Don Pendleton - Oceans Of Fire

“Well, like Clay said. I am old school. I gotta start thinking about my retirement. Now, I got some money squirreled away, and I can always sit my ass behind a desk at a security firm. For that matter I’ve got that Navy pension waiting for me. But you know?” James shook his head in disgust. “Fuck that shit. I’m thinking I want to shrivel up and die someplace warm, with a beach and a boat and a lot of willing señoritas as a comfort in my old age. That’ll take some investment money. Honestly? I came up here looking for some fat paychecks.”

A slinky cocktail waitress entered the office with a loaded tray. Her hair was so black and her skin so pale she looked like a vampire. Her lips were blood-red against her complexion. Her dark eyes slid up and down James in a very friendly fashion as she handed him a gin and tonic. Forbes lifted an immense snifter of brandy from the tray and a cigar from an open box. Zhol took mint tea from a gold cup and an unfiltered Turkish cigarette between his little and ring fingers. The girl lit their smokes. One corner of her lips quirked upward and she gave James a lingering look before swiftly disappearing.

Zhol let out a long stream of blue smoke toward the overhead lighting. “So, tell me, Mr. James, what are you willing to do for me?”

“Well, I’d rather not run drugs or pimp little girls. But I still have a few skills.” He sipped his gin. “Tell me, Mr. Zhol. You have enemies?”

Zhol smiled at Forbes. “Significantly fewer than I once had.”

“The law of business is to expand or be swallowed up. You strike me as an expansionist. I have no doubt you’ll be making new enemies, and encountering new problems.” James had kept his attitude relaxed, but he was a trained Special Forces soldier. Such men were a breed apart. Having joined Phoenix Force, he was now the elite of the elite, and one of the most dangerous men on Earth. He let that intensity show through as he stared deep into Zhol’s eyes. “Both of which I can make disappear.”

“Shee-it!” Forbes’s smile lit up the room as he pointed at James, recognizing the eye of the tiger. “I told you, Mr. Zhol. I told you. Just look at that beautiful man. You put me and him together? We could take goddamn Moscow.” Forbes became serious again. “And we have current projects, and we have run into problems. This man would be a fucking force-multiplier, guaranteed.”

Zhol didn’t blink as he stared into James’s eyes. The Phoenix Force commando saw the sociopath behind the flat black eyes and knew the man was a killer. Zhol’s eyes slit almost imperceptibly in decision.

“Mr. Forbes, give Mr. James ten thousand dollars. He will room with you in your suite until we find him his own place. We are on a swift timetable, and you will indeed need to bring him up to speed. However…” Zhol suddenly smiled disarmingly. “Bermet found you pleasing, Mr. James. Did you like her?”

“The Goth girl?” James sat up in his chair. “Oh, hell yes.”

Zhol nodded at Forbes. “Tell Bermet Mr. James’s door will be open to her tonight if she so desires. Tell her she might wish to bring along her friends Dariga and Tatiana.” Zhol shrugged at Calvin. “They’re twins.”

James blinked. “Really.”

Zhol rose and extended his hand. “Have a pleasant evening, Mr. James.” He smiled as they shook hands. “I look forward to a profitable association.”

“Man…” Forbes put a massive hand on James’s shoulder and nodded as Zhol left the office. “I told you this was a good gig.”

“We have the Shark.” David McCarter sat, apparently reading the paper, in the terminal. He watched the bullet-headed Russian mobster disembark with a pair of bodyguards. Sharypa Sharkov was a big man, built like a rugby striker who had let himself go. His men weren’t particularly large or imposing, but they scanned the crowd around their boss with hard and searching eyes. The men weren’t mindless muscle. They were shooters, and their right hands never strayed far from the front of their black leather jackets. McCarter subvocalized into his throat mike. His signal was being picked up at the safehouse and bounced to Virginia through the sat link. “Two bodyguards. My instinct is they’re ex-Special Forces. Packing heat.”

“Affirmative, Phoenix One.” Barbara Price confirmed. “Tail is go.”

“Roger that.” McCarter tossed down his paper and walked through the terminal slightly behind and parallel to Sharkov. They stepped out into the drizzly Tajikistani morning. Sharkov stepped into the back of a dilapidated Toyota Land Cruiser. McCarter eyed the vehicle. “Base, according to intel, Sharkov likes to live large, correct?”

“Affirmative, Phoenix One. According to what we got from CIA Moscow Station, Sharkov tries to keep up with Zhol in the style department and usually fails.”

“What’s his usual ride?”

Price looked over the Sharkov report. “He keeps a Mercedes-Benz in every city he has a residence in.”

“Right.” McCarter threw a leg over his BMW F650 Dakar motorcycle. There was another nondescript SUV parked behind the one Sharkov had just gotten in. The vehicles had dents and scratched paint, and had apparently seen hard use over the years. Sharkov’s had one headlight out. There was nothing strange about that. Toyota SUVs were one of the workhorses of the Third World. They were nothing if not reliable. If you just changed the oil every three thousand miles they could limp along for decades doing yeoman’s work. Manning’s eyes narrowed as he took in the tinted windows. He smiled as the SUVs’ engines snarled into life and spit blue smoke into the misting rain. These weren’t workhorses.

They were thoroughbreds.

The dirt and dings were cosmetic. Beneath the sheep’s clothing their V-6 engines were supercharged. David McCarter was a connoisseur of motor vehicles. He took in the run-flat tires and recognized the work. The two Land Cruisers were the product of Asbeck Armoring Bonn. He suspected they were VIP 100 Models, and custom. They would be armored against massive attack, undoubtedly European “extreme protection” B6 category. They would be impervious to direct hits of up to .30-caliber. It would take a .50-caliber, crew-served machine gun or a shoulder-launched rocket to crack them.

McCarter’s instincts spoke to him. Sharkov was going incognito and with maximum protection. The Briton followed the two-car caravan for a couple of blocks, and their destination was evident. “Base, targets are headed for the casino.”

“Affirmative, Phoenix One. It’s your call.”

McCarter considered his options. If his suspicions were correct, he had just located the courier vehicles for the nukes. They needed to be marked. Once they went into the casino they’d be parked in Zhol’s private garage. There were three options. James could go in and tag them, but that would risk his cover. Two, McCarter could send in a team to break into the garage and do it. It probably wouldn’t be too difficult, but security would have to be overcome. There was a good chance that the enemy might know they had been breeched. They wouldn’t know why or by whom, but the enemy security level would rise, and that threatened the entire mission.

Option three was for McCarter to do it himself, now.

“Base, I’m taking the shot.”

“Affirmative, Phoenix One.”

McCarter pulled up behind the Toyotas. He reached into his jacket. His hand brushed past the concealed Browning Hi-Power pistol and pulled out a slightly oversize cell phone. At a traffic light he came to stop beside Sharkov’s vehicle. He could feel the gaze of the hardmen inside from behind the tinted windows. McCarter flipped open his phone as the light changed. The back passenger window of the Land Cruiser cracked slightly. McCarter passed the armored vehicle, apparently oblivious of scrutiny as he shouted into his phone in angry French.