Chasing the Lost (16 page)

* * * * *

Bullets sparked off the front of the
Fina
as Kono jumped into the forward turret. He grabbed the handles of the dual fifties, and his thumb hovered over the trigger when he realized the flaw in the plan: if he fired high, his rounds would go into the encampment.

* * * * *

Gator swapped out magazines without removing his eye from the scope and keeping the gun trained on his new target: the bunker. He slammed the new one home, wondering why Kono wasn’t firing.

Gator fired, the round that had been in the chamber a regular one from the old magazine, then immediately fired twice more with the special rounds in the new magazine.

The Norwegian government, home to the company which produced the unique bullets Gator had just fired, took the official stance that the Raufoss Mk 211 fifty-caliber round should not be used against personnel, but only material.

Right. Soldiers followed rules all the time.

Also, Gator was no longer a soldier.

The half-inch diameter bullet had an armor-piercing core, which punched through the metal plating surrounding the dock bunker. Then the incendiary and high explosive mixture surrounding that core exploded.

There were two Russians manning the machine gun.

The firing stopped.

There
had been
two Russians manning the machine gun.

* * * * *

Kono saw the right wall of the bunker crumble as the echo of three heavy shots floated across the water. He abandoned the guns and ran back to the cockpit, where Erin stood frozen, hands on the control.

“I got it,” Kono said. He throttled forward.

* * * * *

Chase hit the trailing Russian with a headshot, doing a Sergeant York, taking them down rear to front, and that was that.

“Clear,” Chase announced.

“Clear,” Riley echoed.

“All clear from out here,” Gator said over the net. “On my way in.”

Chase flipped up his night-vision goggles. Riley was standing in front of the last hut.

“Find him?”

“Not yet,” Riley said. He turned for the door. Chase joined him.

Riley kicked in the door, and they entered the room as they’d both been taught in the Killing House at Fort Bragg. Riley was low, Chase was high. They quartered it, searching for targets.

“Clear,” Riley said, slowly straightening up, grimacing in pain

“Clear,” Chase said, a sickening feeling beginning to coalesce in his stomach. “You okay?”

Riley nodded. “Yeah.”

They walked through, checking every box, every nook, every corner.

Finally Chase had to accept it. He heard the
Fina
pulling up to the dock, and knew Gator was on his way from the overwatch.

“Negative on finding the package in camp,” Chase said. “Cole isn’t here.”

Chase met Sarah at the end of the dock. She was staring in horror at the mangled remains of the two Russians who’d been manning the machine gun in the bunker. Gator’s two rounds had devastated both of them so completely, it was hard to tell whose body part was whose.

Maybe the Norwegian government had a point, after all.

Erin knew better than to check for vitals. “Anyone need me back there?”

“I think one of the prisoners is still alive,” Chase said.

Erin took off down the dock at a run, or as best she could, with her med kit and her body armor flapping against her thighs. Kono was tying off the boat.

“Where is he? Where is he? Where is he?” Sarah was repeating the question as if the number of times she asked would increase the odds of an answer.

Chase took her in his arms and held her tight. Her body collapsed into his. “We’ll figure it out. Karralkov must be holding him somewhere else.” He didn’t add that it was going to be a very pissed-off Karralkov, now that he had seven dead ‘soldiers.’ The clock was ticking, not only on the ransom deadline, but also on Karralkov finding out what had happened here.

The purr of an outboard engine grew louder, and Gator slid the Zodiac in to the end of the dock, just behind the
Fina
. He hopped out, automatic rifle in hand, Barrett over one shoulder.

Chase looked over Sarah’s hair, still holding her. “Why did you shoot?”

Gator leaned the Barrett against one of the wood pylons. “We were committed. You were coming down, Riley was in the camp, and they were killing people. What if the kid were here, and they were going to kill him next?”

“You couldn’t tell the difference between a kid getting dragged, and a man?”

“I was three-quarters of a mile away,” Gator protested.

Chase knew it was a waste of time pursuing this, and frankly, pursuing anything with Gator seemed futile. What was done was done. “You and Kono go help Riley. You need to do a complete search of the huts and the entire island. It’s not that big. Double-check for Cole, but also see if anybody here had a satphone or marine radio, and could have had contact with the outside world. I know we’re outside of cell phone coverage.” He let go of Sarah with one hand and checked his watch. “We don’t have much time to search and then sterilize this place as much as possible. Put the bodies, and what remains of the bodies,” he added with a nod at the bunker, “in that boat.” He indicated the cabin cruiser, and then felt a spark of hope and chastisement for missing something so obvious. “Hold on!”

Chase let go of Sarah and ran to the covered slip. He jumped on board the boat, HK at the ready. Gator and Kono were right behind him. It took Sarah a moment to understand, then she ran after them.

Chase kicked in the door to the cabin. Nothing. With Kono and Gator’s help, they thoroughly searched the boat. No sign of Cole, although they did find a row of large plastic containers holding hundreds of bundles of a white powder.

“Drugs?” Chase asked, pointing at the containers.

Gator peeled back one of the lids, stuck his pinkie in, and licked it. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and smiled. “Top-grade heroin. Good stuff. That’s worth a lot,” Gator said, pointing at the row of containers. “Pure heroin goes for around seventy-five thousand per kilo.”

“What if it had been poisoned?” Chase asked.

“Why would they have poisoned drugs on board?” Gator seemed genuinely mystified.

Kono stuck his head up from the keel-level hatch. “Nothing.”

Chase’s moment of hope flickered out.

“Where’s Mikey?” Chase asked as he led them off the boat.

“He never came up out of the cabin,” Kono said.

“See what he’s up to,” Chase ordered Gator and Kono, “and then help Riley search the island thoroughly.”

“Roger that,” Gator said.

Chase checked the bridge. The marine radio was off, and since no one had been on the boat, that meant the Russians hadn’t gotten a message out on it once the attack started.

Gator walked to the other side of the dock. “Yo, Mikey! Get your ass up here.” He hopped on the boat and disappeared inside. He reappeared a couple of seconds later, carrying a limp body over his shoulder. “Looks like Mikey caught one. You got a couple of holes in the bow of your boat, bud,” he added to Kono.

Without ceremony, he tossed Mikey’s body onto the deck of the cabin cruiser. “Let’s go searching and policing bodies.”

Kono and Gator headed down the long dock.

Chase gave Sarah a little shake. “Tune in, Sarah. We’ve got a lot to do. It’s not over yet. Okay?”

He waited until she nodded, then they, too, headed toward the island.

* * * * *

“He going to make it?” Riley didn’t sound optimistic with the question. He’d cut the lone survivor free of the ropes binding him to the pole, and laid him on the ground. He didn’t want to check his own shoulder. Bad bruising at the very least, and he knew there was no blood, so the armor had held. No broken bones, either, so he was functional for now.

The Russian was muttering in his native tongue. His body was covered with burns and he’d also been cut, several long slices, deep enough to draw some blood, but not too much blood.

“He’s in bad shape,” Erin said as she checked his vitals. She pulled out a needle and filled it from a small bottle. “This will help.”

Chase and Sarah came up. She had a distant look in her eyes, what appeared to be the onset of shock. Erin stuck the needle in the Russian’s arm and pressed the plunger.

“Karralkov apparently doesn’t do well with employees who screw up,” Riley said. “They were probably going to shoot him, too, before Gator intervened.”

“We have to get him to a hospital,” Erin said.

The Russian suddenly convulsed, arms and legs flailing. Riley tried to hold him still, but it wasn’t needed, as the Russian just as quickly went limp. Riley knew death, and he didn’t have to check, but Erin did. When she started to do CPR, he stopped her.

“Enough. He’s gone.”

Erin slowly got to her feet.

“What are we going to do?” Sarah demanded. “The deadline is two hours away!”

Gator and Kono came jogging out of the trees; the island indeed wasn’t that big. They indicated there was no sign of the boy.

“No satphone,” Kono added. “They probably used the boat radio to make communication.”

He and Gator began policing the bodies and carrying them to the cabin cruiser.

Riley, Chase, Sarah, and Erin stood by the firepit, the flames low now, a piece of rebar still stuck in the red-hot embers.

“Have your husband agree to pay,” Chase said to Sarah. “If we can keep Karralkov from finding out what happened here, he might release Cole. Have your husband switch the funnel, or whatever the hell you call it, ASAP. A show of faith. At the very least, have him tell Karralkov he needs proof of life. The name of that bike. We have to make sure Cole is all right.”

“That’s supposing,” Riley said, “that these guys”—he indicated one of the bodies being carried away by Gator—“don’t have a set time they have to call and check in. Karralkov is probably going to want to know how the torturing went. And Rollins is probably going to want to know where Mikey is.”

“Karralkov won’t know who hit this place,” Chase said.

“He’ll know,” Riley said. “He ain’t stupid. You walked into his place yesterday. Rollins knows we’re up to something, since we borrowed his plane. Hell, that Fabrou fellow knew we were going after Karralkov. Never mind getting Cole back, we’re going to have a hard enough time keeping ourselves alive.”

“He’s got to be holding him in his club,” Chase said. “We take the heroin—”

“What heroin?” Riley asked. “There’s like ten kilos in that shed. Karralkov won’t—”

Chase cut in. “There’s a couple of hundred kilos on that cruiser. Millions of dollars’ worth. We leverage right up front with Karralkov.” He turned to Sarah. “Tell Walter that he agrees to do what Karralkov wants. We go to his club, with everyone, and with the heroin. We make a deal.”

Riley’s look went beyond skeptical. “And his seven dead men?”

“We tell him we ambushed them, took the heroin, and let them go,” Chase said. “They took off because”—he pointed at the poles—“Karralkov obviously doesn’t treat those who screw up very well.”

“Thin, at best,” Riley said.

“We’ve got to get Cole,” Sarah said.

Gator came running up, covered in blood. “We’ve got all the bodies on board the cruiser. We moved the heroin over to the
Fina
. Kono says he knows deep water where we can sink the evidence.”

Chase issued orders. “I’ll take Sarah north in the Zodiac, heading for the Intracoastal, try to get a cell signal so she can call Walter and get him to agree. Then we go to Savannah and wait for you near Karralkov’s club.” He turned to Riley. “You’re in command of the
Fina.
Get rid of the cruiser. Gator, you can pilot it?”

“Roger that,” Gator said.

“Once you sink it, head back to Savannah at full speed,” Chase said. “We’ll contact you by radio.”

“Let’s go,” Riley ordered, and they ran for the boats.

* * * * *

Chase had the throttle wide open on the Zodiac, skimming across the dark water. He had his night-vision goggles on and the small GPS dimmed-down as he raced north along the coastline, heading toward civilization in the form of the Savannah River as quickly as possible.

“Do you think Karralkov will go for it?” Sarah shouted, trying to be heard above the roar of the engines.

Not really
, Chase thought. “It’s our only chance. If Walter agrees before the deadline, everything should work out.”

The coast to the left was pitch-black, but Chase could see a glow ahead, and assumed that had to be Tybee Island. He spotted a light flashing, and recognized it as the Tybee Island Lighthouse on the northeast corner of the island.

“Any signal yet?” Chase asked as he edged closer to the shoreline.

Sarah was squinting down at the face of her phone. “No.”

A tiny red light, the depth warning, flickered on the control panel, looking like a flare in the goggles, and Chase throttled back and turned hard to starboard, out to deeper water. He was cutting it too close, and the bottom was coming up. Heading out east for a minute, he turned back to the north. As he drew parallel to the lighthouse, he banked to the left, for the mouth of the Savannah River.

“Anything?” he yelled.

“Yes!”

* * * * *

Gator knelt among the explosives, like a kid with a set of blocks. “We don’t want a big blast and fire,” he said. “Just sink the bitch nice and quiet-like.”

“Stop yakking and just do it,” Riley said as the Russian boat bobbed in the Atlantic. The
Fina
was alongside.

Riley was tired, slightly hung-over, and his shoulder felt like it had been hit by a sledgehammer. Layer mission failure on top of that, and he in no mood for chit-chat.

The deck of the Russian boat was slippery with blood. All the bodies had been chained down to keep them with the ship, then locked into the tiny engine room, jammed together for their final journey.

Riley had forgotten how much a dead man weighed as he’d helped with the last positioning of them, ignoring his own pain as best he could. He’d checked Mikey’s body and found his dogtags, still around his neck. Old habits died hard. Riley had taken the tags off and put them in his pocket. Now, he tried to wipe some of the blood off his hands as Gator assembled the explosives, making coherent charges out of the pile.

Riley noted that Erin was watching him. He held up a hand, the blood glistening in the moonlight. “Late in my career, I’d seen enough death for any man. And I started to think that if the dead could speak, they’d most likely tell you that whatever it is they died for, it wasn’t worth it.”

“You don’t think there are things worth dying for?” Erin asked.

“Didn’t say that,” Riley replied. “I’m putting my life on the line here. But most causes, not really.”

“Pretty cynical,” Erin said.

“I’m older than you,” Riley said as Gator disappeared below with his toys. “And I’ve seen more death than you, I’m sure of that. The living know nothing of death. These Russians, they died for money. Mikey, he died for a bed to sleep in, in a room above a garage at Rollins’s place. He’d served his country, and that was all he was left with. How much is a life worth?”

“Each person has to place a value on something,” Erin said. “Something bigger than themselves.”

“What’s that for you?” Riley asked.

Erin stared at him. “That’s personal.”

“Usually is,” Riley said.

Gator came up out of the hatch, unreeling a fuse. “We’re set,” he announced.

Riley waved, and Kono brought the
Fina
less than a foot away. Riley jumped first, then turned and caught Erin as she followed him. He gasped in pain.

“Are you hurt?”

“Got hit in the shoulder,” Riley finally admitted. “But the body armor caught the round. It wasn’t square-on, or it probably would have punched through. The old Kevlar plate bounced it.”

“Let me see,” Erin said.

Back on the Russian boat, Gator knelt, lit the fuse, then jumped onboard.

Kono had the
Fina
moving the second Gator’s feet touched the deck.

He accelerated away to a safe distance, then slid the throttles into neutral. They were over twenty miles from land, with nothing but open water all around.

There was a subdued thump of explosion, and nothing apparent happened. But then the Russian boat simply went under, straight down, no awe-inspiring
Titanic
slide. It simply disappeared.

“Good job,” Riley said as Erin probed at his shoulder.

“Roger that, chief,” Gator said.

“Let’s head for Savannah,” Riley ordered. He checked his watch. It was zero-five-fifteen. Forty-five minutes until the deadline.