Deadly Intent Page 5

  “That’s just it, Hank. It should never have happened. The HVT should have been airlifted out of there. Not driven. And then, unknown to myself, the feed was being fed live back to Washington.”

  Jones nodded again. “It’s not the first time that something like that has happened.”

  “Agreed. But when they start issuing orders that put my team at risk, it needs to stop. They aren’t on the ground so they can’t make the right call.”

  “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “We need one commander. We don’t need to be overwatched by the AG’s office, the secretary of state, and the president,” Ferrero paused, took a deep breath, and then continued. “Is there –”

  Jones held up his hand to stop him.

  “Leave it with me, Luis.”

  “Sir?”

  “I agree. The other day was a complete clusterfuck. Through no fault of your own either. If your team was military, it would never have happened. Which is why I did what I did. When the decision was made to divert your team, no one gave any thought or two shits what would happen to them. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. It might come back to bite you on the ass.”

  Washington DC, The next day

  The cell phone rang, and Ferrero took it from his pocket. He placed it against his ear, and he said, “Hello.”

  “It’s me.”

  Jones.

  “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you, General. Not yet anyway.”

  “Get your team together and have them come to DC. Tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jones hung up.

  They were all gathered in Jones’ office as ordered, the next day; Reaper team as well as the Bravo elements. It was late in the afternoon when they’d been shown inside. However, the office was empty. The general had been detained, his secretary had said, but would be along directly.

  “Hey, Reaper, get a look at this,” Axe said, indicating a picture on the wall. In it were Jones and two other men. No more than kids really. They were in uniform, and Kane figured that it had been taken in Vietnam. They wore shoulder patches of the 75th Rangers.

  “He was a Lurp,” Axe said, admiration in his voice.

  Kane was about to say something when the door to the office opened, and Jones entered. He left the door ajar and was followed in by of all people, another general. This one, however, was a woman. Maybe in her early forties, with her dark hair up in a severe-looking bun. She was athletically built, and her not-unattractive face bore no hard signs of aging. Her uniform though drew Kane’s attention. Or rather her shoulder patch. It was a ranger patch. Since 2015, women had been allowed to go to ranger school. Arguably one of the toughest courses in the United States Armed Forces. Not many passed. But apparently, this one did. Which attested to her fortitude.

  Jones took a seat and stared around the room. The general who’d entered with him took up a position behind and to his left.

  “Good. You’re all here,” Jones acknowledged. “The young lady behind me is General Mary Thurston. She is your new commanding officer.”

  A murmur rippled through the room as the members of Team Reaper glanced at each other in confusion. Not Ferrero, however. Although he wasn’t expecting this, he knew something was afoot.

  “You all no longer work for the attorney general. You work for me. You’ll still be classed as a DEA special operations team, and all your mission briefs will come from them. Whatever they want to be done, your team will do your best to accommodate it. However, what I saw happen the other day cannot be allowed to happen again. Which is why the change has been made.”

  “How is this meant to work, General?” Kane asked.

  “Luis will be in charge of the team. Spencer, I’m sorry, but the CIA wants you back.” Spencer said nothing.

  Jones went on, “Out in the field, you, Gunny, are in charge. Whatever you say goes. If you want a damned nuke dropped on someone, you’ll damned well get it. There’ll be no desk jockeys running operations from afar.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jones continued. “General Thurston will be in overall command and will have final say on everything.” Jones glanced at Ferrero. “I’m sorry, Luis, but to make it work, it has to be this way.”

  Ferrero nodded. “Fine by me, General. Whatever is best for the team.”

  “Good. Now, the general answers to me, and I answer to the president. From bottom to top, straight up the line. No interference from anyone. If you need something, take it to Mary. If need be, she’ll kick it up to me. But, no matter what, she’ll have your backs. Just as long as you’ve got hers. We’ve even given you a name. The World Wide Drug Initiative is the banner you’ll operate under. And that is where you’ll go, worldwide. Any questions?”

  No one said a word.

  An abrupt nod finished the meeting. “Good. You can leave. All except Luis, Kane, and Billings.”

  Once the door closed, Jones said, “Mary, they’re your people now.”

  “Yes sir,” Thurston said and then looked at the people before her. “Yesterday the DEA got a tip-off about a shipment of drugs and arms scheduled to leave Esmeraldas Ecuador within the next week. They will be stowed in containers on board a Panamanian-flagged freighter called the Sea Fortune. I want you all to make yourself familiar with the specs of the ship.”

  “Can you tell us what we’re meant to do, ma’am?” Kane asked.

  “You’ll insert yourselves upon the ship and stay out of sight until it reaches international waters. Once it does, you’ll seize control of it. By that time, the Artoro should be on your radar, and she will rendezvous with you. You’ll get more specific details before the mission.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Cara said.

  “I would say interesting,” Thurston stated. “We’ll all meet in El Paso in three days. We’ll go over everything then. Any questions?”

  There were none.

  “Let me add this. I read all about what happened with the operation to do with the Montoya Cartel. I know you all work well together. I also know you lost a man down in Guatemala. All I can say is, I’m looking forward to working with you. Agent Ferrero, I’m not here to look over your shoulder twenty-four-seven. From what I can tell, you’ve made the right call all along the line. However, I will be with you on operations and expect to be kept in the loop at all times. I won’t tolerate cowboys in my command. This is our chance to make a difference.”

  They were about to leave when Jones said, “I hope this works out for you all. Because if it doesn’t, I’ve been ordered to shut it down.”

  Ferrero looked the general in the eye and said, “It’ll work. We’ll make sure of it.”

  Chapter 4

  Chesapeake Supermax, Three days later

  Chesapeake Supermax was like a giant hollowed-out cube surrounded by an electrified fence topped with razor wire. But that wasn’t all. On the outside of that were more rolls of razor wire and another electrified fence. This one operated on a different circuit.

  Then you could add in the nine guard towers, and the fact that the prisoners were locked in their cells twenty-three hours of the day. All of which gave you one of the most secure facilities in the country.

  But the worst were kept in their own secure facility on the inside. Like a prison within a prison. This one was surrounded by an electrified fence too.

  Then there was the main building.

  Juan Montoya, head of the Montoya Cartel, rolled over on his bunk and checked his watch. It was almost time. He heard a door open along the hall, and then footsteps echoed on the concrete floor. They stopped outside his small cell, and the door rattled then swung open.

  “It is time, amigo, yes?” Montoya said to the big man who filled the doorway.

  The guard nodded. “Yeah.”

  “And my friend, Señor O’Brien?”

  “He’s in position with the others.”

  “You will be a very rich man afte
r this, amigo.” Montoya smiled.

  “I’ll be on America’s most wanted is what I will be.”

  The smile disappeared. “It is better than the alternative.”

  The guard stepped aside. “Let’s go.”

  They left the cell and walked along the hall to a steel door. The guard toggled his radio and said, “Open door six.”

  Juan Jesus Montoya wasn’t a tall man at five-nine. His black hair and goatee were neatly trimmed, and his eyes dark and moody. Today, however, they had a spark.

  There was a buzz, and the door lock sprang back. The guard pushed it open and allowed Montoya through. He checked his watch. “We’ve got five minutes until this thing kicks off.”

  They kept walking, passing through two more doors before coming to the indoor exercise area. Unlike the main population, the worst of the worst spent their free hour inside a large recreation hall.

  There were three other men in the hall. Colin O’Brien stood with two other guards. They were the ones who would escort both prisoners outside into the yard when everything happened. The escape was timed to occur when the rest of the prisoners in Chesapeake were out in the yard. It would add to the confusion.

  O’Brien, like Montoya, wasn’t a big man by any stretch. His hair, once dyed black, was now streaked with gray. The appearance of his face put his age somewhere in the mid-fifties, although, since his incarceration, there were more lines on it.

  O’Brien and Montoya shook hands. “Are you ready, my friend?”

  Montoya nodded. “More than ready.”

  “Let’s hope your men can pull this off.”

  Montoya turned to the guard who’d escorted him this far. “Thank you for your help. The money will be deposited to the account you have, within two days.”

  The guard nodded. He wasn’t too worried about the money. He was more worried that the escape would fail and that the Montoya cartel drug boss would be stuck there.

  “Good luck, gentlemen,” the guard said and left them with the other two guards.

  “How much longer?” O’Brien asked.

  One of the guards looked at his watch. “One minute.”

  They waited in silence, Montoya silently counting off the seconds inside his head. When he had almost reached sixty, the first explosion boomed in the distance. He turned his head and stared at the Irishman. “It is time.”

  Chesapeake Bay

  Two helicopters came in low over the Chesapeake Bay. No more than thirty feet above the water.

  The first one was a McDonnell Douglas MD500 Defender. Fully armed with rocket pods. The second was an Airbus H225M long-range tactical helicopter capable of carrying up to twenty-eight passengers.

  Their destination, Chesapeake Supermax.

  “Snake Eater Two, this is Snake Eater One, one minute to contact, over.”

  “Copy, Snake Eater One, one minute.”

  Collins heard the call over his headset and turned to his men. He held up a finger and called out, “One minute!”

  The warning was relayed through nine earpieces, and they all nodded. Every man was dressed in full tactical gear and armed with Colt M4A1s. They also had FN Five-Seven handguns. Both weapons had five magazines each of spare ammunition.

  “Thirty seconds,” the call came over the comms.

  At that point, the MD500 peeled off and sped up. Fifteen seconds later it made landfall. And fifteen seconds after that, it fired its first rocket.

  Chesapeake Supermax

  “Fuck!” Myles Carter exclaimed at the splotch of ketchup on his uniform shirt. Instinctively he wiped at it and smudged it further. “Ahh, Christ.”

  By rights, he wasn’t supposed to have food in his tower, but he’d missed lunch. Now he’d dropped some of the contents of his sandwich down his front, and the stain would be there for the rest of his damned shift.

  In disgust, he threw the sandwich in the bin and found a paper towel to wipe the offending spot away without much success.

  For some reason, Carter felt the urge to look up. From where he was in tower four, he could see out across the Chesapeake Bay. But it wasn’t the scenery which drew his attention. It was the two black dots above the horizon.

  He frowned. “What the …?”

  As they drew closer, they started to take shape. The one on the left broke away from the other and sped up. Suddenly Carter realized what they were. Helicopters.

  He hurried across to the wall-mounted phone and took it off its cradle. He hesitated for a moment as the smaller of the helicopters grew large in his window.

  Then: “Central, this is Carter in tower four. We have a situation. There are … oh shit!”

  Suddenly there was a flash as the MD500 fired two rockets. Within a couple of heartbeats, Carter’s world ceased to exist, as they slammed into tower four and exploded in an orange ball of flame.

  The helicopter swooped in low over the prison and pulled up almost vertically. It spun one-hundred and eighty degrees in the air and swooped back in. The rocket pods launched two more of their contents, and another tower disappeared.

  “Snake Eater Two, this is One. You are cleared to land. We’ll keep their heads down. Over.”

  “Copy, One. Snake Eater Two, inbound.”

  The Airbus came in low over the prison and flared before setting down in the exercise yard, scattering prisoners. Collins and his team dispersed around the helo in a defensive perimeter. To their left, a third guard tower exploded.

  “This is Cobra One. Cobras Two through Five on me, the rest of you protect the helo.”

  Collins started to move towards the main gate to the facility where the prison kept their best and brightest. Off to his left, a large man dressed in an orange jumpsuit started to approach. He pivoted and squeezed off a burst. The slugs stitched across the chest of the prisoner who collapsed like a sack of potatoes.

  On the gate were two guards, in shock by what was happening around them. Collins and the man beside him raised their M4A1s and put them down with a burst of fire.

  “Hold the gate,” Collins barked.

  Two men remained there while their leader and another pair walked through into a tunnel ringed with wire.

  At the other end, a door opened, and two guards emerged along with two men in orange jumpsuits. Collins said, “I have eyes on the packages.”

  The MD500 swooped overhead once again, and another explosion rocked the prison compound. Collins said to Montoya, “We have to get out of here now before they regroup.”

  Montoya nodded. “Lead the way.”

  O’Brien said, “Do you have a gun I can use?”

  Collins took out his Five-Seven and passed it to the Irish mob boss. He handled it like a seasoned veteran and swung it up and placed two bullets in each of the guard’s heads.

  “What did you do that for?” Montoya asked.

  “Save money.”

  Montoya shrugged. “OK.”

  “Come on, move,” Collins snapped.

  “Just remember who you’re talking to,” O’Brien reminded him.

  The former ranger ignored the mob boss and started towards the gate. A large figure blocked the way. He was dressed in orange and was almost six and a half feet tall. His head was shaven, and he had tattoos up his bare arms.

  “Take me with you, Captain,” he demanded.

  Collins thought he recognized the big man. “Hall?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Shit! All right, come with us.”

  “No,” O’Brien snapped.

  Once again, Collins ignored him.

  “Thank you, sir,” Hall said.

  They broke out into the main exercise yard, and the former ranger noted the orange lumps scattered on the ground. His men had been busy. He said, “This is Cobra One. Prepare for exfil.”

  “Copy, Cobra One.”

  Bullets started to impact around them, and Collins stopped. He brought his M4 up and aimed at a guard on another tower who was spraying the yard with 5.56 rounds. He stroked the trigger, and the gua
rd shuddered as the rounds slammed home.

  “Move!” Collins shouted over the top of another explosion. Fires were starting to rage around the prison compound. Sirens blared above the sounds of battle.

  Once more, Collins used his radio. “Snake Eater One, this is Cobra One. Copy?”

  “Roger, Cobra One.”

  “If you’ve got a spare rocket put it in the main building, over.”

  “Copy, will do.”

  The MD500 swept in from the north and slammed two rockets into the main building which housed the warden’s office.

  A ball of fire exploded from the hole ripped in its side and seemed to shoot up the outside of the building.

  A prisoner appeared in front of Collins. A Hispanic man with tattoos all over his face and neck. He snarled at the former ranger. “Take me with you, puta, or I will have your family killed.”

  Collins shot him in the head.

  “That fucked him,” Hall said.

  “Who was he?” Collins asked as they closed on the helo.

  “Guevara. MS-13. Dangerous motherfucker.”

  Dark smoke hung over the prison as the fires continued to grow. The mercenaries fell back to the helicopter and climbed on board along with Montoya, O’Brien, and Hall. No sooner had they done so when a handful of prisoners rushed at the Airbus.

  Mounted on the side of the helo was an FN Mag. A general-purpose machine gun which fired a 7.62mm bullet at up to one thousand rounds per minute.

  One of Collins’ men opened up with it and the staccato sound hammered out across the yard. The bullets ripped into the prisoners and stopped them in their tracks. Their jumpsuits turned into bloody rags.

  “Get us up, Snake Eater Two,” Collins ordered.

  “Copy. Snake Eater Two coming out.”

  The Airbus started its climb while Collins’ men sprayed the yard with more bullets. Clouds of smoke rose into the air, sent off into the atmosphere to the accompaniment of blaring alarms.

  Bullets smacked into the Airbus from all sides, and one passed through the open cabin door. Then, once it was high enough, it banked and headed back out over the Chesapeake Bay.