Checkmate

11

“Seven minutes to target,” Fisher heard Bird say in his subdermal. “Descending to five thousand.”

“Roger. Give me the ramp, Bird.”

“Ramp descending.”

With a mechanical groan, a gap appeared along the curved upper lip of the ramp, revealing a slice of dark night sky. Fisher felt a slight vacuum sensation as the pressure equalized. After a few seconds, the ramp was down level with the deck. Through the opening Fisher could see nothing but a carpet of black water and the distant twinkling lights of the Bahamian mainland.

“Ramp down and locked,” Bird called.

At the bulkhead control panel, Redding checked the gauges and nodded confirmation.

“Surface conditions?” Fisher asked.

“Sea state one, low chop. Winds five to seven knots from the northeast.”

“Give me a two-minute warning.”

“Will do.”

Redding’s voice came over his earpiece: “So, tell me again, Sam: Why do you hate this thing?”

The “thing” in question was a covert insertion vehicle known as a Skipjack. Essentially a one-man IKS (Inflatable Kayak, Small) equipped with a silent electric motor, the Skipjack was enclosed in a bullet-shaped shell of reinforced fiberglass designed to make the IKS aerodynamic, allowing it to be launched from aircraft and skip along the surface at sixty knots before the shell peeled away from the IKS and sank to the bottom.

Insertion is often the diciest part of any mission, especially an airdrop of any kind. Most enemy radar stations, while immediately suspicious of low-flying unidentified aircraft, don’t push the panic button until the target dramatically slows down and/or drops from radar for thirty seconds or more, which could, for example, indicate troops fast-roping from a helicopter.

The Osprey, traveling at 125 knots, could drop off radar without reducing speed, eject the Skipjack, and climb back to altitude within twenty seconds. To radar operators that appeared as nothing more than an inexperienced Cessna pilot who’d lost some altitude before correcting.

There were few things Fisher feared, and none of them involved work. His problem with the Skipjack was the seemingly endless twenty or thirty seconds after it was disgorged from the plane. Being strapped like a piece of luggage inside the IKS and unable to control his fate went against his every instinct.

“I don’t hate it,” Fisher replied. “It’s just not my favorite ride.”

“Sam, can you hear me?” Lambert’s voice.

“Go ahead.”

“The FBI’s on to the Duroc. They’ve got a team landing in Freeport City in twenty minutes. The Bahamian Navy’s got a boat waiting for them.”

“How much time do I have?”

“They’ll probably intercept within seventy minutes. You need to get aboard, get some answers, and get out before then. Remember, you don’t exist—”

“—and we’re not doing this. I know. I’ll be in touch.”

Fisher climbed into the Skipjack, which was locked to the deck by four ratchet straps, and strapped himself in.

Bird called, “Descending through five hundred feet. Target on radar. One minute to drop.”

Fisher felt the Osprey bank again as Bird bled off altitude. The drone of the engines changed pitch. Strapped into the IKS with the Skipjack’s shell around him, Fisher could only see the outside world through a small Plexiglas view port.

“Where’s my target?” he asked.

“We’re coming in astern and close to shore. When you hit the water, they’ll be a mile off your port bow. Current heading, three-two-zero; speed, eight knots. We’re passing through two hundred feet. Hold tight. Go on green.”

“Roger, go on green,” Fisher replied.

Redding knelt beside the Skipjack, patted Fisher once on the shoulder, then sealed Skipjack’s roof over his head. The Osprey’s engines went to half volume.

“Eighty feet,” Bird called. “Ten seconds.”

The Osprey began trembling as its own prop wash reacted with the ocean’s surface. Through the port Fisher could see mist swirling around the end of the ramp.

“Five seconds.”

Above Fisher’s head, the bulb turned yellow.

Then green.

In his peripheral vision he saw Redding pull the master release toggle. Fisher felt himself sliding forward.

Hitting the water was like being rear-ended at a stop-light. He knew it was coming, was braced for it, but still the impact took his breath away. He was thrown forward against the harness as the Skipjack’s airspeed went from 125 knots to 80 knots in the space of two seconds. A wave crashed into the view port; then he felt the nose rise a few feet as the Skipjack’s aerodyamics took over.

He glanced down. Beside his knee, a rudimentary gauge built into the shell gave him a LED speed readout: 60 knots… 55… 48… 42… He peered through the view port. True to Bird’s call, a half mile off his port bow he could see the Duroc’s white mast light.

37… 33… 25…

Fisher reached forward and grasped the shell-release lever. He gave it a hard jerk, a full twist, then tucked his head between his knees. The sound of of the shell separation was dinstinct: like a massive piece of sheet metal being rattled as the wind tore away the two halves.

The truth was, he’d lied to Redding. He did hate the Skipjack, and for a very good reason. As with the Goshawk, the Skipjack had started out as a DARPA project. A friend of Fisher’s from his Navy days, Jon Goodin, had volunteered to test-drive the prototype. On the first run, the Skipjack’s shell had failed to separate properly and one of its edges caught Goodin in the head. He survived, but the impact neatly scalped him, from his forehead to the base of his skull. To this day, Goodin looked as though someone had taken a cheese grater to his forehead.

Fisher waited for the IKS’s speed to drop below ten knots, then reached behind him and flipped a switch. With a hum, the electric motor engaged. He adjusted the tiller and turned the nose toward the Duroc.

“Down and safe,” Fisher radiod.

“Scalp still in one piece?” Lambert asked.

“Very funny.” Fisher had once made the mistake of sharing his misgivings about the Skipjack with Lambert; since then the gibes had never stopped. “Where’s the FBI?”

“Just leaving Freeport harbor aboard a Bahamian fast-patrol boat. They’ll catch up to you in about fifty minutes.”

“By the way, what’s my ROE?” Fisher asked, referring to Rules of Engagement.

“Weapons free.” No restrictions; lethal force authorized. “But a witness would come in handy.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Two hundred yards off the Duroc’s stern, Fisher pulled out his binoculars and scanned the decks. Aside from the mast and navigation beacons, the only visible light came from the yacht’s main salon: A yellow glow peeked from between the curtains covering the sliding glass doors. As he watched, a man-shaped figure passed before the curtains, then moved out of view.

Something on the starboard side caught Fisher’s eye. He panned and zoomed in.

A man walked onto the afterdeck, shining a flashlight as he went. Fisher could clearly see the outline of a gun in his other hand. KSC/Ingram MAC-11 submachine gun, he thought, recalling the stats. Firing rate, twenty rounds per second; standard magazine holds forty-eight. The MAC-11 was not the most accurate of weapons, but what it lacked in precision was balanced by sheer firepower.

Fisher keyed his subdermal. “Lambert, better get word to the FBI: The Duroc’s crew is armed.”

Though his time was rapidly dwindling, he forced himself to wait and watch until certain the guard was alone and on a fixed schedule. Hollywood movies aside, covert work was as much about patience and preparation as it was about skulking in the shadows with a knife in your teeth. Among the dozens of axioms special operators lived by, the Six P’s were arguably the most important: Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.

Dying on paper before a mission was preferable to dying in the real world, and attention to detail could save your life. Of course, this didn’t fit the romanticized version of covert work most civilians held, but it was reality.

He waited until the guard finished his second round of the decks, then cranked the IKS’s throttle to full and sprinted ahead until he was under the Duroc’s stern rail. Having rehearsed his movements in his head, Fisher went into action. He tapped a series of buttons on the OPSAT, engaging the smart-chip in the IKS’s engine that would keep the kayak loitering a few hundred yards off the Duroc’s stern, then stood up, grabbed the lowermost railing, then started climbing.

As soon as his foot touched the deck, he heard the salon door sliding open. A shaft of yellow light poured out. A silhouetted figure appeared in the doorway.

Fisher lowered himself onto his belly and eased to his right behind a coil of mooring line. It wouldn’t be enough to hide him, he knew, but it would break up his form.

“Hey, Chon, where you at?” the figure called

The language was English, but the accent was not. Americanized Chinese, Fisher thought.

The MAC-11-armed guard walked down the side deck. “I’m here. Stop yelling.”

“Boss needs a cigarette.”

That told Fisher something: The guard probably didn’t have a radio, which in turn meant he probably wasn’t required to check in with anyone. Good news. If it became necessary, the man’s disapperance wouldn’t immediately raise an alarm.

The guard fished around in his shirt pocket and handed over a cigarette. “Anything on the police scanner?” he asked.

The first man shook his head. “Nothing on the fire band either. They haven’t found it yet.”

It? Fisher wondered. He assumed they were talking about Bahamian radio bands. Were they listening for signs of pursuit, or was it something else?

“They will,” the other man replied with a chuckle. “Believe me, they will.”

Not pursuit, Fisher decided. Something else.

The men chatted for a few more seconds, then parted company. The first man went back into the salon and closed the door. The guard turned to the railing and lingered there, staring over the side.

Come on, pal, where’re you going?

Fisher drew his pistol and thumbed off the safety.

Five seconds passed. Ten.

The guard drew his flashlight, clicked it on, and started walking toward Fisher.