War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel (37 page)

“Nothing. Sonofabitch. Better let Lyon know. Hopefully the bastard and his dog drowned
.”

“Let’s make sure. You search right and I’ll go left. We’ll meet back here
.”

The beams split to either side and scanned the surrounding cliffs and surf.

Tucker shivered as he waited. His hands started to shake—but not from the cold.

Here he was hunted and hiding again. He flashed to Afghanistan, where that was his life, day in and day out, separated by bouts of numbing boredom, which only heightened the moments of tension and stress. Such highs and lows rewired your brain. Perhaps irrevocably. While Tucker’s PTSD was better, it was far from cured. He still had no control over the stomach-churning ebb and flow of his anxiety.

Tucker squeezed his eyes shut and balled his fists.

Don’t try to control it
, he reminded himself.
Manage it . . . cope with it
.

Instead, he counted his blessings, most of which were bundled up in fur at his feet. He also pictured Jane’s face, remembering her kiss, her lips. The warmth of that memory—overlaid with those happier times with her and with Kane in the past—helped calm the trembling in his body.

“Anything?”
a voice asked above as the beams converged back on this section of the cliff.

“
Guy’s gone
.”

“
Lyon’s not going to be happy without a body
.”

“
He’ll have to be. We’re running down to the zero hour
.”

A radio crackled above. After a few seconds, one of the men said,
“Roger that, on our way
.” The man then informed his partner.
“What did I tell you? Boss wants us back at the helo. It’s go time
.”

“What about our targets?”

“If that bastard and his dog are still around here somewhere, they’re going to wish we had shot them quickly
.”

A harsh laugh followed.
“Let’s get the hell off this rock before it blows
.”

Footsteps pounded away.

Tucker waited several painstaking minutes. In the distance, he heard the faint whir of the helicopter’s engines spooling up. On that cue, he got Kane moving along the battered shoreline to where a section of the cliff had broken into a flow of steep rubble. He hauled Kane over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and scaled the slope, with one hand holding the dog steady.

I got you, buddy
.

Once at the top, Tucker continued to carry Kane. The thump of helicopter blades grew louder as the aircraft lifted off the nearby beach. Tucker hurried and reached the cover of the canopy, where he finally put Kane down. A quick inspection revealed a three-inch laceration in the dog’s left shoulder. Tucker stanched the bleeding and wrapped the wound with a roll of gauze from the first-aid kit tucked in one of Kane’s waterproof vest pockets. Still, the dog could no longer put weight on the limb.

He led the shepherd back to the edge of the beach, and from the tree line, caught sight of the helicopter’s lights sweeping across the Bocas del Dragón Strait toward Trinidad. Sensing time was running short, he ordered Kane to stay hidden in the beachside brush and then ran headlong into the jungle. He clicked his penlight on to help guide him back to Jane, not worrying if Lyon had left any men on the island. Especially as the last words of the soldiers had lit a fire under Tucker.

Let’s get the hell off this rock before it blows
.

Tucker intended to heed that sage advice.

10:34
P
.
M
.

By the time Tucker retraced his steps to Jane, his legs burned and his breath came in gasps. Before he could reach her cave, she kicked away the layer of fronds and flew out of the alcove and into his arms.

“Thank God. I saw the helicopter lift off. I didn’t know . . .” She hugged him even tighter, then pulled back. She searched the jungle around them, her eyes going wide. “Wh—Where’s Kane?”

“Safe, but hurt. I left him at the beach.” He grabbed her arm and searched her face. “How are you doing?”

“Still feel a bit hungover, but better.”

“Good. Because we need to haul ass back to the beach.”

He got her moving, trying to support her, but she shook off his arm and moved on her own. She was definitely better. Relief helped shed the exhaustion from Tucker’s own limbs. He explained the danger as they rushed toward the beach.

As the threat sank in, Jane’s gaze swept the jungle all around. “You think they’re going to bomb this place?”

“Sounded that way.” Tucker pictured the cluster bombs raining down upon the derelict town in New Mexico. “We don’t want to be on this island when that happens.”

They reached Kane, who greeted them with a wagging tail. As they stumbled out onto the beach, the dog was already beginning to bear weight on his injured leg.

“Oh my God,” Jane gasped out.

Beyond the dark waters of the strait, orange flames rose from Port of Spain. Near the city center, a small mushroom cloud erupted and lit up the night sky. A few seconds later, the rumble of the explosions washed over to them, sounding like distant fireworks.

Jane’s voice grew hushed with horror. “We’re too late. It’s already started.”

Zero hour
, Tucker thought, remembering the conversation he had overheard. As he stared, fireballs rolled into the night sky above the city skyline. He pictured Warhawks and Shrikes ripping through clouds of smoke.

“Those poor people.” Jane turned to him. “And what about Frank and Nora?”

Tucker already had his sat phone in hand and dialed the Hyatt, but all he got was a prerecorded emergency message. He shook his head, answering Jane’s silent question.

He swung away, casting aside his fears for his friends. “We can’t do anything to help them from here. Hopefully Rex gave them enough warning to get somewhere safe.” He headed toward the ruins of their runabout, its bulk shattered in a trail of debris across the sand. “Help me salvage anything that could float. Life jackets, sections of wooden decking, empty fuel cans. We have to fashion some sort of raft and get the hell off this rock.”

Tucker grabbed a curved section of the broken bow and began dragging it toward the water. They could never swim to safety through the hard currents that wrapped around the island. To survive, they needed some means of staying afloat. The Venezuelan coastline was only four or five miles to the west of the island. They had a slim chance of making it there if they hurried.

Jane climbed and sifted through the debris. She pulled out the remains of an orange life vest and tossed it toward him.

“Lyon must have lured us to this godforsaken place,” Tucker realized aloud. “I should have seen this coming. Tracking that bastard here had been too easy. Somebody like him doesn’t make those kinds of mistakes.” He pictured the Shrike that had come up from behind their boat and attacked. It had flown from the direction of Trinidad, not this tiny island. “Patos was never their base of operations.”

Jane inspected a red fuel can, but a round had perforated it. She threw it angrily into the jungle. “He clearly wanted us out of the way and trapped us here.”

Where he could kill us at his leisure
.

Tucker attempted to get the broken section of bow to float, but it sank to the sandy bottom of the cove. Exhausted and frustrated, he glanced toward the burning city and listened to the distant thunder of the bombardment.

“We’re running out of time,” he said, sensing it with a soldier’s intuition.

Jane stared at him.

“I think the only reason this speck of an island hasn’t already been bombed,” Tucker explained, “is that Lyon didn’t want to show his hand early. If he had blown this place up first, he could have inadvertently alerted Trinidad’s military.”

“But now that the attack is under way—”

“We’re free game.”

Knowing this, they redoubled their efforts, but it was to no avail. Kane rose to his haunches. His nose pointed to the night sky, and a growl of warning flowed from his throat.

Between bursts of explosion, a new noise intruded, the familiar buzz of a drone’s engines echoing over the water. The noise grew and trebled. Tucker cursed, knowing what that meant. Lyon was not taking any chances. The bastard had sent a cadre of drones their way.

Tucker scowled at the sunken section of broken bow.

We’re not getting off this island anytime soon
.

“Back into the jungle,” he ordered, waving toward cover.

They barely made it under the canopy when the first drone glided low over the water of the cove. The Warhawk reached the beach and arced higher, skimming across the treetops, rustling the leaves with its passage.

In its wake, another pair followed.

A moment later, a shattering boom rocked the island. A fiery burst lit the forest to the west. Tucker stepped out of cover long enough to study the damage. A spiral of flame shot high into the air, roiling through a black cloud. This was no cluster bomb like before. A gust of wind brought a burning, chemical smell, not unlike gasoline, but this wasn’t anything you’d want in the tank of your car.

“What is it?” Jane called to him.

He dashed back to her as a second and third explosion erupted from the heart of the island.

“The drones are dropping napalm. Lyon must be planning on burning this island down to the bedrock.”

With us on it
.

11:04
P
.
M
. EDT

Smith Island, Maryland

Pruitt Kellerman stalked along the banks of television monitors mounted across the wall of his office. The screens displayed broadcasts from the various channels that Horizon Media Corp owned. Talking heads spoke animatedly, though Pruitt had the volume muted. He would occasionally read the updates from Trinidad scrolling along the bottom edges. Or if some new live feed from Port of Spain popped up on one of the screens, he would use his remote to raise the volume.

But his best source of information sat at his desk. His daughter crouched over her personal laptop, an iPad Pro, and his own desktop, manipulating all three devices with the skill of a master pianist. Laura was the one person who he ever allowed to sit on his leather chair, which was only fitting.

Someday all of this will be hers
.

He hoped it was a legacy that she would one day make legitimate.

New footage drew his attention to one of the televisions. A church was engulfed in flames. Its Gothic steeple lay broken and charred. Fires glowed through the rosette of a stained-glass window, casting its beauty in a hellish light.

Clenching his jaw in fury, he turned up the volume. He had instructed the technicians overseeing the attack to spare the city’s historic buildings.

The anchor on the screen wore an equally angry expression. “
. . . latest from Port of Spain. We have footage of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. One of the city’s oldest landmarks, dating back to 1818. Chaos and panic still grips the capital city. Martial law has been declared. The military is still struggling to combat this terrorist attack, one believed at this time to be orchestrated by a revolutionary group, the Trinidadian People’s Party. As soon as—
”

He muted the sound again. At least that much of the campaign was sticking to the game plan. The bombing was meant to cause chaos, while beneath the fire and smoke, the true war was being waged. The drone fleet’s suite of electronic warfare tools had already hacked into the island’s communication infrastructure, allowing the programming’s psy-ops—psychological operations—to disseminate misinformation through all of the commandeered channels.

The programming spread rumors and innuendos, while simultaneously sowing false reports throughout the media. As he well knew, if someone read or heard it in the news, it was believed. And even better, when finessed just right, that misinformation multiplied from one source to another, spreading like digital wildfire, laying waste to the truth and leaving only the fabricated story in its wake.

He turned to his daughter for confirmation. As Horizon’s director of communications, she was monitoring all the social media coming out of the area, keeping her finger on a pulse far more current than any broadcast news channel. Over the past hours, he had to tread carefully to keep Laura in the dark about his role in all of this. But her presence here also offered an opportunity.

If Laura could not discern the real story behind the fabrication, then no other media outlet would likely be able to do any better
.

“What are you hearing about this revolutionary party?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Everyone seems to think it’s this TPP group behind the attacks and bombings. The Twitter feed from the region is rife with speculation about whether the party leaders knew about this attack or if it’s a splinter group that’s to blame.”

“What about
how
these terrorists could have orchestrated such a coordinated attack?”

“That’s what has everyone panicked.” Laura brushed a few auburn curls from her face as she glanced up. She looked exhausted but determined. “Some reports are saying that armored vehicles were seen firing rocket-propelled grenades at various targets. Others saw helicopters dropping bombs from the air.”

Pruitt nodded. He knew very well
where
those stories had come from: out of thin air. They were the first stage of the psy-ops package. Soon fabricated images—fuzzy videos, handheld camera footage, and grainy photos—would be obtained by the media from anonymous sources, all to further support the story that Pruitt wanted told, of a terrorist attack orchestrated by a party aligned against the current Trinidadian administration.

But would it work?

That was the purpose of this trial run, a proof of concept for the next generation of warfare. The cost to pull this off was surprisingly minimal. The entire operation only involved a small drone fleet: three Warhawks for the heavy lifting, a pair of Shrikes to add to the chaos, and a handful of the tiny Wasps to hack into the city’s digital infrastructure.