The Team (4 page)

Chapter 10

Top of the 9th

What had gotten off to a great start only lasted until the Saudi team came up to bat in the bottom of the first inning. Moose was throwing hard, but by the end of the first inning it was three to three. By the end of the fifth, they were losing seven to four. Now, top of the ninth, they were getting ready for their last attempt to come up with three runs.

Moose was the lead-off hitter, and he was exhausted. He had pitched the whole game, not expecting to be facing professionals. They had pretty much shelled him all day. And he had been throwing as hard as he possibly could. This was finally his chance to get some revenge.

No such luck. Torrez threw him curves, sliders, and finally struck him out with a knuckle ball that seemed to dance around in front of him before passing his huge swing. Moose surprised his teammates by giving the opposing pitcher a tip of his hat after he struck out. This guy was the real deal, and Moose knew he had been totally outclassed. Of course, Moose was a Navy SEAL, and he wasn’t getting paid millions of dollars a year to throw baseballs, either.

Top of the lineup again—Koches was up. He had struck out twice, flied out once and gotten a single. He walked out to the plate and tapped his cleats with his bat like he had seen the pros do growing up. He spit, again, for no particular reason and did his best to look menacing for the pitcher who had been killing him all day.

“Strike one!”

He stepped out, took a practice swing, and smiled broadly; then he looked back at the dugout. He mouthed the words “fuck ‘em” to his teammates, and then did his best Babe Ruth impersonation by pointing to the center-left alley. He teammates screamed encouragement, fired up by his bravado.

“Strike two!”

He stepped out of the box again, now really pissed after almost knocking himself over with the last swing. Then he remembered his college coach at Rutgers. “Don’t try and kill it on a fastball pitcher—just get a piece and it will go…”

Torrez, getting tired after pitching the whole game, something he hadn’t done in six years, and being made to throw a lot more pitches than he had anticipated, did his best to throw a fastball. He was throwing in the low eighties now, and Koches was able to get his bat on the ball with a solid line drive that bounced off the wall and got him to second base. His team was screaming and standing up in the dugout. Torrez wiped his brow and kicked the dirt. He had been quite sure he was going to throw a no-hitter against these Navy clowns.

McCoy was up next, and had been having a pretty good day with a bunt to start things off for their first rally, then a walk and two singles. Torrez threw him some chin music to back him up, but McCoy was a SEAL and not easily intimidated. The next pitch was a fastball, probably the slowest one of the day as Torrez grew more tired, and McCoy got all of it. He had never been a power hitter, but this sucker was
gone
, clear over the right field fence. Seven to six, with their best hitters coming up. The prince was back on the phone to the Saudi dugout, giving very calm, quiet death threats.

Woods walked out to the plate and smiled up at the prince, who did not return the smile. He stepped into the batter’s box. In the dugout, Mackey’s earpiece finally came on.

“Mack, you read me?” It was Cascaes, sounding a little tense with lots of background noise and static.

“I read you,” he said quietly into his wrist mic as nonchalantly as possible. “Where the hell ya been?”

“Ball one!”

“We are almost back at Eskan with the fruit. It was not as simple as planned.”

Mackey grimaced. “Everyone okay?”

“Roger that. I’ll brief you when I see you, but we need to move up our exit, like
pronto
.”

“Roger. We’ll get back ASAP. Out.” Mackey casually turned to Smitty as Woods ripped one over the shortstop’s head for a single. He grabbed Smitty’s arm as he was heading out of the dugout. “Strike out as fast as possible and we’re outta here, you understand?”

“Are you shittin’ me, Boss? Lance is the tying run…”

“Strike out and we’re
out
of here. That’s a
direct order
.” He turned to his team and quietly spread the word. “As soon as he strikes out, get your shit together and we need to double time it back to Eskan. Act pissed off so the prince thinks we’re sore losers and understands why we won’t stay for dinner and shit. We need to hustle.”

His players hated to lose, but they understood that they weren’t here to play baseball. Smitty jogged out to the plate and Lance started screaming some encouragement from first base. Smitty ignored the urge to try and kill it and swung at the first pitch, which was in the dirt. The second pitch was also wild, and again he swung and missed. He could feel the prince’s smile behind him and wanted to open up his royal head with the bat, but instead he pounded the plate and swung wildly at the third pitch. He threw his bat and walked back towards the dugout as the catcher ran out to the mound to congratulate his exhausted pitcher.

Lance jogged over to Smitty, annoyed. “What the fuck were you swinging at, man?”

“Shut up—we’re outta here, boss’s orders,” he sneered back. Damn, he hated striking out on purpose.

The few friends of the prince stood and clapped, and the announcer came on with the final statistics. Coach Mackey stepped out onto the field and saluted the prince politely, then turned to his players. “Everybody get your ass to the bus.”

They headed out the same way they came in but were stopped by one of the prince’s men. “His eminence invites you to dine with him and his team, after you help yourselves to our shower facilities and locker room…”

Mackey gave a fake smile and replied tersely, “Please, tell the prince that my men are sore losers and will be heading back to base to be yelled at by their coach for a few hours.” He walked past him somewhat brusquely, followed by his sweaty, pissed-off team in the direction of their waiting bus.

Chapter 11

Eskan Village

The bus pulled into Eskan after a quiet ride back. The mission wasn’t discussed on the bus. Instead, the players discussed the game. Although they were angry about losing, they could live with the fact that they had held their own against a bunch of ringers. Much of the conversation was about the stadium itself. They were all pretty amazed that one person could build a multi-million dollar facility for his own personal use a couple of times a year. They all agreed the lavish expense was the reason gas was over three dollars a gallon.

The bus stopped in front of their neat little housing unit, where a plain looking truck sat parked out front. Jones was sitting in the open back of the truck with his SAW across his lap. Perez paced around the front with his MP5 strapped across his chest, and Hodges sat in the cab, engine running. They were simply guarding the truck while Cascaes was upstairs packing up all of their gear so they’d be ready to hustle when the team arrived.

Hodges spoke into his mic from inside the truck cab to Cascaes. “Skipper, the team’s back.”

“Roger that,” said Chris, who walked out to the parking lot to greet the team, two large duffle bags slung over his back.

The bus squealed to a stop, the airbrakes hissing, and the team walked down the steps, still in their cleats and dirty baseball uniforms. The two Chrises shook hands, and Cascaes spoke first. “I’ve got a plane on the runway, gassed up and ready to go. The fruit truck was as described, except there were two little kids aboard with the driver to throw off the border guards.”

“And?” asked Mackey.

“We didn’t know. Not that we could have done anything differently anyway. We would have been made for Americans if we’d left them alive. Anyway, Jones and Perez were kind of shaken up. All of us, I guess. Let’s just get the fuck out of here before someone finds the truck. I had to burn it. We couldn’t ditch it like we planned—it was too shot up.”

“Simple plan, huh?” said Mackey quietly. He turned back towards the bus and yelled, “Hey! Hold up! We’re getting back on.” He jogged over to the bus and stuck his head back inside. “We need to get over to the airfield
pronto
.”

“You’re leaving now, sir?” asked the young airman driving the bus.

“Right now.” He looked back at his team that had just gotten off the bus and yelled over to them. “Everyone back on board. Hodges, Perez, and Jones—you too. I’ll ride with Cascaes. You can shower in Germany.”

He jogged over to the truck and let Cascaes drive, following the bus through the neat little streets of Eskan Village back to the airfield where their transport plane would be waiting. They would connect in Germany to refuel and change crews, then straight to Virginia, where people above their pay grade would decide what happened to the fifty million dollars sitting in eight large duffle bags in the back of their truck. Cascaes told Mackey everything that happened from beginning to end, and when he was finished, Mackey told him about the baseball game—a far more pleasant story than shooting two kids to death.

Chapter 12

Homeward Bound

They had showered and changed clothes at a US Airbase in Germany, then re boarded their transport plane to try and get some sleep in uncomfortable seats. Jones woke up somewhere over the Atlantic in a cold sweat, the mutilated faces of the two boys splattered all over the front seat in his nightmare. He woke Perez out of a dead sleep.

Ernesto Perez, simply known as “Ernie P.” woke up startled, automatically reaching for his gun that wasn’t there. He blinked a few times and looked around the dark aircraft before he remembered where he was. He looked at Earl Jones, who looked like he had just seen a ghost, because Jones was pretty sure he
had
. His face was covered in sweat.

Perez whispered, “Wussup?”

Jones whispered back over the low drone of the plane. “Nightmares, man. I keep seeing those kids in the truck. I blew the shit out of two little
kids
, man.” Jones was literally shaking in his seat.

“Holmes, it wasn’t our fault, man. The dude grabbed his gun and was gonna shoot Mack. What the fuck was he thinkin, anyway? Bringin’ two little kids with him to smuggle money to terrorists…it was fucked up, man, but it wasn’t our fault. I fired at the truck, too, man, and so did Hodges. That shit ain’t on us, man. It’s on the dude that brought the kids. Take a deep breath and get some sleep, you look like shit.”

Earl leaned back and tried to close his eyes, but every time he did, he could feel the tears coming. It was right in front of him—two little kids on the front seat, their mutilated bodies, and the blood running out of the truck onto the dusty road…he stared at the dark ceiling until troubled sleep finally came.

Ernie looked over at him every hour or so to see if he was sleeping, his own sleep now ruined by the same nightmare. He was fearless and had seen plenty of killing, including dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan—but had never killed a civilian himself. He exhaled slowly and fought back his own tears in the dark cabin.

* * *

The team touched down in Virginia near CIA headquarters at eleven in the morning, almost thirty hours after stealing fifty million dollars of terrorist money. The tires bounced on the tarmac with a short screech, and the plane taxied to the end of the runway. They were at a private airfield owned by the CIA, just outside of Langley. A black bus was at one end of the runway, escorted by a black SUV. The rear of the aircraft opened and the ramp lowered to allow the team out with all of their gear, including heavy duffle bags filled with bricks of American hundreds.

After several months of rigorous training at another facility, and now their first mission successfully under their belt, they were finally going to meet “the boss,” Dex Murphy at the official home of CIA’s Special Operations Training Center. They were now officially, “on the inside.”

Dex Murphy opened the door of the SUV and stepped out. He walked over to greet his old friend Chris Mackey, who introduced him to Chief Petty Officer Christopher Cascaes, team leader of the six SEALs now imbedded with the baseball team. The rest of the team headed for the black bus, still jet lagged, while Mackey and Cascaes hopped into the back of the SUV behind Dex and his driver. The team would be housed at CIA’s training facility near headquarters. They made some small talk in the truck as they headed through security gates and a corridor of barbed wire, cameras, and guard towers. Eventually, they arrived at the housing facility where hundreds of agents were housed, trained, drilled, and schooled in hundreds of different specialties and spy craft which would hopefully keep them alive in a hostile world.

The two vehicles pulled in front of the small buildings and everyone piled out, still dragging all of their gear. The money was shoved into the rear of the SUV and everyone was given three hours to shower, relax, and grab some food before a major debriefing inside the fortress-like building. Dex offered them a “welcome home” as they walked to the building, weary from a
very
long week.

Dex stood with Chris Mackey and Chris Cascaes, his arms folded across his chest as he watched the team walk into the building. He shook his head and half-smiled. “Mac, in all the years I’ve been doing this, this has to be the wackiest ensemble of personnel to ever step into that building. We’ve got military personnel from damn near every branch of the service on your little baseball team. It’s just plain old bizarre.”

Mackey smiled. “I know. But I tell you what—it worked. You know I’ve been around the block a few times myself, Dex. These guys are naturals. Natural athletes, trained warriors, and street smart—they’ve got it all. They work together like they’ve been doing it all their lives. We add some spy craft to their resumes and we’re going to have a serious little army in there. That baseball team could take down some small countries all by themselves.”

Dex looked at him without smiling. “Good. Because they may have to.” Dex paused thoughtfully and leaned forward to speak in a softer voice. “Mack, we go back a long way. I have to tell you, things are changing around here. Darren Davis is a good guy and he tries to have my back, but the new Commander in Chief has his own peeps he wants in the chain of command. Davis is getting heat from the President’s hand-selected bullshit artist, Randall Hill. Your team’s cover gets blown or something goes south, it’ll be more than just
you
looking for a new job. Right after they throw all of you out the front door, they’ll push me out the back.”

Mackey scowled. “Dex, you should be running this whole damn building; what the hell are you talking about?”

“
What have you done for me lately,
know what I mean? I’ve given twenty years to this place, and the last six months they’ve been talking to me like I just started my probationary period. I love my agents and the folks in the building, but the politics is getting real old. I’ll leave when I’m ready, not because some suit who’s in way over his head wants me out.”

“Roger that,” said Mack.

“Anyway, your guys proved Hill wrong already. Just keep doing what you’re trained to do. Hill is my problem. I just wanted you to know that there are people on our side that wouldn’t mind seeing you fail, for no other reason than to get rid of me.” Dex smacked Mackey on the shoulder and walked away towards the building, with Cascaes and Mackey exchanging glances and following close behind.