Terminal Impact Read online

  “Regrets?” she asked.

  “We’re making good money but hating life,” Kelly said.

  Liberty searched the table. “I don’t see a menu.”

  “Behind the bar.” Kelly pointed with his pencil.

  After looking at the short list of mostly soup, stew, and potpie, she said, “No chicken breasts or fish fillets?”

  Chris Gray laughed, then stopped himself.

  Kelly smiled and shook his head. “Like I said, lady. What you eat here is safe. We make sure the meat is fresh and untainted. Vegetables likewise. Everything kept clean and cold until we cook it. Unfortunately, if we went to adding chicken or fish, we run some risks. Beef just costs too much to offer. We’d love to serve hamburgers, but keeping it in supply is hit-and-miss. Once in a while, we get some beef chuck and make stew. We’re at the mercy of what KBR puts in the pipeline. For some reason we have an abundance of lamb, so we make it work. Our mom gave us some of her good home-cooked Irish recipes. We do our best, and don’t hear complaints. And nobody gets sick. We run a clean, safe place.”

  Liberty eyed her crew and got nods back. “Looks like shepherd’s pie all around.”

  “You too, Chris?” Kelly said, glancing down at the CIA operator.

  “Yeah, why not,” Gray said.

  When Kelly had left, Liberty looked at Chris Gray for a long time, watching him get uncomfortable.

  “What?” he finally said.

  “Tell me more about your association with my boss,” she answered. “I don’t see how you and Jason could have served in the Marine Corps together. You’re so much younger.”

  “Not that young,” he answered. “I served in Second Force Recon in the Gulf War, back in ’91, first time we came over here. Did four years, graduated college, came back to the Marine Corps as a lieutenant but got lured off by the CIA. My partner in crime here, another Marine, former captain and EA-6B Prowler pilot named Speedy Espinoza, recruited me.”

  “And Jason Kendrick?” Liberty asked.

  “New York, just after the Gulf War,” Gray said. “I finished out my tour there working on an intelligence mission with Jason and Jim Kallstrom. Also did some ninja training with their tactical agents. We roped down onto rooftops in the Bronx from black helicopters in the middle of the night. Counterterrorist and hostage-rescue stuff.”

  Liberty laughed. “Oh, I’ve heard a lot of stories about Jason’s life in New York with that bunch.”

  “Some of the best people who ever walked this earth, in my opinion,” Chris Gray said. “When I worked with them, both Kallstrom and Kendrick were legends.”

  “I agree!” Liberty said. “They still are legends.”

  Just then, Kelly brought a tray with large bowls of shepherd’s pie stacked on it. Each shepherd’s pie had a golden crust baked on top of it.

  “Wow!” Special Agent Bob Hartley exclaimed. “I hope it tastes as good as it looks.”

  “We try,” Kelly said, setting out the meals.

  Hartley was the senior agent on Liberty’s team. The other two agents were Casey Runyan and Clifford Towler, both of them junior to Liberty. Though Hartley was senior, he and his men had the single mission of supporting Liberty Cruz.

  Hartley dug into his pie as soon as Kelly had slid it across the table to him. Likewise, Towler and Runyan plowed into their bowls, forks blazing. The aroma of the lamb, potatoes, onions, and carrots in thick brown gravy, with just the right amount of spice, filled the air.

  Kelly set down a basket filled with fresh-baked Irish soda bread, warm from the oven, and a bowl of butter with it. Then he watched the people react to the food.

  Liberty put her spoon through the crust as Chris Gray watched, then took a cautious bite.

  “Wow!” she exclaimed, and looked at Kelly, who was all smiles. “I thought you said nothing here was good.”

  “Compared to the way my mother cooks, it’s not good at all,” Kelly said, smiling. “Yet, it is like I said. Nobody complains.”

  “This is delicious!” Liberty said.

  “I live on it, like anyone else working here with half a brain,” Gray said. “Irish home cooking. Hard to beat.”

  Kelly brought a fresh pitcher of beer and left while the five customers inhaled their dinner.

  As they scraped the bottoms of their bowls, Liberty looked at Chris Gray once again.

  “Now what?” he said.

  “I have a friend who was in Second Force Recon about the time you said you were there,” she said. “He also went to the Gulf War with Second Force Recon. You wouldn’t happen to know Jack Valentine?”

  “Oh yeah.” Gray laughed. “As lance corporals we were hooch mates. Then Elmore Snow grabbed him for that corral of snake eaters that he runs. I never saw him again until this week. We’re involved in a battalion operation with one-five out in the Denver Area of Operations. Speedy and I will be working with Jack and his MARSOC crew, on the intelligence side of the house. Small world.”

  “Has Jack already gone?” Liberty asked. “I was hoping to surprise him. He’s someone special to me.”

  “I have no idea if he’s left yet, but you’d better hurry if you want to catch him. Otherwise, I expect you won’t see him for two weeks or so,” Chris said, then sighed with a smile. “Someone special, huh?”

  Liberty smiled back, her eyes saying everything.

  “Now I’m envious of that worthless bastard.” Gray laughed.

  “You don’t happen to know Cesare Alosi?” Bob Hartley interrupted, moving the discussion to business.

  “I know of him.” Gray nodded back to the agent. “Never met him, though. He cut a deal with my boss yesterday and got a crew of his security operators assigned to support our intelligence mission. I didn’t object because they’re three of Elmore Snow’s old guys from back in the drug-interdiction-program days. Guy named Hacksaw in charge. You know him?”

  “Hacksaw Gillespie?” Liberty asked.

  “Yeah, that’s him,” Gray said. “He has a gold grill that puts most rappers to shame.”

  “Oh yes. I heard Jack tell many unflattering tales about him,” Liberty said.

  “How about Kermit and Habu?” Gray asked.

  “Them, too.” Liberty smiled. “Jack speaks highly of all of them. Anyone Elmore Snow has under his command, you don’t need to worry about.”

  “Yeah, probably so,” Gray said. “These boys seemed pretty dependable. Rough around the edges, but a cut way above any other security contractors I see wandering around these parts.”

  “How much did Mr. Kendrick share with you about my operation?” Liberty asked in a low voice so no one could hear beyond the table.

  “No more than I needed to know, and that’s the way I want it,” Gray said. “I know you’re on something all cloak-and-dagger, very hush-hush and shush-shush. Jason asked me to watch your back, should any security contractors or other hinky sportsmen come sniffing your trail. And my secret-agent stash of gee-whiz double-oh-seven stuff, and anything else among my resources you need are yours for the asking. You’ve got an open ticket, no questions.”

  Liberty smiled. “Thanks. And thanks for not asking to know more about our operation.”

  “Some kind of administrative assessment?” Gray smiled.

  “That’s the story, an admin audit.” Liberty shrugged.

  “Works for me,” Gray said. “These jamokes will buy it without a blink. Guys like your friend Alosi might be a different story. He’s a little too crafty for his own good, and he’s hooked up with all sorts of people I don’t like. His boss, Victor Malone, and a couple of French dudes that get around just a little too easy in a country that’s supposed to be in the midst of a bloody war.”

  “What do you mean, my friend?” Liberty asked, suspicious of how Chris Gray had phrased it.

  “Your picture sits on Cesare’s desk, all framed and
looking like you’re more than mere acquaintances,” the CIA operator answered.

  “I thought you said you had never met Alosi,” Liberty fired back, a little hot. She had started liking Chris, and this misstep in what he knew and didn’t know put her off.

  “I’ve never met the guy,” Gray answered. “I never said I haven’t been in his office. Like I said, he’s a snake. And I apologize if he’s your friend, but that doesn’t change his status as a reptile.”

  “Oh, I’m no friend!” Liberty huffed. “I met him at a party at the Washingtonian Hotel in DC a while back. He seemed nice at first glance. Then I got to know him. He is definitely a snake.”

  “So, I guess Alosi has a few toys in the attic when it comes to women and relationships?” Gray commented.

  “I’d say he has a lot of toys in the attic, and in a lot of other departments, too,” Liberty said.

  “I guess we’ll keep this conversation just among us girls then,” Gray said, looking around at the crew.

  “Good idea.” Bob Hartley nodded.

  “Do a lot of contractors frequent this club?” Liberty said, sizing up the crowd.

  “Naw,” Gray said. “This bunch here is mostly State Department housekeeping guys. A couple in here work in the security office. Once in a while, a security contractor or two, like Hacksaw and his team, they’ll come here for the cooking and good beer. For the most part, the hard-core mercenary types head up the International Zone to a little hideout called the Baghdad Country Club. Sex, imported hard liquor, Iraqi moonshine, if that’s your bag, and every kind of nose candy and steroid you want. British guy that runs it, former SAS officer, seems a good sort, but a lot of stuff that gets exchanged in the surrounding gardens, I won’t hang on him. It’s the sorry clientele.”

  “We’d like to go to this Baghdad Country Club,” Liberty told Gray.

  Chris eyeballed Casey Runyan, then Clifford Towler, and finished with Bob Hartley. They all gave him a nod.

  “It’s not a place for a pretty girl like you to come through the door playing Mae West,” Gray cautioned Liberty. “Gunplay is not unusual, and those animals lying in that den have teeth. They kill people for breakfast. You go in there; you’d better be well-heeled. And I don’t mean the spiky ones on your feet that go with your evening gown.”

  “Can you set it up?” Liberty asked, impatient.

  “Sure,” Gray answered, still not liking it.

  “Chris,” Liberty said, firmness in her voice. “I’m a third-degree black belt, and an expert with a rifle and a pistol. I finished first in sniper school and SERE school both. I can handle myself.”

  “Oh, I know all about you,” Chris said. “These guys are all experts at that shit, too. That’s why they got hired to come over here and kill people. After a while, the killing becomes second nature. Like blinking your eyes. Way too many of these guys get jazzed on heavy steroids and stay high on meth and cocaine. Hell, they go drink vodka just to calm down. I don’t care if you’re Batman and Robin, you go in that cage with these animals, you could easily end up dead for just farting too loud. Or not loud enough.”

  “We’ll keep that in mind,” Bob Hartley said.

  —

  Jack Valentine checked his watch. Two thirty in the morning.

  After the big blowup, the eight Marines had pushed hard and fast to the east, disappearing in the desert. Then they double-timed it north several miles. Far enough to feel confident that sleepers in the farms along the Euphrates River had not heard the explosions nor seen the fire.

  The eight Marines spread out into their planned intervals of two-man teams and began moving westward, back toward the river and the rural population that lived along its banks.

  Bronco and Jaws had taken position on the south end of the line with Cochise and Jack just up two hundred yards from them. Alex loved the Barrett SASR, so he had it out instead of his Vigilance .338 Lapua Magnum to support Jesse with the .338 magnum caliber M40A3 bolt-action sniper rifle.

  “Before you go to shooting that big motherfucker, you make sure I got behind you, bro,” Bronco Starr griped at his buddy. “That last shot you took, when you blew those motherfuckers up, dusted my ass. I got so much shit up my snot locker, I’ll be digging out adobe bricks for a week.”

  “You talk too much, Hombre,” Jaws said, and lay behind his rifle’s scope. As he looked through it, he thought he picked up movement by a farmhouse in the bottomland by the river. “I think I saw something.”

  “Let me set up the night scope and take a look,” Cortez said, hurrying to assemble the spotting scope with night-vision optics. “And before you shoot any motherfuckers, I want the video camera rolling. So keep your finger out of that trigger guard until I get set.”

  “Hurry the fuck up,” Jaws said. “We got somebody in the kitchen. I saw a light go on and off.”

  Jack saw the light go on and off, and put his rifle on the farmhouse, too.

  “No shooting until I give you a cleared to fire,” Jack said, watching the man slip out the back door of his house. “He could be just some farmer with a case of the midnight shits. We need to see weapons. And if we could capture the bastard, that would be best.”

  “Whatever,” Jaws grumbled.

  Bronco had the digital video recorder set on the spotting-scope lens, and watched through a monitor while he lay back into his A3 sniper rifle.

  As he watched the green shadows on the monitor, Jesse wrinkled his nose. “What’s that guy doing? Is that a donkey?”

  “Burro,” Jaws said.

  “They got burros in Mexico, dude,” Cortez came back. “Fucking Iraq has donkeys and asses, asshole.”

  “Same motherfucking thing, you shitwad,” Jaws snapped.

  “Okay,” Bronco said. “But what’s he doing with it? You think he might be fixing to load it up with explosives and go plant a bomb?”

  “Very possible,” Jack answered on the intercom.

  “Maybe I need to go ahead and shoot him,” Jaws added.

  “He’s sure as shit tying that donkey to the fence rail, like he’s going to put a pack saddle on it,” Cochise Quinlan chimed in, watching through his night-vision spotting scope.

  The farmer hung a feed box on the fence under the donkey and poured some grain in it. Then he walked back into the barn and carried out a wooden box about a foot tall and a foot and a half long and a foot wide.

  “What’s he got in that box? Explosives maybe?” Jaws said. “How about I take the shot, Gunny.”

  “If he’s al-Qaeda, I want to try and get him alive,” Jack said. Then asked Martin, “Cotton, you hearing this?”

  “Roger that,” the staff sergeant answered. “We’re already in movement. Me, Sage, Petey, and Chico can slip in and surprise him. You guys keep him in your gunsights.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Jack said. “Just don’t get yourselves blown up.”

  “Fuck,” Jaws retorted, looking over at Bronco Starr.

  “If we have to shoot him, you can shoot him, Alex,” Jack said.

  Jaws smiled, going back on his rifle scope. “That’ll work.”

  Bronco looked close at the little green rectangular picture on the palm-size monitor and recorder connected by digital cable to the night-vision spotting scope.

  “He set that box behind the donkey,” Cortez said.

  “Maybe he’s going to stand on it,” Jaws added.

  “Why would he stand on it?” Bronco asked.

  “Watch and find out,” Jaws said, and began chuckling.

  Jesse Cortez looked through the lens of his sniper-rifle scope, then looked closer at the green screen on the small monitor and video recorder.

  The farmer looked over both shoulders and stepped up on the box behind the donkey. Then he let down his baggy pants and pulled up his shirt. His overly large penis got everyone’s attention.

  “Du
de,” Jaws said. “That guy’s got a donkey dick.”

  “Good for him,” Jack said, laughing.

  “Dude! He’s fucking that donkey!” Bronco said.

  “No shit, Sherlock.” Jaws laughed.

  “You getting that on video, Bronco?” Cochise said.

  “Fuckin’ A, dude. Recorder rolling,” Cortez said. “I’m posting it on YouTube when we get back.”

  “I didn’t hear that,” Jack said, then called Cotton Martin and his three snipers. “You and the boys come on back. It’s just a farmer out for some late-night romance.”

  “Roger,” the staff sergeant responded. “When we heard Bronco and Jaws chattering, we already made the U-turn.”

  “Good,” Jack said.

  “That a girl donkey or a boy donkey?” Bronco asked over the intercom.

  “What the fuck difference does it make, ass-wipe,” Jaws said.

  “I don’t know,” Bronco said. “Maybe if the guy’s like homosexual for donkeys or just regular, you know?”

  “Fucking homosexual for donkeys? Are you serious?” Sammy LaSage let go. “The asshole’s all fucked up from the get-go, fucking a fucking donkey in the first place. For crying out loud, dude.”

  “I don’t know, but it looks like the donkey’s enjoying it,” Jack said. “She quit eating and has her upper lip pointed out.”

  “Gotta be a girl donkey,” Bronco said. “A boy donkey wouldn’t enjoy that big dick up his ass. Besides, this guy’s a Muslim, and he wouldn’t fuck a boy donkey. Right?”

  “Unless it’s a gay donkey,” Jaws offered.

  The more they discussed it, the more the donkey seemed to enjoy it. She now had her head raised and upper lip fully pointed like camel lips.

  “That’s one fucked-up freak show,” Jack said.

  “So, what do you want to do, boss?” Cotton asked.

  “Leave the fucker alone,” the gunny answered. “He’s probably a pillar of the community. We wouldn’t want to upset that balance. Let’s move north. We got three hours before daylight, and still no prospects.”