Payback (4 page)

It was a three-hour truck ride in the updated version of the trusty old six-by-six basic military truck. They turned off Interstate 8 somewhere the other side of Boulder Oaks, just outside the boundary of the Cleveland National Forest, where they had a loose arrangement with the landowner that they could use his mountains for target practice as long as they closed any gates they came to and policed up their brass and any trash. They always did.

They drove five miles on a dirt track to the left of the highway into sharp-rising hills and mountains. Howard had done this route before, and he came to a stop at a windblown live oak tree that had managed to stay alive through the last four droughts.

Five minutes later Senior Chief Sadler had the squad in a diamond formation and looked over at Murdock.

“Move them into a wide V formation so they don't kill everyone in sight,” he said. “You and I will be at the center observing. Do a radio check.”

He listened as Sadler had each man chime in on the personal Motorola radios.

“All working, sir.”

“Move them out, Sadler. Keep five yards separation. No firing until my orders.”

The sun was out, tempering the five-thousand-foot altitude, as the SEALs worked up the first slope toward a pair of twin peaks about eight miles distant.

“Hit the dirt,” Murdock called in the radio. “Okay, we're going to fire and move. I want the squad to move into a line of skirmishers on the senior chief. Ten yards apart. Move it now.” Murdock watched as the men at the end of the V ran back to line up with Saddler. Murdock moved up to the left end of the line.

“Teamwork is the key. I want you to count off by twos from the left. Count.” He barked out the first “one,” the next man called out “two,” the next called out “one,” and so on along the line.

“Number-one men, I want you to fire twelve rounds on my command, straight ahead. As you fire, number-two men will be charging ten yards straight ahead. Check your field of fire. When number-one man finishes firing, the number-two man will hit the dirt and cover for him as he runs up ten yards past where his cover man is firing. Check your fields of fire. We don't want anyone getting killed out here. It would mess up the whole weekend. Each man will fire and move three times. Any questions?”

There were none. “Yes, I know, we've done this a hundred times, but this is a refresher. Time out your cover fire so you can shoot your last shot when your partner hits the dirt ahead of you. Number-two men charge forward first, number-ones support him with live fire. Ready. Start running and firing.”

Murdock hit the dirt and fired straight ahead. He timed his rounds, and quit when his number-two hit the dirt. Then he ran straight ahead past his support man ten yards, before he dropped into the dirt and rocks. The firing behind him stopped. He looked back and saw Jaybird lift up and run forward. He had twenty yards to go. Murdock timed his firing to last until Jaybird dropped down in a prone position ready to fire.

After Murdock had run forward three times, he stood and watched the rest of the men. Only one more man had to complete his run and get covering fire.

“All right,” Murdock said into the Motorola. “Anybody get killed?” He waited a moment. “Good, now let's move up into a line of skirmishers and see what we can do about the nest of snipers up there in that old oak snag out about two hundred yards.”

Murdock took one end of the line of six men, and Senior Chief Sadler manned the far end.

“Walking fire, every ten seconds. No twenties. Keep the damn line straight. Let's move.”

They worked ahead with assault fire, blasting the old snag. Twice Murdock had to yell to keep the line straight. When they were within fifty yards of the snag, Murdock called a cease-fire.

“Hold it right here. We're going to work a new wrinkle. Been a while since we've played horse. Now and then we
get into a situation where we have to carry out one of our men. Tough, and we can do some training on it.

“Right now I want you to pair up by weight. That's Jaybird and Lam, Ching and Sadler, Bradford and Van Dyke. I've got the small one, Howard. We'll be working downhill, so that may help. I want you to take the other man on your back and pack him for two hundred yards. Then we switch. We're going to do that five times if our legs hold out. Let's do it.”

Murdock motioned for Howard to get on his back. Howard weighed in at 250 to Murdock's 210.

“You're giving away forty pounds, Skipper,” Jaybird said.

“So, you want to take him?” Bradford snapped.

Murdock lifted the big man, gritted his teeth, and started downhill, holding on to Howard's legs with Howard's huge arms draped over Murdock's shoulders. He took the steps deliberately, not sure how far he could go. He was in good shape, but this was a real test.

He worked well the first hundred yards. There were some yells and screeches from the other men. Murdock concentrated on getting his feet in front of each other and down the hill. By the time he made it to the last twenty yards, his legs were feeling rubbery, as if they might collapse.

Howard thumped him on the shoulder. “Far enough, Skipper,” he said, and Murdock let him down, then dropped to the ground rubbing his legs.

The others arrived, and the carriers looked spent. Murdock gave everyone a moment, then stood. “Let's move out another two hundred. Change riders and carriers.”

Howard picked up Murdock as if he was an inflated toy and marched down the hill. He looked over his shoulder at Murdock. “Hey, sometimes I have trouble with distances. We might get closer to three hundred than two. Won't hurt nothing. Know I'm a load. I'm gonna be damn sure not to get shot up bad.”

Howard did work down almost three hundred before they changed places and caught up with the other men. Murdock's legs were hurting again, and when everyone was at the six-hundred-yard mark, Murdock called it off.

“Enough for this time. We'll try to keep the weight class
more even when we have Bravo with us. Now, take ten and let my legs get back to normal.”

“Hey, one thing,” Jaybird chirped. “I'm gonna write a law that says Howard can't get bad shot up on a mission.”

“Yeah, and I'll sign that bill into law,” Murdock said.

Murdock gave himself and the rest fifteen minutes to get their breath back and legs rested. Then he pointed to the tallest peak in the range. “See Bald Cap over there? How far do you think the top of it is from us?”

“Ten miles,” Bradford said.

“No way,” Lam said. “Look at those ridges in front of it. Got to be twenty-five at least.”

“That's our target for tonight,” Murdock said.

“Twenty-five out and twenty-five back?” Ching asked.

“No, we fly back,” Jaybird said.

“Not going all the way,” Murdock said. “We'll do ten miles due north and then turn around.”

“Only ten?” Van Dyke asked. “Hey, we're getting a break.”

“Then back to the bus?” Jaybird asked.

“About the size of it,” Murdock said.

“Good,” Jaybird said. “That's where the food has to be. Even an MRE will look good by the time we get back.”

Murdock put Howard in the lead with Bradford and Lam right behind him. They hiked in a column five yards apart. Murdock was behind Lam watching the two men who'd been wounded on the last mission. Any trouble and he'd drop them out for pickup on the return leg.

Everyone made the ten miles. Then Murdock turned them around at once and led out at a stronger pace for the bus.

“Oh, yes, big bad food-laden bus, here we come,” Jaybird sang out.

Bradford straggled a little on the return hike. Murdock gave the lead to Jaybird and hung back with Bradford. They were a quarter of a mile behind when the others hit the bus.

“Sorry, Skipper, just not as strong yet as I'm gonna be. Another two weeks and I'll be shit-kicking guys all over the place.”

The men had a big cardboard box out of the bus when Murdock got there, but they hadn't opened it.

Murdock slit the tape with his KA-BAR and handed out the box lunches he had conned out of the mess hall early that morning. They each had two two-slices-of-bread sandwiches, raw carrots, a big dill pickle, a candy bar, and a small can of mixed fruit with a snap top.

“Hey, anybody want to trade his mixed fruit for one of my sandwiches?” Vinnie Van Dyke asked. Nobody did.

After the meal, Murdock gave them fifteen minutes more to relax, then sent Jaybird and Lam out to the target range. He had them unfold the cardboard boxes they carried. They were two feet square, and the SEALs anchored them with a few rocks so they wouldn't blow away. They put a box at four, five, and six hundred yards, then jogged back to the bus.

“Going to see exactly how far we can use the EAR weapon,” Murdock said. “Bradford, try one shot at the box at four hundred yards.”

Bradford went prone, sighted in on the box, and fired. There was the usual whooshing sound as the Enhanced Audio Rifle fired and the blast of air out the back kicked up a dust devil.

The box at four hundred yards slammed backward, collapsed, and rolled thirty yards along the side of the hill.

“Works at four,” Murdock said. “Sadler, try the five-hundred-yard target.”

He did, and the box flattened and jolted backward ten yards.

“Acceptable,” Murdock said. “Ching, take a shot with the EAR at the six-hundred-yard box.”

He did, and there was no movement of the box or the ground on either side of it. Fifty yards this side of the box, there was a minor disturbance and some dust kicked up.

“So, we have a working range of five hundred for the EAR. Who hasn't fired one of the twenties in a while?”

Three men lifted hands, and Sadler, Howard, and Jaybird each put three rounds through the twenty at a huge rock out about a thousand yards.

When they finished, Murdock told the men to load up, then police the area. He thought about the brass they had left on the assault fire going up the hill. Tough. They'd done enough
today. They would police up that part next time out.

On the bus ride back to Coronado, Murdock could think only of a nice hot shower and a good dinner out somewhere. The men had voted not to stop in Alpine for a store-bought meal. Murdock wondered if he could figure out how to set up a chat room with Ardith so they could talk back and forth on the Internet. It could be done. He'd just have to work it out.

Lam had made the hike and workout with no problem. Bradford was still a little weak, but if they had two or three weeks before any serious assignment, he should round into shape with no problem. Now the only question was, would the CNO, Don Stroh of the CIA, and the President give them the three weeks they needed?

Arnie Gifford watched the big clamps grab the next section of pipe and slowly lower it into the test well they were drilling in the edge of the Santa Barbara Channel. It was far enough offshore not to infuriate the conservationists. Still, they'd had their share of Greenpeace trouble. Arnie chewed on the unlit cigar and eyed the oil-drilling platform a quarter of a mile farther away from the coast. It was in deeper water, too deep he figured, and there had been no good reports coming from it.

He had been an oil driller most of his forty-seven years. His face and arms were burned brown by the sun, and his blue eyes these days always held sunglasses to cut the glare and the damage of the sun. He was in good shape, swam and dove a lot in the ocean. He had done weight lifting in his youth, and still had a well-developed upper body. He squinted slightly as he stared at the rig known as Wentworth Petroleum Number 4. He wondered where the others were. What puzzled Arnie was the unusual activity around the rig. For the past six months he had seen large cargo ships anchor near the platform. The next day the ships seemed to ride much higher in the water. What in hell were they doing there? They couldn't discharge that much cargo on that small drilling platform.

He had seen a couple of the men he knew who worked on the rig in a bar just last week, and he'd asked them about the ships. They'd laughed and said he was seeing things.

“What the hell would a cargo ship be doing around our
rig?” they'd said. “Maybe they were bringing out our payday cash.” The two men had laughed it off and headed for the door.

He'd seen the federal inspection boat head out to the rig, and heard that Number 4 had passed the safety and environmental tests with no problems. There was no oil on the rig or in its hole, so the test was a little premature.

As Arnie watched, another freighter flying a Panamanian flag eased to a stop forty yards off the oil rig and put out anchors. Maybe sea anchors at that depth, he figured.

He wiped one hand across his face and decided. Tonight was the night. He was going to swim out there and see what the hell they were doing. They had to be up to something fishy. Still, the inspectors had given them a go. He had his wet suit on the rig. He used it from time to time to go down and check the sea legs that extended down to solid footing on the channel seabed. A quarter of a mile wouldn't even be a warm-up for him. Yeah, he'd go out tonight as soon as it got dark. He wouldn't use his tanks, too damn heavy. He'd use a snorkel and stay just under the water. He'd done it a thousand times.

Arnie waited five minutes after midnight before he entered the water. It was an easy swim, and he used the snorkel. When he came up to the rig, he circled it once, then swam up to one of the steel legs and held on to it taking a rest. He could see nothing in the water that indicated anything strange going on. It had to be topside. It wasn't one of the huge platforms, just an exploratory one, but still had a night crew and a hundred glowing lights. He could hear the machinery clanging away.

He pushed away from the steel ready to swim around to the surface platform and the ladders that extended up to the first level of the platform. For a moment he didn't understand what he saw in front of him. Then he threw up his arms to try to protect himself.

 

The next morning Santa Barbara County Coroner Warren Watts shook his head as he looked at the body tangled in wire three feet underwater and against one of the legs of Oso Platform 27.

“How in hell did he get fouled up in wire like that? I didn't think you guys were supposed to throw any solid trash into the water.” He looked at the body again. It was pinned against the steel legs of the tower with one arm sloshing back and forth with the swells.

“The damn-fool wet suit doesn't seem to be damaged, and he's still got the face mask around his neck,” the coroner said. The face with open eyes looked out at Watts through three feet of the clear Pacific Ocean. Two Santa Barbara County sheriff's deputies stared at the body over Watts's back.

Pete Rumford, the platform boss of 27, sat in the sheriff's boat and shook his head as he looked at his worker. “Arnie Gifford is his name. He liked to scuba and free-dive. He was good at it. We used him to check our legs underwater. Nobody on board last night knew he was going to go diving. What would he be looking for at night? It just doesn't make sense.”

The coroner scowled. “Probably drowned, but we can't be sure until I do some work. Can you get a couple of men down here with bolt cutters and cut him loose so we can get him in the boat? This is the damnedest thing I've seen in a long time.” He looked at the older deputy sheriff. “You checked with the Coast Guard? They like to know when things like this happen. They'll want to do a search for another body in the water if we think there might be one.”

“Didn't even call them. Sheriff says it's our jurisdiction on a felony. They'd just turn it over to us anyway. So why bother them? The sheriff is on another case. Said he'd come out later and talk.”

Ten minutes later they had the body in the boat. The coroner frowned. “You say he worked for you here at Platform 27?”

“Right, my best foreman. Why in hell was he diving at night? Nobody saw him get in the water.”

“I'll let you know what the autopsy shows.”

The deputy sheriff at the tiller moved the boat up to the small water-level dock so the platform boss could step off; then he pushed the throttles forward and the
twenty-two-footer raced toward the Santa Barbara harbor and the Sheriff and Lifeguard Dock.

An hour later Santa Barbara County Sheriff Hal Kirkendol leaned on the first level rail of Platform 27 and stared out where the platform boss pointed.

“Hell, Hal, you've known me for ten years. All I can say is the last thing Arnie told me last night before I went ashore was that he didn't like what was going on out on Rig Number 4, right out there. We've all seen the big ships that anchor just off the platform. Nobody can figure out why freighters would stop there. The platform has its own resupply ship that makes daily runs. Why in hell those big freighters? Arnie was getting worked up about it, but I said not our business, nothing we can do about it anyway.”

“You telling me that Arnie's drowning has something to do with that other platform?”

“Not saying that, Hal. That just the only thing I can think of that might be connected to Arnie dying. Hell, the men liked to work for him. He was good at his job. Got a good day's work out of everyone including himself, and I can guarantee not a man on board would try to kill him.”

“Hey, nobody said anything about Arnie getting killed. He was diving, he got tangled up in that wire, and couldn't get any air. I've seen a hundred reasons why people drown.”

“True, Sheriff. But I know Arnie. He was on a championship college swim team, almost went to the Olympics in the freestyle. He teaches scuba at the Y here in town. He takes a herd of kids free-diving every Saturday. Arnie is the last guy in the world who would drown, especially caught in a bunch of wire right around one of our platform legs. Part of his job was to dive down those legs once a week, all the way to the bottom, and remove any debris that might have hung up there. I can assure you that yesterday there was no mess of wire on the leg that held Arnie underwater. If he drowned, it's because somebody surprised him and killed him. There's no other way to look at his death. Arnie was murdered. That I'm sure of. Now I'm trying to figure out why.”

Sheriff Kirkendol rubbed his chin the way he had been doing lately when he had a case he couldn't figure out. At
last he nodded at the oil driller. “Okay, Pete. I've known you long enough to believe what you say. I didn't know the swimming background on the dead man. You say he was murdered. That puts a whole new spin on the case. Why? Why was he killed? That's the next thing we have to find out.”

“Maybe the answer is out there on Number 4.”

“Now you're making a lot of assumptions, Hal. First you're saying Platform Number 4 out there has something to hide. Next you indicate that it's so secret that they will kill anyone who tries to find out about it, even a late-night swimmer around their platform. They would also have to use some kind of a security system that would warn them when any unauthorized boat or swimmer entered the protected zone around their tower. In the water that would have to be highly sophisticated. Then you're saying that they have the killer or killers on the platform who could do the job. Those are a whole shitpot full of assumptions. Proving any or all of them is going to be one hell of a tough job.”

“Right, Sheriff, and that's why you get the big bucks to do that work.”

Sheriff Kirkendol rubbed his chin a moment, then the back of his neck with his right hand. As soon as he realized he was doing it, he stopped. One of his women detectives had told him that the repeated gesture was a dead giveaway that he was worried, troubled, or stumped.

“So I take two men and go visit Platform Number 4.”

“You have jurisdiction?”

“Damn right. It's in my front yard. So it's wet. It's still my own front yard. I've got a murder to solve and I'll do what I have to and let the lawyers yell about it later. You want to come along?”

“Not a chance. I've got a rig to run. Besides, I don't even want to talk to those guys. I might shoot off my mouth about my suspicions. You can do it with a much cooler touch.”

“Flattery . . .”

“Yeah, still works.”

Two hours later, Sheriff Kirkendol headed for Platform Number 4. He'd had a talk with the coroner, who'd put a rush on his cutting. He'd found two serious head wounds
made by a blunt instrument. Neither severe enough to cause death. There was plenty of seawater in the dead man's lungs, so technically he had drowned. But the man had had a lot of help.

“He must have been clubbed, then held underwater until he drowned. How he got back to his own drill rig is your job, Sheriff. I'm putting the death as a murder by person or persons unknown.”

“Don't release that information yet,” the sheriff had said. “I have a courtesy call to make first.”

The sheriff had brought with him Nevin Irwin, a former SEAL who had been with him for almost two years handling all of the water-related problems including crimes on boats, drownings, and even one case of piracy. Irwin had blown out a knee on a heavily laden parachute jump somewhere over Europe, and had been eased out of the SEALs. If he couldn't be in an action platoon, he didn't want to stay in the service. He did another year on his enlistment in the support units at Coronado, then found his spot with the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department.

The third man was a longtime deputy who handled the boats for the department. The sheriff had radioed the tower indicating he needed to visit the platform for a routine safety inspection. He asked for the safety engineer to be on hand, and was invited to come out at his convenience.

That turned out to be slightly after eleven o'clock that morning. The twenty-four-footer eased up to the water-level dock at Rig Number 4 where a man in a white shirt and tie met it.

“Preston,” the man said, holding out his hand to the sheriff. “Good to see you. Safety around here is one of our primary concerns. So far we have a hundred and eighty-two days without a lost-time accident. We want to keep that record going. Any suggestions you can make will help.”

“Just routine, Preston. We'll try not to trip over anything. This is Deputy Irwin, who will go with us.” He waved for the boat driver to stay on the boat, and the three men climbed the steel steps that took them to the first level.

“As you can see, we're a small platform,” said Preston. “None of those giants you may have seen. We have five
levels, with the driller's cabin in the top level. We have basic steel-pipe tendons with direct tendon-pile connections on the bed of the strait. We do work twenty-four hours a day, and we are so far a test hole that we hope will produce. Many of our crewmen are foreigners. We try to get the best men we can regardless of their country of origin. Do you have any questions?”

The noise of the drilling and the various motors running on the level above them set up a clatter and roar that made talking a little hard.

“Do you ever have any security problems? Like boats stopping by, fishermen, paddleboard guys, maybe sea lions crawling up on your little water-level dock down there?” Irwin asked.

“Not a problem. The sea lions get frightened off by the motors and the vibrations before they get anywhere near the platform. Then we do have a fisherman stopping by now and then just out of curiosity. Usually they just want to stare up at the platform and ask a few questions. We don't exactly give them a guided tour, if you know what I mean.”

Sheriff Kirkendol listened to the reply critically. He couldn't detect any reluctance or any hint that it wasn't the truth. The man didn't seem to be hiding anything.

They took a quick look at levels two and three, and twenty minutes later they were back in the boat heading for shore.

Deputy Irwin looked at his boss and shook his head. “Didn't play right for me, Chief. Sounded like the guy was trying to hide something. And why is he wearing a white shirt and a tie on a greasy, oily, smelly place like a drilling platform? I just don't trust the guy.”

Sheriff Kirkendol frowned. “I didn't get that feeling, Nevin. He was smooth, maybe like he had worked over what he was going to tell us. But he answered your question off the top of his head and I bought it.”

“Maybe I'm just suspicious. I have a hard time accepting that a scuba man, snorkeling instructor, and college swimmer is going to drown in an accident like that. What bugs me is that somebody went to a lot of work with that wire to make it look natural. Still, it held the man three feet underwater. Besides, the dead man complained to his boss about that
other platform. He may have been the kind of guy who decided he'd swim out there and take a look for himself. Do it at night when they wouldn't see him. Can't be more than five hundred yards, a warm-up for him.”