Retribution (9781429922593) (38 page)

“Is it a go for tonight?” Otto asked.

“I want you to start calling all the Neptune Spear guys right now, even the ones on active duty if you can get through to them.”

“I can,” Otto said.

“Tell them that we think that one of them will come under attack sometime tonight, so sit tight and keep a sharp watch.”

“What do I tell them about you and Pete?”

“The truth. We think that Ratman could be the primary target and we're setting a trap. But make them understand that Schlueter's KSK operators might try to draw me out by attacking one of the others. They want to get me into the open and take me down.”

“All you have is a pistol,” Otto said. It was clear he didn't like the idea.

“Do it.”

“You'll be outnumbered, even with Pete and Rautanen.”

“Do it,” McGarvey said, and he rang off.

“That didn't sound encouraging,” Pete said.

McGarvey called Cole's home phone. A woman answered after three rings, and he asked to speak to the captain. “May I say who is calling?”

“Kirk McGarvey.”

“Yes, just a moment.”

McGarvey got the oddest sensation in just those few words: the woman not only knew who he was but had been expecting his call. Which was nonsense.

Cole was on the line almost immediately. “Who the fuck do you think you are calling me here?”

“I'm at Ratman's house. I think someone will try to take him down tonight and I'm going to stop it.”

Cole hesitated for several beats. “If you really thought something like that was going to happen, you'd have the bureau surrounding the place. The state, county, and local cops would be in on it. SWAT teams. The whole nine yards.”

“The navy officially doesn't believe the story, so what makes you think the bureau or anyone else would?”

“I passed it along to the ONI.”

“Yeah, I met them.”

“You didn't let them take Rautanen where he'd be safe. So what do you want from me?”

“To let you know what's about to happen.”

“You're just as bad as Rautanen. It's a wonder the both of you aren't out on the streets.”

“Most of those guys are there because in the end it's a lot easier dealing with the aftermath of three hundred plus days out of every year on deployment. Blown-out knees, bad hips, ankles shot, shoulders beat up, not to mention their mental state,” McGarvey said bitterly. He hung up before Cole could respond.

“I told you he was a by-the-book prick,” Rautanen said.

“Do you and any of the other guys ever get together for a beer or something?” McGarvey asked.

“I've never gotten around to it. And I doubt if most of the others do. Doesn't seem to be any point. By the time the guys get around to quitting, their wives have about had their fill. They pretty much keep them on a short leash.” He shrugged. “Or bug out.”

“No contact with any of them? Not even the occasional phone call?”

Rautanen was about to say no, but he changed his mind. “Tony Tabeek. He and I used to hang around. He called last year after I became a bachelor and asked how I was holding up. I thought it was nice of him.”

“Is he here in town?”

“Over in Virginia Beach.”

“Call him,” McGarvey said. “Tell him you got a call from a guy named Otto who warned you that the rest of the Neptune Spear crew might come under attack sometime tonight. You just wanted to give him the heads-up. Do you think he'll listen?”

“We were on Chalk One together. He'll listen.”

Pete handed him Mac's cell phone. “They won't be able to trace your call.”

“I want him to use his home phone.”

Rautanen grinned. “They've got my phone bugged?”

“I'm counting on it,” McGarvey said. “But wait ten minutes until we're sure that Otto has had a chance to get to him.”

“Anything else?”

“Tell him that I'm setting a trap.”

Rautanen hesitated a beat. “Do you think they'll buy it?”

“They will when you tell Tabeek where I'll be waiting.”

“Standby one,” Rautanen said. He got up and left the kitchen.

“I'm frightened,” Pete said, her voice low.

“You'll be okay here. It's me they want.”

“Not for me. I'm afraid for you.”

McGarvey reached over and touched her cheek, and she flinched. “We're going to finish it tonight. No more looking over our shoulders to see who's coming up behind us. No more worrying about these guys.”

Rautanen came back and laid a pair of black night-fighting camos and a black watch cap on the table. “You'll need these.”

 

SIXTY-NINE

Pam and Ayesha had dinner at a KFC a few blocks from the motel, while Volker and the others spread out to two different places to get something to eat. They were all dressed in ordinary street clothes—jeans and pullovers or baggy shirts.

Their weapons were still back at the motel where they would meet at nine sharp for their final orders. They wanted to minimize the time on the streets when they were armed in case of a routine traffic stop.

The cell phone in Pam's hip holster buzzed. It was the special program in which the contact information on the remaining twenty-two Neptune Spear SEALs was stored. Every call to their numbers showed up on her phone. Earlier she had intercepted the phone calls from Otto Rencke. This time the call to Tony Tabeek came from Rautanen's house phone.

“Yo, Tank, this is the Ratman.”

“You got the same call from the CIA?”

“Yeah. Why I called. We're going to try to head off the shit over at my place. Bait and switch.”

“I'm listening.”

“You know the apartments up the block from here?”

“Yeah?”

“Got a guy named McGarvey, ex-CIA. He figures that I'm number one on their hit list. He's going to set up at the apartments, and when they come in he'll be at their six.”

“If that complex is what I think it is, your guy's got balls.” Tabeek said.

“It is and he does,” Rautanen said.

“What do you want from me?”

“Nada. Just giving you the heads-up, because he thinks you might be next after me.”

“What about the captain?”

“Cole? He's a pussy. We're on our own, man. Keep a sharp eye.”

“You too,” Tabeek said.

Pam hung up.

Ayesha was staring at her. “What is it?”

“Tonight's operation just got easier,” Pam said.

She speed-dialed the other four, Volker first.

“Problems?” he asked.

“Just the opposite. Get back to base. We're a go.”

She gave the same message to the others, and she and Ayesha got in the Fusion and headed back to the motel. It was a weeknight, but traffic was still heavy. The bars and other dives that always surround a military base like a cloud of meteors were already busy with guys who were off duty.

“Tell me what's going on,” Ayesha said. She seemed excited, a glow in her eyes.

“McGarvey's made a mistake,” Pam said. “He thinks he's set a trap for us, but instead he's the one who's backed into a corner.” She explained what she'd overheard and what her plan was.

“Is he that foolish?” Ayesha asked.

“He wouldn't be if he knew that I was monitoring the phone calls to all the ST Six guys.”

“He's CIA—he must have a lot of resources at his disposal. Enough to possibly predict that you have the ability to monitor such phone messages. Maybe he's set a trap for you.”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” Pam said angrily. But something nagged.

“I was married to an intelligence officer who knew all about the CIA, and who liked to tell me about his days. And McGarvey did find us at the Rawalpindi house.”

“This time is different.”

“How so?” Ayesha asked, her tone insinuating and irritating.

“There will be me and four of my operators.”

“We had you, my husband, and four dacoits, plus we had the woman as a hostage, and we were on familiar ground, and yet McGarvey managed to win the day. What makes you think this evening will be any different?”

“Your husband wasn't a field officer, and the dacoits he hired were amateurs. In the end both you and the woman were liabilities.”

Ayesha looked out the window as they pulled in to the motel's parking lot. “Your kind always has excuses.”

Pam slammed on the brakes at her parking spot. “I don't need your shit!”

“But you need my money.”

“You're staying here until we're back.”

“I'm going as an observer.”

Pam was on the verge of killing the stupid woman herself and putting the body in a Dumpster somewhere. “What if you get yourself shot by McGarvey or the CIA bitch at Rautanen's, or even one of my guys? How the hell do I explain it to the ISI? We'll need the money to continue with the op after tonight.”

“They'll probably be glad to get rid of me,” Ayesha said. “Believe me, they're just as interested in finishing this thing as you are.”

“I don't have a spare weapon to give you, even if you knew how to use it.”

“As it turns out, I'm a fine shot. My husband taught me.”

Pam looked at her in the dim light. “There is an American expression that I learned when I lived here. You might take heed. Be careful what you wish for—you just might get it.”

*   *   *

Volker and the other three showed up at Pam's room ten minutes later. They were pumped, ready to shoot someone.

“It's a go for tonight as I expected it would be,” Pam told them. “But it's likely to be much easier than I first thought it might be. For starters we won't have to split our forces.”

Her original plan was to have one of her operators make an attack on one of the SEALs who lived within ten minutes' driving time of Rautanen's house with the idea of luring McGarvey away. Pam and the other three would be standing by, and as soon as he walked out of the house they would nail him.

“What has changed?” Volker asked.

Pam told him about the intercepted phone calls, including the one that Rautanen had made to Tabeek—one of the operators who'd been on Chalk One.

“It could be a setup, if he knows we're monitoring their calls.”

“Even if he does, he's going to do exactly what we wanted him to do in the first place. Only he'll believe that we're making an assault on Rautanen's house. He won't expect us to come up on him from all directions, leaving him no way out. The Americans in the first Iraq war talked about shock and awe. Well, we're going to give the bastard a shock-and-awe campaign that he won't walk away from.”

“What about the rest of the operation?”

“McGarvey's first, and then we reevaluate the situation in front of us,” Pam said. “But if it looks as if it's falling apart, we'll do a one-eighty and get out. You have your escape routes and documents. Drop the weapons in place—they're untraceable—and walk away.”

“There is a lot of money you promised us,” Heiser said.

“Trust me: once McGarvey has been eliminated the operation will continue. Perhaps not tonight, perhaps not until the dust settles, which it eventually will. But we will finish what we started, one SEAL operator at a time.”

“Okay, what's the tactical plan?” Volker asked.

“I'll show you,” Pam said and she brought up a map on her smartphone, shifting the view to the side of the apartment complex facing Rautanen's house. “The lake is north and the SEAL's house is east of the apartments, so we'll come in from the west and split up once we spot him.”

“Will he be outside or inside one of the apartments?”

“Unknown,” Pam said, and Ayesha interrupted her.

“I'll go in first and do a recon,” she said, and the others simply looked at her.

 

SEVENTY

McGarvey crossed the backyards of the three houses between Rautanen's and the edge of the apartment complex. Two of the small ranch styles had been foreclosed on and abandoned, but the middle one was still lived in, though no lights shone from any of the windows this night.

A half-dozen or more black kids had started a small trash fire just off the street at the front of the parking lot. A boom box sitting on a dilapidated folding chair was playing some tuneless rap song the sounds of which echoed off the front of the building.

What little traffic there was at this hour did not linger, even though it was early—before ten o'clock. The drivers counted themselves lucky if they got through this neighborhood without trouble.

Some old junk cars were parked at the rear of the complex. Two of them were up on concrete blocks, minus their wheels. Another was totally trashed; all of its windows broken out and its seats and dashboard cut apart. One had its trunk lid open.

Some of the windows in the half-dozen three-story buildings were lit, but most of them were in darkness. Laundry hung from the railings on several small balconies. Stopping just at the corner of the first building, McGarvey got the distinct sense that he was being watched. Yet the entire complex, like the neighborhood, had the air of abandonment.

From where he stood he had a good sight line of the west side of Rautanen's house, including the carport and the Hummer. The lights were out: Pete was watching from a bedroom in the rear, and Rautanen from a living-room window in front.

In the far distance a fire truck siren echoed across the lake, and somewhere he thought he heard a train whistle. Night sounds, lonely. Most good people were at home watching TV or getting ready for bed. The predators were out prowling like wild animals in the dark, looking for prey.

Stepping around the corner, McGarvey walked to the front where the black kids stood around the fire in a small metal barrel. It wasn't cold outside; the fire was merely something to do, a gathering place for them.