The Wrecking Crew

CHAPTER 17

The convoy wound its way through the scrublands of Somalia, a mismatched collection of rusting Land Cruisers following the faint ruts of a long-forgotten trail. Perhaps a hundred thousand years ago the area was lush jungle and fertile savannah wetlands. Now it was little more than motley drab brown underbrush with the odd patchy tree defending any ground where moisture briefly accumulated. A handful of tiny white clouds spread across the radiant blue sky, too slight to even cast a shadow as they passed across the rippling sun.

Jonah bounced in the open bed of a Regan-era Toyota truck. He’d been tied to a machine-gun emplacement in the tailgate, hands bound behind his back. The SUV behind him was missing its front windshield. Jonah could see the squinting mercenary within. He had a single new bandage wrapped around his head and over one eye to add to a collection of scarred-over facial wounds.

The one-eyed driver caught Jonah making eye contact and scowled back, drawing a callused finger across his throat.

Jonah briefly wondered what motherless shitbird had sold him and Klea out. He doubted it was the orange-haired village elder, his rescuer. Then again, Jonah doubted much happened among the clan of fishermen that wasn’t under the man’s direct instruction and supervision.

Still, Jonah preferred to think of his rescuer as a friend. Besides, a bullet was still a step up from a slow death by dehydration.

In the distance, Jonah caught sight of a single spec hanging in the clear blue sky. He recognized it as a Bettencorps corporate helicopter from Anconia Island, approaching from the sea. The shiny white craft hung low, rotors slicing through the oppressively hot morning air as it passed the convoy with a roar of engines and airfoil blades. Ahead now, the helicopter flared and landed behind a hill in a cloud of blinding dust and sand.

The convoy crossed the crest of the hill, winding down to a landing zone inside a dry lake bed. Wind and dust drifted by in clouds, propelled by the still-oscillating helicopter blades. Four bodyguards spilled from the helicopters and set up a perimeter. The heavily armed men ushered the convoy into the lake bed, waving in one vehicle at a time.

The one-eyed mercenary got out of his truck to cut Jonah’s hands free. Jonah tried to stretch his arms, but the mercenary yanked him off the back of the truck and shoved him up against the side. A second, baby-faced soldier searched him again for hidden weapons while the other kept watch. The men zip tied Jonah’s hands behind his back again and forced him to kneel in front of a small motor pool. The collected vehicles appeared for the most part to be of the same drab, rusting collection, but one truck stuck out in particular. Jonah recognized it as a high-performance Ford Raptor, a pickup with bulked-up wheels and suspension, massive engine, designed for the rigors of desert racing.

The zip-ties hurt; they dug into his wrists as the two mercenaries lifted him to his feet and led him to a canvas tent on the far side of the lake bed. They walked him past the center of the group, past fuel tanks, ammunition, medical supplies and finally three late-model Toyota Land Cruisers. This was no ordinary mobilization; this was a staging area for a large contingent of private soldiers. Somebody in the region — be it a pirate compound or terrorist cell — was about to have a very bad day.

One-Eye and Babyface pushed Jonah into the tent, and back onto his knees. The colonel stood behind a folding standing desk, typing on a ruggedized laptop. He was dressed in the same stinking blood-flecked armor he wore in the village the previous night. The colonel grabbed Jonah by his shirt, towering over him. The man wound his fist back, almost to his right ear, closing his eyes with a look of intense, nearly sexual pleasure on his face.

At least we got straight to the point, thought Jonah.

Behind Jonah, the main entrance to the tent rustled with the sound of two men entering.

“Really, Colonel Westmoreland?” came a droll, almost bored voice as a handsome, tall, and very tanned man stepped behind the colonel and clapped a single, friendly hand on the armored back of the still-scowling mercenary.

It took Jonah a moment to recognize Charles Bettencourt. The CEO wore an obnoxious desert-chic outfit, white Egyptian-cotton dress shirt open two buttons down, and a pair of khaki dungarees with tan leather boots. It was as if everything he knew about the desert came from a glossy fashion editorial.

“Nice shirt,” said Jonah. “Louis Vuitton?”

“Hugo Boss,” said Bettencourt dismissively. “Nobody wears Vuitton anymore.”

“Hate to break it to you,” said Jonah. “But the real high-fashion out here is an oversize T-shirt from last years’ losing Superbowl team.”

Bettencourt chuckled, if for no other reason to assure Jonah that the insult landed without effect. The front tent flap rustled and another figure stepped out from behind Jonah, a smaller, glasses-wearing man in an expensive suit wholly inappropriate for the setting. The man — an accountant or a lawyer, maybe? — moved with the sort of nervous energy of someone clearly uncomfortable with military operations and prisoners. He walked around Jonah with a smartphone in hand, taking pictures of Jonah’s face from every angle.

“Somebody didn’t get the memo about the dress code,” said Jonah, nodding towards the lawyer’s expensive suit.

“He was born wearing it,” said the colonel, smirking.

“It’s definitely Jonah Blackwell,” said the lawyer, ignoring the jibes at his expense. “Computer says 94.7 % match.”

Jonah found himself wondering about the five-point-three percent discrepancy. He supposed there were any number of violent face-mashings that could have accounted for the mismatch.

“Jonah… Blackwell…” Bettencourt said, considering him. At first, Jonah registered a little surprise that the CEO knew his name. He supposed it would have been easy enough to pull his face from the security cameras around the Anconia docks and run it through any number of facial identification algorithms.

“Now what?” asked Jonah.

“Now what? Good place to start, because that would largely be up to you,” said Bettencourt, cocking his head. “Jonah — buddy — I don’t even know where to begin. The Somali rumor mill is spinning off its axis. Word is that the local pirates think you’re some kind of Navy Seal or some shit. I am genuinely fucking impressed. You come here on some half-assed salvage mission on a hijacked yacht. The next thing I know, my submarine is missing and the entire goddamn crew presumed dead. Fucking incredible. Just to keep matters interesting, you and your friends don’t just leave like anybody in their right mind would, you turn around and hit my closest allies in the region. From all accounts, you seriously fucked their shit up. Half of the locals have got it in their heads that you’re the guy that killed bin Laden, like you’re some kind of a one-man Rambo wrecking ball. They want your oversized nutsack on the end of a rusty machete, my friend.”

“We’re more of a wrecking crew,” explained Jonah with sarcastic earnestness.

“That you are indeed. So what’s next? You’re going to break your zip ties, knock out the guards, grab a couple of machine guns and take on my whole army?”

“Sure, but I’d settle for some granola bars and a thirty-minute head start,” suggested Jonah with a smirk. “At least it’d be sporting.”

“Bear with me,” said Bettencourt, ignoring Jonah’s sarcasm. “I’m making a larger point here. You know what made me such a good hedge fund manager back when I actually thought that was a challenge?”

“Cocaine and a lack of accountability?” asked Jonah, determined to needle the executive.

“No… emotional… attachment.” Bettencourt sounded out each word as if it were the gospel itself. Behind him, the lawyer nodded in sycophantic agreement as his boss resumed his ridiculous, self-serving speech.

“If you’re bleeding money,” continued Bettencourt. “You stop the bleeding. And you, my friend, are bleeding the fuck out of me. So here’s the deal. I want my goddamn submarine back. She was extraordinarily difficult to obtain. The general I bought it from was recently shot for treason, so I’m not likely to get another. How you and your crew of amateurs even know how to operate it is beyond me. Seriously, what do you even plan on doing with it once this is all over?”

“Good question,” mused Jonah. “Maybe offer deep sea tours of Anconia Island’s submerged ruins?”

“Don’t be passé,” said Bettencourt, an air of disappointment in his voice. “Revenge is an outdated concept. Former adversaries are often well-suited collaborators. I want you to think about how much chaos you’ve caused over the last couple weeks, and with zero support. What did you have at your disposal, some Middle Eastern doctor and his simpleton cousin? A Texas farm girl? Am I missing anybody?”

Bettencourt sighed and broke eye contact with Jonah for a moment while the captive remained silent.

“You’re a startup, Jonah Blackwell,” continued the CEO. “A startup with incredible potential. But you’re green and you’ve got no backing. Without a grounded partner, guys like you spin right out of orbit and never make anything of themselves. You know what we could do with you if I gave you a couple of hard-ass blood-and-guts mercs and some walking-around money? Jesus Christ, it’d be fucking beautiful. You could go on happily fucking shit up — and get paid to boot. Why are we even at odds? For Christ’s sake, I don’t even know what I did to offend you.”

You tried to kill me, thought Jonah. And goddamn near succeeded.

“He wants to eat a bullet,” interjected Westmoreland. “Look at him — he doesn’t want your fucking money.”

Ignoring his subordinate, Bettencourt continued his pitch. “Hell,” said the CEO, “I could use your help now. Believe me, this whole production isn’t for your benefit. You’ve been a short-term problem, sure, but I’ve got a long-term problem that is in serious, overdue need of some attention. You ever hear of the pirate Dalmar Abdi?”

Jonah shook his head.

“That’s probably a good thing. He’s a pain in my ass.”

“And he’s fucking dead,” added the colonel. “If he thinks he can park his operations outside of our tactical range, he is sorely fucking mistaken.”

“So what do you say?” said Bettencourt. “How about we bring this messiness to a close, gunslinger?”

“What about Klea?” blurted out Jonah. He kicked himself for the obvious question. Shit, if they weren’t looking for her before, they sure as hell would be now.

Bettencourt frowned, looking from Jonah to Westmoreland and then back to Jonah. He suddenly broke out in a massive smile.

“Oh shit,” said Bettencourt, laughing out loud. “You mean that MIT girl, the pirate hostage? This is too perfect! I should have seen it coming. You’ve been fucking each other. That is… that is just too good. I guess you had that whole white knight, damsel in distress thing going on. So what about her? First things first, let’s get her home to her parents. They’ve been begging me to find her for years.”

Jonah forced himself to impassively stare forward, refusing to flinch. “I can be persuaded to let bygones be bygones,” he lied. “And there’s no need for Klea or her family to know anything. Given the circumstances, she just might hold her dead fiancé and best friends against you.”

“Forgive me if I don’t immediately trust your intentions,” said Bettencourt with a thin smile. “So I’m going to need an act of good faith. I’m done dicking around — I want the Scorpion back. And you’re going to help me get it.”

“How?” asked Jonah.

“Let’s get you in touch with your… what did you call them? That’s right, your wrecking crew,” said Bettencourt. The CEO motioned for his lawyer to approach. The lawyer set a small bag on the folding desk and drew out a complex hand-held radio. It looked like one of the old-school brick cell phones, but with a long, looping antenna.

“Satellite phone,” explained the lawyer. “We’ve already got the Scorpion dialed in. If the submarine is within three thousand miles, they’ll get the transmission.”

“So we’re doing this?” asked Bettencourt, slapping a hand on Jonah’s shoulder.

“You see another way out of this for me?” asked Jonah. “Not the toughest decision I’ve made recently.”

“I imagine not,” admitted Bettencourt. “Let’s get this call done; we’ll work out the details later. Medical, dental, 401k, all that jazz.”

“Can’t thumb the company employee manual with my fuckin’ hands tied,” joked Jonah, nudging his zip-tied wrists toward Westmoreland. “You mind?”

“Not happening,” said the colonel, crossing his arms.

“We have a deficit of trust to overcome,” said Bettencourt. “But Jonah — believe me when I say this phone call is the first step towards a beautiful friendship.”

“Just bring the phone over here,” said Jonah.

The lawyer stepped forward, pressing a green button on the interface as he held the phone to the captive’s face. It clicked and the line went live. Jonah listened but didn’t hear any sound from the other end. Bettencourt motioned for him to start talking.

“This is Jonah Blackwell,” he said. “Is anyone there?”

The silence on the other end of the phone turned into a shuffling sound, then was replaced by a voice on the other end.

“Jonah!” exclaimed Dr. Nassiri, his aristocratic accent unmistakable despite the crackling interference. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere! Are you safe?”

Shit, thought Jonah. The Scorpion should have been long gone. He hadn’t expected the doctor to stick around, not after he got what he came for. A dead line or a fleeing submarine would have left him with some time to bluff — the doctor’s newfound loyalty had manifested itself at a highly inconvenient time.

“You’re looking for me?” said Jonah, incredulous. “You’re still in the area?”

“Of course we’re still in the area—” began Dr. Nassiri.

Jonah cut him off before he could continue.

“Are you kidding me?” shouted Jonah. “Get the fuck out, fucking now, run!”

Too slow, the lawyer yanked the phone away from Jonah, but the damage was already done. The line went dead.

“Now that was really annoying,” shouted Bettencourt, pinching the bridge over the top of his nose.

“I almost respect him,” Westmoreland said with a laugh as he unfolded his arms. “His friends wouldn’t have lived through the recapture of our asset.”

“They still won’t,” mused Bettencourt. “This is more of a shame than a setback; it really is. We’ve recently received some supplies from some… associates. Anti-submarine warfare detection equipment and munitions, to be exact. Sonar, depth charges, acoustic torpedoes, fun stuff. We’ll get her back or put her on the bottom trying. Colonel Westmoreland — we’re done here.”

With that, Charles sat at the folding desk and flipped up the laptop screen, blocking his view of his prisoner. Jonah no longer mattered to him, any utility he might have had now expended.

Colonel Westmoreland grinned as he reached for Jonah with his two beefsteak hands. He motioned for One-Eye and Babyface to assist him.

“Take this fucking nuisance behind a sand berm,” Westmoreland ordered. “If you put less than a magazine into him each, don’t bother coming back. The fucking hyenas that find his body will be picking lead out of their teeth for days.”

The two men nodded. One-Eye grabbed Jonah, dragging him out of the tent and towards a long wall of sand.

They’ll sing songs of my deeds for a thousand years, laughed Jonah to himself. But now there were no more jokes, no more schemes. Just him, the two mercenaries, a few steps over a sand berm, and a bullet to the skull. A shallow grave in a shit part of the world — an inevitability when one stopped to think about it. Pleading for his life would have been embarrassing, the supposed job offer reeked of bullshit. At least he could pretend Klea and Alexis and Dr. Nassiri and his mother made their way home, long as their odds still remained.

Jonah briefly wondered what Klea would think of him now. She’d probably still think he was an asshole.

“Can I at least bum a smoke?” asked Jonah as Babyface shoved him over the top of the sand berm at the edge of the dry lakebed.

Babyface responded by kicking Jonah’s legs out from underneath him. Jonah crashed face-first into the sand, tumbling to the base of the berm and out of the sight of the camp.

“Stupid question,” mumbled Jonah, pulling his knees up to his chin as he sat at the bottom of the hill shaking sand out of his hair and ears. “Nobody smokes anymore.”

Hell, Jonah didn’t even smoke, never did and never wanted to. He just didn’t want the ride to end, wanted any excuse to hang on to life for a few moments longer.

“Stick of gum maybe?” asked Jonah, wincing as he rose to his feet. “I’d go for pretty much anything but Big League Chew.”

Babyface sneered as he drew back the butt of his assault rifle for a vicious blow.

ZZZZZZZip.

Jonah braced for the impact, but instead watched in total surprise as the back of the man’s head erupted in a puff of pink mist. Babyface toppled backwards to the sand, eyes wide and unseeing, both front teeth missing where a sniper’s bullet had passed into his open mouth and through his skull.

Jonah sprang forward towards One-Eye, propelled by fear and rage and hate and adrenaline, slamming the second man to the ground with a shoulder tackle. Hands still ziptied behind his back, he flipped around and slipped the plastic binding around One-Eye’s throat. Jonah squeezed the back of the man’s head against his tailbone as he fought and kicked, slapping his hands at Jonah’s feet.

Eyes darting for the source of the sniper’s bullet, Jonah strangled the mercenary until he felt the windpipe collapse. For good measure, he snapped One-Eye’s head to the side, enjoying the sickening sound of the cervical column breaking.

There it was — the glint of a sniper’s scope, a hundred and fifty yards distant under the shade of a scrubby tree on top of a small hill. The sniper had picked his spot well; it gave him total oversight of the entire military encampment.

Hands still behind his back, Jonah fished a sheathed Ka-Bar knife out of One-eye’s vest and sawed through his zip-ties. They released with a snap, and Jonah closed his eyes and sighed as he rubbed his wrists, blood flowing back into his fingers. He felt comfortable, relaxed even, like he could briefly enjoy a moment of contemplation as his unknown guardian angel kept watch. The mercenaries probably wouldn’t be back to check on the missing men, at least not for a while. The single shot had been well silenced, no cause for alarm.

Unembarrassed, Jonah theatrically saluted the sniperscope glint in the distance as he slipped out of his sarong and tribal shirt. Babyface’s outfit may have fit him better, but the body lay face-up in a pool of blood which had now soaked into most of the clothing. Jonah opted to strip Oneeye instead, taking boots and pants and silently hoping the dead man hadn’t shit himself when he’d expired. Smoothing out the legs to his new pants, Jonah snapped the clasp to the pants shut and reached for the assault rifle.

ZZZZZZZip.

The weapon spun out of his hands, torn away by the snap of an unseen force as Jonah jerked back like he’d been hit with a cattle prod. Jonah stood frozen, allowing his eyes alone to drift to the cast-off rifle. A single smoking bullet hole stood out in the center of the weapon’s receiver, rendering it useless.

No guns allowed, thought Jonah. That was fair enough, they’d only just met. Jonah smiled and raised his hands.

“You got me,” he said to the glint in the far distance, knowing he wouldn’t be heard. “Your rescue, your rules. I’m going to go ahead and find my own way from here, if that’s alright with you.”

Seeing no movement, Jonah slowly leaned down to snag a half-filled canteen from One-Eye’s corpse and took no more than two steps away from the encampment and towards the open desert.

ZZZZZZZip. ZZZZZZZip. ZZZZZZZip.

Jonah stopped cold as three puffs of sand and dust kicked up inches in front of his feet.

“You son of a bitch!” Jonah swore, impotently kicking sand towards the distant glint. Walking into the desert apparently wasn’t allowed either, and the sniper hadn’t made a move to establish contact. The chances of this being a rescue were diminishing rapidly. By all appearances Mr. Sniper had something else entirely in mind. And then it hit him: Jonah was to walk back into the encampment as bait.

Not only was he being set up — probably by the same man who’d called Bettencorps forces on his location in the fishing village — he suspected that the sniper’s plan probably did not require his long-term survival.

Begrudgingly, Jonah realized he admired the plan. The goal must be to draw Bettencourt or Westmoreland out into the open. The sniper was certainly good enough to eliminate both men before anyone could figure out what’d happened.

Approaching the rim of the sand berm, a shirtless Jonah raised his hands and grimaced as he stepped down the hill and into the midst of the encampment. Mercenaries rushed towards him, aiming rifles, shouting conflicting orders. Jonah ignored them and sauntered towards the command tent, just knowing the unknown sniper would put a bullet in him the moment he stopped.

Colonel Westmoreland burst from the tent, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, Bettencourt following close behind.

“What in the mother-fucking-fuck does it take to kill you?” demanded Westmoreland.

“Why is he back?” shouted Bettencourt, gesturing futility around for anyone to answer him. “What is he doing back here?”

“Don’t ask me,” responded Jonah. “Ask your friendly neighborhood sni—”

Westmoreland leapt to the side and tackled his boss to the ground before Jonah could get the entire word sniper out of his mouth, throwing the executive out of the way milliseconds before the zzzzip of a silenced bullet sliced through the empty space and buried itself into the thick dry mud of the empty lake bed.

Bullets rained down on the company as the mercenaries scattered. With two more zips, two men were down, bleeding and rolling and screaming as the sniper attack continued.

The nearest soldier grabbed Jonah by the collar. “Where is the shooter?!” he screamed, shaking Jonah and waving an ugly, squared-off pistol. The man suddenly winced, dropping to the ground with a bullet in his back. Bettencourt’s white helicopter rose from the lakebed with a roar, gaining altitude with every second.

One enterprising fighter threw open the door to the Ford Raptor and dove behind the wheel, using the bulk of the engine block as cover as he started the engine and advanced the massive truck towards the berm and the sniper’s nest. Four mercenaries huddled behind the tailgate, following the truck as it clawed its way up the berm, sand spitting out in a rooster-tail from behind the oversize tires. Sniper shots rang out against the truck, and one sliced through the shin of a soldier, who tumbled from formation to writhe on the ground, screaming.

Jonah felt like the eye of a hurricane, the spindle on a record-player — calm as the chaos of the universe spun around him. And then he slipped the squat, ugly pistol from the still-twitching grasp of the paralyzed mercenary.

Jonah began walking, calm and deliberate at first, slowly picking up the pace to a sprint as he ran up the side of the sand berm towards the hunched mercenaries. The attackers broke off from the truck, spreading out and flanking the sniper’s position, mercilessly pouring fire into the bushes. Jonah caught up with a straggler and fired a single shot into his knee from behind, felling him amidst the din of automatic weapons.

The sniper risked one final shot, catching the leader squarely through the eye but betraying his position in the process. The final soldier drew a bead, only interrupted when Jonah shot him three times through the back. Shocked, the driver of the truck turned to see Jonah just in time to get a pistol butt against the side of his hand and his limp body thrown out of the truck.

Jonah stuck the pistol in his waistband, put his hands up and walked towards the sniper’s nest, pushing aside bushes. Disarming himself had been a useless gesture — the sniper lay shaking under white robes, trying to stanch a neck wound with his turban and slippery, blood-soaked fingers, his Russian Dragunov sniper rifle lying inert beside him.

The white robe fell away, revealing a dark, handsome face and a glinting white smile.

“’Sup?” asked Jonah. The sniper didn’t answer. It’d be a pity to let such a devious bastard bleed out on the sand. Gunshots echoed from the dry lake bed — the mercenaries were regrouping. Jonah grabbed the sniper by his bloody hand and dragged him into the truck, practically throwing the man’s massive body into the passenger seat. He turned the ignition and the engine roared back to life.

I can flee across the desert, thought Jonah through redtinted vision. But the adrenaline in his system had crested the levies that held back the tidal force of nature and Jonah became the God of War, the Lord of Chaos, an invincible force of nature, enslaved to the power of destruction.

He slammed the vehicle into gear and floored the accelerator. The Raptor responded instantly, throwing the truck forward like a cannon, all four wheels off the ground as it did a tight U-turn and launched off the sand berm. Landing in the dry lake bed, the massive shocks absorbed the violent impact. As hiding soldiers fired potshots at the truck, Jonah aimed at the tent, hoping Bettencourt might still be inside.

The lawyer stepped out of the tent, dumbfounded at the chaos. Jonah stared him down and yanked the wheel of the truck towards him, the accelerator pegged against the rubberized floor. The lawyer froze, took one awkward step to his right as the truck hit him square on, his flinching body disappearing underneath the tires with a sickening sound of bone against the metal suspension. The truck bounced, the steering wheel yanking to one side.

“No way I should still be alive,” said Jonah, staring at the eye-level bullet-craters in the glass windshield. No way the truck should have been able to absorb that much fucking gunfire and keep running.

“Armored,” gurgled the sniper dying in the passenger seat. “Hennessy Motors of Texas. Very satisfactory for Somalia.”

“In that case…” Jonah yanked the wheel to the side, throwing the truck into a massive slide back into the heart of the lake bed, nearly up against the command tent. He threw open the door, jumped out, and ran into the tent looking for the radio transmitter. He spied it still sitting on the folding desk, grabbed it, and ran back towards the Raptor.

Jonah threw the massive truck in gear just as two mercenaries appeared, weapons drawn and trained on the vehicle. They paused just long enough for Jonah to speed off, two massive rooster tails of dirt behind him. The Raptor impacted the berm at the far side of the dry lake and jumped again, all four wheels off the ground, again landing with a massive whump absorbed by the beefed-up suspension. Rifle fire pounded against the truck, rattling the interior like a vicious hailstorm.

Beside him, the wounded man coughed and spit up more blood.

“Shit, man—” said Jonah, reaching over to put pressure on the man’s neck. “Glad you’re still breathing.”

“’Tis but a scratch,” said the sniper. “Only a flesh wound.”

“Are you seriously quoting Monty fucking Python?” demanded Jonah. He was far from sold on taking the sniper with him, but the Monty Python quote didn’t make for a bad start. And the man had saved his life, so he owed him. For now. Besides, he didn’t have any better plan. He wrapped his fingers in the tail end of the turban and redoubled the pressure on the wound.

Using his knee to steer, Jonah pulled up the satellite navigation system. Good — only about ten miles to the shoreline. The Raptor could make that in minutes and could handle the rough trail like a Baja trophy truck. He spotted a small nearby town with a big central avenue that stretched out to what looked like a long dock extending far out to sea.

One hand on the sniper’s neck, Jonah thumbed the redial on the sat phone as he kept the accelerator nearly floored.

The line clicked live again, but no voice came from the other side. He checked the rearview mirrors, the Raptor’s massive dust cloud obscuring any vehicles pursuing them. “This is Jonah,” he shouted over the roar of the truck’s engines and desert passing beneath them. “Scorpion, come in.”

“Scorpion here,” came Dr. Nassiri’s voice.

“Change of plans. I need a rendezvous.”

“Where?” To the point — Jonah liked that.

“City called Dishu. At the end of the long dock.”

“Vitaly is checking it on the map,” said Dr. Nassiri. “Okay, we see where you are. We can be there in less than thirty minutes,” said Dr. Nassiri.

“Not fast enough,” replied Jonah. “Need you there in ten or less.”

Three Land Cruisers rippled in the rearview mirror beyond the dust cloud, struggling to keep up with the more powerful Ford. Only silence came from the other end of the phone.

“We can do it,” said Alexis, her voice tinny and distant. “We’ll have to surface, and run the electrics and diesels simultaneously—”

“Great,” said Jonah. “Don’t care how, just do it.”

“Got it,” said Alexis.

“Oh, and keep a decent distance from the end of the dock,” said Jonah.

“Why?” asked Dr. Nassiri.

“Because I’m going to jump a truck off it.” The Raptor bounced over a brutal set of bumps in the trail and the sniper tried to brace himself, momentarily airborne. “And Doc, prepare your surgical gear. I’ve got a man with a neck wound, and I can’t stop the bleeding.”

Fingers still pressed into the man’s spurting neck, Jonah looked in the rearview windshield. The Land Cruisers were losing ground, but not by much.

“Start talking,” ordered Jonah to the wounded man. “Or you’re out the door.”

“We share an enemy,” said the man with a gurgle.

“That don’t make us friends,” retorted Jonah.

In response, the sniper issued a massive, coughing belly laugh that filled the entire cab of the Raptor. Jonah looked down at the flowing pool of blood — if he didn’t get the sniper to Nassiri, like right now, he was going to bleed out in the passenger’s seat.

Jonah whipped the 4x4 onto a rutted two-lane road, the city coming into view just ahead. Within seconds, the speedometer mashed up against the governor-regulated top speed of a hundred and ten miles an hour. With the smoother road, it wouldn’t take long for the Land Cruisers to start gaining ground.

“Where are we going?” gurgled the sniper.

“Making a run for a long dock in Dishu,” said Jonah. “Our ride will meet us there. Maybe even provide some covering fire so we’re not cut to pieces.”

“Dishu?” the sniper croaked, suddenly perking back to life and struggling against Jonah’s grasp.

“Hold… still!” Jonah yelled. The front cab of the truck looked like a triage center in the aftermath of a train wreck.

“Dishu is not a good place,” hissed the sniper. “One of Bettencourt’s men was kidnapped by their mayor.”

“I’m not stopping at City Hall to ask for a kabob stand permit.”

“Bettencorps’ mercenaries retaliated by driving through Dishu and firing on militia buildings and private residences,” continued Dalmar. “Recently. From this truck.”

Shit.

The outer city gates approached at incredible speed. It was too late to turn around. Even from the distance, Jonah could see the city populace scrambling out of the way and mobilizing arms. Cars and delivery trucks of all types fled the main street, trying to escape the incoming convoy.

The Raptor burst into the city at top speed, engine howling, the three pursuers inches from its rear bumper. At first, all was good — a smooth road and no obstructions between them and the long dock out to sea.

Then the trap snapped shut.

Militiamen popped up on the roofline of every building on main street. They opened up with AK-47 fire, clattering against the armored doors and roof like a tornado-fueled hailstorm. The front windshield clouded with bullet-fragments and broken glass. The armor wouldn’t hold forever, bullets would start finding their way through in moments. Jonah took his bloody hand off the sniper’s neck and held them to his ears, eyes half closed, trying to shut out the incredible noise as the pirate slumped in the seat, unconscious.

Jonah caught just a glimpse of the three pursuers behind him. Shot to pieces, tires blown out, the first Toyota wobbled, lost control, and slammed into a pillar on the side of the road, while the second disintegrated in a barrage of small-arms and RPG fire. Unarmored, the vehicles didn’t stand a chance. The third slowed and rolled to gentle stop, the driver and passengers shot dead.

The Raptor took a three-foot drop from the road and onto the dock. Glinting in the sunlight, the Scorpion plowed through the water at flank speed, racing to intercept. Jonah watched as the end of the dock approached with incredible speed until the Raptor soared off the end, arcing in a balletic leap, then dropping nose down, slamming into the whitecaps hard. Water rushed into the cab through twisted metal and bullet holes.

Jonah kicked the door open against the pressure of the rushing water, grabbed the sniper by the collar and pulled, taking one last breath as the Raptor slipped beneath the waves, sinking to the bottom of the bay. The sniper came free of the cab and Jonah kicked twice, propelling both men to the surface. Swimming backwards, the sniper’s head on his chest, he reached the external boarding ladder for the Scorpion’s conning tower as the submarine slowed to a stop, engines in full reverse.

With one final look towards the city of Dishu, Jonah hefted the sniper’s muscled bulk over one shoulder; the Somali’s mass dwarfing his own. He climbed the ladder, one rung at a time, and then passed the man to Dr. Nassiri and Fatima at the top of the boarding ladder. Between the two, they somehow lowered him down into the command compartment, wrestling the sniper’s limp form to the deck. It was an awkward, chaotic affair leaving streaks of blood throughout the interior boarding ladder as the man’s neck bled unstaunched. Jonah dropped down behind them as soon as they’d moved him out of the way.

“Who is that?” Vitaly said, turning to stare as Dr. Nassiri threw open his triage kit and went to work on his unconscious patient.

“The man who used me as bait to draw out Bettencourt and almost got me killed in the process.”

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Dr. Nassiri said without looking up.

“Will he live?” Vitaly asked.

“Vitaly, stop staring!” Jonah ordered. “Reinforcements could show up at any moment — so move your ass and get us out of here!”

Vitaly turned back to his control panels, and Jonah put his hand on the doctor’s back. “What’s the prognosis?”

“I don’t know yet,” Dr. Nassiri motioned to his mother to grab the man’s legs. “I’m going to get him into a bunk. He needs a transfusion.”

“Do me a favor, Doc,” Jonah said. “Save his fucking life.”

“Getting contact,” shouted Vitaly, glancing up from his station. Jonah nodded in acknowledgement, climbed back onto the conning tower, and turned seaward. In the distance, Bettencorp’s mercenary mothership, the battleship-grey transport, bore down on them, rapidly closing the gap between the two vessels. Soon mercenaries would be within range to pick off anyone stupid enough to stick their head out of the main hatch. Charles Bettencourt had no intention of letting his submarine slip away again.