Countdown to Midnight

Twenty-Eight

Nick Flynn, Laura Van Horn, and Gwen Park were in the mansion’s cluttered upstairs study. Maps, printouts of downloads from different internet sites, reference books, and personnel dossiers littered the small coffee table between them — along with a laptop computer connected to Four’s secure local network.

Van Horn finished paging through the draft mission plan Flynn had prepared. She looked up with a tiny frown. “I see where you’re going here, Nick, but it’s still risky as hell.”

Sitting next to her, Park nodded. “That’s probably an understatement.”

“True enough,” Flynn agreed with a shrug. “But it beats every other option we’ve explored so far. Nothing else gives us the slightest chance of putting an assault team aboard that tanker.” He picked up a heavily crossed out sheet of paper. “Using helicopters, for example. We tried that once. Got shot down.” He crumpled it up and dropped it the floor. “Let’s just say that I’m not exactly eager to repeat the experience.”

“Fair point,’ Van Horn allowed.

Flynn took out another sheet covered with notes and hand-drawn diagrams. “Then there’s the idea of using small fast boats to close and board. Which sounds great until you realize those rapid-fire 35mm guns would blow them to smithereens a mile or two off. Not to mention that any survivors would then have to scale the ship’s hull using ropes or ladders while under intense attack from an armed crew.”

“The phrase ‘sitting ducks’ does spring to mind,” Park said quietly.

“Yeah, it does. So scratch that.” He scrunched up this second sheet and tossed it aside. “Which brings us to the plan of landing the assault force by conventional parachute,” he continued. He snorted. “Even setting aside the problem of successfully landing on a moving target… at night… and probably out in the middle of the ocean… something about the whole idea of flying a slow-moving plane into range of those antiaircraft weapons and SAMs seems incredibly stupid, so—”

“What, no piece of notebook paper to mangle for that one?” Van Horn interrupted with a half smile. “I thought that was a nice effect.”

Flynn laughed almost unwillingly. “I decided to save Four some money.”

“Oh, yeah, saving a few pennies on scratch paper. That’ll soothe Br’er Fox’s troubled heart,” she said with a wider grin. She turned more serious. “So, assuming you’re serious about implementing Plan Not-Quite-As-Crazy, what’s your next step?”

“I’ve found a place to train the assault force,” he said seriously. “And I think I know where we can pick up most of the specialized gear we’ll need. But mostly it’s going to come down to whether or not I can pull together the right team.” He shrugged. “That might be tricky.”

Van Horn raised an eyebrow. “You think?” She slouched back in her worn leather armchair. “Heck, all you need are incredibly competent, physically fit guys with a mix of weapons and demolition skills. Guys who’d also be willing to risk their necks on something like this.” She shrugged. “So who’ve you got in mind?”

“Tad Kossak, Shannon Cooke, and Alain Ricard, for a start.”

She nodded. “Yeah, they’re nuts enough. Anybody else?”

“I’ve sounded out Mark Stadler,” Flynn said. “He’s interested.”

Van Horn turned to Park. “Stadler? He’s one of your security guys, right, Gwen?” she asked. “The Marine?”

The other woman nodded. “He’s also ex — Force Recon.”

“Which means he’s got shipboard combat experience,” Flynn pointed out. He pulled out one of the personnel dossiers. “And Fox has talked to Four’s UK station. They suggested one of their new recruits, a former sergeant in the SAS named Tony McGill. He’s flying here tomorrow to check me out first.”

“Not a dummy, then,” Van Horn commented. “You ready to exert all your powers of persuasion?”

“I’ll be my usual charming self,” he assured her.

“Nick, you’ll have to do better than that,” she said sternly. “Don’t forget that you’re actually trying to get this guy McGill to sign on for this stunt. Not to bolt for the nearest exit.”

Flynn bowed his head in mock apology. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. So who else is on your list?”

“Well, that’s about it,” he admitted. “Turns out that Four’s a little short right now on paramilitary daredevil types.” He smiled ruefully. “Which probably explains why Fox was so hot to trot to scoop me up last year.”

“I could go along on this gig,” Van Horn offered. “Assuming you male chauvinist types don’t mind fighting with a girl on your side, that is.”

Flynn grinned at her. “I don’t think anybody’s dumb enough or suicidal enough to try to stop you, Laura. But we’re going to need your flying skills more. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure this op literally won’t ever get off the ground.”

She nodded reluctantly. “Probably so.” Her eyes were troubled. “Still, counting you, that’s only six men, Nick.” She picked up his draft mission plan. “And this scheme of yours calls for a minimum assault force of eight — which, considering the odds you’re likely to face on board that tanker, is already pushing the envelope. Six shooters isn’t going to cut it, not when you’re likely to take casualties just getting down onto the deck.”

“We don’t really have a choice,” he said carefully. He shrugged. “It’s not like I can place a classified ad to fill the empty slots.”

For just a second, a trace of impish glee flickered across Van Horn’s worried face. “Well, you could, I guess. But can you imagine the look on Fox’s face when he caught sight of a line of pot-bellied, gray-haired guys in hunting camo and Army surplus tactical gear lined up outside Avalon House?”

Flynn’s mind goggled at the thought. “That would be something to behold,” he agreed slowly. “Not a good thing, mind you.”

“I might have another option,” Gwen Park said, almost hesitantly. The petite Asian American woman wore a strange expression on her elegant face — an odd mix of embarrassed exasperation coupled with reluctant amusement.

“Oh?” Flynn said.

“About a week ago, two uninvited guests showed up on our doorstep,” the Avalon House security chief told him. “And they were asking for you, Mr. Flynn.”

“Me?”

She nodded. “You.”

“Could be process servers, Nick,” Van Horn murmured. “If you have to make a run for it, I’ll hold them off here.”

“Oh, very funny,” Flynn said. He turned back to Park. “What’s the story on these guys?”

She shrugged. “You were still overseas, so we played dumb. They then threatened to just wait outside for as long as it took us to find you.”

“Kind of determined types,” Van Horn commented dryly.

“Very determined,” Park concurred with that same half-pained expression. “In the end, we compromised. They agreed to go back to their motel and sit tight. And we agreed to contact you on their behalf.”

“Which you didn’t do,” Flynn pointed out.

The security chief smiled thinly. “Of course not. At least not until we’d thoroughly vetted them.” She sighed. “We’ve had them under surveillance ever since. And their story, such as it is, seems to check out.”

“And you think they might be able to help Nick with this operation?” Van Horn asked narrowly.

“Possibly,” Park allowed. She frowned. “Letting strangers inside Avalon House is against the rules. My rules, I mean. But I don’t see any other realistic option in this particular case.” She held up her smartphone. “I can have them here in minutes. If you’re interested?”

Flynn nodded. “Oh, hell, yes.”

A short time later, Park knocked briefly on the half-open door to the study and looked in. “Our guests have arrived,” she reported. Then she half-turned and crooked a finger down the hall, signaling someone. “In here, gentlemen.”

Flynn’s eyes widened at the sight of the two men who ambled somewhat sheepishly in behind the security chief. Cole Hynes and Wade Vucovich had been part of the Joint Force security unit he’d briefly commanded on Alaska’s frozen north coast. After a risky parachute jump into a winter blizzard, they’d all tangled with a Spetsnaz detachment hunting for Russia’s missing stealth bomber — a fight that had ended in victory, but with half of his men dead or wounded. He hadn’t seen any of them since he’d been medevacked out to San Antonio for his own injuries. He stood up.

Hynes, short and square-shouldered, nodded to him. “Hey there, Captain,” he said uncertainly.

Vucovich, taller and wiry, shyly echoed him, “Hi, sir.”

They bobbed their heads at Laura Van Horn. From the appraising looks on their faces, they recognized her as one of the C-130J pilots who’d flown them on that last airborne drop. “Ma’am.”

“Cole. Wade. It’s… well, really good to see you both,” Flynn acknowledged, trying less than successfully to conceal his surprise at their appearance here at Avalon House. “But you can drop the ‘captain’ and ‘sir’ bit, you know.” He indicated his jeans and polo shirt. “I’m not in the Air Force anymore.”

“Yes, sir,” Hynes said. “We know that. But we’ve got to call you something… and Mr. Flynn doesn’t sound right somehow.”

Flynn grinned at them. “You could try calling me Nick,” he suggested.

“Yes, sir,” Hynes agreed. “We could.” But their stoic faces told him that was a nonstarter.

He studied their own mix of civilian clothes. “So I guess you guys are out of the Army now, too?”

Hynes nodded. “That’s right, sir.” He shrugged. “The brass wanted me to reenlist when my time ran out. But they offered me Fort Polk,” he said in disgust.

“Ouch,” Flynn said sympathetically. Fort Polk in Louisiana had a well-deserved reputation as one of U.S. Army’s worst duty stations. “That sucks.”

“Yeah, Polk. And on a PFC’s lousy pay? Forget that,” Hynes said. “So I told them to shove it.”

Flynn stared at him. “I thought you got your sergeant’s stripes back after our brush with the Russians?” Hynes, a superb soldier otherwise, had a pugnacious streak that had cost him his noncom’s rank and landed him with Flynn’s band of exiles in northern Alaska.

“I did,” the shorter man said evenly. “Lost ’em again. Had a disagreement with a dickhead civilian outside a bar in Anchorage a couple of months later.”

Flynn hid a grin. He should have figured. Outside of combat, Cole Hynes tended to get bored. And when he got bored, it was all too easy for that temper of his to get the better of him. The veteran infantryman didn’t suffer fools gladly. He just decked them.

He turned to Vucovich. “What happened in your case, Wade?”

The other man reddened slightly. “Had a little trouble with the MPs,” he admitted. “So my new CO and I came to an agreement that I wouldn’t reup when the time came.”

“Not another exploding still, Wade?” Flynn asked sympathetically, hearing a muffled snort from Laura Van Horn. Vucovich had tried building a jury-rigged still at the isolated radar station they’d been assigned to guard. The resulting explosion had spewed half-fermented potato slices far and wide across what seemed like half the polar ice cap.

“No, sir,” Vucovich replied, sounding hurt. “The next one worked just fine.” He shook his head. “But the first sergeant wanted a bigger cut of the proceeds and ratted me out when I turned him down.”

“Uh-huh.” Flynn looked them over. “So you’re both out of the tender mercies of the United States Army, wandering around footloose and fancy-free?”

“That’s about the size of it, Captain,” Hynes agreed.

“Which leads me to the somewhat more important question of just what you’re doing here?” Flynn asked carefully, seeing Gwen Park lean in slightly. This was obviously the same question she wanted answered.

“Well, sir, it’s like this,” Hynes said. “All of the guys, Sanchez, Pedersen, Kim, and the rest of us, were real curious about what happened to you after that bomber crashed and blew up and they packed you off to some hospital. Since we all got sworn to secrecy by a bunch of spooks about everything that went down, we couldn’t ask any questions while we were still in the service. So when Wade and me got out, we decided to go look you up.”

“And just how did you plan to do that?” Flynn wondered. “Since I’m pretty sure my personnel records were sealed.”

“We visited your folks in Texas,” Hynes said patiently. “And since your mom thought you might want to see us, she gave us your address.”

“My mother did what?” Flynn said in disbelief.

Hynes nodded again. “Sure, Captain. She said she figured you were probably off causing trouble somewhere and that you might be able to use a couple more hands.”

Van Horn was red-faced now with suppressed mirth. She swiped away tears of laughter. “Now I really have to meet your mother, Nick,” she forced out. “She’s got you pegged perfectly.”

Flynn ignored her. He stared hard at the two former enlisted men. “Even my mother doesn’t know where I work. And my address is a post office box,” he pointed out quietly.

They nodded matter-of-factly. “Yes, sir,” Hynes said. “But it’s a P.O. box here in Winter Park. So we just found the post office in town and waited for someone to pick up the mail. Then we followed ’em back here.” He looked admiringly around the room. “Heck of a nice place, Captain.”

Flynn shook his head in disbelief. They made it sound so easy. And the funny thing was that it really had been that easy. So much for the Quartet Directorate’s vaunted aura of secrecy, he thought, fighting down the temptation to burst out laughing himself. Now he knew why Gwen Park looked so embarrassed. Hynes and Vucovich turned out to have slipped straight through a gaping, completely unsuspected hole in the net of secrecy she’d oh-so-carefully thrown around Avalon House. He would not want to be the member of her detail who’d been assigned to pick up their mail. Either her security officer had been woefully inattentive, or the two ex-soldiers were a lot better at being sneaky than he would first have imagined.

“And just what sort of work is it that you thought I might be doing now, Cole?” he asked curiously. The brass plaques outside the mansion would have told them it housed offices for the Sobieski Charitable Foundation, the Concannon Language Institute, and Sykes-Fairbairn Strategic Investments.

Hynes shrugged. “Well, Captain, I don’t guess you’re just working as a translator for some language institute. And I doubt you’re handing out charity money. And I sure don’t see you as a banker.” He grinned. “So I figure all that stuff outside is just bullshit window dressing. And that your mom was right. You’re still raising hell. For someone.”

“Nick,” Van Horn said softly. “What was it that you were saying about Four finding itself short of paramilitary daredevil types?”

He smiled back at her, and then turned to Hynes and Vucovich. “As it happens,” he said carefully, “I do have a project in mind. One you guys might be interested in.”

Hynes thumped his taller friend in triumph. “Told you so, Wade!” he crowed.

“But it’s also extremely hazardous,” Flynn warned them. “The chance of getting killed is pretty high.”

Vucovich spoke up now. “Yeah,” he said simply. “We sort of expected that, sir. You can deal us in.”