Ken Goddard - Chimera

“Can you see him?” Quince Lanyard whispered to his throat mike.

The three low-riding outboard motorboats had been moving in slowly for the past hour; each one in turn accelerating for a few seconds, and then coasting to a stop in the dark water off Tanga Island. Lanyard and Gavin had been monitoring their progress with night-vision-scoped rifles from two separate positions — Lanyard from the Kevlar-and-titanium-armored bridge deck of the Avatar anchored two hundred yards off the Tanga Island Cove, along with four other similar yachts, and Gavin from a rock-lined promontory on Tanga Island overlooking the cove where the meet was supposed to take place.

“I count twelve unfriendlies — all armed with AKs and extra mags, but no armor — and maybe half of them equipped with one those old hand-held single-lens night-scopes. Looks like two scopes for each boat, driver and team leader. None of the twelve look like Kai.” Gavin’s whispered reply was clearly audible in Lanyard’s tactical earphones. “Maybe he decided to stay home, let his minions do all the dirty work.”

“And miss all the fun? Not bloody likely,” Lanyard muttered. “My guess is — wait. There’s something moving out there — your two o’clock position, out past the second buoy. Can’t make it out; too much fog down here.”

“Hold one.” Gavin readjusted his position, centered the cross-hairs of his modern night-scope on the second buoy that was barely visible in the low-lying greenish fog, and then brought the cross-hairs up slightly. As he did so, an indistinct and blurry dark-spot almost hidden by the fog slowly resolved into a recognizable shape. “Got it. Looks like a fast boat, mini-cig, heading your way from the east. Coming in slow; two passengers, one of whom… is definitely Kai. Got you, you sneaky bastard!” Gavin chuckled.

“Okay, time to mess with their little pirate minds,” Lanyard said, “Turn on the first flasher.”

Moments later, a bright green light began flashing on and off at a point close to the rocky shoreline and almost a hundred feet below and to the left of Gavin’s barricaded position.

As Lanyard and Gavin watched through their night-scopes, confused activity erupted in the three low-lying surveillance boats as the men without the hand-held night-scopes began pointing frantically at the blinking light that the men with the hand-scopes were obviously having trouble seeing.

“Bright green on bright green. Ah, Quince, me lad, you’re a devious bastard indeed.” Gavin chuckled again as the most of the men with the hand-held scopes set them aside and began gesturing at the blinking light. Finally, two of the boats began to move cautiously toward shore in the direction of the light flashes while the third turned sharply and began accelerating in the direction of the Avatar.

“Stand by, mate,” Gavin whispered into his throat mike, “it looks like you’re about to be boarded, bow and stern.”

Over the Malacca Strait, Thailand

The Blackhawk helicopter — on loan from the Thai Army, and carrying five heavily armed Forestry Division Rangers and a Ranger Sergeant Fire-Team Leader, in addition to Bulatt, Kulawnit, Preithat, the two bodyguards, and a pair of Army crew chiefs manning the two M60 machineguns mounted at the open cabin doors, all wearing camouflaged and inflatable life vests over their heavy armored vests — was flying low over the Malacca Strait, heading south, halfway to Tanga Island, the pilots eyeing the storm clouds that threatened to disgorge their liquid contents at any moment, when Major Preithat turned to Bulatt and motioned that they should put their helmets together.

The physical connection between the two helmets caused the output from their throat mikes to be picked up by both sets of embedded earphones.

“You said you thought the scene at Yak’s house was rigged,” Preithat reminded. “What did you see that made you suspicious?”

“A couple of things,” Bulatt replied. “First of all, the shoulder holster Boon-Nam was wearing. It wasn’t his; or, at least, I don’t think it was.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I could see a deeply indented buckle mark near the end of the shoulder strap, where the strap would have been buckled for a man with a much bigger chest; but no indentation at all on the strap where it was buckled for Boon-Nam. It was as if the strap had never been buckled in that location before.”

“Will that show up in the lieutenant’s crime scene photo?”

“I hope so,” Bulatt said. “Also, I saw what looked like some gun-oil stains at the shirt and waistband of Boon-Nam’s trousers, right at the spinal area where a man might conceal a small pistol. He could certainly have decided to change pistols — maybe going for some extra firepower — at the last minute; but that doesn’t sound like something a professional assassin would do. I’m guessing, of course; I know very little about the habits of professional assassins, and nothing at all about Boon-Nam.”

“Interesting.” Preithat’s eyes looked deeply thoughtful. “Was there anything else?”

“The fourteen spent casings outside the door,” Bulatt said. “All located more-or-less where you would expect them to fall — after being ejected from the pistol and bouncing off the walls and door of the house — if the shooter was standing on the porch and firing toward the garden; but that would mean the door was shut.”

“Yes?”

“So, according to the lieutenant’s theory, Yak would have had to be flung backwards through at least the screen door by the last bullet — fired by Boon-Nam, presumably — that hit him in the head; but I didn’t see any damage the door. So how did Yak manage to end up dead, and on his back, inside the house?”

“Ah.”

“Which bring us to Boon-Nam’s last shot.”

Preithat cocked his head, waiting.

“It looked to me as if one of the bullets hit Boon-Nam right in the spine, just above his shoulder blades; a perfect place to paralyze a man’s arms and legs, but not necessarily kill him. It would be an easy shot for an expert or experienced marksman, especially if he was using low-velocity ammo or a silencer.”

“But, according to the lieutenant, Yak was not a good shot.”

“So it would seem.”

“Of course, he could have gotten lucky.” Preithat started to shrug, and then blinked in sudden realization. “Oh… no, of course not; because then, as you said, Boon-Nam would have been paralyzed, and not been able to fire the last shot.”

“You see the problem,” Bulatt said. “There was nothing definitive by itself; or, at least, nothing that I could see. But, in total, it was a very curious crime scene.”

“Yes, I do see what you’re saying,” Preithat nodded his head slowly, and then sighed as he glanced over at Colonel Kulawnit who was sitting apart on the opposite side of the transport helicopter, in one of the crew chief seats, staring at nothing. “The colonel is not going to be pleased when he hears this. I think it made some sense to him that his son would be killed by malicious criminals like Yak and Boon-Nam; but if they weren’t the ones, then who? The foreign guides? Their client? Kai and his pirates?” Preithat frowned.

“Perhaps Kai will have an answer for you,” Bulatt suggested.

“Yes.” Preithat nodded, glancing over at Kulawnit again. “That would be a good thing, for all of us.”

Tanga Island Cove, Malacca Strait, Thailand

Jack Gavin waited patiently in the almost total darkness, watching through the night-vision scope attached to his M4 assault rifle until the two boats — the mini-cig and the single outboard motorboat — approaching the Avatar were only a few feet away from the anchored fishing yacht; which coincided nicely with the cautious approach of the other two outboard motorboats heading to shore in the cove below his barricaded position. Then he reached down to the transmitter resting on a rock near his right knee and pressed a button.