[Rogue Warrior 18] Curse of the Infidel (39 page)

“I bumped into him on the way out,” said Junior. “I was going to mention it.”

“Why the hell did you go there in the first place?”

“I just—you always tell me to show initiative. I was just doing that.”

“Initiative is not a synonym for being stupid.”

Junior had a response that, even for a Rogue Warrior book, was unprintable.

Before Danny could answer, his sat phone buzzed with a call from Shunt.

“I just intercepted a text,” said Shunt. “The task force is moving in on Granny.”

“Warn Trace. We don’t want them to hit the place until the bank transfers go through.”

“Already on it. But you better hurry if you’re going to call the task force commander. He’s on his way down there personally to supervise.”

2

(I)

Shotgun had been stationed near the highway, manning a motorcycle and munching on a pair of Hostess Twinkies, when Trace put out the order to slow the police down until Danny could get a hold of the task force chief. He shoved the cakes into his mouth, wiped his fingers on his pants leg—always classy, that Shotgun—and gunned the Wide Glide Harley to life. Then he strapped on his helmet and set out. (Shotgun didn’t need to wear a helmet—as long as you’re over twenty-one and have ten thousand dollars in medical insurance, you’re good in Florida to go without—but in this case his customized helmet served several purposes: there was a radio unit inside, and it also had an embedded GPS map that could be worked via voice command.)

The task group was driving into the development via a pair of unmarked nine-passenger vans. The plain vanilla-colored vehicles were just coming off the highway when Shotgun spotted them in the yellowish triangles of the streetlights illuminating the ramp. He peppered his throttle to gain on the rear vehicle, reaching at the same time into his jacket for a .22 Walther GSP Expert, a precision pistol preferred by marksmen for popping targets … or rear tires, which is what Shotgun popped here.

He tucked the gun back into his jacket and started to pass on the left. But a moving van had just turned onto the street, and Shotgun found the headlights bearing down on him. He veered left, crossing the lane and jumping the curb onto a sidewalk. Starting to brake, he found his way blocked by a child’s bicycle ahead. He veered to miss it, sending the Harley onto a freshly-watered lawn. Shotgun applied a little too much English to the handlebars trying to steer back, and the bike slid out from under him.

Down the street, Mongoose was sitting in a set of bushes, waiting as backup. He had a modified .22 caliber rifle equipped with disintegrating carbon-fiber flechette rounds. Nearly as hard as steel, the small rounds shredded the tires within seconds. As the van skidded to a stop, Mongoose retreated behind the house, through the backyard, and to the next street, where he hopped into a pickup and drove toward Granny’s house, where Trace was waiting.

While Shotgun manhandled the Harley upright, the officers in the van piled out a few yards down. Drawn from the state trooper tactical response team and dressed in full body armor and helmets, they weren’t sure what had happened with their truck, but when they spotted the motorcycle on the nearby front yard they decided its operator should be sequestered on general principles.

Two of the troopers began running in Shotgun’s direction. They looked a bit like Storm Troopers from
Star Wars,
a movie Shotgun has never particularly liked. He gunned the bike down the street, only to find a ninety-degree turn where he thought a straightaway would be. He tried braking but it was too late; when he hit the curb this time he separated from the bike, flying in a tumble all the way to the garage door of the nearest house.

Several blocks away, Trace heard a helicopter flying in the direction of Granny’s house. Unsure whether it was part of the task force or not, she tried to reach Danny on the radio for clarification. But Danny was talking to the task force head, and wouldn’t interrupt the call. With the helo closing in, Trace used a flashing laser device to ward off the pilots. The laser wasn’t quite strong enough to blind the pilot, but the dazzler made it difficult for him to see, and he immediately diverted back to the airport.

The task force chief’s initial response to Danny was something along the lines of
Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?
He calmed down somewhat as Danny recited the names of half a dozen mutual acquaintances, including Narc’s. Fortunately for us, the agent was a legend in anti-drug circles, and mentioning his name got the chief’s attention.

“We need you to call off the raid on Granny,” said Danny. “I’ll explain the reasons in person tomorrow, but I need you to call it off right now.”

“How the hell do you know what we’re doing?”

“We’re watching the property right now,” said Danny. “She has a major drug shipment coming in from Europe in a few days, and we need to track it.”

“You’re with the feds?”

“Not exactly.”

That was actually a better answer than
yes,
given the relationship between the task force and the DEA, but it wasn’t so much better that it got instant cooperation. In fact, it took Danny another two or three minutes to persuade the chief to call his men back.

Which should have ended the operation right there, at least temporarily. But Murphy had other plans.

Oblivious to what was going on a few blocks away, Granny decided that she wanted to slip out for a midnight snack. Over the protests of one of her bodyguards—one of the undercover agents who had been slipped in by the task force—she got into her SUV. As she sometimes did, Granny insisted on driving; all the bodyguards could do was go along.

“McDonald’s, next stop,” she told them.

She’d barely gone two blocks when she heard the siren of an ambulance, which had been called by the homeowner whose lawn Shotgun had plowed into. Granny continued on toward the highway. The siren probably made her slightly nervous, and the sight of armed men milling in the road a few blocks from the highway couldn’t have made her any more comfortable.

The bodyguard-double agent had knocked out the right brake light on the vehicle earlier that evening, to make it easier to spot and identify. Unfortunately, its absence attracted the attention of a traffic patrol just after she got on the highway. The officer hit his lights. Granny sped up. She lost him long enough to reach the next exit. But the officer had radioed ahead, and a patrol cruiser was parked across the intersection below the highway, blocking her off. Within seconds, her car was blocked front and back.

The bodyguard in the passenger seat pulled out his pistol. The man in the backseat, the planted agent from the task force, decided things had gone too far. He, too, took out his gun—and did a double-tap against the back of the other man’s head.

“You’re under arrest, Granny,” he told her, pointing the gun at her.

“I guess this means I’m not getting my Big Mac,” said Granny as she was led from the vehicle in handcuffs.

(II)

Shotgun rendezvoused with Mongoose not too long after his tumble, and we were also able to recover the Harley, once we straightened things out with the task force. Holding Granny on flight to avoid prosecution of a traffic violation would have been difficult, even in Florida, so the task force went ahead and filed drug charges against her.

A few hours later, someone called Veep from a phone booth in Italy, leaving an automated text-to-voice message on his answering machine. The message was short, and we had no idea what it meant, or even if it was actually meant for Veep: “Scorched Earth.”

We heard the message thanks to the bugs Junior had placed. Shunt eventually tracked the call to the phone booth, but that was as far as the trail went. Veep came home a few hours later and didn’t seem to react, deleting the call along with a half-dozen others. When he went to work the next morning, he acted as if nothing had happened.

Something had, but we were damned if we could figure out what.

*   *   *

Junior had earned himself a time-out from Danny. Even though the information we’d gotten from the bugs had helped us immensely, we couldn’t afford to have someone freelancing in the middle of an op. Danny now conceded that his original decision not to bug the complex was wrong. But that didn’t excuse Junior for going ahead and doing it on his own. A properly planned and executed op would have succeeded just as well, without taking the chance of tipping off Veep.

From being the golden-haired boy—not literally, since his hair is black—Junior had become a problem child. The fact that he was my son made things worse: not only couldn’t I cut him slack I wouldn’t cut anyone else, but I couldn’t even appear to give him special treatment. Frankly, I felt a little betrayed—he of all people should know that the highest standards were expected of him. In the past, he’d always gone the extra mile, militantly insisting that no one cut him any extra slack or give him any break because his dad was in charge. But what the hell was I supposed to make of what he was doing now?

I knew one thing—I’d have given him a good, swift kick in the seat of his intelligence if he was nearby.

*   *   *

But I was far away, in the middle of the Atlantic, basking on the sun deck of the
Bon Voyage.
The cruise ship had an air of restrained elegance, though you didn’t have to chip too hard at the surface to get at something a little chintzier. The central ballroom had mahogany-paneled walls and a large crystal chandelier at its center; four smaller chandeliers flanked its sides. The rug was so thick and soft you could walk barefoot through it and swear you were walking through a field of the softest grass in the world. The dining rooms were equally plush, though there were noticeable differences between the “king class” and the “knights class”: the tables in the upper division’s De Gaulle Room sat fewer people though with more room at each than either the Louis XIV or Joan of Arc Rooms; the velvet on the seatbacks was a little plusher, and the nightly specials always included some variation of caviar.

Walking through the passages to the cabins, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d been thrust back into some golden age of opulence. Of course, that golden age included a recreation room with a state-of-the-art pool table—no matter how the ship bucked, the balls stayed put, thanks to a gyroscope mechanism. It also included just about every boutique clothing store known to man, or I should say woman. Fountains, three different inside bars and a fourth on deck (not counting the cocktail wagon), and small jazz combos cemented the impression that you were among the privileged in a floating paradise.

By the second day, however, you started to notice things like wallpaper that didn’t quite match at the seams, silver glitter paint that no longer glittered, edges of curtains that were as frayed as an old sailor’s bellbottoms. The sticks used for shuffleboard had chipped handles, and no matter which bar you tried, they tended to go overboard on the ice, no pun intended.

Bug planted, I devoted most of my time to sight-seeing, of which there was quite a lot to be accomplished in the pool area. While a good portion of the passengers were elderly, there was a small but strategic contingent in the mid-twenty to mid-thirty range, and a pleasing proportion were of the female persuasion. String bikinis were making a serious comeback, and you had to get out early to get the best spot.

One afternoon not long after the raid on Granny’s, I returned from lunch and settled into an excellent perch close to both the bar and the pool. I’d just begun sipping from my drink when a steward approached.

“Commander Julio?” he asked.

“Yes?”

“The captain asks if you would honor him with a visit to the bridge.”

I hesitated. I had just spotted a very real threat to the ship’s safety, namely a twenty-something blonde in a Wicked Weasel bathing suit that seemed more imagined than real. But seeing that the five lifeguards on duty were clearly alert to the threat, I decided to go along to the bridge.

The time on the ship had allowed my knees to recover from the knockings they’d received, and I had to suppress the urge to spring up the ladder
42
to the bridge as I walked, reminding myself that I was playing the role of an eightyish pensioner. The steward went ahead and opened the door as I caned my way upward, ushering me onto the space.

If there were bits and pieces of the ship’s décor that were somewhat dated, the bridge was decidedly not. It was refreshing to see that the cruise line had put serious money into the command area—I suspect the board of directors includes more than a few former sea captains. The bridge had a rail at the back of the console area, most likely so that it could accommodate visitors during VIP tours. But then again, the entire space was larger than a number of minesweepers I’ve seen. The center navigational console looked like something out of
Star Wars,
with an array of configurable flat screens that read out every possible vital sign. A large panel plotted our position; there were accompanying radar and sonar displays demonstrating that the nearby ocean was our own. There was no paper to be seen anywhere; each crewman, from captain to second lookout, had a tablet-type computer, which tied directly into the ship’s command data systems.

The area forward from the console was divided into two separate sections that stepped down from the console deck; even Shotgun could have stood in front of the captain’s chair and not blocked his view. Doors at starboard and port opened onto the flying bridge, which extended around the superstructure like the porch on an old Victorian building.

The captain rose from his well-padded leather chair as I came in. He cut a good figure—full head of gray hair, the slightest suggestion of whiskers, a strong gait. He was only of average height, and I doubt he would tip the scale over 150, but he seemed larger in his uniform. He’d shortened his name from Adolf to Alf, and like many of the crew, was Swedish by birth. He shook my hand as if I were an old friend.

“Well, old-timer, what do you think of our bridge?” His words had a slight lilt to them, betraying his first language.