Direct Action - 03 (13 page)

Next came five box jumps. From a standing position, you had to jump on top of a wooden box that was two feet high. Also for five reps. Then came five reps on the dip bars. After that came five Goblet Squats which were done holding a 25-pound kettlebell. Then, they did 25-meter sprints down the beach to shake it out. That was one set. There were four more to go.

Deckard was sucking. Most of the other guys were on steroids and were blowing through the exercises at first. Rick was actually the first one to puke. The entire workout was done for time and now it was starting to catch up to them. Ramon puked off the edge of the deck during their third time through the Renegade Man Makers. Deckard puked third, this time during the sprints. Zach got it on the last set, barfing into the ocean as he staggered away after the box jumps.

After the fifth and last set they all lay around panting. Except for Bill. He was a human wrecking ball. Deckard saw that he was covered in sweat but didn't even seem to be breathing that hard. The Liquid Sky leader picked up a water bottle, swished the water around in his mouth, spat it out in the sand and walked inside.

“Fuck me,” Deckard said to himself.

When he finally managed to get to his feet and walk back to his beach house he was just in time to see Nadeesha glide out of the waves and stride up the beach in a blue bikini. She was on her own PT program and the guys simply left her to her own devices. She made eye contact with him for a split second before turning and walking down the beach to her place, not even acknowledging his existence.

Deckard stood in the cool morning air for another minute before going inside and taking a shower. Most of the food in the refrigerator had gone bad and had to be thrown out but Deckard downed some cereal he found in the pantry. His body was starving and he'd have to make sure he got some more food in his system soon to help recover from the workout. He also drank several more glasses of water.

After he got dressed, Deckard locked the door and walked a few blocks to the main street. He was on his own time until the team party tonight. It was time to get to work.

Hailing a cab, he told the driver that he wanted to hit up the market in Port Louis, the island's capital located about twenty minutes away from where he was on the northern tip of Mauritius. The cab driver nodded. Almost everyone seemed to speak English here.

On the way into the city, Deckard observed the port. It really was a multicultural island with many faiths and people living on top of one another without any real problems. It wasn't just the churches, mosques, and temples, but even the port was filled with run-of-the-mill fishing vessels and Chinese junks. There were also naval ships, which looked to be retrofitted with stealth characteristics.

Paying the cab driver, he walked into the center of the city. Port Louis was second world, but perfectly comfortable and the people very friendly. Still, he couldn't help but notice that like most countries he traveled too, the tallest buildings in town were the ones reserved for the banks and private financial institutions. Like Malta, Mauritius was an off shore finance nexus.

Deckard walked a long surveillance-detection route, winding his way through the city blocks and stopping several times. He had to make absolutely sure he wasn't being followed.

The market was a large two-story building in the city center. Produce filled baskets in every stall with bright orange, green, red, and yellow fruits, along with various nuts, stalks, and roots. Looking through the breezeway up to the second story, Deckard could see clothing and other household goods for sale. Climbing the stairs, he pretended to look at a few stalls before stopping at a stall that sold electronics.

He bought a Samsung cellphone with cash and picked up a SIM card while he was there. Outside, he found a vender selling phone cards and bought several from him. Deckard again took a long meandering route that would allow him to see if he was being followed. Finding a pizzeria, he ducked inside and asked the waiter to be seated in the back of the restaurant.

Ordering a pizza and a drink, he went to work as soon as the waiter walked away. Slipping in the SIM card, he inserted the battery into the phone and found that he had a half charge. Good enough. Scratching off the code bars on the back of the phone cards, he typed them in and put minutes on his phone.

Furiously, Deckard began hammering out an intel report with his thumbs.

Pat sat up in his chair as his cell phone vibrated across the table.

Samruk International was still working out of a hangar at the airport in Astana, Kazakhstan. Frank and Sergeant Major Koran had flown in with the Kazakhs from Mexico and made sure they were paid for services rendered before putting them on two weeks of leave. Now the troops were filtering back from across the country. The problem was, Samruk International didn't have a new contract for them yet. The Kazakh mercenaries were re-fitting, and Korgan was drawing up a training plan, but they still needed to find work.

Now that Frank was back to his old self and walking around without crutches, he was setting up business meetings with the Kazakh government to bid on a counter-narcotics contract. Something local would be nice for a change.

Snatching the phone off his desk, Pat typed in his PIN and saw that he had a new text message. As the former Delta Force operator began to read, he immediately knew what he was looking at.

“Aghassi!” He called across the hangar. His voice echoed through the open space. A massive An-125 Russian cargo jet sat in the middle of the hangar, its twin brother was outside on the tarmac. They were expensive as hell to operate, but necessary for a highly mobile private military company.

“Get over here!”

Aghassi and Nikita were currently tasked with training-up a six-man recce cell but this was critical. They had a man in the field. Under and alone.

Pat scrolled through the message:

Operating out of Mauritius

Seven operators incl/ me

Last tgt in dubai told he was money for terr org

Previous tgt in afghan said they ran dope for karzai

guy in Pak named Henderson girl back home?

others, Bill, Paul, Zach, and Rick. Former SEALs. Bill 1IC

Ramon. former 1st sfg CIF

Nadeesha. not sure, jsoc intel maybe

nasty group, witness war crimes in afghan.

still on probation w/ tm

“Ho-ly shit,” Pat said. “Fucking Deckard. He did it.”

The assassination in Dubai was all over the news. Fingers were getting pointed everywhere, but mostly at Mossad. No one could prove anything, of course.

“I'm catching the first flight out tonight,” Aghassi said. He was now reading the message over Pat's shoulder.

“Got it. I'll get in touch with Cody back in the States for the electronic piece.”

Cody was a hacker that Samruk had contracted previously for the Mexico operation.

The next text message was an address to the place where Deckard was staying on the island. Aghassi wrote it down and then opened one of the laptops sitting at their
ad hoc
command post and began making arrangements. The phone vibrated one more time.

There is a # in my kit. pocket on plate carrier i used in MX

Remember the two NSW guys we ran into down there

Call them. find out who these guys are

want to know what the fuck happened to them.

Pat texted him back to acknowledge the message. He didn't hear back. Deckard was probably already throwing the cell phone into the ocean. The last text referred to two SEAL Team Six operators that they had crossed paths with while they were sniffing out an arms trafficking pipeline in Mexico. The two Spanish speaking SEALs were acting as advisers to the Mexican forces battling it out with the cartels. Tearing through Deckard's combat gear in the corner of the hangar, Pat found the piece of paper with their numbers on it. Dusty and Flakjacket were their nicknames.

The last two weeks had been spent waiting for Deckard's corpse to turn up somewhere, in which case they would be lucky because it was far more likely that he just disappeared into the ether never to be seen or heard from again. Now that they had an inside man, it was time to start getting inside the enemy's decision-making cycle. Pat sat back down and starting making some calls.

Deckard erased the phone's memory, then removed the battery. He devoured the pizza, his body still starved from the morning workout. Paying the bill, he made his way back towards the port and tossed his cell phone over the railing and into the Indian Ocean. The city's main shopping mall was right across the bay so Deckard walked over and bought some food and other household items he needed for the duration of his stay. However long that might be.

Taking a cab back to his pad, Deckard put away the groceries. He had to be careful not to get comfortable here. It was an island oasis that Europeans flocked to on vacation, but for him it was Bad Guy country. It didn't even have to be his mistake. A few phone calls to the wrong people in the United States for instance. If certain information began to fall into Bill's hands, Liquid Sky would start to get suspicious. Suspicion would quickly give way to paranoia. You could never be too careful in this line of work. That paranoia would lead immediately to Deckard being executed. He could never let his guard down here. He was always operational, even when not on an operation.

He continued to wonder if his entire house wasn't wired for sound and video with someone playing voyeur as they watched him on a closed-circuit television screen. If that paranoia did set in with Liquid Sky, he would never see it coming once they decided to do him in. He could improvise some weapons like in Dubai, or better yet, secure a gun somewhere on the island, but for now, secrecy was his security.

Back at his bungalow, he took a long nap on the couch with the television muted. Late into the afternoon, he woke as someone banged on the screen door that faced out to the ocean.

“Hey,” Zach said, “team meeting before the party. Let's go.”

“Sure,” Deckard said as he rubbed his eyes. “Be right there.”