Chasing the Lost (15 page)

He pointed at the land coming up on the south side of Sapelo Sound. “Actually, people think that one island out there. It really be two. Sapelo be main one. That island there be known as Blackbeard Island National Wildlife Refuge. I take that as good sign. Russians pick wrong area to make their base. We show them what real pirates are like.”

Sarah finally spoke. “How come you and Gator have all this?” She indicated the dual fifty up front, then the machine guns on either side. “All these weapons are illegal, aren’t they?”

“You complaining, lady?” Kono asked. As they passed parallel to the northern end of the island, Kono turned off the mufflers and began throttling up, knowing they were out of sight and sound of the objective, and time was of the essence now.

“I’m not complaining,” Sarah said. “Just curious.”

“Curious not a good thing here and now,” Kono said.

“Are you really doing this for Chase?” Sarah asked. “Or do you and Gator have your own agenda? I’ve watched you two and the way you look at each other when things are said, and the way you two whisper to each other.”

“Chase my friend.”

“That’s not an answer,” Sarah said. She looked past Kono at Erin. “Cole is my son. I need to know what’s going on.”

“You a suspicious lady,” Kono said.

“My son’s been kidnapped and his finger cut off. He’ll be killed in less than twelve hours unless we rescue him. I have reasons to be more than a bit paranoid.”

Erin nudged Kono. “Tell her about Maria.”

Kono’s hand jerked the wheel slightly, and everyone swayed. “Not the time.” A muscle on the side of his face vibrated.

Erin looked around Kono. “His sister died of a drug overdose in Savannah. She was engaged to Gator.”

Kono pushed forward on the throttle, pushing the
Fina
to its limit. The roar of the engine was almost deafening. Sapelo Island was racing by on the right side, a mile away.

“Russian drugs?” Sarah asked, and Kono spared her a surprised glance.

Sarah reached out and put a hand on Kono’s shoulder, more accurately the body armor covering his shoulder. “I’m sorry about your sister. And I want vengeance too, just for Cole’s finger right now, but I’d like to, I need to, get the rest of him back. Alive. Please.”

Kono pulled back on the throttle as he edged the wheel over hard right, and they were heading toward the beach.

“What are you doing?” Sarah gripped onto the metal edge of the cockpit, just behind the armored glass.

Kono’s hands were working the throttle and wheel. The
Fina
slowed further. A line of surf was directly ahead.

* * * * *

“Fin harder,” Riley muttered to himself, then sputtered as a wave broke over his face and he spit out salt water. He remembered the instructors of the Royal Danish Navy Fromandkorpset yelling that at him and his teammates as they went through the Danes’s combat swim school. It had been a brutal three weeks of training, notable both for its physical demands and the complete lack of hazing. The instructors had shouted it as encouragement, not disparagement. They let the freezing water and the long distances do the work on the attendees, challenging them to their limits.

Riley checked his compass heading, adjusting his finning slightly to get back on course, then did a quick head-up, out of the water, and looked over his shoulder.

The objective looked a discouragingly long distance away.

“Fin harder,” Riley repeated with a bit of anxiety, knowing the entire op rested on him getting to the objective in time to do the recon.

* * * * *

Chase walked back and forth in the hangar, checking his watch too many times.

The small earplug from the radio Kono had given him had yet to make a sound, and he was tempted to break static just to make sure the damn thing worked.

Except he knew it worked because they’d done a com check before splitting up.

Chase forced himself to sit down, back against the wall of the hangar. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.

He was going to need the adrenaline later. No need wasting it now.

* * * * *

Gator’s hand was literally shaking on the throttle of the trolling motor. The Zodiac was moving at an excruciating crawl through the water. He kept close to shore, just far enough out not to drive the small prop into the sand.

He glanced down at the plastic case containing the Barrett fifty cal, and that was enough to calm him for the moment.

Anticipation.

* * * * *

Kono pulled the throttle almost to neutral and threw the wheel hard right once more, pivoting the
Fina
to the north. Surf washed onto the beach to their immediate right and directly ahead. But it was a point of land on the right, and a narrow strip of water beckoned behind it.

“Told you,” Kono said. “Two islands.” He glanced at the clock. “Tide just right to make it through, me think.”

“You ‘
think
?
’
” Sarah repeated.

“We make it,” Kono said. “God wouldna want it any other way.”

* * * * *

Gator grounded the Zodiac on the thin spit of land that couldn’t quite earn the title of “island.” It was a shell-encrusted, treeless strip of land, exposed at low tide, and almost completely underwater at high. The shells were the remains of the meals of generations of birds. Gator pulled the Zodiac behind him, hearing the shells crunch, but trusting that the thick rubber would hold. He pulled it over the two-foot-high ridge that was the backbone of the finger of dry area, and then down the other side. He shoved an anchor into the shells and sand, making sure the boat was secure.

He broke out his night-vision goggles and peered to the south. He immediately picked up the glow of several lights at the objective over a mile away. They had to be running off of a generator, so it meant somebody was home. Gator had half-feared the objective would be deserted.

Then he unpacked the Barrett.

* * * * *

The stream narrowed until reeds were brushing against both sides of the
Fina
. Kono kept the boat moving, hands on the throttle and wheel. Sarah was still on his right, Erin on his left. Mikey had yet to show his face.

Then, suddenly, the water widened and they came out into the sound, southwest of the objective. Kono flipped some switches, and the boat was completely blacked-out.

Mufflers on, Kono pointed the
Fina
straight ahead, and they began to ease their way across the water.

* * * * *

Riley rolled over. The small inlet he’d picked as his ingress route was two hundred meters ahead and to the right. The Russian dock was ahead and to the left. He could see the glow of several lights, and heard the distant rumble of a generator providing the electricity. A single red light glowed on the end of the dock. His navigating had been just about spot-on. He flipped back and finned harder, feeling the burn in his thighs and lower abdomen.

When his heels hit sand, he finally halted. He sat and pulled the fins off. He then crawled forward, following the water through the marsh. He could see trees ahead. The water grew shallower, now about two feet deep. A hummock of dry ground beckoned. He crawled onto it and pulled his ruck up. He unsealed the waterproof bag and pulled out his body armor, and slipped it over the wetsuit. Then he put on his load-bearing equipment, which carried his extra ammunition, knife, and pistol. He grabbed the HK416 assault rifle and made sure it was ready for action, slipping the sling over his shoulder.

Last, he pulled out a set of night-vision goggles and slid them down over his eyes, turning them on. The night gave way to bright green, the few lights from the Russian camp glowing like searchlights.

Riley keyed the PRC-152. “Infil complete. Moving into observation position.”

There were no acknowledgements, nor should there be any.

Riley moved forward at a fast crouch, weapon at the ready, keeping his feet under the surface of the water to avoid splashing. He was about a hundred yards from firmer ground and the treeline when he froze.

A scream of pure agony ripped across the low-country from the Russian camp.

It was early, but Chase would rather circle uselessly overhead than sit here.

He put the parachute on his back and rigged himself, not as easy as it appeared. Without someone else to jumpmaster inspect his work, he had to make sure he did everything perfectly. He snapped the leg straps, then squatted to tighten them down. He checked his gear as best he could.

He realized he honestly couldn’t remember his last jump.

The twin-engine plane roared down the runway and then up into the night sky. The lights of Hilton Head twinkled below as the pilot gained altitude. They were going up to ten thousand feet, the limit the pilot agreed to, since the plane wasn’t going to be pressurized.

High enough to just be a distant buzz in the sky overhead to those below, but not an immediate threat.

The earpiece crackled with Riley’s confirmation that he had made landfall and was moving forward.

Chase went forward and leaned over. “How much longer?”

“Three minutes until altitude.”

* * * * *

Kono now had the
Fina
less than a mile from the dim glow that indicated the Russian camp. The engines were idling.

He tapped Erin. “When we go, I move in fast, right to the edge of their dock, where that red light be. I hit reverse, then idle. As soon as I do, I move forward and take the gun. You use engines to hold us in position. Good with that?”

Erin nodded. “I’m good with it.”

“Won’t be long now,” Kono said.

* * * * *

Gator peered through the scope mounted on top of the Barrett. The magnification zoomed the Russian compound close enough to make out details.

“What the fuck?” Gator muttered as he tried to figure out what he was seeing.

* * * * *

Riley held off calling in the cavalry because he was still the scout and all he had was a scream; Custer could have used some scouts. The generator was making a lot of noise, so he felt confident he could move faster, going into an all-out sprint, as best one could sprint in two feet of water with a sandy bottom, up the inlet until he reached a position about seventy-five yards from the compound. He threw himself onto the edge of the inlet and peered at the compound through his night-vision goggles.

It took a few seconds for him to sort out exactly what he was observing.

Yes, there were three huts set back in the treeline. But in front of them was a group of men, five, gathered around two poles set vertically in the ground, with a fire in a pit between the poles. And tied to the two poles were two men, stripped down to their underwear.

One of the men screamed, a twin to the earlier one, as a Russian pressed a piece of rebar he’d pulled out of the fire against the man’s bare chest.

Riley felt a moment of relief, knowing it wasn’t Cole he’d heard.

He scanned, taking in the details. There were no lights in the huts, which he hoped meant there were only five Russians, the ones gathered around the two prisoners. If Cole was here, he was probably being held in one of the huts, but Riley was too far away to see if any were locked from the outside.

The Russians were, of course, armed, two with AK-74s slung over shoulders. The others had holsters on their hips, including the torturer. Riley checked the dock. There was a waist-high wall near the end and as he focused, Riley saw the snout of a heavy gun poking out of it toward the water. The wall was just one side of a bunker. He had to assume someone was inside the bunker, manning the gun.

So they didn’t exactly want visitors.

He could see into the camouflaged boathouses, and two were empty. The third held a cabin cruiser, about a thirty-footer, best as he could estimate.

Another scream.

Riley shifted back to the torturing. He pulled off the night-vision goggles; between the security lights, the fire, and the stars overhead, he had decent visibility. The main reason he’d used them was to make sure there were no infrared lights or warning sensors. He pulled out a set of binoculars.

Zooming in, he noted that the prisoner on the left pole had a bandage over his shoulder. The prisoner on the right had his right hand encased in a cast. It didn’t take rocket science to figure out who they were: the two who’d tried to kidnap Sarah and had shot Chelsea, then showed up at Erin’s, only to be evicted by Gator.

No one matched the description that Chase had given for Karralkov, but that wasn’t surprising. They hadn’t expected the boss himself to be out here. The goal was rescuing Cole, not getting Karralkov.

Riley focused on the three huts. The door was open on one, shut on the other two. No padlocks or bars on the window, but that didn’t mean Cole wasn’t inside, chained to a stake, or in a cage.

Riley checked the time: 0252. He had less than a half-hour.

He keyed his radio. “Sitrep. Machine gun on end of dock in bunker. Assume it’s manned. Five men, two with AK74s, the others with pistols. They’re torturing two men tied to stakes. No sign of Cole yet. I’m going in to check the huts.”

He began to move to the right, circling the encampment.

* * * * *

Gator was enjoying the show. He keyed his radio in response to Riley’s quick summary. “The two on the poles are definitely the ones who I met. Guess Karralkov wasn’t too happy with their performance.”

He couldn’t hear the screams at this distance, but he could see the mouth of the man wounded in the shoulder open wide as the red-hot iron was pressed once more against his flesh.

One of the Russians produced a pair of pliers and a knife. Despite the desperate attempts of the prisoner to avoid it, the Russian eventually got the pliers into the man’s mouth. He probed about and got what he wanted.

The knife slashed as the Russian held the tongue extended.

He tossed the severed piece of flesh into the fire.

Guess they were done talking with him, Gator figured.

Then Gator shifted attention to studying the bunker at the end of the pier.

* * * * *

“We should help them,” Erin said without much conviction to Kono and Sarah as the
Fina
bobbed in Sapelo Sound, south of the objective, engines softly growling.

“We stay with plan,” Kono said. But even as he spoke, he was edging forward ever so slightly on the throttles, moving the patrol boat closer to the entrance of the creek that led to the Russian dock.

* * * * *

The huts were little more than plywood fabrications, hastily thrown together. They had no windows on the sides or back. Riley slung his HK416 over his shoulder, flipped down his night-vision goggles, and pulled out his pistol and his knife. He jammed his knife between two sheets of plywood, then waited. As another scream pierced the night, he levered the knife, pulling one sheet away from the two-by-four it was nailed to. Holding the plywood out, Riley peered inside the dark interior.

A dozen bunks scattered about. Some tables.

No place for Cole to be held.

Riley pulled his knife out. He could hear someone shouting in Russian, obviously a question. He got on his belly and low-crawled through the grass to the middle hut. Another loud moan, different than the scream.

The earpiece came alive with Chase’s voice.

“Five minutes to drop. Status?”

Gator was first to reply. “Ready to go hot.”

Then Kono. “In position.”

Riley whispered his response. “Checking middle hut. South one clear.”

The next scream was a howl, a different person. It was clear the torturer had switched victims. An equal-opportunity dealer of pain. There was almost a nonstop moaning in the background, a symphony of pain.

Riley scanned the interior of the second hut. A single table, totally clear of anything except a set of scales, a bill-counting machine, and several packages wrapped in cellophane. The exchange room.

Riley slid back down. One more to go.

A shot rang out.

* * * * *

Gator curled his finger around the trigger of the Barrett. “Scratch one of the guys tied up. South pole is dead. Shot to the head. He musta given a wrong answer. Guy is holding gun to second man’s head.”

Gator pulled his eye away from the scope and reached into his bag of tricks. He pulled out a second magazine of fifty-caliber rounds.

Special rounds.

And he placed that magazine ready next to him.

* * * * *

On board the
Fina
, Erin looked over at Sarah, but the other’s woman’s focus was straight ahead.

Kono was still edging them in, ever closer.

* * * * *

Riley bellied up to the rear of the last hut.

“One minute,” Chase announced, his voice deceptively calm. “Green for jump?” They’d discussed this in the operations order. Chase could jump and still get diverted above 4,000 feet by ‘driving’ his parachute out into the Sound and landing near the
Fina
. But there was a point at which gravity was going to rule, and he was landing in the camp.

“Green,” Riley said, scurrying even faster to the final hut.

A voice was shouting loudly in Russian. Demanding. Threatening. It sounded the same in any language. Someone was replying, begging, pleading. A different voice, the same tone.

After seeing his partner shot, Riley had no doubt the man was telling the interrogator anything he wanted to know, although Riley had a sense this was more an object lesson for the other Russians than a desire to acquire information—after all, what could the two thugs know, except to tell how they fucked up?

Riley slid his knife in between two boards.

“Airborne,” Chase’s voice came over the net.

* * * * *

Chase was having trouble getting stable.

This was not like riding a bicycle.

He tumbled in the air, trying to draw up the instincts he’d first learned in the freefall tower at Fort Bragg so many years ago, and then perfected at Yuma Proving Grounds.

He only had ten thousand feet to work with, which might have seemed like a lot, but wasn’t when accelerating toward the ground. If he opened his chute while twirling, he could get a streamer, and he’d slam in at terminal velocity.

Chase cleared his mind, focused, and then arms and legs akimbo, arrested his spin.

Late. He was at only six thousand feet.

Chase pulled his ripcord, and the opening shock jerked him upright. He quickly got oriented: Atlantic to the east was the big picture, land to the west.

“I’ve got about ten seconds of air before I’m committed,” he announced over the net.

* * * * *

The third hut was a jumble of boxes, crates, rolls of material; so much crap, Riley couldn’t make out much from the crack he’d opened in the plywood.

He heard Chase’s transmission, and knew lives were going to be determined in the next ten seconds.

Then he heard the distance echo of a big gun firing, informing him the decision had been made for them all.

* * * * *

Gator watched the head of the Russian holding the gun to the surviving prisoner evaporate into a mist. He was already shifting his aim.

“Contact!” Gator yelled into the radio as an afterthought.

The fact that he had initiated the contact wasn’t important.

* * * * *

Chase dumped air, descending faster now that he was committed to landing at the encampment. He could see the flickering flame from the firepit, and he steered his chute to land on the northern side, just outside the treeline.

* * * * *

Riley slid his pistol back in the holster and used both hands to grip the plywood. If the Russians had Cole in the hut, there was no doubt someone would come in here with a gun and finish the job, or at the very least, use him as a bargaining chip.

Riley cursed as the nails defeated his attempt.

* * * * *

At the sound of the fifty-cal rifle, Kono slammed forward the throttles and the
Fina
roared ahead, heading straight toward the red light of the dock. Kono accelerated the boat for six seconds, planing it out, then jerked the throttles back to neutral.

“Just steer straight!” he shouted at Erin as he let go of the controls and headed for the dual fifties. An arc of tracers erupted from the bunker at the end of the dock and hit the water twenty meters in front of the boat, then the gunner ‘walked’ the tracers up into the bow of the boat.

The sound of rounds punching into the hull mixed with that of the machine gun firing.

* * * * *

Cursing, Riley ran around the side of the hut, stock of the HK tight to his shoulder.

The Russians were confused, but the machine gun opening up on the dock gave them some focus, two of them running in that direction. Two more were running toward the huts.

Riley fired on instinct, four times, two bullets toward each of the Russians.

The lead one dropped like dead men do—abruptly and without grace.

The second one was unscathed, and fired a burst from his AK74 at Riley, semi-automatic, controlled, which indicated he wasn’t a rank amateur blasting away on automatic.

Riley was spun about as a round hit his body armor at an angle in the left shoulder. He went with the impact, falling to the ground, keeping his grip on the HK and continuing the roll, coming to one knee, weapon stock tight against his shoulder once more, grimacing in pain as he fired, this time pulling the trigger five times in an arc at the second Russian. Something hit, because he finally went down.

Riley didn’t want to test it. He aimed, noted his hands were shaking, took a deep breath, then put two more rounds into the body.

* * * * *

Chase flared at the last second, but still hit the ground hard. He’d watched the two that had been running for the huts drop. Still in his harness, he lifted up his MP-5 to fire at the other two.