Strike of the Stingray (Brice Bannon Seacoast Adventure Book 3) Page 2

  “Would love to, but can’t.” Bannon held up his cell phone. “Grayson. I’ve got a meeting with her later today in Boston.”

  Elizabeth Grayson, the former U.S. Army Four-Star General and current Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security for whom they worked, on occasion. The two men and Tarakesh ‘Blades’ Sardana formed the core members of a small team of specially trained, highly skilled operatives she’d brought together for unique, sensitive, and if necessary, secret missions outside the normal channels of either Homeland Security or the Department of Defense.

  When she’d first approached him, Bannon called it black ops, and Grayson had bristled at the term.

  “Secret, yes, but not black ops,” she’d insisted. “A single unit that’s small, efficient, and nimble enough to respond to and investigate specific, targeted threats to the homeland, threats that can’t be effectively handled by standard operating means or a normal military response.”

  In another words, she said, selling him, a chance to make a real difference in this scary world, to get things done when the lumbering behemoth-sized political bureaucracy couldn’t or wouldn’t.

  The three of them had agreed to her terms, and she to theirs. A few hiccups notwithstanding, the arrangement had worked well so far going on nearly five years.

  “Lucky you,” McMurphy said. “What’s she want?”

  “Didn’t say, specifically,” Bannon said. “I’m hoping there’s been some progress in locating the other railguns.”

  Three weeks earlier, Bannon and his team had tracked down a group of terrorists led by a zealot named Aziza Faaid. He and his cell had managed to get their hands on a scaled-down, portable version of a devastating weapon called a railgun. Normally the size of a battleship-mounted sixteen inch, 50-calber naval gun, the sort that weighs two hundred sixty-seven thousand pounds, with a sixty-six foot long barrel length.

  Faaid’s scaled-down railgun fit on the bow of a thirty-five foot long Bowrider.

  Based on state-of-the-art technology, the weapon had been capable of delivering a seven pound projectile at seven times the speed of sound and generating muzzle energies of nearly fifty megajoules. Put in perspective, that was the kinetic energy equal to the impact of a five ton bus traveling at over three hundred miles per hour.

  Faaid’s plan was to use the railgun against a passenger cruise ship called the Oceanic Princess, under sail with over six thousand guests and crew onboard. Bannon and his team had defeated Faaid, but not before twenty-eight people were killed and over a hundred more were injured in the attack. In addition, two FBI agents and a Coast Guardsman named Troy O’Neil were also killed trying to put a stop to the horrific plan.

  Only after the weapon was destroyed and the terrorists were either killed or captured, did Bannon and his team learn the railgun they’d sent to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean was only a prototype, one of four. Three more operational railguns were out there somewhere in the United States, waiting to be used, and no one had a clue where.

  McMurphy handed Bannon his empty bottle. “Better you than me. Maybe ask her again why she benched us rather than have us help in the search. After all, it was us—we—who saved the day, as I recall.” He slapped the bar and turned for the door. “Just saying. Have a good one. You, too, Captain Floyd.”

  Floyd held up a single finger.

  McMurphy laughed. “You’re a hoot, old timer. Always good for a laugh, Cap’n.”

  When he reached the door, where there was no door, McMurphy turned and taking a Seacoast Penguin’s baseball cap from his back pocket, mashed it down on his head. He mimed opening an imaginary door, stepping through it and then closing it again. Once he was on the imaginary other side he leaned in. He called out over the construction noise. “Might wanna see about getting a door before you try and lock up tonight. Just a suggestion.”

  “It’s being delivered in an hour, wise guy,” Bannon shouted back. “Good luck. I’ve seen your kids play. I love ’em, but you’re gonna need it.”

  McMurphy feigned horror and placed a hand over his heart. “Ouch!”

  Bannon waved him away with a smile. “Get out of here.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE LITTLE LEAGUE FIELD was in the neighboring town of Seabrook, in the Governor Weare Park. The field wasn’t anything fancy. Had a nicely maintained diamond with a chain link backstop and a four foot high chain link fence running along the first and third base lines. Parents and friends lined the low fence on either side. The air felt thick and warm. The humidity was off the chart and about what one would expect in August in New Hampshire. The sky had turned purple and overcast with thick clouds slowly drifted by, bringing with them the threat of a late afternoon thunderstorm.

  McMurphy predicted the rains would hold off long enough for them finish the game. Still he crossed his fingers.

  He removed his cap and wiped a bead a sweat from his forehead as he returned from breaking up a squabble between two players over how close the catcher was getting to the batter.

  The umpire called out, “Play ball!”

  Well into the early innings, the River Cats were up over the Penguins 3-2. So far, McMurphy thought with wry grin. He had confidence in his boys—and girls, he reminded himself. The Penguins were in the twelve-year-old division, and two of his best players were girls—Sally Mufford, their pitcher, and Narwa Nour in left field.

  He stepped back behind the backstop wearing his cap and a pair of Ray-Bans, wishing he had a cigar. He never smoked around the kids, never even chewed on an unlit one around them. He clutched the links and shouted, “Come on, Tommy.”

  Mary Pawlowski Tommy’s mother, stood beside him. She had dark brown hair and was in her early thirties. A pretty woman, but she had the look of someone carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Life had not been kind to her so far and it showed.

  McMurphy knew, because her husband was a friend. He’d also saved McMurphy’s big redheaded butt while they were both in Afghanistan, not so affectionately known by those who’d served there as the sandbox.

  Andy Pawlowski was a local boy born and raised there on the seacoast, like McMurphy, but they didn’t know each other. Not until they met ten years ago when Andy, a member of an armored brigade combat team, pulled McMurphy from a burning MH-65 Dolphin search and rescue helicopter he’d managed to crash in the eastern province of Nuristan, Afghanistan, saving his life.

  They both returned from the sandbox, physically whole, but re-entry into civilian life for Andy had been rough. He suffered from PTSD, had trouble sleeping, and had developed debilitating paranoia. As a result, he had trouble holding his temper, keeping a job, barely functioning day to day.

  There had even been an incident of battery against Mary. Just the one time, she insisted.

  “Hey, Mary,” McMurphy said shaking loose the cobwebs of the past. “Tommy’s looking good at the plate.”

  She watched the skinny kid in the blue jersey at bat. Her son. She reached her fingers through the chain links, gripping the backstop like she was holding it for dear life. “Andy’s been taking him to the batting cages on the weekends.”

  “That’s good. It’s helping. He’s seeing the ball much better today.”

  The pitcher pitched. Tommy checked his swing. The ump called a ball as the baseball slapped into the catcher’s glove.

  McMurphy cupped his hands around his mouth. “Good eye, Tommy. Good eye.” He looked at Mary. “Speaking of…where is Andy? He knew there was a game today, didn’t he?”

  “He picked up a job, last minute,” Mary said.

  “That’s great,” McMurphy said. “Doing what?”

  At the sound of the ball smacking into the catcher’s mitt—Tommy had swung at a pitch and missed—McMuphy called out. “That’s okay, Tommy. You’ve got this.”

  “Driving,” Mary said. “He’s been hired to pick up a shipment from a warehouse somewhere up in the Lakes Region, deliver it to Boston.”

  McMurphy gives her a sideways glance from behind his Ray-Bans. Andy’s MOS was 19 kilo, an M1 Armor crewman, meaning he learned how to drive and shoots tanks in the Army. With little civilian demand for such a skill, Andy had been training to get his CDL license. He’d learned to run big rigs overseas, but the last he’d told McMurphy he hadn’t taken the test yet.

  “Legit?” McMurphy asked of the work.

  Mary shrugged. “It’s a job.”

  Before McMurphy could make his feelings about that known, they were interrupted by the crack of an aluminum bat smacking a baseball hard. Tommy had hit a blistering line shot up the middle. The crowd cheered. Two outfielders and the second baseman were chasing the ball all the way to the fence.

  McMurphy waved his arms, yelling, “Take two! Take two! Go, Tommy.”

  Mary bounced on her feet and clapped.

  McMurphy charged out from the backstop and ran to the third base line as Tommy reached second. The outfielders were still scrambling to pick up the ball.

  McMurphy shouted, “Third, Tommy. Take third!”

  Tommy glance over his shoulder to the outfield then took off running again.

  The leftfielder picked up the ball and fired it in.

  “Go! Go! Go!” McMurphy shouted.

  The throw came in.

  Tommy chugged along, losing his helmet along the way.

  “Slide!” McMurphy shouted. “Hit the dirt!”

  Tommy slid.

  The throw was wide. Safe at third.

  McMurphy reached third base as the boy came to his feet, dusting off his pants. He patted a meaty hand down on the boy’s shoulder. “A triple! Holy cow, you smoked that ball, Tommy. Great job. Really great.”

  Tommy beamed. The shortstop from the other team handed him his helmet.

  “Nice hit,” the kid said.

  “Thanks.” Tommy put his helmet on and looked up at McMurphy and frowned. “Sure wish my dad was here to see it.”

  McMurphy looked over at Mary. Not the first time, Andy had disappointed the boy.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AS THE SECRETARY OF Homeland Security, retired general and one-term senator from the great state of Louisiana, Elizabeth Grayson over-saw a large number of federal agencies, including ICE, FEMA, TSA, the Secret Service, Border Patrol, and the U.S. Coast Guard, among others.

  The U.S. Marshals Services wasn’t one of them.

  So it tickled Bannon’s internal warning systems when Grayson’s chief of staff told him to meet her at the Federal Marshals Office on Courthouse Way in downtown Boston.

  He arrived ten minutes early and was directed to a small conference room that overlooked Boston Harbor. He declined an offer of coffee while he waited and opted instead to watch the sailboats entering and leaving via the channel. A one-hour harbor cruise ship motored past returning its passengers to the landing at Long Wharf.

  Just in time, Bannon thought. The sky over the water had turned threatening. A low ceiling of purple clouds had grown thicker and more menacing since Bannon left the Keel Haul on the forty-five minute drive south. It wouldn’t be long before the first splatter of rain began to fall.

  Before leaving the bar, he’s showered and changed into fresh clothes—a dark polo shirt this time, clean khakis, and a less worn pair of boat shoes. It was the dressiest he got unless the situation required his Coast Guard dress blues, or God forbid, wearing the one dark suit he owned. Fortunately, this wasn’t one of those situations. He’d left the light shell jacket in his truck, along with his .45 which he’d locked in the glove box.

  Elizabeth Grayson strolled into the conference room wearing a dark pantsuit and carrying a leather briefcase bag. A thin woman in her late fifties with narrow, sharp features, she’d let her hair go naturally gray and looked all the more distinguished for it.

  “Brice, you’re here. Good. We can get started.” She shut the door behind herself and took a seat at the head of the conference table.

  The young woman who’d escorted Bannon up from the lobby placed a cup of coffee on the table for Grayson. She looked over at Bannon and smiled. “Are you sure I can’t bring you anything, Commander?”

  He returned her smile. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  Once the woman was gone, Grayson asked Bannon how the repairs were going on the Keel Haul.

  “Coming along,” he said. “We should be ready to open in a few days.”

  “That’s good.”

  It hadn’t been until after Bannon resigned his commission and retired from the Coast Guard fulltime that Grayson approached him with the idea of heading up her little strike force. He’d agreed on several conditions. One had been that when they weren’t on assignment, he, McMurphy, and Tara would be free to live their lives, not sit around bases on standby waiting to be called into service or endlessly running drills for the sake of keeping them busy. In other words, he wanted them to be civilians, untethered to either the military or the bureaucracy until the homeland needed them.

  An unconventional idea that Bannon never thought would fly. Instead Grayson had agreed instantly. She’d even joked and said the arrangement would keep them out of her hair, with one caveat. They’d stay out of trouble. For the most part, they did.

  Thus, the Keel Haul had been bought and renovated. A lifelong dream of Bannon’s to own and run his own seaside bar. And sure it wasn’t much, but it was his, and he enjoyed it. She even allowed him to play around being a licensed private investigator. Something that aided him in helping people in need, his way of giving back when he could.

  “So, what’s up?” he asked, sounding casual, but his curiosity was piqued.

  “There’s been some developments.” She pulled a stack of folders from her large leather briefcase bag and plopped them down on the table in front of her.

  “Regarding the loose railguns?”

  “Yes.”

  After Bannon and his team had neutralized the threat to the Oceanic Princess, the task of locating the remaining railguns believed to be somewhere on U.S. soil fell to the Department of Justice, led by the FBI’s anti-terrorism division and with assistance from Homeland Security as needed.

  Bannon and his team had been, as McMurphy put it, benched.

  In truth, that had suited Bannon fine. They were more of a strategical strike team—a scalpel—and had neither the manpower nor the resources to conduct a nationwide search for three super guns.

  The decision did not sit so well with Tara, however. She angrily vowed to make it her mission to find and stop her brother, Ghaazi Alvi, the man believed to have masterminded the attack against the Princess. They had it on pretty good authority he also had plans to use the remaining three railguns.

  A race against the clock they dare not lose.

  Against Elizabeth Grayson’s explicit orders not to go after Ghaazi, Tara soon disappeared without a word. She had done so, Bannon knew, to prevent him or McMurphy from helping her, to protect them from any negative blowback her actions might cause.

  “Before we get into that,” Bannon said, “tell me about Tara. You are keeping tabs on her, aren’t you?”

  Grayson frowned. “We were.”

  He didn’t like the sound of that.

  She went on to explain. “We tracked her movements through Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and even parts of Afghanistan and Iraq. We lost her crossing the border at Khorramshahr. The last we could tell she was still somewhere in Iran.”

  “Iran. What is she doing there?”

  Grayson shrugged. “It would help if we had more information about Ghaazi Alvi. You knew him, yes?”

  “Briefly. He was part of the mercenary group Tara was running with that freed me from the Taliban camp I was being held at. They both operated under different aliases at the time. We ran a few ops together. He was intense, focused, skilled. Not long after, he and Tara had some sort of falling out and he left.”

  “What did they fight about?”

  “She wouldn’t really talk about it. I got the sense they’d had a difference of opinions about how to achieve their goals.”

  “Which were?”

  “Revenge for their parents. Avenge their deaths.” Bannon wiped at his brow. “Ghaazi wanted to take a scorched earth approach to dealing with their enemies.”

  “Which were who exactly?” Grayson asked. “They’d already dealt with those individuals specifically responsible for the bombing.”

  “That, I think, was part of the problem. The enemy kept changing. It was Al-jamāʻah al-islāmīyah at first. Then Al Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIL. When Ghaazi left, most of the team went with him. Tara took it pretty hard. She and her brother were close. They’d fought together ever since their parents were killed. Those of the group that were left disbanded, went their separate ways, Tara joined up with us.”

  “Did she really believe Ghaazi was dead?”

  Bannon took his time before he answered. When she’d gotten word her brother had been killed in a NATO airstrike in the northeast province of Panjshir, she’d gone a little crazy. She drank heavily, and twice, he and Skyjack had had to bring her back from what amounted to angry, revenge-seeking, suicide missions. They’d rotated back to the United States soon after. It had taken a lot for Bannon to convince her to come to the States with them. None of the incidents were ever reported, nor were they ever spoken of again.

  “No doubt in my mind,” he said in answer to Grayson’s question. “I’m assuming you still have no idea where he is, either.”

  Grayson frowned. “If anyone’s better at getting off the grid and staying off it than Tarakesh Sardana, it seems it would be her brother. Honestly, we have no idea where either of them is. And I don’t mind telling you, it’s frustrating as hell.”

  “Then be thankful Tara’s doing what she’s doing,” Bannon said. “Because if anyone can find him, it’ll be her.”

  “What worries me is what she’ll do when she finds him.”