Black Flag - Страница 5

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Dylan shuddered at the memory of that meeting, sure that Dragos was going to kill all of them out of sheer rage, projecting his own failure as their mistake. In an attempt to keep Dragos from going on a rampage and butchering everyone in the room, Dylan had come up with a plan to steal the chips, and things had slowly but surely spiraled more and more out of control.

He tapped the PVC pipe against his leg, waiting on someone to answer the door. At least they had the container location now. At least he could show some good news.

He heard the chain slide and felt his pulse increase. The door opened and he found himself facing Dragos’s right-hand man, Costin. He swung the door inward, allowing Dylan to enter. Dragos saw the PVC container and clapped his hands, “So the plan is proceeding as you said. Good. Very good.”

Dylan said, “Well, yes and no.”

“What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath, then let it out. “We had some complications with the academic company. They got suspicious and we had to take them out.”

“What do you mean?”

Dylan relayed what had occurred on the boat, leaving out the part about how scared he had been to pilot the vessel home to Kingston Harbor by himself.

“So my men are on this island? Right now?”

“Yes. It couldn’t be helped. We have other preparations to make. We’ll just have to switch out the container crew.”

“It’s not that easy. The three men with you were specially selected for the ship takedown. I can’t just throw in three different ones.”

Dylan held up his hands, not wanting to trigger the well of anger that he knew Dragos kept bubbling inside of him like magma under the earth’s crust. He said, “It couldn’t be helped. The container is being loaded on the ship in three hours. The men need to be inside it before it goes through customs. I didn’t have time to wait on them to track down the academics.”

Dragos said, “What of these ‘academics’? You were going to use them to place the drugs on the ship.”

“All of them are certified scuba divers. I made sure of that. We’ll just have to use the ones doing the research here.”

Dragos continued as if he hadn’t heard. “And you were going to use them as bait to cover up our theft. What of that now?”

“Same answer. Instead of four bodies on the ship, it’ll be two. It will still work. You said Stefan had planted evidence in Charleston, correct?”

Dragos said, “Yes, but I don’t like all of these changes. Every time you return, it’s with a different story and a change to the plan.”

Because you don’t like negotiating, you murderous thug. There would be no complex “plan” if you hadn’t blown up my contact.

“Dragos, you’re the one that said we couldn’t steal the chips while they were in port. There’s just too much security. That leaves doing it at sea. All I did was come up with a way to divert attention, and it’s working very well. When the authorities start looking, they’ll find that Grolier Recovery Services has rented scuba equipment, boats, hotel rooms, and, thanks to my forethought, four rooms on the container ship with the chips. Once they find the drugs, it’ll be case closed.”

Dragos turned from the window and said, “You make it sound simple. The ship sails tomorrow. When will you emplace the drugs?”

“Tonight. The Trojan horse container will load today, and you, me, and Costin, posing as oceangoing passengers of Grolier Services, will board tomorrow morning. Tomorrow night, the ship will be ours. I’ll get the chips, your crew will bring up the remaining man and woman from Grolier, and we’ll all head back to Kingston on the boat Grolier rented. Easy.”

Dragos grunted. “If it’s so easy, how come my men are running around a deserted island chasing a couple of ‘academics’?”

Chapter 6

We reached the interior of the island, with the cliffs on the coasts now lost from view, and the foliage growing tall enough so that we could walk without highlighting ourselves. I signaled a halt and pulled a waterproof bag from the cargo pocket of my swim trunks. I brought out my Taskforce phone, a unique piece of kit that looked like an iPhone 5 but in reality did a lot of black magic. Provided there was a cell signal.

Knuckles whispered, “You have your phone? Shit, call the Taskforce and get us some air support.”

I turned it on and said, “No service out here.” Then what he’d said registered. “Where the hell is your phone?”

“On the boat. I didn’t want to dive with it.”

“You left a controlled item on a boat with a bunch of foreign nationals?”

He said, “Hey, come on. What were they going to do, steal it while I was underwater? It’s the first thing I checked when I got back to the boat. They didn’t take it.”

I waited a beat, staring at him deadpan, then said, “Really? Did you just say that? Where’s your phone right now?”

“Okay, okay, let’s get moving. What’re you thinking?”

I initiated the compass application and said, “There’s a lighthouse on the south end. I figure we’d head to it, get inside the tower for early warning, then come up with some half-baked assault plan. All we need is one weapon and we’ll have the edge.”

I let the digital needle settle, then began walking south, gingerly trying to save the soles of my feet from the cacti and rocks. We’d gone about a quarter of a mile when Knuckles grabbed my arm, then pointed at his ear.

I stopped, hearing the scattering of rocks in the distance. They were on our trail and moving quicker than we were. Probably because they’ve got that little bit of technology called “shoes.”

I picked up the pace, ignoring the damage. Five minutes later, we ran across some old train tracks built for Lord knows what. I really didn’t care, except they were heading south, and they allowed us to start jogging in our bare feet, avoiding the rocks and cacti by using the railroad ties in the bed. Now we were moving faster than our quarry.

We crested a low rise, and we could see the old lighthouse about five hundred meters away. Reaching it, we found an abandoned keeper’s residence in addition to the tower itself. It was slowly being reclaimed by the island, with no roof and crumbling walls, but we could use it for a little cat and mouse.

I said, “They’ll most likely take the same tracks we did to get here. I can’t see them busting brush, which means they’ll come down the west side of the residence.”

I glanced around, seeing the distance from the house to the tower, and came up with a hasty plan. I said, “You get up in the lighthouse. I’ll get inside the residence. Take some rocks up with you. What I want to do is get them in close. Negate the firearms advantage to the best extent possible. Make ’em shoot within arm’s reach. Hopefully, your arms will reach them before they can do that.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“When you judge they’re close enough, toss a rock down at me. I’ll take off, letting them see me and becoming the rabbit. I’ll cut diagonally, using the walls to block any shots. I’ll come screaming right into the tower, so you need to be moving down as soon as you throw. I pass you, and you clock the first one in the doorway. Find a piece of rebar or a club. I get his gun, and we start returning some favors.”

Knuckles glanced up to the top of the tower and said, “I’m not sure I can get down that fast.”

“Yeah, well, Brett’s cheetah ass ain’t here, so you’ll just have to do. The trigger is key. You throw too early, and they may not run in behind me. They may take it slow and easy, in which case we will be terminally fucked. You wait too long, and they’ll be close enough to shoot me.”

“This doesn’t sound like that great of a plan.”

“You got a better idea? It’ll be just like the end of Saving Private Ryan where they use that motorcycle half-track to suck the Germans into their ambush.”

He said, “Didn’t everyone die in Saving Private Ryan?”

“Private Ryan didn’t. And that’s who I’m pretending to be. You can be Tom Hanks.”

He began walking toward the tower and said, “I have no idea why I listen to you.”

I moved into the residence, straining my ears and glancing up through the ruins at Knuckles’s position. I’d barely started to go through the usual second-guessing before a rock smacked into the wall behind me and Knuckles gave me a signal that he had them in sight. I nodded, waiting to hear them.

Instead, another rock smacked the wall, scaring the hell out of me. I glanced up, about to start sprinting, when I saw Knuckles leaning out of the window and trying to tell me something. He gestured with his right arm going over his left, and I knew what it was. The assholes are coming down the east side of the residence. Which meant I was going to have to cross open terrain instead of using the building to block their shots.

I then heard a shout, followed by a cracking of three-round bursts. Because Knuckles was forced to warn me, forced to hang out of the window, they’d seen him. Now he’s the rabbit. Only he’s got nowhere to run.

I heard the movement and realized there was one good thing about this: I was on the east side of the residence, and I thought maybe I could let them pass by me and play a little Sergeant York. In World War I York annihilated an entire squad of Germans rushing his lines with only a pistol by shooting the last guy first and walking his way up the squad as they assaulted. I intended to do the same thing, only I had a hunk of brick instead of a Colt 1911.