Black Flag: A Taskforce Story (6 page)

I gave Jennifer the job of watching Dylan, putting him between her and me. Knuckles took point, and we ascended to the officer’s mess. We reached the door and Knuckles paused. There was no sound coming from inside. He looked at me and I nodded. He reached up to the door, turned the knob, and entered. He went left, looking for targets. I buttonhooked right and saw a slaughterhouse.

The captain, three officers, and a steward were lined up on the floor facedown, a neat hole in the back of each man’s head. We were too late.

I turned back to the door and saw Dylan. Jennifer had knocked him to the deck, then began pulling security to our rear. I stalked up to him and kicked him hard in the genitals. He screamed and I jerked him to his knees.

“Shut the fuck up.”

He tried to cup his balls and I said, “You slow me down and you’re dead.”

Jennifer poked him with her barrel and Knuckles took point again, this time jogging up to the top deck and the bridge. It took up the entire level, the topmost part of the ship, and had two doors on either end. The one in front of us was closed. The one on the far side was open. Knuckles slid down the wall, stopping short of entering. We heard shouting going on in two different languages. Then, in broken English, the command for everyone to line up.

This is it.

I grabbed Dylan and said, “You get inside there and stop them. You go deep inside the room, away from this door. When they’re focused on you, I want you to shout the number. Tell me what we’re up against.”

He said, “They’ll kill me. I can’t—”

I grabbed his collar and whipped him around, using the centrifugal force to fling him into the room. I heard shouting in Romanian, then Dylan screaming that Dragos had sent him. He began to babble, but I could hear him going deeper, away from us. Someone shouted a command I couldn’t understand, and Dylan screamed, “Costin, don’t. Please! There are men right outside that door. The academics! They’re going to kill us!”

Across the hatch, with my weapon at the ready, I smiled at Knuckles, knowing Costin wouldn’t believe whatever Dylan sprayed out of his mouth. Knuckles winked back, and we prepared to slaughter every single one of the assholes in the room.

Dylan continued babbling, the only question now whether he realized that the men in the room gave him less chance of survival than the ones who’d flung him into it.

He did.

I heard a smack; then I heard, “All four! All four are in here!”

I slapped Knuckles’s shoulder, and we entered the room near simultaneously, Knuckles hugging the wall to the right and me going left. I saw four crewmembers lined up against the front window, two men with guns on them. One other had a weapon against Dylan, and one was missing.

I began firing, letting loose controlled pairs, taking the threat to the crew first. Both dropped without getting off a single round. I indexed to the man on Dylan and he squeezed the trigger, splitting Dylan’s head open. He rotated to me and I snapped a double-tap, hitting him but not putting him down. He dove to the front, getting below the bridge console and out of my line of fire. Knuckles, on the far side, opened up, and the man flopped into view, dead.

I swiveled, looking for the final man but seeing nothing. I heard Jennifer fire outside and she bounded into the room.

“He came out the other door. He’s in the hallway, but he’s covered behind a section of metal. I can’t hit him.”

I went to the door and got on my belly, peeking around the corner. I saw the entrance to the stairwell we had come up. At the top it had a skirting of metal, which must be what Jennifer was talking about. The question was whether he’d gone down the stairs or was waiting in ambush.

I said, “Knuckles, if he’s hiding he’s got a clean shot through the far door. I need to know if he ran or if he’s waiting.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Go to the far door and see if he shoots.”

“What?”

“Yes. Get him to commit.”

He shook his head, then pulled off the backpack with the computer chips. He duckwalked to the left side of the door, put the backpack on the end of the MP7, and slid it into the opening. A burst of automatic fire shredded the bag, knocking it to the floor.

So he’s there.
The metal may have protected him from Jennifer’s MP5, but it wouldn’t stop me. The cartridge for the MP7 was unique for a reason: It had been invented specifically to puncture body armor.

I took aim through the holosight and punched seven rounds in a crisscross pattern against the section of skirting. I heard a high-pitched yell; then Knuckles rolled to the doorway and fired a double-tap.

The room grew quiet, the only sound a single piece of brass still rolling on the floor. I said, “Give me an up.”

Jennifer, over with the crew, said, “Good here. Nobody hurt.”

Knuckles thumped the eyes of the first two I’d engaged, looking for a sign of life, and said, “All down. We’re clear.”

I said, “Only if that shitbag Dylan was telling the truth. Jennifer, get them to stop the boat and call for assistance. Knuckles, lock both doors and maintain security.”

I heard a thumping in the air that steadily grew louder. I recognized it.

Black Hawk.

Two Black Hawk helicopters flew by the bridge, their rotor blades giving off an eerie green glow from the static electricity, the birds so close I could see the lights in the cockpit.

Where the hell did they come from?

It dawned on me that we were off the coast of Cuba. Somehow, the Taskforce had managed to send in the Marines from Guantanamo Bay.

Boy, I’ll bet that required a few favors.

Knuckles watched them swoop over the deck and said, “Calvary’s here. We need to signal them before they come in shooting.”

I leaned against the console and said, “Well, this whole clusterfuck is your baby, mister vice president of maritime operations. What do you recommend? Raising the black flag? Letting them know pirates have control?”

He said, “I was thinking more along the lines of using the ship’s radio.”

Two days later I was regretting making any comments about pirates. Grolier Recovery Services had been “asked” to stay in Jamaica until the local authorities could sort through the mess, and the Jamaicans were tossing around legal precedents from the 1700s, all involving some hanging of a pirate.

Drinking a beer across from me at a beat-up wooden picnic table, Brett said, “Looks like Knuckles gets his vacation after all.”

I watched him and Jennifer at the small bar—really no more than a plank of wood hammered into the side of a marina—and said, “Yeah, well, I ought to kick both of your asses for the privilege. Knuckles will be paying the tab for the honor; that’s for damn sure.”

“You think the Taskforce will pull some weight?”

“Not likely.”

The Taskforce had thrown us to the wolves. Kurt Hale, the commander, could not believe what we’d gotten involved in. I’d tried to toss Brett and Knuckles under the bus, since he’d sent them to me and it was their damn fault, but he was having none of it. He seemed to find it humorous that the Jamaicans were looking to accuse us of piracy. I’d begged for some official help, but all I’d gotten in return was, “You built the ship—you sail it.”

The only things going for us were the pirates Brett and Jennifer had captured. Luckily they weren’t killed like every other buccaneer on the boat. They were turning on each other and backing up our story, but we were still asked to remain. While the attack had occurred outside of Jamaican territorial waters, the container ship was from their harbor and was still within the economic zone. They were a little miffed that we hadn’t contacted them and incredulous that we had assaulted on our own.

Like I was going to trust Brett’s and Jennifer’s lives to a bunch of reggae sailors from the Jamaica Defence Force.

We were staying in the small town of Port Royal, just on the other side of the international airport and across the bay from the capitol of Kingston. The Jamaicans were paying our hotel bill—as a “courtesy”—which meant we weren’t going to be living it up at Hedonism or Sandals.

Brett watched Jennifer order and said, “You want to trade roommates? Knuckles is a little bit OCD. He has a cow if I don’t put the cap on the toothpaste, and he folds the towels for the maids.”

The Jamaicans had saved more money by making us double up. Which meant Brett got to put up with Knuckles, and I got to play Brer Rabbit in the briar patch.

“No way. I’ve had to live with him for years on deployments. Your turn now.”

Jennifer walked up holding some tall thing with a pineapple and an umbrella. She sat down across from me, with a view across the bay.

She said, “You know, at the end of the day, those pirates picked the right place to launch from. Port Royal used to be swashbuckler central. This whole city was a walking pirate zoo. Blackbeard, Calico Jack, Henry Morgan, they all came here. In fact, this place was so infested, the city enlisted the aid of the pirates to defend it against Spain.”

I said, “Then why are they so fired up about using some ancient law against us? Seems they would understand.”

She said, “Well, that was all before they started hanging pirates.”

“Great. Perfect.”

“You know Calico Jack had a couple of female pirates. Anne Bonny and Mary Read.”

“What’s that matter?”

“Well, they hung his ass, but the females were only locked up. Anne actually made it back to her home. Charleston, South Carolina.”

I looked at her sideways and Brett started laughing. She grinned. “Just sayin’.”

Knuckles walked up with two more drinks, both like Jennifer’s, with a pineapple and an umbrella. He handed me one and I said, “What the hell is this?”

“A rumrunner. Hey, listen, the bartender says that if there
were
any treasure from Port Royal, it would be over on Lime Cay. And guess what? There’s a shuttle boat that goes there right from this bar.”

I looked at him as if he’d lost his mind, then decided to ignore his ridiculous comment about the treasure. I said, “Why on earth would I want a rumrunner?”

“Because that’s what all pirates drink.”

Read on for an exclusive extended excerpt of Brad Taylor’s

THE POLARIS PROTOCOL

A PIKE LOGAN THRILLER

Available January 14, 2014, wherever books and e-books are sold

December 2011

Sergeant Ronald Blackmar never heard the round before it hit, but registered the whine of a ricochet right next to his head and felt the sliver of rock slice into his cheek. He slammed lower behind the outcropping and felt his face, seeing blood on his assault gloves. His platoon leader, First Lieutenant Blake Alberty, threw himself into the prone and said with black humor, “You get our asses out of here, and I’ll get you another Purple Heart.”

Blackmar said, “I’ve got nothing else to work with. The eighty-ones won’t reach and the Apaches are dry.”

Another stream of incoming machine-gun rounds raked their position, and Alberty returned fire, saying, “We’re in trouble. And I’m not going to be the next COP Keating.”

Both from the Twenty-Fifth Infantry Division, they were part of a string of combat outposts in the Kunar province of Afghanistan. Ostensibly designed to prevent the infiltration of Taliban fighters from the nearby border of Pakistan, in reality they were a giant bull’s-eye for anyone wanting a scalp. Attacked at the COP on a daily basis, they still followed orders, continuing their patrols to the nearby villages in an effort to get the locals on the government’s side.

The mountains of the Kunar province were extreme and afforded the Taliban an edge simply by putting the Americans on equal terms.

Everything was done on foot, and the mountains negated artillery, leaving the troops reliant on helicopter gunship support. The same thing COP Keating had relied on when it was overrun two years before.

The incoming fire grew in strength, and Alberty began receiving reports of casualties. They were on their own and about to be overrun. A trophy for the Taliban. Blackmar heard the platoon’s designated marksmen firing, their rifles’ individual cracks distinctive among the rattle of automatic fire, and felt impotent.

As the forward observer, the purpose of his entire career had been to provide steel on target for the infantry he supported. He was the man they turned to when they wanted American firepower, and now he had nothing to provide, his radio silent.

Alberty shouted, “They’re flanking, they’re flanking! We need the gunships.”

Blackmar was about to reply when his radio squawked. “Kilo Seven-Nine, this is Texas Thirteen. You have targets?”

He said, “Yes, yes. What’s your ordnance?”

“Five-hundred-pound GBU.”

GBU? A fast mover with JDAMs?

He said, “What’s your heading?”

The pilot said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m a BUFF. Way above you.”

Blackmar heard the words and couldn’t believe it. He’d called in everything from eighty-one-millimeter mortars to F-15 strike aircraft, but he’d never called fire from a B-52 Stratofortress. Not that it mattered, as the five-hundred-pound JDAM was guided by GPS.

He lased the Taliban position for range, shacked up his coordinates, and sent the fire request. The pilot reported bombs out, asking for a splash. He kept his eyes on the enemy, waiting. Nothing happened.

Alberty screamed, “You hit the village, you hit the village! Shift, shift!”

The village? That damn thing is seven hundred meters away.

He checked his location and lased again, now plotting the impact danger close as the enemy advanced. He repeated the call with the new coordinates and waited for the splash.

Alberty shouted again, “You’re pounding the fucking village! Get the rounds on target, damn it!”

Blackmar frantically checked his map and his range, shouting back, “I’m right! I’m on target. The bombs aren’t tracking.”

The volume of enemy fire increased, and Alberty began maneuvering his forces, forgetting about the firepower circling at thirty thousand feet. Blackmar called for another salvo, recalculating yet again. No ordnance impacted the enemy. Thirty minutes later, the Americans’ superior firepower meant nothing, as the fight went hand-to-hand.

 • • • 

Captain “Tiny” Shackleford noticed the first glitch when the coordinates on his screen showed the RQ-107 unmanned aerial vehicle a hundred miles away from the designated flight path. Which, given his target area over Iran’s nuclear facilities, was a significant problem.

Flying the drone from inside Tonopah airbase, Nevada, he felt a rush of adrenaline as if he were still in the cockpit of an F-16 over enemy airspace and his early-warning sensors had triggered a threat. He called an alert, saying he had an issue, then realized he’d lost the link with the UAV. He began working the problem, trying to prevent the drone from going into autopilot and landing, while the CIA owners went into overdrive.

The RQ-107 was a new stealth UAV, the latest and greatest evolution of unmanned reconnaissance, and as such, it was used out of Afghanistan to probe the nuclear ambitions of Iran. It had the proven ability to fly above the Persian state with impunity and was a major link to the intelligence community on Iranian intentions. Losing one inside Iranian airspace would be a disaster. An army of technicians went to work, a modern-day version of
Apollo 13
.

They failed.

 • • • 

Mark Oglethorpe, the United States secretary of defense, said, “We’ve had forty-two confirmed GPS failures. We’ve identified the glitch, and it’s repaired, but we lost a UAV inside Iran because of it.”

Alexander Palmer, the national security adviser, said, “Glitch? I’d say it’s more than a glitch. What happened?”

“The new AEP system of the GPS constellation had a software-hardware mating problem. It’s something that the contractor couldn’t see beforehand.”

“Bullshit. It’s something they
failed
to see. Did it affect the civilian systems? Am I going to hear about this from Transportation?”

“No. Only the military signal, but you’re definitely going to hear about it from the Iranians. They’re already claiming they brought our bird down.”

Palmer rubbed his forehead, thinking about what to brief the president. “I don’t give a damn about that. They got the drone, and that’s going to be a fact on tomorrow’s news. Let ’em crow.”

“You want to allow them the propaganda of saying they can capture our most sophisticated UAV? We’ll look like idiots.”

“Someone
is
an idiot. But I’d rather the world wonder about the Iranian statements.”

“As opposed to what?”

“The fucking truth, that’s what.”