Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Deception

Below was a part of the town of Begur with its medieval stone buildings and palm trees, and below that the cove, with stone steps carved into the side of the cliff leading down to a small sandy beach. The water was so clear that when the wind died, you could see rocks on the bottom a hundred feet deep. The beach was deserted, umbrellas stacked and furled this early in the season, especially with a Tramuntana, the wind that in the early spring blows from the Pyrenees. The wind whipped the sea to whitecaps, rocking a lone sailboat at anchor in the cove like a metronome.

From the terrace, Scorpion could see a good stretch of the Costa Brava, trees bending in the wind and beyond, the wild jagged coast and the sun shining on the choppy blue of the Mediterranean. It was the most beautiful place he had ever seen.

In a way, his part was done, he thought. Webb had hinted as much. He was the bait. He’d driven into Begur, with its narrow cobbled streets and ivy-covered stone walls, dominated by the ruins of twelfth century castle perched atop a hill like the Acropolis in Athens. He stopped in at cafes and little tiendas in town, talking loudly and generally doing his best to draw attention to himself so people would remember him, though in his blond surfer boy wig, he thought it would be hard if they didn’t, making sure everyone knew which villa he was renting and that he would be there for a week. Several of the townspeople had thrown him looks that let him know they thought he was full of himself. Good. They would remember him.

Now all he had to do was leave the cell phone turned on at the villa, whose number he hoped Kta’eb Hezbollah was GPS-tracking, and let the SOG team do the rest. All they could do was wait for Kta’eb Hezbollah to commit. Because otherwise the trail ended with the dead Karif and the mission was over.

He met the SOG team in the villa’s upper master bedroom, whose windows had the widest views. All of them were like Webb: lean, muscled, intense. They were a team; he was the outsider. He tried to break the ice with stories about SAD training at the CIA Harvey Point facility, aka “the Point” in North Carolina; in particular, about a certain well-endowed female bartender named Melissa in Elizabeth City, about whom everyone had a tale to tell. On the surface they accepted he was a warrior, but their looks let him know they didn’t think they needed him.

Scorpion knew otherwise. If their ruse worked, the Saw-scaled Viper and his team would be coming. They had been ahead of him every step of the way. They had killed Harandi and the Gnomes, and whatever happened, Scorpion knew he had to be here.

“When do you think they’ll hit?” Webb said.

“Tonight, probably 0200, 0300 hours,” Scorpion said. “It’s when either of us would.”

Webb nodded. They went over the layout and deployment of men-who would be where, weapons and sensors-on the iPad with the team. The comm, a mid-sized welterweight with a crooked nose called J.G., passed around the satellite-based TactiCell EV-DO phones they would use to communicate. In honor of the Point, the password would be “Melissa” and the countersign “Elizabeth” for Elizabeth City. A lanky Kentuckian, Rutledge, passed around the night vision goggles. Rodriguez, a Latino from East L.A., was on the M25 sniper rifle. A six-foot-six African-American linebacker type with a shaved head that everyone facetiously called “Mini Me” set up the C-4 IEDs. Webb and a tough New Jerseyite, Delucca aka “Spartacus Balls,” would have the XM25s, plus they would all have H amp;K MP7A1 compact submachine guns, plus grenades and pistols, including Scorpion.

“Where will you be?” Webb asked him.

“In the house, nice and lit up where they can see me till it gets late and they’ll figure I’m asleep. Then I’ll make my way down to the car in the woods off the road. Once they attack, I’ll move it to block the road set with C-4 so they can’t get out.”

Webb looked around.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Scorpion said to all of them. “These are probably the guys who lit up Bern. I know we all want to kill these Mike Foxtrots,” Army slang for motherfuckers, “but if we can keep one of them alive, we can get intel the White House would kill to have right now.”

“We’re not going to give these dicks the chance to shoot back,” Spartacus Balls growled in his Jersey accent. They all looked at Scorpion, and he looked at each of them in turn.

“No, we’re not going to do that,” he agreed.

They nodded. Professionals. Everyone began to move to their assigned locations. Webb walked Scorpion down the stairs and out to the pool terrace, the water in the pool spilling over the edge because of the wind.

“How do you figure they’ll come?” Scorpion asked.

Webb inclined his head toward the pine forest on the hill behind the villa.

“That’s how I would.”

“What about the cliff?” Scorpion asked.

“Too steep. Especially with equipment.” Webb shrugged. “But just in case, I’ve got Mini Me there. He’s big enough to take them all by himself. So,” he hesitated, “what do you think?”

“It’s going to be a long night,” Scorpion said.

He watched the three-quarter moon rise over the sea from the dining room of the villa, painting a rippling silver path on the surface of the water. The night was clear, cool, the Tramuntana blowing about twenty miles per hour, stirring the trees. Although he seemed alone, he was conscious of Rutledge in the hall closet, the door cracked just a little to let the sound suppressor on the MP7A1’s muzzle peek out. The living room was well lit. From the outside anyone could easily spot him as a target. That was the idea.

He checked his watch one last time. A little past 2330 hours. Time to go. He hit his EV-DO phone.

“Melissa. This is Scorpion. I’m heading out to the road,” he said, and clicked off. The others would be tracking him with their night vision till where the road curved and they lost sight of him. Not for the last time, he wished he had a drone for eyes above. His mission sense told him they would absolutely hit the villa tonight; he could feel it.

He grabbed his gear, went out by the pool terrace and around to the front of the villa. The back of his neck prickled. He could feel them watching him as he got into the Citroen and drove down the road, shrouded by overhanging trees. The headlights carved a tunnel of light in the darkness bordered by shadows that seemed to move as the trees rustled in the wind. As he came around the curve and saw the road empty ahead, he switched off his headlights and put on the night vision goggles, turning the road into an eerie green lane between the trees.

The gap in the stand of pines he had spotted earlier that day was on his left. He stopped, turned the car around, and backed in far enough so it was well hidden from the road but facing it so he could drive it out in seconds. It took a few more minutes to set the detonators for the C-4 rigged to a cell phone set to Vibrate. If he called it, the vibration would create sufficient amperage to set off the detonators. He gave his weapons a final check, then got out of the Citroen and hid on the ground at the edge of the trees beside the road, lining up so he could watch the road through tree branches he pulled into place to camouflage his position.

He settled in, the MP7A1 with its sound suppressor steadied on a downed tree limb. From where he lay he could not see the moon, only its light on the road, a slash of pale green in the goggles, and the moving shadows of the trees stirring with the wind. They wouldn’t hit from this side, he thought. Of all of them, he would probably have the least part in this fight.

As the minutes stretched he thought about Sandrine and whether he’d ever see her again. Probably not. If they were successful tonight, the mission would get much more dangerous and he would be going it alone. And if they were unsuccessful, he’d be dead. Don’t think about that, he told himself, thinking like that never brings luck. He shivered inside his jacket. It was getting cold. It was going to be a long night.