War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel (39 page)

He fixed his aim and fired. The blast was deafening and enveloped him in a cloud of smoke. Still, through the pall, a flash of flame lit the sky, revealing the shattered form of the Shrike. The grenade had struck one of the drone’s fixed wings, sending the war machine spiraling into the sea.

As a plume of water shot high, Tucker gained the pilot’s seat and grabbed the wheel. “Hold on!”

He shoved the throttle forward and raced across the flat waters, not knowing if there were any other Shrikes in the air or if the remaining two Warhawks bombarding Patos Island would be given new instructions and dispatched their way.

In the rearview mirror, Tucker saw the island was cloaked in smoke, fires smoldering at its heart. A fresh spiral of flames shot high into the night sky, marking the continuing destruction of the island.

Tucker turned his attention forward, flying the powerboat toward the fiery skyline of Port of Spain.

Though he was relieved to have survived, a worry plagued him.

What had happened to Frank and Nora?

11:58
P
.
M
.

Tucker eased back the throttle and let their boat coast to a stop a hundred yards from the commercial docks of Port of Spain. The acrid stench of fire was thick in the air. A cacophony of emergency sirens, car alarms, and loudspeaker-enhanced voices echoed across the water.

Several shore-side warehouses still burned, but the docks themselves were mostly intact. Unfortunately the same could not be said of the Hyatt.

The main hotel tower was a column of flame, wrapped in smoke.

“Nora and Frank . . .” Jane moaned.

“They could have gotten out,” Tucker reminded her. “Rex had their backs.”

But even he had trouble putting much conviction in his voice.

As he aimed the boat toward the nearest dock, he noted that the main coastal highway was choked with evacuees, the road packed with unmoving or abandoned vehicles. Military trucks raced along the shoulders, some heading toward the city, others away. The central business district looked the worst hit, transformed into a fiery wasteland of blasted skyscrapers.

“Why would they do this?” Jane asked as Tucker reached the docks and tied them off. “Why?”

Tucker remembered their earlier suppositions that this all had something to do with controlling a new oil field. But if Webster was right, that was only an ancillary benefit. The true objective of the attack was a test run for something even worse.

Tucker helped Jane and Kane out of the boat. They had covered Webster’s body with a tarp. Though Tucker was still angry with the man, the guy had saved all their lives. When the time was right, they would get his body back home to his loved ones.

Just like with Sandy’s remains
.

Tucker stared across the devastated city, trying to fathom the number of deaths, of other loved ones who would mourn this night for what was stolen from them. A deep-seated fury settled into his bones.

“If Nora and Frank survived,” Jane asked, “how do we even begin to find them?”

“There must be some sort of emergency command center, a place for the injured or homeless to find shelter. If Frank is thinking straight, that’s where he’ll take Nora.”

“What about trying your phone again?”

He had attempted multiple times while en route, both calling the hotel and trying to raise someone in the States. “Still nothing. I think they’re jamming outgoing transmissions, keeping the islands locked down. We’re going to have to hoof it.”

He set off with Jane on one side and Kane on the other. They were lucky to still be alive, and he could only hope that same good fortune extended to Nora and Frank.

In short order, an emergency crew directed them to Queen’s Park Savannah, where a makeshift refugee camp was being set up. Normally the park’s two hundred acres were recreation space, complete with cricket fields, rugby pitches, and a botanical garden. Now thousands of people filled the fields, milling around or huddling together on the grass or on benches.

At the park’s center, a score of white canvas tents had been erected; most appeared to be dedicated to first aid, but a few were serving food and distributing bottled water. Emergency workers in orange vinyl vests moved through the crowd with clipboards, collecting personal data or reports of damage to various neighborhoods.

Jane looked forlorn. Even finding their friends amid this chaos was a daunting task. Kane suddenly sat down, as if he also realized the futility of this search, or maybe he was simply exhausted. The shepherd stared up quizzically at him.

“What’s wrong, big guy?” he asked.

Kane cocked his head and pawed at his ear with his hind leg, letting out a whine of complaint. Tucker knelt next to him. Up to now, he hadn’t bothered to strip off Kane’s tactical gear. With all the emergency personnel around, the shepherd looked like any of a number of search-and-rescue dogs working the aftermath of the attack.

“What’s bothering him?” Jane asked.

“I think it’s his earpiece.”

Tucker pushed away the dog’s scratching limb and removed the wireless receiver. He inspected Kane’s ear for any damage, but all seemed fine. As he palmed the earpiece, he felt a slight vibration in the unit. He lifted it to the side of his head and heard music playing from it.

“What is it?” Jane asked.

“It’s the Beatles.”

She scrunched her nose. “What?”

“It’s their song ‘Help!’ ”

Tucker slipped his own transceiver into his ear and secured his mike. He heard the melody more clearly now. Someone was broadcasting on the same radio frequency. Maybe it was pure happenstance, but he tapped his mike. “Hello?”

Static followed, then a familiar voice answered.
“Tucker, is that you?”
Frank asked.

Relief flooded through him. “Where are you? Is Nora okay?”

“
We’re both fine, but we have quite the story to tell you. We’re over at Queen’s Park, at a picnic table behind the emergency tents
.”

“We’ll be right there.”

Jane looked expectantly at him.

“They’re alive. They’re fine. C’mon.”

He hurried toward the row of emergency tents, and after a bit of hunting spotted Frank waving at them. Nora was seated at the bench before a plate with a half-eaten sandwich on it.

Tucker gave Frank a bear hug, while Jane greeted Nora as warmly. Kane danced around them all, his tail swishing happily. When they finally broke apart, Tucker kept a hand on Frank’s shoulder.

“How did you pull off that bit of magic with the radio?”

Frank gazed toward the sky. “With a little help from a friend. After we realized there was no way you could reach us by normal means, I set Rex to locally broadcasting the best of the Beatles, figuring you or Kane might pick it up.”

“Smart,” Jane said.

Tucker frowned. “But how did you know our radio frequency?” He had never shared that information with Frank, nor with anyone.

Frank shrugged. “With a little help from
another
friend.”

Nora pointed behind Tucker. He turned to see a familiar figure strolling toward them with two plates loaded with food.

“Now there’s my big stud,” the woman said upon joining them—but she was talking to Kane.

It was Ruth Harper.

The tall woman bent down and placed a plate before the shepherd, then straightened, brushing back a fall of blond hair, revealing tanned features and a set of amazingly high cheekbones. She wore jeans and a green blouse, along with a pair of thick-rimmed rectangular eyeglasses perched on her nose, which added a certain studious sexiness to her looks.

“You and Jane will have to share the other sandwiches,” Ruth said, setting the remaining plate on the table.

“How . . . what’re you doing here?” Tucker asked, finally understanding how Frank had obtained the radio frequency. Nothing escaped the grasp of Ruth Harper.

She shrugged. “You declined any Sigma operatives for this mission, so I thought I’d use up some vacation time for a short trip to a Caribbean island, to work on my tan.”

“Does your boss know you’re down here?”

She coyly raised an eyebrow at this foolish question.
Of course, he did
. Like Ruth, nothing escaped the attention of her boss, Sigma’s director, Painter Crowe. Instead, she glanced across the breadth of the fiery ruins of Port of Spain.

“Unfortunately, I got here a tad late. You certainly love to leave a path of destruction in your wake, Captain Wayne.” She turned toward him. “I certainly hope it was worth it.”

Tucker sighed.

Only time will tell
.

30

October 26, 11:48
A
.
M
. AST

San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago

Half a day later, Tucker stood on a balcony overlooking the coastal town of San Fernando, some thirty miles south of Port of Spain. In the distance, a black pall still marred the blue skies to the north, looking like a storm brewing on the horizon.

Which was certainly true
.

After making it out of the city, they had settled here to nurse their wounds and sleep. All morning, they had been monitoring reports, taking measure of the aftermath of the attack. Most of the fires had been extinguished, but even this far south, the trade winds carried the smell of smoke, burning tires, and charred petroleum.

Exhausted from his efforts the previous day, Kane was curled up on a chaise longue on the balcony, fast asleep. Last night, Tucker had clipped the fur around his laceration and had slathered the wound with antibiotics before applying a fresh bandage.

“What’s the current death toll?” Jane asked from inside the hotel suite. She stood behind Frank and Nora as the pair worked on their laptops, gathering updates from local news sources. A television droned in the background.

“Most counts are estimating eight or nine hundred,” Nora reported. “But search-and-rescue units are still scouring the worst-hit areas.”

Tucker closed his eyes. Despite the irrationality of it, his mind was stuck in an
if-only
loop, second-guessing all that had happened. While Lyon’s trap at Patos Island hadn’t killed him, it had gotten him out of the way. Still, he wasn’t sure he could’ve done anything if he had been in the city.

Frank had told him the story of the night’s attack, how Rex had alerted them of the incoming aerial assault shortly after Ruth Harper arrived. The trio had fled the hotel before it was bombed, hitting the fire alarm on their way out, likely saving many other lives.

“All the media is blaming the Trinidadian People’s Party,” Nora said, “but that’s all smoke and mirrors.”

Tucker turned from the balcony and joined the others inside. “But how?” he asked.

“A combination of electronic warfare and psychological operations.” Frank answered. “Rex tapped into and collected reams of data from the drone fleet. The stories were preprepared and spread into every news source and social media outlet. Even now, I’m having a hard time separating fact from fiction, and I was at ground zero.”

“Further clouding the matter,” Nora said, “I think the TPP was tricked into being patsies in all of this. There are reports of a handful of armed attacks on police stations and government buildings. The raiders who were killed were wearing TPP uniforms, but the bodies number less than twenty.”

Tucker shook his head. “Which gives the government enough flesh-and-blood evidence to blame the rest of the destruction on these revolutionaries.”

Jane spoke and turned up the volume on the television. “Looks like President D’Abreo is making a statement.”

Tucker and the others gathered around the set.

The president had donned a military uniform for this speech. “
. . . for this reason, and in mutual agreement with Prime Minister Magaray, the minister of national security, and the chief of the defense staff, I am declaring a national state of emergency. Martial law will remain in effect until the perpetrators of this cowardly and bloody attack are brought to justice. Upon my order, all members of the Trinidadian People’s Party are being rounded up for questioning or arrest. But let me assure the people of Trinidad—and all the peoples of the world—we will survive this attack and be all the stronger for it
.”

Jane muted the sound. “What do you think?”

Tucker contemplated the news, then described his take on it. “Let’s see. A radical faction uses violence and bloodshed to try to oust the current government within days of the election. Its beloved president and prime minister have come to the rescue, promising to quash the militants and provide aid and comfort to thousands.”

Jane crossed her arms. “In other words, an election that was likely to be lost is now assured of victory.”

He nodded. “This attack wasn’t a coup. It was an
anti
coup, intended to bolster the current administration.”

“And President D’Abreo will owe a debt to his mysterious benefactor,” Nora added. “Not only will someone profit to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in rebuilding costs and infrastructure repairs, there’s no question to
whom
D’Abreo will grant control of the new Salybia Bay oil fields.”

“Pruitt Kellerman,” Ruth said behind them all. She had just stepped in from one of the bedrooms where she had been on the telephone all morning.

Tucker had already told her what Webster had revealed before he died.

Pruitt Keller—

It hadn’t taken a genius to flesh out the rest of that name. Any American who had even a passing knowledge of the country’s media industry knew Pruitt Kellerman. Horizon Media Corp was the single largest owner of newspapers, television and radio stations, social media sites, and, according to some people, even state and federal politicians. In addition, Pruitt Kellerman had been extending his reach into Europe and Asia.

Not that there weren’t detractors.

Kellerman was currently fighting a firestorm of allegations that he had used Horizon Media’s position to tap phones and intercept e-mails—not only of business competitors and personal enemies but of beltway legislators in charge of regulating the telecom industry.