Gray Matter Splatter (A Deckard Novel Book 4) (16 page)

“Let’s roll.”

The four survivors followed after Pat as he led them
inside. They could already feel the Carrickfergus shifting under
their feet, turning to go around the fields of fire. The Hillhorn
crew members blinked in disbelief. There were machine guns, rifles,
hand grenades, open metal cans of ammunition, and porn mags lying all
over the place. Men wearing snow camouflage who looked to be of a
dozen different nationalities were prepping their gear, looking like
they were ready to launch World War Three.

Pat took them down a flight of metal steps to a changing
room in front of the showers where they had some space. Another
camo-clad man stepped in behind them, said something in Russian, then
dropped a box at their feet. After looking inside, they didn’t need
Pat to tell them what to do. The crewmen stripped off their soaked
clothes and then tore into the box of brand new thermal underwear,
pants, and jackets.

“What is it you guys do, exactly?” John ventured.

Pat leaned to the side with one hand propped against the wall,
the other at his hip.

“We’re corporate trouble shooters.”

“Oh yeah? Does trouble shoot back?”

“Oh, fuck yeah. C’mon, grab some towels to finish drying off
and we can go get this meeting over with. Then we can get you some
chow.”

Back in the bay, they then climbed another set of stairs
that was vertical to the point of being a ladder, then ascended to
the bridge.
It was pretty easy to identify the ship’s
captain behind the helm by his big, bushy beard and coffee cup in one
hand. The younger guy working the sea charts was obviously the first
mate. A third guy, who wore a Patagonia pullover, looked up from his
laptop with bloodshot eyes.

Walking around the desk, he sized up the four oil rig workers.

“We owe you big time, man,” Jeff thanked him.

“Don’t mention it. I’m Deckard.”

He shook all of their hands, but the boss didn’t look happy. As
he lit up a cigarette, Jeff noticed the scars on his knuckles. He’d
worked around the oil industry long enough to know that this guy had
been in a few brawls.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” John said, “what
exactly is it that you guys do?”

“We’re mercs,” Deckard said without missing a beat. “We
kill cunts.”

“Um, what?”

“Let me put it to you this way. If some jag-off dictator takes
over a country somewhere, they call in the 82nd Airborne or the
Marines. If some douchebag hijacks a nuclear weapon, they call in
SEAL Team Six or Delta Force. But if some X-factor comes out of left
field in a blur, steals a super weapon that can end the world, and
then takes off in a high-tech stealth boat, they call me and my
boys.”

“Really?”

“I’m afraid so,” Deckard said as he frowned and looked out
the window. “Every fucking time.”

The four survivors looked at each other, wondering if they had
just entered the Twilight Zone.

“You lost a lot of men on those rigs,” Deckard said, his
voice detached from the human toll of the disaster.

“I think we’re the only ones left,” Jeff said.

“I'm sorry, this is my fault.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m chasing someone who doesn’t want to be found. They
ordered this strike against your oil platforms to delay us.”

“What strike?”

“I just found out myself. Ballistic missiles launched from
civilian container ships traveling along the northwest sea passage.
Russian authorities are moving in now, but the ships are flagged in
Liberia and the crews probably had no idea what they were carrying.
Knowing the MO of the guys I’m after, the cargo containers on board
were probably fully automated and received an electronic go-code from
afar.”

John shook his head. None of it made sense.

“Look, you guys must know this area and I could use your help.”

Deckard walked over to the first mate, who was looking over the
sea charts.

“The vessel we are looking for is about a two hundred-footer.
We think they’ve been leaking a lot of fuel and probably haven’t
been able to make a lot of repairs while underway. If they had to
make a quick stop to refuel and try to patch up their hull, where do
you think they would go?”

“Only one place to go.”

Everyone turned to look at Roger, who had only just spoken for
the first time.

“Where?” Deckard asked.

“Barrow, Alaska,” he answered. “The northernmost city in
America.”

Chapter 14

American Arctic

Old Uncle Joe teased his fishing line one more time, watching it
dance in the hole he had cut through the ice. Holding the fishing
pole between his knees as he sat on a folding chair, Joe reached down
and palmed a Mason jar, moonshine sloshing around at the bottom. His
fingers spun off the top and he took a swig from the half-empty jar.
It burned all the way down, filling the fisherman with warmth.

Squinting his eyes in the darkness, he tried to focus. Maybe it
was the moonshine playing tricks on him, but he thought he’d heard
something out on the ice. Well, never mind. He screwed the cap back
on the moonshine and set it on the ice. Exhaling a cloud of vapor
into the cold air, Joe wondered if he would ever get a bite.

Suddenly the ice split and cracked in front of him, nearly
tipping over his chair. Joe looked up with wide eyes as a 200-foot
behemoth crashed through the ice, sandwiching him between the black
ship and the shore. Old Uncle Joe rubbed a gloved hand over his
stubble. There were not any icebreakers due in on Tuesday night.

Was this Tuesday night?

Come to think of it, Joe wasn’t sure if it was even a
weeknight.

Joe reached for the moonshine.

A metal hatch slammed open at the top of the ship. Dark figures
spilled out into the Alaskan night, armed to the teeth. Several of
them looked over at Joe as they slid down the side of their ship.
They looked at him with green eyes. Joe took a swig of moonshine,
gulping it down and giving the alien visitors a wave.

They didn’t return his greeting, but instead dashed up the
shore.

Suddenly, the fishing pole was nearly torn from between his
knees.

A bite!

Joe reached for the pole with both hands, forgetting that he was
holding the Mason jar. As he grasped the fishing rod, his jar of
moonshine shattered on the ice.

“Awww fuck,” Joe complained.

Then he reached for one of the singles of Jack Daniels that he
kept in his parka pocket for such emergency situations.

* * *

Tampa, Florida

“That’s it! That’s them!”

Will smiled as he watched the flat-screen monitor. The Global
Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle was orbiting over Barrow, Alaska. The
sensor suite onboard the drone was being manipulated by a technician
sitting in a trailer next to the pilot in Nevada. The cameras zoomed
in on the long black ship that had just broken through the ice and
docked alongside the coast. The fisherman who had been pinned right
between the ship and the shore appeared on the screen to be
completely unfazed. Was he a spotter or just a drunk?

“Where is Deckard?” Gary asked.

“Ten minutes out,” Craig answered.

On the screen, little figures ran around like ants toward a
warehouse on the far eastern side of Barrow, on the outskirts of the
town.

“Who owns that damn warehouse?” Will asked.

“Huh,” Craig said as he looked as his computer screen. “It
seems that we do. It is an old warehouse left over from World War
Two. Right now it is being leased to a company called Arctic
Consulting Group. I’ll pull up their information.”

“It will turn out to be a front group. They’ve obviously
pre-staged a lot of logistical support for this operation. They have
been running advanced force operations right under our noses in
anticipation for this. Burying caches, buying off officials, setting
booby traps, leaving behind fuel depots, and God knows what else.”

“What kind of military assets does Uncle Sam have up there in
Alaska?” Gary asked. “Even if they cannot arrive in time for the
hit, they can at least back up Deckard’s men, contain the objective
area, and help provide resources for contingency planning.”

“I made some calls,” Will replied. “And the answer is not
much. The U.S. military has been focused on the desert for fifteen
years, and we’ve let our already minimal Arctic warfare
capabilities atrophy. 4/25 has been shrunk down to a battalion-sized
unit, so we basically have no large, rapidly deploying unit that can
fight in the Arctic, which means all we have to rely on is 1st SBCT,
the Stryker Brigade Combat Team.”

“Well that’s something,” Gary said. “Can we spin them
up?”

“Not really. Not in these conditions. They are a Stryker
brigade,” Will said, referring to the Army's eight-wheeled Stryker
armored vehicles that carried infantrymen in the back. “Strykers
hardly work in negative ten-degree temperatures, and don’t work at
all in the negative forty-degree temperatures we’re seeing in the
Arctic between November and March. And that is just a mild winter for
northern Alaska. Besides that, they have the oldest Strykers in the
Army. Some of them are the original test vehicles from the 1990s.
They break down all the time, and getting the replacement parts up to
Alaska takes a long time because of the great distances involved.
That, and even when they are running, they suck at driving in the
snow.”

“Doesn't a brigade combat team have attack helicopters attached
to it as well?”

“Yeah, but same deal. The AH-64E Apache helicopters they have
at Fort Wainwright can't fly in negative ten-degree conditions
because their electronics freeze.”

“This is unreal. We have an Arctic warfare unit that can't
fight in the Arctic?” Gary asked no one in particular. “What
about troops? Can we truck them in? Fly them in?”

“Would take too long, again because of distance,” Will
lamented. “Besides, about only ten percent of the troops assigned
to the brigade combat team have attended the Northern Warfare
Training Center in Fort Greely, and even then, they really only get
survival and mountaineering training. They don’t get shit when it
comes to actually fighting in the Arctic. If you want to talk to
someone who actually knows how to fight up above the Arctic Circle,
talk to the Canadians or the Russians or the Norwegians, because
we’ve got our balls cut off when it comes to operating in this
region.”

“I’m pushing this imagery to Deckard now,” Gary said with a
sigh. “He should get there just in time to crash the party.”

Will took a deep breath.

He sure hoped so, because right now, none of them had a very
impressive track record.

* * *

Mercenaries were throwing on their combat gear, sliding down the
stairs, and opening and slamming doors as they made a mad dash to get
ready. Deckard snapped his plate carrier on, threw his parka over it,
then shrugged into his chest rig, snapping it closed behind his
jacket. He finally had a solid fix on the enemy’s location, and he
wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to get the drop on them.

The town of Barrow was stretched out across the Alaskan
coast, running from east to west. One of the oil rig workers had
spent a significant amount of time there and reported that the roads
were well made and were kept plowed to clear the snow and ice off
during the winter months. Once again, nothing beats some local
knowledge. With this in mind, Deckard knew he had the opportunity to
launch a two-pronged attack.

Stepping outside into the cold, Deckard slung his AK over his
back and climbed down a ladder to the barge platform. The ice crashed
around the Carrickfergus’s twin-pontoon hull, smashing its way
toward the shore.

The Samruk mercenaries had five of their Iveco assault
trucks up and running. All of them had to have their batteries
charged up or replaced. It was a good thing they had at least brought
extra tires, fluids, batteries, and recovery items to keep the trucks
in the semi-shit state they were in.

“One minute out,” Otter reported over the radio.

“One minute!” Deckard yelled.

The mercenaries began undoing the ratchet straps that secured the
assault trucks to the deck. Fedorchenko’s platoon was going to hit
the ground with Deckard for their amphibious landing. The rest of the
men would stay on the ship for the coordinated assault.

“Thirty seconds!”

Otter lowered the barge down to water level. The ramp began to
lower and the golden lights of Barrow sparkled like giant diamonds in
the night. The mercenaries loaded on the trucks and began racking
rounds into their machine guns. Aghassi jumped on the back of
Deckard’s truck and nodded to him. He was usually Samruk’s
human-intelligence gatherer, but there wasn’t much human
intelligence to be had out in the Arctic wasteland.

Their recce section was also useless when their target was
constantly on the move and there was no way to infiltrate the six-man
team.
The mortar section was also in need of a Viagra. They
were used as regular infantry because they’d had a hard time
pinning down the enemy location. Everything was different up here,
even the enemy. Deckard knew they had been up against the ropes this
entire time, but tonight he planned on evening the score.

The ramp came down on the shore just 10 meters away from the
first road. The assault trucks roared off the ship in four-wheel
drive, then crept across the snow and over a hump at the edge of the
road. The five vehicles were lining up in their order of movement as
the Carrickfergus began backing out, smashing its way through the
ice, heading farther down the coastline.

“Update?” Deckard asked.

“Global Hawk sees about a dozen personnel on the ground. They
are still refueling the ship.”

“Roger, we’re moving.”

Sitting in the passenger seat, Deckard looked at the Kazakh
driver and pointed down the road. The five vehicles started down the
street, heading east. The town of Barrow was kind of spooky at night.
All of the residents had wisely escaped the cold and remained
indoors. The houses were oblong and rectangular, painted yellow,
purple, green, and blue, all lifted three feet or so on stilts above
the ground to avoid the permafrost. The buildings flashed by as the
driver took them down the main road. In seconds they were past the
town and were driving by the salt lagoons.