Retribution (9781429922593) (34 page)

“On the contrary. We're going to do exactly what he wants us to do,” Pam said. “What he
thinks
we were going to do all along.”

 

SIXTY

Greg Rautanen's tiny bungalow was across Lake Edwards from where Steffen Engel had been taken down, and just down the block from a large apartment complex. The entire neighborhood was run-down, trash everywhere, most of the buildings in disrepair. And despite the fact it was just ten in the morning, knots of desperate-looking black kids, most of them in their teens, were hanging out on just about every corner.

McGarvey and Pete had flown down to Landmark Aviation at the Norfolk Airport where Otto had a new rental Hummer waiting for them. “Tough neighborhood,” he'd told them. “The car might impress the kids, but I don't know how Rautanen will react, seeing the same kind of vehicle he used in the service.”

“He might freak out?” Pete asked.

“The guy's screwed up, but there's no knowing how bad he is. A lot of them come out so hyperaware that a car turning the corner down the block could trigger the memory of someone coming at them in a car loaded with explosives. He could react pretty violently to defend himself. A lot of them come out of the service as gun nuts, but some don't want anything to do with any kind of weapon. They even barricade themselves inside their houses on the Fourth of July. Most of them have nightmares—even waking nightmares. Somebody happens to walk in on them during an episode like that and it could get hairy. Chronic detachment, lack of sleep, depression, of course, fear of any kind of a crowd, like in a mall or a movie theater. It's why a lot of them end up getting divorces or going on the streets and living alone under a bridge or in the woods in a cardboard box.”

“And this Rautanen is like that?” Pete had asked.

“Probably,” Otto said.

“We're going to use this poor guy?” Pete asked. “Put him on the firing line as bait?”

“He's already on the firing line,” McGarvey told them. “Schlueter and whoever she's hired are coming after me, but they also mean to kill as many of the twenty-two SEALs who are left—and that includes Greg Rautanen.”

They passed Rautanen's house and at the end of the block turned around and came back. The lawn had not been tended in a very long time. An old kitchen range was lying on its side next to the short dirt driveway. A ratty old pickup truck with plates that were two years out of date was parked in the carport. The yard was filled with full trash bags.

McGarvey drove up and parked in the street, but left the engine running.

“We can't use this guy, Mac,” Pete said. “It isn't right.”

“I don't know how long this is going to take, but if something starts to go down, beep the horn.”

They were a block away from the apartment buildings where a half-dozen kids were watching them.

“Don't use your weapon unless there's no other choice,” McGarvey said. “I don't want to get into a shootout with a bunch of kids. End up as a race riot.”

Pete was looking at them. “This could go south in a New York minute,” she said.

“In more than one way,” Mac agreed.

He got out of the Hummer and went up to the house. The front door was slightly ajar. The curtains were drawn and no lights were on inside. The place smelled of rotting garbage, and maybe pot.

McGarvey eased the door a little farther with the toe of his shoe. “Greg,” he called softly.

No one answered.

“My name's Kirk McGarvey. I used to work for the CIA, and right now I'm here to help you.”

“Get the fuck out of here.”

“Two of the operators on Neptune Spear have already been taken down. The bad guys want the rest of them. Makes you a target.”

Mac heard the distinctive sound of a shotgun being racked. It was an attention getter, and Mac's gut tightened. No telling how far over the edge the guy was.

“You have exactly two mikes to make a one-eighty,” Rautanen said.

“I'll wait in the truck with my friend if you want to call someone and verify who I am. You might want to try Captain Cole.”

“He's a prick.”

“You've got no argument from me. But I shit you not, Ratman, your ass is seriously on the line here. There's a world of hurt coming this way, and I'm here to watch your back.”

Rautanen was silent for a long time.

“Ratman?”

“Shut the fuck up, only my friends have the right to call me that. Who's the broad?”

“She's a CIA Clandestine Service officer who's going to watch both of our backs.”

“I don't need you.”

“Like Pete Barnes and Brian Ridder and their familes?”

“It's just me,” Rautanen said, and McGarvey could hear the desperation in the man's voice. “And no one gives a shit, because I can take care of myself.”

“If they can find you here, which they will, they'll find your wife in Seattle.”

Rautanen didn't reply.

“Hiding won't help. It's why I'm here. I want to use you as bait.”

The house was silent.

McGarvey pushed the door all the way open, at the same time Pete hit the horn. He turned around, the barrel of the 12-bore Ithaca Stakeout shotgun inches from his face.

“She opens fire it'd be a reflex reaction—my finger on the trigger,” Rautanen said, a crazy look in his eyes. “You'd be one dead motherfucker.”

“We'd both be dead, and your problem would be solved,” McGarvey said. “
Your
problem. It'd still leave the other guys.”

Pete had gotten out of the Hummer, her .45-caliber Wilson conceal-and-carry pistol in a two-handed grip.

“Your Ithaca is starting to attract some attention,” McGarvey said.

Pete started to come forward, but McGarvey waved her off. “So either shoot me or let's get inside and I'll tell you what I have in mind.”

Rautanen glanced at the kids down the block. “They won't come anywhere near my place. They think I'm crazy. And you know what, McGarvey, I am outta my fucking skull.”

“My friends call me Mac. Lower your weapon and we can talk. But we need to get some shit straight ASAP, because I think whatever is coming your way will probably happen tonight.”

Rautanen's hand steadied and he moved close enough so that the muzzle of the shotgun touched the bridge of McGarvey's nose.

“Mac?” Pete said urgently. She moved forward so that she was only a couple of feet away, her pistol aimed at the side of Rautanen's head.

“It's Greg's call,” McGarvey told her. He shrugged. “So shit or get off the pot, Mr. Rautanen.”

After a moment, Rautanen grinned and lowered the shotgun. “Friends call me Ratman,” he said. “You want a beer?”

 

SIXTY-ONE

Felix Volker got off I-95 at Kenly, North Carolina, a town of around one thousand people a few miles southeast of Raleigh. He turned off not so much that he was hungry, although it was just before noon, but because he was tired of driving and he wanted a drink. Tonight, when he got to Norfolk and hooked up with Schlueter and the others, there'd be no alcohol. He was too thirsty and too keyed up to wait until after the op.

He took the narrow county road under the interstate northwest and followed his nose to a small redneck country bar. A few pickups were parked in front—gun racks in the rear windows, a hunting dog in one chained to a ring. The dog put up a baying when he pulled up and got out of his rental car.

Tobacco and corn fields stretched out in either direction across the relatively flat coastal plain that ran one hundred miles all the way down to Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic Ocean where the tourists went.

The day was already beginning to heat up, and by this afternoon he figured the lowlands would be unbearably humid. It was something he didn't like. Germany's climate was mild, especially south around Munich, and even farther north in Franconia around Nürnberg where he'd lived for a couple of short stretches. Snow in the winter, but nothing extreme. Warm in the summer, but not hot.
Schon.

He was dressed this morning in dark jeans, a dark polo shirt, and thick-soled walking sandals. He left his black jacket in the car and headed toward the front door, when a couple of thickly built young men—maybe in their early twenties and farmers by the look of them—came out.

“Well, son of a bitch,” one of the kids said as Volker passed them and went inside.

The bar ran across one-third of the room. To the right there was a pool table, a dartboard against the rear wall, and an old-fashioned jukebox in the corner. The men's room was to the right, the women's to the left. Two older men in bib overalls were seated at the bar, behind which was an older woman with long gray hair.

Volker took a stool away from the two men, who turned and looked at him as if he were someone from a different planet.

“What'll it be?” the bartender asked. Her accent was very southern, difficult for Volker to understand.

“A beer, please. Dark, not so cold.”

“Sam Adams,” the woman said. She poured it from a tap and set it down. “Two dollars.”

Volker paid her, and took a deep drink. It was too cold and weak, almost like water to him, but it was okay.
“Danke,”
he said.

“You're German,” she said.

He nodded. “Just passing through. I was thirsty.”

“Are you hungry? We have burgers and pizza. Frozen, but not so bad.”

“No. Just time for one beer and then I have to be on the highway to Atlanta.”

The two farm boys came in, big grins on their faces, and came to the bar. “Better give us a beer, Maudie,” the taller, stockier one said. His massive head sat on a thick neck and broad shoulders.

“Thought you boys had to get back to work,” the bartender said, but she poured them a couple of beers.

“Wanted to say hi to the gentleman with the girly footwear,” the other one said. His face was round and filled with freckles. “Hadn't seen him around here before.”

“I don't want any trouble in here, like Friday.”

Volker sipped his beer but didn't look at them. They wanted trouble, of course, and he was of a mind to give it to them. But it would be foolish on his part, as well as theirs.

“Not very polite, you son of a bitch,” the big one said. “Didn't your mama teach you nothing?” He grabbed Volker by the arm and tried to pull him around.

Volker put his beer down, turned, and smashed a tremendous right fist into the kid's face, just above the bridge of his nose, driving him backward on his butt, blood gushing down his chin.

“Jesus,” the bartender said. She took a cell phone out of her pocket, but Volker reached across the bar and took it from her.

The second kid hit Volker in the side of the neck.

This is not why he had come to America, to have a duel with a couple of country boys. It would have been much easier if he had been allowed to have his one beer and drive away. But it was too late for that now.

He broke the bartender's cell phone on the kid's forehead, then slammed the doubled-over knuckles of his left hand into the boy's Adam's apple, crushing his windpipe.

The two old men sat where they were, slight smiles on their weathered faces.

The kid staggered backward, clawing at his throat, trying desperately to breathe. His face was turning beet red, and Volker figured he'd be on the floor unconscious in about ten seconds and dead within a minute or two.

The bigger farm boy got to his feet and charged, but Volker turned and stepped into him, shoving him up against the bar. Reflexively, after hundreds of hours of hand-to-hand combat drills, Volker used his bulk to get the kid turned completely around, grabbed his head, and twisted sharply, the spinal column where it attached to the base of the skull breaking with an audible pop. The boy dropped to the floor like a stone.

Volker looked up as the woman disappeared out the back door. He finished his beer. Then he went over to the old men who had not moved and broke both of their necks, letting their bodies crumple to the floor.

He looked out the front door to make sure that no one else had driven up. Then he crossed the barroom and went out the back door in time to see the woman come out of a small house fifteen meters across a backyard, her purse in one hand and a baseball bat in the other.

She spotted him and fumbled in her bag as she sprinted to a dusty Saturn SUV, its blue paint badly faded in the southern sun.

Volker reached her just as she got to the driver's door.

She dropped her purse and swung the bat, just missing the side of Volker's head. She was frightened but determined. Volker figured she had to be at least in her late fifties or early sixties and had more spunk than the two farm boys put together. It was a shame.

He snatched the bat from her hands, and as she spun around trying to get away he swung it one-handed into the side of her head, cracking her skull, driving her against the side of the car.

She raised a hand to ward off the next blow, the bat breaking her arm, and her legs started to go out from under her.

Methodically, with not much feeling, Volker hit her in the head again, knocking her to her knees.

Barely conscious, she could only whimper, no fight left in her.

Volker swung the bat, hitting her in the temple. Her head bounced against the car door, leaving a long bloody streak as she fell face-first into the dirt.

For a long time Volker looked at her. He couldn't tell if she was still breathing, but it was of no matter. She was dead, or as good as dead.

He glanced at the back of the tavern. Too easy, he thought, dropping the bat. Norfolk would be more interesting.

 

SIXTY-TWO

This time around Dick Cole met McGarvey in front of admin. It was noon, and McGarvey half-expected the captain to take him to lunch at the O Club so they would be on neutral ground, with witnesses in case something went wrong. Instead Cole walked around to the east side of the building and headed in slow trot down a dirt path toward some woods a hundred yards away.