Operation Barracuda

26

Pier 44 is on a section of the marina called Mindanao Way. The harbor itself is part of Santa Monica Bay and is supposedly the largest artificial small-craft harbor in the world. (My OPSAT automatically comes up with these facts when I’m mapping out a location.) It also tells me that the harbor consists of over eight hundred acres. The breakwater is 2,340 feet long and there are two miles of main channel. It’s an ultimate example of joint planning and implementation of a major metropolitan recreation site. It’s too damn bad I’m not a yachtsman!

I get off of Highway 90 at Lincoln Boulevard and then turn right onto Mindanao Way. I park the Murano on the street and walk toward the pier. Nightlights illuminate the marina but there are plenty of dark spots to use for cover. Moving from shadow to shadow exposes me for a second or two but I’m not going to worry about it. Eventually I arrive at Pier 44, a private outfit that rents slips to those with the dough to pay for these kinds of things.

Eddie’s Lady Lotus is a ninety-four-foot Eagle/Westport Cockpit motor yacht. The lights are on in the salon and galley so I know there are people aboard. I see no sign of Agent Kehoe.

“Frances, you still there?”

“I’m here, Sam.”

“Send me the blueprints for an Eagle/Westport motor yacht. Ninety-four-footer.”

After a moment she asks, “You know what year?”

“I’m guessing latter half of the nineties.”

“I have three to send you.”

I go through the plans one by one and settle on the 1996 twin diesel engine model. It’s a match for the Lady Lotus.

If anyone needed proof that being a member of a Triad is lucrative, then this is it. I have no clue what a yacht like this might cost but I’m sure it’s in the millions. It’s a beauty, all right. And very private, too. There’s a walk-around deck but most of the floor space is inside. From the blueprints, I see there are three staterooms, three heads, a very large main salon, a sizable galley, and a comfortable pilothouse.

Now if I can climb onto the boat without rocking it and alerting everyone inside that they’ve got company… The only way on is by traversing the ramp from the dock to the deck. I’m about to do that as gently as I can when someone comes out from below. It’s a goon, someone whose job it is to keep an eye on the harbor. The guy’s most likely armed. I duck into the shadows as he scans the pier until he’s satisfied they’re alone. Then he lights a cigarette and strolls along the walk-around deck at a snail’s pace. I wait until he’s on the opposite side of the boat, masked by the pilothouse, and then I swiftly move up the ramp and onto the deck. With the lookout walking around the outside of the boat, I figure that any extra noise I make will be mistaken for him.

I move aft and crouch, ready to spring at the guard as he comes around the yacht’s stern. I hear him approaching, closer… closer… and then I rise and deliver a solid punch to his nose. Before he can utter a sound I lunge forward, slap my hand over his mouth, move around him, and then lock his neck inside my free arm. The choke hold takes roughly thirty seconds to render him unconscious. When he’s limp in my arms, I silently lay him on the deck.

Since the lights are on in the salon, they can’t see out the windows. The glass is tinted so I don’t have a very good view of what they’re doing in there. To compensate for this disadvantage, I pull out the optic cable again and thread it into the gangway leading below. It doesn’t have to go very far before I’m able to see the entire salon.

It’s roomy, with a sofa, dining table, stabilized chairs, a television, stereo system, and even a dartboard on the wall. But a plastic sheet covers the floor and in the middle of the sheet is a man with his hands tied behind his back. He’s lying on his side with his knees to his chest. His face is covered in blood.

I’m guessing it’s Agent Kehoe and he’s not moving at all.

Eddie Wu sits in a chair, looking at his victim. Wu wears leather gloves and an apron that is splashed with Kehoe’s blood. Two more Chinese hoods stand on either side of the helpless man.

“Now we know what happened to Kehoe.” It’s Lambert in my ear, obviously awake now. Coen must have got him up. They can, of course, see everything I see through my headset.

“Try to take ’em out, Sam,” he says, “but we need Eddie Wu alive.”

I quickly retract the optic cable and stuff it in the backpack, and then remove a CS gas grenade from my trouser pocket. The CS gas is good for knocking out the enemy if it’s used in a confined space such as the yacht. In larger areas the CS is more of a deterrent, like tear gas. Third Echelon also supplies a CS grade that is lethal but I rarely carry it unless I know I’m going to need it.

Grasping the grenade in my right hand, I pull the pin just as a bullet sears past my head. I feel the heat of the thing on the bridge of my nose — too goddamned close! The round smashes through the tinted glass, alerting the men inside of my presence. I hit the deck as another round streaks above me. Someone is on the marina taking potshots at me!

“Damn, where the hell did he come from?” Lambert says. “He was well hidden from our satellite. Sam, the SAT images reveal the sniper to be one man,” Lambert says. “Repeat, it’s one guy.”

Before I can adequately plan a defense strategy, the two Chinese gunmen appear on deck. They’re armed with semiautomatics, which they’re all too eager to point at the guy in the strange uniform that they see lying at their feet. The only thing I can do is to toss the live CS grenade into the air, right in front of their faces. I roll myself into a ball, covering my head as the damned thing explodes. The two men scream in pain and surprise. One of them falls off the boat, hitting his head on the edge of the dock as he plummets into the water. The other guy tumbles back through the gangway into the salon. The gas is affecting me and I find it difficult to crawl along the deck to the other side of the boat. At least the sniper can’t get at me there. I take a moment to breathe the fresh air, clear my head, and attempt to ignore the ringing in my ears. Finally I stand, lower my goggles, and switch on the thermal vision. Using extreme caution, I peer around the foredeck and focus on the marina. Sure enough, I see the heat-outlined shoulders of a man crouching behind a collection of barrels on the pier. He’s got a rifle, probably a tactical sniper model, and he’s ready to fire again. I draw the Five-seveN and aim but he shoots at me, forcing me back behind cover.

At that point I hear steps on the gangplank as someone runs out of the yacht and onto the dock. In a few seconds I see him running toward Mindanao Way. It’s Eddie Wu, abandoning ship. I’m just able to aim the Five-seveN from my prone position and get off a shot in his direction. The round chips the wood beneath his feet but doesn’t do any damage to him. Wu disappears around a corner and there’s no way that I can pursue him. Why didn’t the sniper shoot him? Unless the killer is on Wu’s side…

Moving around to the dockside of the yacht is impossible with the sniper over there. He doesn’t seem to have any intention of moving. I have no choice but to reach into my backpack and grab a frag grenade. It’s my last one — I should have stocked up when I was with Lambert and Coen yesterday. That’s one of the problems with taking detours when you’re on the way home from an assignment. You don’t always follow the normal routine of debriefing and restocking.

Okay, this one has to count. I pull the pin, stand, and throw the grenade over the top of the yacht toward the barrels. The sniper fires again while I’m visible and he catches the top of my backpack. Luckily I’m in the act of dropping to a crouch position — if I’d lingered at full height for a split second longer I’d be a dead man.

The grenade explodes, momentarily brightening the pier with a blinding flash of lightning. I wait a good ten seconds before I carefully peer around the foredeck again. Nothing happens. With the night vision on, I see that the barrels are smashed to bits and there’s a hole in the boardwalk. No sniper.

“Do you see the shooter on the SAT image?” I ask, pressing my throat implant.

“Negative,” Coen answers. “Either you got him or he slipped away under cover.”

“What about Wu? Don’t tell me you lost him.”

“I’m afraid he’s merged into traffic patterns.”

“Great.”

I stand and cautiously move around the deck to the gangway and go inside the boat. The Chinese guard that caught the CS grenade in the face is lying dead on the plastic sheet next to Kehoe. I kneel and examine the FBI agent and see that they really worked him over. He apparently suffered some serious damage to the inside of his mouth. What did they do? Then I notice the pair of bloody pliers on the floor next to the chair in which Wu was sitting. I can’t help but grimace when I see at least three of Kehoe’s teeth lying next to the pliers, the roots torn and mangled. And… oh, no, it’s the agent’s tongue lying on the plastic sheet beside his head. The poor guy bled to death.

There’s an open bottle of bourbon sitting on the dining table. I can’t help grabbing it and taking a swig. I’ve seen some terrible things in my time and this has to be in the top ten.

Pressing on my implant, I say, “Frances?”

“Sam?”

“Shit, Frances, tell the FBI that Kehoe has been tortured and killed.”

“What’s the pier number?”

“Pier Forty-four, Marina Del Rey. I’m on the yacht Lady Lotus. It’s pretty bad.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I’m a little shaken from the sniper attack and seeing Kehoe in such a condition but I don’t mention that.

“I’ll get on to Kehoe’s people right away.”

She says the FBI will pick up their boy and clean up the mess. I need to disappear, and fast. As I return to the deck I carefully scan the pier with my thermal vision turned on and see no trace of the sniper. The cops will probably be here any minute, thanks to the noise of the grenades.

I scuttle down the ramp and run to the smashed barrels. As I search the boardwalk for any clues indicating the identity of the sniper, I find three spent shells. I take one of them and recognize it as a 7.62mm NATO — a common round used in sniper rifles. This rings a bell somewhere in the back of my head but at the moment I don’t know what it is. I pocket the shell and head for the marina exit before the cavalry arrives, all the while slightly paranoid that a damned competent assassin most likely has his eye on me.