CHAPTER 50
Atlantic Ocean, Nantucket coast
“Besides the really bright white lights inside the cabin of the really big fucking boat we are about to take down? Is that the sort of anything you mean, clown face?”
I laughed out loud. Even in the midst of a dangerous operation, Lopez was cool as ice.
Tommy and his crew had planned our approach to the southbound yacht down to the second.
In sixty of them, we would be sliding down fast ropes both forward and aft of the yacht in hopes of finding Senator Harrison—and, with any luck, Special Agent Rowan Anderson.
Chances were fifty-fifty that we’d picked the right boat.
I had only four from Team Rhino to play with, so I’d put Oliver, Meg, and JP on Falcon 3 to clear from stern to bow.
Wolf and I would rope onto the bow from Falcon 4 and rush the cockpit, stopping the boat and controlling the operation from there.
Oliver, Meg, and JP would search and attack until they found Harrison—or anyone with guns.
Simultaneous insertion would be the key to success.
It would enable us to maximize our firepower by putting five rifles on the ship at practically the same moment.
The one thing I was confident about was our fire discipline: With all the unknowns in this harebrained scheme, I knew we could converge from opposite ends of the target at pretty much a full sprint and not shoot each other.
The modified OH-6s would hover overhead, shining their searchlights directly into the cockpit and covering us with the helos’ MP5s. Not the most lethal protection, perhaps, but with surprise and speed on our side I figured we could get a jump on any bad guys who opted to fight.
We’d devised the master plan by hand-drawing the outline of the yacht on my living room wall and studying the crude schematic.
Oliver gave a little color commentary based on some previous operations he had pulled.
We could plan on there being at least two decks to clear from the stern down into the main cabin, while the cockpit would have a couple of breaching points from either side of the ship.
Basically, we would make it up as we went.
“Falcon 3, ten seconds, I’m gonna hit the lights. Stand by.”
Showtime. With one hand, Tommy and his copilot lifted their night-vision goggles and hit the cockpit of the yacht with the 1,600-watt xenon short-arc lamp at almost forty million candlepower.
Night instantly became day. I could neither see nor hear Falcon 3 as we maneuvered into our assault position, but I could feel the sense of panic radiating from our target.
Falcon 3 hit the insertion about two seconds before us. With zero hesitation, Oliver tossed the fast rope and led the assault. Within another five seconds, Meg and JP were on a knee with weapons up, scanning the deck for signs of movement.
No need to toss the fast ropes from Falcon 4. Tommy was able to bring us to a hover about three feet above the deck of the bow. I gave him a thumbs-up, double-checked where I’d land, unhooked my tether, and jumped.
“Rhino 3, this is Rhino 1. We are on the deck and moving toward your position. Over.” Oliver nodded to JP and the hunt began.
“Rhino 3, this is Rhino 1—how copy? Over,” Oliver said again.
I fumbled for the radio call button. “Roger, good copy.”
Although the 160-foot Benetti yacht was rolling slightly with the ocean swells, I made a solid insertion.
I was counting on my trusty pair of Adidas GSG-9 assault boots for traction.
But as soon as my boots hit the wet deck, the combination of gravity, choppy waves, and slippery conditions knocked me down.
“You okay, Tinkerbell?” Wolf asked. I was on my ass and Wolf thought it was funny.
“Fuck you, Wolf.” I wasn’t quite seeing stars, but I would surely have a monster headache tomorrow.
Tommy Lopez continued to train the helicopter’s powerful searchlight on the cabin. The tactic was effective against whoever was driving because the yacht’s forward motion stopped, almost on a dime.
The sleek Italian design allowed us to run directly up the slight incline of the bow toward the cockpit. Wolf broke left and I ran to the right. I saw two people inside the cockpit but no weapons.
“Bang it!” I called over the radio.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Wolf with a flash-bang grenade in his left hand and his Colt 1911 in his right. He had decided to use his secondary weapon during the breach of the cockpit.
By the time he said “Roger,” I was already outside the cockpit with my own flash-bang in hand.
“Execute, execute, execute.”
Fuse pulled, I chucked mine up and toward the opposite ceiling while Wolf threw his low and right. Two seconds later, the deafening explosion and blast of white light forced our targets to the floor.
The crew members—two men, maybe mid-forties, covering their heads with their hands, their bodies curled into fetal positions—were clearly unarmed. And caught completely by surprise.
Tommy pulled pitch and began to fly his helo in a close orbit, still illuminating the ship for Team Rhino to search.
Sixth sense told me there was no threat here.
Even so, I kept my HK MP5 trained on their heads while Wolf checked the spectacular cockpit.
State-of-the-art navigation instruments were inlaid in teak and mahogany panels.
The captain’s chair resembled a royal throne.
The radio and computer systems were powerful enough to control the space shuttle.
“All stations, cockpit secure.”
“Roger,” Oliver called. “Stand by for SITREP.”
“Standing by.”
Wolf began his interrogation and started with the basics. Gilligan and the Skipper had a vaguely Slavic look to them and didn’t understand English well.
“Listen, motherfucker, if you don’t tell me where the fuck the senator is, I’m just going to beat your ass with a club,” Wolf threatened.
Nothing.
“Congratulations, you cracked the case, Wolfgang,” I joked, landing my payback for his laughing at my spill on deck. “That one on the right was probably Bin Laden’s fucking driver too.”
Instinctively I knew this wasn’t the right ship, but I needed Oliver to confirm that.
“We got one.”
I looked at Wolf. “OBL?”
Wolf flipped me off in reply as we waited for Oliver to send the report.
“Target secure—dry hole. I say again, dry hole. We have one passenger, but no trace of precious cargo. Lots of coke but no Harrison. Moving to your location now.”
Oliver strolled into the cockpit a few seconds later. Meg and JP had remained below with the lone passenger. He gave a quick recap of clearing the yacht. Apparently just another luxury craft, out for a cruise in the Atlantic.
“And what about the passenger?”
“Yes, we have some Russian dude down below. He literally stepped out of the stateroom while Meg was clearing. As only Meg can do, she kicked him right in the jimmy when he made a move on her. The bastard’s lucky she didn’t stitch him. Dropped like a sack of shit.”
“That must’ve hurt. Is he talking?”
“Nothing I could understand, but I do believe he was calling Meg some very bad names. Anyway, he’s flex-cuffed and gagged, so not going anywhere for a while.”
“Can’t really blame him, but it’s the price one pays for getting in the lady’s way.
Anyway, gotta be the other one. I’ll get Tommy back here.
Wolf, see if you can find the other ship on radar.
Oliver, go tell Meg to ask the Russki what the fuck is going on over there. Don’t take any shit from him, either.”
“I scooped up all the phones and guns I could find,” said Oliver. “But what do you want me to do with all this coke, boss? He’s got a shit ton of it—must be worth a fortune.”
I nodded toward the ocean, smiled, and walked away to call Lopez. I gave the pilot a quick update, then quickly made a mental review of the details of this raid. Failed or not, it would be important data as we searched for Harrison.
“Didn’t they teach you Just say no to drugs, comrade?” That was JP in his best Russian accent as my team tossed a few dozen kilos of Colombia’s bumper crop into the cold Atlantic.
In a perfect world, I would have brought all three of these mobsters in for some one-on-one time with Meg. We would have rolled them up and done the whole drill, but we didn’t have the time.
Still, I was feeling confident that we would see them again later. We decided on catch and release.