got into place just in time to see him raise it over his head.

21

MACAU. CARGO SHIP’S HOLD.

Fratty gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached. The crazy fuck had the knife over his head and was screaming something in Chinese. One pull of the trigger would end it all, a 12-gauge slug ripping his screaming head free and leaving a wet spot on the wood behind. All he had to do was give just a little more pressure to the trigger and—

“Easy,” came Holmes’s calm voice. “Easy, SEALs.”

That the man was freaking Fratty out was an understatement. The man standing atop the circus box with the knife over his head and his tiny Asian pecker sticking out from the side of his stained underwear was an image that would take a case of beer and a thousand ice picks to dislodge.

Suddenly the man stopped screaming. The silence that rushed into the space was stark. Then he looked at Fratty and began to whisper in a rough, low voice, “Fratty, Fratty, Fratty, Fratty,” over and over.

“Boss? How the hell does this freak know my name?”

“Dunno. Just be easy until we find out what he’s—”

Holmes never finished his sentence. The man brought the knife down in a vicious arc into his own abdomen. He grunted as it bit through, but he didn’t stop there. He jerked upward, then across. Then control left him. The knife fell to the crate a moment before his intestines roped out in a gush of blood that emptied his gut. He fell face-first atop the crate, his eyes staring directly at Fratty.

Then silence.

“What the hell just happened?” Ruiz said.

“I think he just killed himself,” Laws answered.

“No shit.” Fratty poked the dead man with the toe of his right boot. “What gave you that idea?”

“Easy boys,” Holmes said, lowering the tip of his MP5 and looking around. “Be ready.”

“Loo-look at the bl-blood,” Ruiz stammered.

Fratty saw it move across the flat wooden surface as if it was all part of the same gigantic amoeba, some edges moving faster than others. The blood took on an oblong shape as it slid into several of the circular holes that had been cut in the top of the crate. He hadn’t notice them before, but the holes had been the least of his worries. Right now, he was more concerned with how the blood was moving of its own accord and why.

“That is not right,” Laws murmured.

Fratty couldn’t get past the fact that the man’s blood seemed to be alive.

“Fratty, check the body,” Holmes commanded.

A cold sweat broke out beneath Fratty’s shirt. “But it said my name!”

“I don’t care if it sang ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ Check the corpse,” Holmes commanded in an even yet firm voice.

They all heard Hoover bark at the same time. It wasn’t over the MBITR. It was close. Too close.

They all turned toward the stairs and stared out the hatch in time to see Walker, who wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near there, spin to face someone.

22

MACAU. CARGO DECK.

Hoover saved his ass. Walker spun toward the movement behind him. Three Chinese soldiers had managed to sneak up on him. Two wore the green uniforms of regular forces, while the third was dressed in slick blue camouflage. Walker wasn’t up on his foreign uniform recognition, but it was probably Chinese navy or marines. They’d had to have come out of the crew compartment at the base of the wheelhouse—must have broken through the flexi-cuffs. Walker knew that if he’d been in his original position, he would have seen them and been able to remove them before they became a threat.

All this went through Walker’s mind in an instant; then he was engaged with the first soldier, who grabbed for his collar. Walker was forced to drop his Stoner, which clattered roughly down the stairs and into the hold. He let his opponent pull him from his perch on the air vent, then became a dead weight and fell into him. His opponent took several steps back as he tried to find his balance, during which Walker reached into the holster at the man’s waist, pulled out the Chinese Type 59 pistol, and shoved it over his opponent’s heart. Walker put four rounds into him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hoover mangling the other soldier’s hand, teeth on pressure points, shaking it like a rabbit that needed to be dead. The only problem was that the hand was still attached to the man’s arm and the guy was now screaming. The man tried to punch at the dog with his free hand, but Hoover kept pulling and twisting to avoid it.

Which left the blue-cammied man.

As his opponent fell, Walker brought the pistol up, but the other man was too fast. He whipped around and cracked it out of Walker’s hand with a reverse hook kick. Walker’s hand went numb as the pistol flew into the sea.

Then they were up close and personal.

The man’s long, thin face bore a three-inch scar that went from the corner of his left eye to the corner of his mouth. His eyes didn’t show fear, but projected the concentration one would expect from an expert fighter. He punched Walker twice in the chest, backing him up against the air-vent cowling, then front-kicked.

The first punch tore the wind from Walker, but he rolled with the second. He saw the kick coming and dodged it so that it intersected the cowling. Then he turned and dropped an elbow on the knee. He tried to sweep his opponent’s base leg out from under him, but the man limped free.

They each took a moment to appraise the other. This man wasn’t a simple People’s Liberation Army soldier. He had to be something more, one of their Special Forces or quick-reaction forces.

Walker took the initiative. He fired two punches at the man’s left shoulder, knowing that they’d be blocked, then slammed the elbow of the hand that had worked its way into his opponent’s guard into his chin.

The man reached out to grab his arm, but Walker was ready for that. His feet moved to enable his hips to pivot into a coiled spring. Walker leaned and turned, allowing the man to come even closer. Then he whipped his body around thanks to his savage pivot and caught the man in the jaw with his other elbow.

The man stumbled backwards, but Walker wouldn’t let him recover. He stayed in close so he could reach down to his left thigh. He pulled his knife free from its sheath and slashed it across his opponent’s throat, so deeply that he could hear the man’s last breath sluicing through the slit.

Walker put a hand on the man’s forehead and pushed him over.

He fell, his fingers probing pathetically at the wound.

Walker glanced over and saw that Hoover had subdued his man, now on his knees, his head down. The dog had the soldier’s hand in his mouth, teeth clamped down hard. Every time the man twitched or moved, Hoover would bite harder and pull back. She’d probably broken all twenty-seven bones in the man’s hand and was scraping them together.

Moving quickly, Walker slit the man’s throat; then he stood and wiped the blade on the man’s uniform.

As he was resheathing his knife, Holmes rounded the air vent. “What the hell are you doing out of place?” Holmes barely glanced at the dead men.

Walker realized his mistake. If it was up to him he’d never do it again. Still, he hated being called out a second time. “I wanted to get a better view.”

“This isn’t television. You don’t get a better view.”

“But I—”

“Shut the fuck up. We’ll talk about this later. Thanks to those gunshots, we’ll probably have the entire People’s Liberation Army on our ass in no time and we haven’t even found out what’s so special about this tug.”

“Boss?” Fratty said, over the MBITR. “There’s something down here.”

Holmes’s eyes flared. “Hoover, come. Walker, come.” Then he turned on his heel.

Walker followed, just like the dog.

The hold was pretty much as he’d expected. The only difference was the body atop the crate. It was hard to believe that just moments before, the man had been alive. His entire being had been drained of blood.

Ruiz and Laws stood to one side. Fratty was closest to the box, but his stance made it obvious that he wanted to get away from it.

“What’s going on?” Holmes asked.

“Inside the box,” Ruiz said, failing to suppress a shudder.

“In that one?” Holmes looked back and forth at his men. “Fratty, I thought I told you to search that fuckwad.”

Fratty gave the box a long look, then asked, “Can I shoot it first?”

“What? The box?”

“Yeah.”

Then they heard the scratching, like from the claws of a large animal. The box shuddered. Once. Twice.

“Yeah. Go ahead and shoot the box,” Holmes said, narrowing his eyes and frowning.

Fratty raised his Super 90 at about the same time the crate’s side exploded in a hail of splintered wood. A monster now crouched in the opening.

The size of a pony, the beast had six legs, a thick, muscular body, and the head of a prehistoric saber-toothed cat. Spikes jutted from its body and head as if it were a dinosaur. Except it wasn’t a dinosaur, it was something that should never have existed.

The creature didn’t pause to be admired. It reached out with a talon-tipped paw and swiped at the nearest moving object—Fratty. The swipe took off the left side of his face, sending ribbons of blood arcing across the hold. The SEAL fell on top of his weapon, blood pulsing out of his ruined face.

Laws opened fire first. Nine-millimeter rounds slammed into the creature with little effect.

Holmes joined in, as did Ruiz and Walker, all firing virtually point-blank at the fell beast. Its body shuddered with the impacts of the rounds, but otherwise it ignored them. It turned baleful eyes at them and swiped again.

The SEALs kept out of the way.

Laws’s magazine emptied first. He ejected it and slid another in place without breaking rhythm.

Holmes did the same.

The noise inside the hold was deafening. Cordite and dust filled the air. At first, the rounds didn’t seem to have any effect, but bits and pieces of the creature began to fly off with the multiple impacts.