War Tactic

“Lather, rinse, repeat,” James said through the transceiver. Once more he drove the pirates back toward the gap where McCarter could see them, and once more McCarter took the shot that was offered. The trick would not work a third time, however. No matter how hard James tried to light up one section of the railing, the third and final pirate simply would not move from his spot.

“I think he might be down,” James said. “I can’t get him to budge.”

A shot rang out from where the pirate was sheltered. There was a pause, then two more shots, one of which ricocheted close to McCarter.

“No such luck,” McCarter stated. “He’s still with us, mate.”

“Cover me,” James directed. “I’m going over there and have a talk with that man.”

McCarter allowed himself a tight, grim smile. When Calvin James had a heart-to-heart talk with someone, it usually involved the business end of a combat knife. The Stony Man commando was one of the most experienced knife fighters McCarter had known in his professional career.

The Sikorsky continued to make arcs overhead, its guns blazing, chasing and harrying the motor launch. Finally, though, the pirate craft stopped making circuits closer to the Filipino ship and started to recede instead. McCarter reached for his earpiece, intending to give Grimaldi orders. If they could make sure the ship was going to stay above the water line, the Briton would feel comfortable tasking the Sikorsky once more with pursuing the pirates back to their tender. No sooner had he touched the earbud than he realized, of course, that he could not.

The Sikorsky turned to present the cockpit to the deck of the Filipino ship. McCarter checked for enemy fire. There was none. The gunfire had all ceased. The only sounds now were the distant whine of the motor launch as it retreated, the crackling of flames aboard the Filipino ship and the ringing of the alarms belowdecks. McCarter stood and signaled Grimaldi to come closer.

As the chopper turned, McCarter could see that there was damage to the fuselage. Wisps of smoke trailed from a scorched hole in the helicopter. There was some connection between the damage and the radio failure, but McCarter had no idea what that could be.

T. J. Hawkins began to descend on a drop line. The youngest member of Phoenix Force hit his quick-release when he was still a couple feet from the deck. He dropped and absorbed the fall with his knees.

“Hawk,” said McCarter when he joined him, “what’s the condition of the chopper?”

“They hit us with something,” Hawkins said.

“One of the Thorn rockets?” McCarter asked, knowing as he said it that it could not be true. If the Sikorsky had taken a Thorn it would have been damaged much worse than it had been.

“No. Some kind of nonexplosive warhead that crippled our electrical systems,” Hawkins elaborated. “Jack is keeping the chopper up there, but there’s a whole lot that’s not working. He says he needs time to set her down and get her properly repaired.”

“Then following the pirates is out of the question,” McCarter said.

“Jack says we’re lucky he hasn’t taken up swimming, so I’d say yes, that’s about the size of it,” Hawkins drawled. “He says if you want anything, flash him with Morse where he can see you.”

“Bloody hell,” McCarter swore. “My Morse code is as rusty as my…well. Actually, it does seem to come up now and again, doesn’t it?”

The Briton worked his way around to where James had gone to have his “talk” with the third boarder. He found James going through the pockets of the dead man, who was slumped against the railing on the deck in a spreading pool of his own blood.

“Ghastly,” McCarter commented. “Did you put him down?”

“No,” James said. “Found him like this. I guess those last few shots were his way of saying goodbye. He’s got a nick in his femoral artery. Bled out fast.”

“I’m sure no one will mourn his passing,” McCarter said. “Not much, anyway.” The man was gray from blood loss. As it turned out, this was the scorched pirate, who had evidently gotten the worst of the explosion that had obliterated the first of the pirate launches.

There was a sudden bustle of activity from below. The Filipino captain and several of his men emerged. Four of the sailors carried M-16 A-1 rifles, one of the standard infantry weapons of the armed forces of the Philippines. The soldiers took up formation, two kneeling, two standing, and aimed their weapons at McCarter, James and Hawkins. The captain looked more than a little annoyed.

“We no sink,” he said.

“Now see here, mate,” McCarter said. “I realize perhaps now that things are under control, you’re feeling like asking just what we’re doing on your ship. But as you can see—” he pointed to the helicopter hovering overhead “—we’re the reason you didn’t get blown out of the water.”

“I check with my government,” the captain said. “You no move.”

“That’s fair enough, mate,” McCarter said. “We no move. But I’d like to signal my chopper to put in to port. He’s got electrical problems.”

The captain’s eyes narrowed and his hand drifted to the M-9 automatic now holstered on his belt. Evidently the captain had decided, after seeing to the damage to his vessel, that a trip to the armory had been in order. McCarter couldn’t say he blamed the man. Under the circumstances, it seemed unlikely that McCarter would himself just ignore boarders who claimed to be on the right side.

More crew members were moving around the deck now, using portable extinguishers to put out the fires still burning. The captain watched them, probably to make sure everything was under control. In the distance across the water, several vessels were now approaching.

James pointed, but the captain shook his head.

“You called for help?” McCarter asked the captain.

“Navy coming,” the captain announced. “Hope you three check out.”

“We will, mate,” McCarter said. “We will.” He took his signal mirror from a pouch on his web gear and angled it at the chopper. Hoping he was getting the message across, he did what he could to flash “port” a couple of times. Grimaldi got the hint, dipped the nose of the helicopter then turned and limped away.

“There goes our ride,” James said.

“I’m sure the captain here could be convinced to help us put in to port,” McCarter said. “Once he’s determined to his satisfaction that we’re not his enemies. Which I think he already understands, for the most part.”

“I can feel his understanding through those four assault rifles,” Hawkins said.

“People have different ways of expressing trust,” James said.

McCarter wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw the Filipino captain crack a smile.

“Trust issues,” the captain noted.

“What’s that, mate?” McCarter asked.

“I have,” the captain said, grinning.

The troops lowered their weapons. James and Hawkins exchanged glances.

“Don’t we all,” James said. He blew out the breath he had been holding. “Don’t we all.”

CHAPTER SIX

Fitzpatrick entered Rhemsen’s office and helped himself to a chair without being asked. As he always did, Rhemsen glared through that frozen plastic face of his, but there wasn’t much he could do about Fitzpatrick’s liberties. After all, Rhemsen knew as well as Fitzpatrick did that without Blackstar men to provide muscle for RhemCorp’s operations, there would be nothing between Rhemsen and a half dozen major enemies the man had already made.

Some of those enemies, like the Mob, wouldn’t hesitate to start knocking over RhemCorp holdings if they thought they could do so without provoking a war. But with Blackstar guarding Rhemsen’s assets, and given just how many men with guns Blackstar could put on the street, even the mafia knew better than to poke that hornets’ nest with a stick.

“You look nervous, boss,” Fitzpatrick said. “More nervous than usual. Nervous even for you, I mean.”

“What do you think, Jason?” Rhemsen said. He was drinking something with a lot of ice in it. The glass clinked when Rhemsen snatched it and gulped the contents down. His eyes were wide when he looked up again. “There are powerful forces that know what we’re doing.”

“Which powerful forces are those, Harry?” Fitzpatrick said, grinning. He knew that Rhemsen hated being called “Harry.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Rhemsen said. “Government involvement was inevitable. But it’s too soon. It throws off my timetable considerably.”

“Wait a minute,” Fitzpatrick said. “I thought you said you had this all figured out. That’s why we grabbed those guys. That’s why you said it was okay to disappear them. How deep are you digging this hole? I don’t want to end up in prison for the rest of my life.”

“I’m the reason you aren’t already there,” Rhemsen argued. “Don’t forget that, Jason. Without me, without my lawyers, without my financing, Blackstar wouldn’t even exist in its current form. The corporation that now bears the name isn’t the first to hold the moniker, nor will it be the last before we’re finished. If you want to stay one step ahead of Uncle Sam and his investigators, you need me as much as I need you.”

“Would you calm down already?” Fitzpatrick said. “You’re worse than my mother. Or you would be if she was still alive, that miserable broad. Look, I know that, all right? I just want to know what you think this means for the operation.”

“What do you think it means?” Rhemsen shot back. “We’re going to have to suspend our sales pipelines outside the country until we’re sure we aren’t compromised. And I need you to mobilize elements of Blackstar in the Philippines. If the government is sending agents to my doorstep, it means they’re certain RhemCorp hardware is involved. They just don’t know what they can prove yet as far as I am concerned. So they’ll be investigating both ends, and that means there will be government agents sniffing around the ports in the South China Sea. Set a trap, if you can. Lure whomever the government has sent and make them disappear. That should stall things, at the very least, as they try to figure out where they went wrong. Make sure your men coordinate with my pirates.”

“Listen to you,” Fitzpatrick said. “Your pirates. You’re paying a bunch of broken-down, sea-going thieves and you’re hoping for loyalty. That’s not going to end well. They’re not professional soldiers. Not like me. Not like my men.”

“They’re vicious and, for a price, they take orders,” Rhemsen said. “That is precisely what I require them to be. Isn’t that what you call it? ‘Pay to play.’ Isn’t that how Americans refer to trade with China? America hates China, paints it as the aggressor, disrespects the nation with the largest standing military force on Earth…but then, for a price, sells its manufacturing to this nation it so reviles.”

“You talk like you’re not part of that,” Fitzpatrick said. “Last I knew you were part of the American capitalist machine, Harry.”

“So I am,” Rhemsen replied. “Fortunately for both of us I’ve spread enough of the proceeds around that capitalist machine in Washington, in the form of bribe money. It will serve to slow the process of any investigation that will arise. Or at least, I thought I would do so. These men…it worries me, not knowing exactly who or what they represent. Money will only take us so far if forces inside Washington have decided to take direct action against us. This is unusual. Direct action is usually last on a long list of delaying tactics in the government.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Fitzpatrick said. “I’ll break those agents. If their leader doesn’t crack, one of his two subordinates will. I’ll kill one of them if I have to. That ought to shake the other one up. And if it doesn’t, watching them both die will soften up the big one. It should only take a few days of sleep deprivation and torture to get him to spill.”

“I’m not sure we have a few days,” Rhemsen said. “And I wish you wouldn’t talk that way.”

“Don’t be a weakling,” Fitzpatrick said. “What do you want me to say—‘enhanced interrogation’? We both know what I’ve got to do to get them to talk. But you need to consider something, boss.”

“And that is?”

“What are you gonna do if they come clean? Let’s say laughing boy and his two friends turn out to be NSA operatives. Are you prepared for the fallout from killing agents of the most secretive intelligence agency in the country?”

“Intelligence is a dangerous business,” Rhemsen declared. “People employed in it disappear all the time.”

“If I didn’t know better, boss,” Fitzpatrick said, “I’d think you spoke from experience.” He dragged his boots from where he had propped them on Rhemsen’s desk and planted them on the floor. “I’ll get what they know. And then we can assess just how badly your revenue streams are impinged. But I gotta ask, Harry…”

Rhemsen sighed. “What is it you ‘gotta ask’?” The last two words were full of contempt.

“What’s your exit strategy?” Fitzpatrick pushed up from the chair. “I know mine. Blackstar can’t keep reorganizing under new management forever. Sooner or later, some of those investigative hearings, or the Infernal Revenue bastards, are going to catch up to us. When that happens, I’ve got enough money and guns tucked away to keep me happy for a good long while, sitting on a beach with a drink in my hand in a country with no extradition treaty.”

“I’ve never heard of such a plan,” Rhemsen said dryly. “Truly, you possess a unique mind.”

“So it’s not the most original of plans,” Fitzpatrick said. “But it will work and it’s enough. What happens to you and your company, Rhemsen? The US government might forget about one guy, but they’re not going to forget an entire corporation running high-tech weapons to enemies of the homeland. What are you going to do when this all comes out and they freeze your assets, Rhemsen? You ready to spend your nights on television, maybe on one of those webcam things, talking about how the American government is going to ice you? It’s only a matter of time after that happens, you know, when they find somebody to cry ‘rape’ and then bring you up on charges. It happened to what’s-his-name, the internet guy.”

Rhemsen started to say something when the phone on his desk rang. Glaring at Fitzpatrick, he picked up the receiver and put it to his ear. There was a pause. “Yes,” he finally said. “Yes, Mr. Lao. I’d like to meet to discuss with you those matters that have…occupied us previously…Yes…Yes, of course…All right. My secretary will apprise you of the time and location.” He hung up the phone.

“You doing online dating now?” Fitzpatrick quipped.

“Shut up, Jason.” Rhemsen sounded tired. “Just do your job.”

“When have I not?”

“Just… Fine. Let me worry about my ‘exit strategy,’ Jason,” Rhemsen said. “What I need from you is to find out just which branch of the government I need to throw money at next. Get those field agents to talk. Once they do, make sure nobody finds the bodies. That should be simple enough, even for you.”

“Man, you are grumpy today.” Fitzpatrick sneered. “You stay up here in your ivory tower for as long as you like, Harry. I’ll go do the dirty work.”

“See that you do.”

Choking back another retort, Fitzpatrick figured he had needled the King of Plastic Surgery enough for one day. He left Rhemsen’s office and sauntered down the hall, taking the elevator down to the subbasement level. He was now on the east end of the substructure. All the way on the opposite wall, the west end, was the interrogation section.

Rhemsen didn’t like it when Fitzpatrick called it “the dungeon,” but that’s what it really was, and for the first time in a long time, it was being put to its intended use. The “storage closet” had never really been used for storage. Rhemsen’s manufacturing facilities were all elsewhere. This building was nothing but offices full of engineers and bureaucrats, operatives and con artists. That’s how all the suits looked to Fitzpatrick. He took a dim view of any profession he did not really understand, figuring that if he couldn’t tell what a man did after ten seconds of explanation, then what that man did was probably bull.

Fitzpatrick liked to keep things simple.

At the thought, he cracked his knuckles again. He was really going to enjoy this. Growing up, he’d always been “hyperaggressive” or so the counselors had called it. With few prospects for college and a dismal high school record marred with disciplinary problems, it was only a matter of time before he’d ended up charged with assault and battery as an adult. He just liked fighting too much. So he’d joined the Marines.

That had lasted only as long as boot camp, where a savage fight with another recruit had ended in his washing out. He’d tried to join the Army after that, but whatever black mark was on his record had kept him out. He was actually marching out of that Army recruiting center, mad as he’d ever been, when one of Blackstar’s recruiters had appeared out of nowhere to chat him up.

So he wanted to fight for his country, did he? Well, there was a way he could still do that. All he had to do was sign on with Blackstar. The pay was good and the questions were few. All he had to be able to do was follow orders.

Well, Fitzpatrick didn’t give a damn about fighting for his country. He just wanted to fight, and he wanted to be paid for doing it. Blackstar or, more correctly, the company that would become Blackstar several name changes later, was happy to have him. Fitzpatrick rose quickly through the ranks. It helped that, eventually, he’d learned to channel his urge to smash people and things. Being able to hold that impulse in check, most of the time, allowed him to advance in the company’s ranks and assume even greater positions of authority.

Now, he had a reasonable amount of autonomy. Blackstar didn’t care what he did as long as he got things done. The company’s management was busy for the most part just fielding and evading various congressional investigations, so they didn’t care what was happening with him as long as the money flowed. Rhemsen paid well and he needed a lot of manpower. And so the cash came in, Fitzpatrick stayed employed, Blackstar’s management left him alone and everybody was happy.

But it looked as if that all might come thundering to a close, if they couldn’t get a handle on what was really going on. Rhemsen’s weapons sales were the only thing keeping the company going, keeping it profitable. Rhemsen had slipped up and admitted that much to him before. The money spent in research and development on the Thorns, the GGX drop charges, the EM pulse taggers, the portable torpedoes…it was a lot. And apparently government contracts, combined with all the controls and regulations the government expected RhemCorp to follow, meant that the company couldn’t manage a decent profit level. At least, that’s what Rhemsen said. Who knew what that margin was supposed to be? Harry had expensive tastes, from what Fitzpatrick could see. No dude who was addicted to plastic surgery could be trusted around money, if you asked Jay Fitzpatrick. There was something just…wrong…about that guy’s face. He was probably skimming profits from the company.

Either way, for the cash to keep flowing to Blackstar and thus into Fitzpatrick’s pocket, RhemCorp’s illegal arms sales, and the shipping pipelines that sustained them, had to stay open. Fitzpatrick wasn’t privy to all the details in the South China Sea, but Rhemsen had alluded to big markets over there. Whatever his hired pirate crews were doing had something to do with all that. That was why Rhemsen had risked arming the pirates with RhemCorp’s own hardware. It wasn’t just an expedient means of accomplishing his goals in that part of the world. It was also some of the only leverage Rhemsen had, with the rest of his cash tied up in hiring muscle like Blackstar and the pirates themselves.

What a tangled web. That was what people said, right? The thought brought Fitzpatrick back to what Rhemsen had said about China and its government. What the hell had that been all about? And who was Lao? Could be Rhemsen was reaching out to the money men in China to back some of his losses. That didn’t seem like a smart strategy to Fitzpatrick, using China to debt-roll RhemCorp’s operations, but Fitzpatrick only cared so much. His interest in RhemCorp’s financial health extended only as far as how much of Rhemsen’s money was going into Blackstar’s coffers. Even that was a relative thing. Jason Fitzpatrick wasn’t really the loyalty type. He just knew not to crap where he ate.

He would do the job Blackstar needed him to do, and even enjoy it, as long as they kept paying him. If anything changed he’d find another outfit to take him. Private contracting was all the rage these days. Wars were expensive and outsourcing was economical. The business world had discovered that a long time ago. For that matter, hiring mercenaries to do the dirty work was a long-standing tradition in the history of war. He wasn’t exactly a student of history, but he knew that much.

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