Читать книгу Scorpion Strike - John Gilstrap - Страница 15

CHAPTER 9

GAIL SETTLED HER BLUETOOTH RECEIVER INTO HER EAR AND POWERED up her phone. “This is bizarre,” she said as she waited for the phone to boot up. “Surreal.” They’d discussed the rules of engagement, such as they were, and they could not have been simpler. If challenged, shoot. If spotted by a stranger with a gun, shoot. Then, gather weapons and ammo as you go along. When she’d agreed to rejoin the covert side of Security Solutions, with many months of physical and psychological therapy in her rearview mirror, she hadn’t imagined that she’d be knee-deep in a tactical situation so soon. She’d certainly never considered that it would be run by conference call with not nearly enough equipment.

Gail and Jonathan had been watching the ship for over ten minutes, and had yet to see any activity. A gangplank led from the pier to a spot amidships, and in the glaring lights, she could see the markings and logo of the Crystal Sands Resort on the canvas strips under the gangplank’s handrails. It appeared to be the very one by which they had disembarked from the resort ship barely thirty-six hours before.

“I don’t believe for a minute that they left this unguarded,” Gail said.

“That’s what we have to assume,” Jonathan agreed. “Maybe they figured that by focusing their manpower on wrangling guests, they wouldn’t have to worry about guarding the ship.”

Gail’s phone buzzed first. She answered, and then ten seconds later, Jonathan’s buzzed.

“Are we all on?” Venice’s voice asked.

Jonathan and Gail confirmed in unison. “Are you up for a run?” he asked her.

The truthful answer was that she had her doubts, but this was not a time to express them. This was the time to take her physical therapy final exam. “We’ll all find out together,” she said. “I’ll do my best to keep up.”

“All right, then, let’s do this. Remember to zigzag.” It was at once one of Jonathan’s most annoying and endearing traits that he always felt the need to explain the obvious.

With this much ambient light, thanks to the massive floods that illuminated the pier, speed meant more than stealth. Even for an experienced shooter, a running person was a hard target to hit, especially when the person ran an unpredictable course. Throw in the fact that whoever the sentries might be, they would be startled to see that they had company, and a snap shot was even harder to make.

Of course, there was always the dumb-luck factor that made Jonathan’s world more interesting than he often preferred it to be.

“Okay,” Jonathan said. “Three, two, one . . .”

Jonathan bolted out into the open, digging in hard as he sprinted down the pier and slid to a stop at the base of the gangplank. Gail took off a second later. The legs felt strong, even though the hips were stiff. Nothing too bad. She could do this. With her M4 pressed into her shoulder and the safety off, she scanned mostly behind as they ran. She trusted Digger to take out the targets along the rails of the ship and what they could see of the superstructure, while she looked for targets that might sneak up from the rear. Nothing yet.

She slid into place at the base of the gangway only three or four seconds behind Digger. Good lord, she wanted some form of cover. She felt so open out here in the bright light.

“Howya doin’, kid?” Jonathan asked. “I’m clear.”

“I’m clear, too. So far, so good.”

Jonathan said, “We’re going up the gangplank now,” and then she heard the electronic version through her earpiece half a second later. She knew this information to be for Venice back in Virginia.

“Three, two . . .”

Jonathan moved first. His footfalls sounded like drumbeats on the stainless-steel and aluminum gangplank, but there was no avoiding the characteristic clanking sound, and her strides were nearly as loud. By the time Gail arrived on the covered deck—promenade?—Jonathan had taken a knee and was sweeping the length of the ship with his muzzle, both forward and aft.

“I’ve got the rear,” Gail said as she squatted behind him. She never felt comfortable using many nautical or military terms, not in the least because she felt that there was a high likelihood that she would screw them up. “And I’m clear.” Now that they were aboard the vessel, she couldn’t keep herself from whispering.

“Also clear,” Jonathan said.

And for both of them, that was something of a lie. Their views were limited, at best. While they had a clear view of the starboard side, a roof overhead masked whatever may lie above, and a heavy bulkhead obscured everything else.

“Okay, Mother Hen,” Jonathan said. “We are on the covered exterior passageway on the starboard side. There’s a door roughly amidships.”

“Take it,” Venice said. “If that design mirrors the one I pulled up from the Internet, you’ll be in the dining area.”

Jonathan turned to Gail. “I’ll go in first and swing right. You follow and swing left.”

She nodded.

“Now.” Staying in a low crouch, she watched Digger shift to a left-handed grip on his M4, tilting it to the right to keep the red dot’s reticle in line with his dominant right eye. He led with his muzzle, swung the corner, and squirted through the open door into the relative darkness beyond. Gail wondered if the reason he chose to take the right was specifically so that she would not be put into a position to shoot left-handed.

She was right on his ass as she cleared the opening and spun left.

They were in a twelve-by-twelve-foot room that had been outfitted with four picnic tables, complete with attached bench seating. The lingering stink of greasy food and greasy men—and could that be urine?—combined to form a stomach-churning cloud of offensiveness.

At the rear of the space, in Gail’s sector of the room, a dark shadow concealed a corner that may have been a pantry. She advanced on it with her M4 ready.

And after three steps, she was face-to-face with a crewman, no more than five feet away. “Get down!” she yelled as she aimed her rifle at his face. “On your knees, now!”

The guy looked terrified. Not yet twenty-five, he wore only a pair of boxer shorts, and his hair was a mess. Clearly, he’d recently been in bed. He froze at the sound of her commands, dropped his empty coffee cup.

“Don’t make me shoot you!” she said. “Down! Now! On the floor!” She motioned with the muzzle of her rifle, in case he didn’t speak English. Automatic weapons were universal translators.

He dropped to his knees and laced his fingers behind his head. “I-I am no gun,” he stammered in very broken English. “I am no weapons.” It sounded like weepons.

Jonathan darted over to be next to her. “Why are you here?” he said.

Behind him, on the opposite side of the space, they heard the clear sounds of frantic movement from the other side of a closed door.

“Ah, shit. People are home,” he said. He smashed the crewman in the cheek with the butt of his rifle and dropped him. He pivoted and said to Gail, “Stay close.”

Mother Hen said, “Are you still in the mess area?”

“Affirmative,” Jonathan said.

“The bunk room is directly across the hall.”

“That explains the commotion,” Gail said.

“Fast and hard,” Jonathan said.

Stealth was no longer important. From here, containment was key.

“Remember, they’re not armed,” Gail said.

“They don’t shoot at me, I won’t shoot at them.” Jonathan threw open the door to the passageway. Gail was surprised that the door was a standard hollow-core door panel with standard hardware, no different than what you’d find in an office building.

Jonathan pivoted right, while Gail pivoted left. Her view of the passageway was clear, but Jonathan yelled, “Down! Hands, hands, hands! Let me see your hands! I’ve got crew, Gunslinger.”

She never turned her back on her sector as she moved to lend aid to Jonathan as he stormed the bunk room. Gail counted six crewmen on the first glance, all in various stages of panic. Caught in midsleep by the noise and excitement, they mostly just seemed confused.

“We won’t hurt you if you cooperate,” Jonathan said. To Gail’s ear, he’d moderated his tone, moved to soothing mode. “No weapons, no fists, and we’ll be out of here in no time. Gunslinger, hold the hallway.”

Gail stood in the doorway to the bunk room, her back turned to the activity in there. If Digger needed help, he’d ask for it. She scanned the passageway from one end to the other, left to right and back again, in a continuous motion.

Behind her, Jonathan ordered his captives under their bunks, facedown, while he rummaged through their things. Gail wasn’t happy that they’d made their presence known in such an obvious way. She stipulated that they needed as much intel as they could gather, but this was a level of risk—

She saw movement to her left, toward the front of the ship. A shadow moved along the intersecting hallway, advancing right to left.

“Scorpion, I’ve got movement out here.”

“Need help?”

The shadow froze. Then it backed off. Slowly at first, then quickly.

“Shit,” Gail said. “We’ve got a runner. I’m going after him.” Jonathan said something discouraging in her ear, and she responded, “You do what you need to do so we can get out of here. I’m going after him.” It was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. She pushed off and ran to the end of the passageway, where she pulled to a stop, pivoted to a leftie grip, and scanned to the right for her target.

She caught a glimpse just as an underwear-clad male disappeared out of the far door on the starboard side and headed left. There was no time to snap a shot. She pivoted back to the left, just to make sure that she hadn’t been drawn into the trap of a cross fire—in which case, she’d already have died—then took off after her quarry. By her estimation, he had maybe a five-second head start.

“Stop!” she shouted.

The fact of his running was the problem. Was he getting a weapon? Was he calling for help? They couldn’t afford to let him do either of those things.

Gail sprinted to the end of the cross passageway, took a second to calm herself, and then dared a peek to the left, and then another to the right. No guns. Not that she could see, anyway.

The doorway led her to a spot beyond the covered passageway where they’d boarded. Immediately to her left, a set of steep open stairs—she recalled being told that stairs were ladders in the Navy—led to the deck above.

Suddenly aware of a potential threat from above, she stepped away from the door opening and scanned for shooters who might be looking down on her. Nothing. That was the second time in thirty seconds when she’d survived despite her mistakes. This was exactly why SWAT and other assault forces worked as teams. As a solo, there are simply too many angles to cover.

All that lay ahead of her was more open deck, much of it stacked with stuff she didn’t recognize. Boxes, canisters, that sort of thing. Her instincts told her that her prey had fled up to the next deck.

“Status report, Gunslinger.” That was Venice.

“I think I’ve tracked our guy to the deck above us,” she said. “I’m heading up there now.”

“Be advised that’s where you’ll find the wheelhouse. The control room. Whatever the heck you call it.”

“Got it,” Gail said. She climbed the ladder as quickly and as quietly as she could, yet again keenly aware that she was exposing herself in a progression from the head down.

There he was! “I’ve got him,” Gail said.

The man she’d spotted was just a few feet away from the door to the wheelhouse and sprinting toward it.

“Stop! Don’t make me shoot.” If he got to the wheelhouse—if he got anywhere—he could gain an advantage. She couldn’t allow that to happen.

Gail brought her rifle to her shoulder and gave the runner one last chance. “Stop!”

If anything, he sped up.

Gail settled her front sight on a spot between the man’s shoulder blades and fired. Fired again.

The man faltered with the impact of the first bullet, and the impact of the second appeared to propel him through the opening and out of sight.

“I hit him,” she said.

“Is he dead?” Jonathan asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Approach cautiously.”

Gail didn’t bother to respond to that. Again, the biggest threat at this second—especially since shots had been fired—was the approach of previously unknown and uninvolved crewmen who had just been alerted.

She kept low and advanced in a scissor-step as she crossed the deck toward the open door to the wheelhouse, scanning in a continuous arc for additional targets.

“He’s on the radio!” Jonathan announced in her ear. “Goddammit, he’s on the radio. Kill him.”

Gail picked up her pace. Still with no targets to shoot, she closed the distance to the wheelhouse door and swung inside.

There he was, on the floor, bleeding from a hole in his belly, a bloody microphone clutched in his fist. No more than twenty years old, and maybe 130 pounds soaking wet, he jumped when he saw her, and threw the crimson-streaked mic onto the deck.

“Don’t shoot!” he said in heavily-accented English. “Please don’t kill me.”

Gail’s finger caressed her trigger, but she hesitated. “Who are you?”

“My name is Harm,” he said. He winced against a wave of pain. “Harm Mohren. I am Dutch. I am not with them.”

“Why are you here?”

“Please help me. I have been shot.”

“I know,” Gail said. “I’m the one who shot you.”

“For God’s sake, Gail, what are you doing?” Jonathan said. She could tell from the effort in his voice that he was running.

She pulled her Bluetooth from her ear and slipped it into her pocket. “Answer me,” she pressed, moving closer. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”