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  He wished he had a weapon. Damn, even a knife would be nice. His mouth tightened. His eyes alternated between trying to see where he was stepping through the thin blanket of fog and keeping track of his pursuers. Any weapon and he would make short work of these intruders. They were overconfident, making too much noise. He glanced over the heads of the three men, toward the next house. He was amazed the nearby neighbors’ houses were still dark. They were less than a hundred yards from his. Neighbors he had never met. After tonight, he thought, they may never want to meet me.

  The last bush in the row ended with about twenty feet of open space to the edge of the pine forest. He stumbled, twisting his ankle and falling to one knee, landing on the sharp edge of a rock, causing a grunt to escape. Dumb! He rolled away, unintentionally onto the wounded shoulder, drawing a short whimper before he clinched his mouth shut.

  “Over here!” the man nearest him shouted.

  “Shut up, ya fool. You want to have the coppers here?”

  The sound of crashing feet accompanied the nearest assailant as the man ran toward him. Instead of jumping up and running toward the tree line, Tucker scrambled on all fours backward, putting distance from where he’d fallen. Across the yard, the other two approached more cautiously. He heard one of those two trying to catch the one hurrying toward Tucker. Who attacked him — the Three Stooges? Of course, what was he? One of the Marx brothers? Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thought. If this had been an exercise, the referee would have ruled him dead.

  “Be careful, Ian,” the one farther away warned.

  The man’s left foot stepped within a few inches of Tucker’s right hand. Without thinking, he grabbed the ankle and jerked backward. The clumsy assailant cried out once as he fell. The two following stopped instead of hurrying forward. It both surprised and elated Tucker. It also confirmed that they were amateurs at this game.

  “Ian?” the middle one called softly.

  Navy SEALs were more than trained killers. They were also trained to conduct quick “look-and-see” reconnaissance missions, penetrating the enemy territory, identifying the targets, and returning without being seen. Covert operations was a Navy SEAL’s forte. Most were capable of associating voices to individuals. This allowed them to map their targets in the day and recognize them in the night. Tucker had Ian, and that would be Casey calling. Which meant the remaining attacker, the one farthest from him, was the leader, Sean. The Irishman!

  All of this flicked through his thoughts in the second it took for Tucker to let go of the man’s ankle and leap forward onto the assailant’s back. A deep whimper escaped the body beneath him. Tucker wrapped his right arm around the neck, blocking the air passage with the crook of his elbow, shutting off the man’s attempt to shout, and to breathe. The man kicked out with his left leg, trying to dislodge Tucker. Tucker felt the sinewy muscles beneath the shirt. Whatever this man did in “real life” it involved labor.

  On the other side of the bushes, the other two called to Ian again.

  “Ian, you got him?” That was Casey.

  Oh, yes! Ian’s got me alright. Tucker tightened his hold, pulling the neck back.

  “They’re fighting, Casey. Go help him.”

  Fifty to sixty feet away. They weren’t hurrying, which suited Tucker fine.

  “Do I look like a fucking idiot? You go help him.”

  Even as he tightened the choke hold on the thrashing man beneath him, he knew he had to hurry before they worked up the courage to approach. He still had no weapon but his hands, unless he could find Ian’s. This must be the first time these guys had worked together. From his experience, teams were like professional sports. You knew the capabilities and skills of your teammates — little verbal communication was necessary. He shoved the struggling man’s head down, then quickly jerked it to the side. A small voice within his thoughts sarcastically asked, Well, they shot you, didn’t they? He was rewarded with the sharp crack of the vertebrae that a moment before had joined the neck to the spinal cord. The pain from his shoulder erupted. It was out of the closet and running. The man went rigid for a second, and then his entire body trembled for several more before relaxing suddenly onto the ground. “Say, goodbye, Ian,” Tucker whispered through the pain into the dead man’s ear.

  He rolled off. Taking deep breaths, Tucker brought the pain back under control, slamming the door shut again. Then he leaned forward and ran his right hand along the arms of the dead man, to the hands, searching for the pistol. Nothing. It must have fallen. The sound of running feet reached him. He pushed himself up, his left hand dragging across the pistol. Thank God for small things. He reached over and gripped the weapon in his right hand. Then, at a crouch, Tucker raced toward the tree line. Once in there, they were his. One down, two to go. If they’re having a potato famine in Ireland, there are going to be three less mouths to feed shortly. All he needed was the right position.

  He ran at a half-crouch, a “stop and go” pace to avoid drawing attention. Rapid movement attracted attention. Even knowing that, it took all his willpower and training to wait in the shadows and watch the silhouettes of the two searchers for the right moment to move. The two men had stopped near the edge of the hedgerow. They were facing away from him. He used the moment to close the tree line.

  Nearly a minute after he had killed the first of the assailants, he melded into the pine trees. He glanced behind him. The silhouettes of the two remaining searchers showed them bent over, combing the area in front of them, looking for him or their friend or both. The outline of two pistols with the familiar fat-barrel of the silencer screwed onto the end could be easily discerned.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said the one called Casey, turning back toward the house.

  That was an American accent, Tucker realized. The words came in a quick, chopped accent, but it was American.

  “No,” the leader, Sean, answered, reaching out and jerking the man back by the arm. “We finish tis. Our lives don’t mean anything…”

  “An hour ago I would have agreed with you,” the man replied, jerking his arm free. “You go do it. You’re not married — Ian and I are.”

  He watched the argument, half hoping they wouldn’t leave. He waited, squatting on his haunches behind a tree a few feet into the woods. The watery smell of the nearby river and fresh wet soil aroma rising from the pine-strewn forest floor filled the faint breeze. The buzz of mosquitoes circled his head.

  His sense of the game had changed in the past few minutes. He wanted to take out the remaining two. He had been in Frederick County for five days — four of them at the Holiday Inn near the Francis Scott Key Mall. His one visit to the American Legion had resulted in two beers, one cigar, no conversation, and the discovery that food service closed early. The only people he had talked to who could say they may remember him were the ones at the reception desk at the Holiday Inn. Maybe a five-dollar tip to the young lady behind the bar at the Legion might cause her to recall who he was.

  He sensed someone behind him. He turned slowly, reducing movement as he searched the surrounding shadows. His eyes swept the terrain for that telltale bit of gray or black out of context with the natural landscape — anything that didn’t quite fit. This was his forte, and he knew he did it well. His head swiveled slowly, his eyes doing the moving, using his peripheral vision, the key for seeing in the night. All he needed was a small movement, a sound, and if another one were out here, he would have him located and assessed. But nothing moved.

  He suspected it was Sean shoving the other man toward the forest. The two men inched closer. A small flashlight — one he had purchased earlier in the day from a locally owned hardware store in Frederick — swept the ground in front. It had been just outside the gate at Fort Detrick. The presence of the U.S. Army’s biological complex at what had once been a World War I air base had played a large role in his decision to buy a house in the small suburb of Urbana. It gave him weekend access to the exchange, where he could cash a check, and the commissary, where he could b
uy groceries. Moreover, his one major vice was playing the horses, and Urbana had a nearby offtrack betting place that had a bar and a restaurant. What more could a man ask for?

  He rose slightly off his haunches and shifted quietly to the right. His head buzzed and he felt faint. Tucker had to end this soon. He carefully took several steps to the left, away from where the men were about to enter the woods. He wanted a clear line of fire. Tucker lifted the pistol. Glancing down at the weapon, he hefted it a couple of times. It was a small pistol, probably a .38 caliber. Nothing fancy, but it would kill you. He leaned forward, bringing his head around the tree. The light from the balcony caught his attention, and he eased himself back behind the tree, letting the shadow of the pine hide him. He would have to be careful of the light. By now, their night vision was functioning at the same level as his. The other side of the coin of fighting in the night was knowing how to use that vision. Tucker was confident he could use the trees and slight undergrowth to mask his presence. If he was right and they were a bunch of first-time assassins — funny word to think of — then they were in for the shock of their lives. Whether they lived to tell was an unanswered question.

  Ten yards farther, he stepped into a saucer-like depression hidden by loose pine needles. It nearly caused him to fall. He used his right hand to ease himself into the depression. In the dark, he completely disappeared from sight. He brought the pistol up in his right hand. He forced his left arm up, using the palm of the left hand to cup the right. Here he watched the two men enter the woods without them ever realizing they were walking into an ambush. That one must be Casey, Tucker figured, watching the man in the shadows whose head was twisting back and forth rapidly and whose gun was swinging from side to side.

  The two men slowly opened the distance from each other. He knew the spread was unintentional. Little things continued to highlight their amateurism. Sure, they may have hunted their entire lives, but unlike him, their prey had probably been deer, wild boar, or turkey. His had been the two-legged kind. He was damn good at it, and he was no fucking turkey.

  The soft sound of the sluggish Monocacy River intruded as the two men neared its bank.

  “Quit that before you shoot me,” the one named Sean said.

  “… got to be here someplace, or maybe he’s gone back into the house while we’ve been here?” the nervous one complained softly.

  “Oh, shut up. Don’t be a coward. I told you I shot him. He’s out here and he’s wounded. He can’t be far.”

  Behind the two, undiscovered, lay the body of Ian. They seemed less interested in what had happened to Ian, than they were in finding Tucker. Why was he so important that three men, at least one of them Irish, would try to kill him? Robbery? If he was going to rob someone and that someone escaped, he would be hightailing it for the nearest county line rather than trying to track him down on unfamiliar territory. Maybe they expected him to run or be so scared that he curled up in a fetal position, shut his eyes tight, and waited for them to find him. They were stupid. Of course, they had two weapons to his one, but it doesn’t take a genius to pull a trigger. Plus, they couldn’t know he was armed now. Then he recalled the comment the scared one said about him knowing how to operate in the night. No, they knew who he was, but why were they after him?

  He took several deep breaths. Reaching around his waist, he ran his hand down the edge of his back. Around the waistline of his jeans, blood had soaked through to the point where the wetness slurped against his skin. He needed to wrap this up soon. Otherwise, he was going to lose consciousness because he was losing too much blood.

  Tucker licked his lips. His head swam. He blinked several times to clear his vision, which seemed to swim in and out of focus. He shut his left eye and aimed over the top of the short barrel at the one called Sean. Sean led the two by a couple of steps. Tucker squeezed his finger slowly on the trigger, shifting the barrel slightly so it aligned itself with the front of the man. He pulled the trigger. The first shot hit the one called Sean in the stomach, causing him to arch forward. The second caught him in the chest. Tucker shifted the pistol to the second man. The one called Casey began firing wildly in the direction from where the two shots had come. Tucker fired. The first bullet missed the man, but the second caught him in the chest just as he turned to run, causing the man to collapse in mid step. The pistol fell from the man’s hand, landing silently on the pine-carpeted forest floor. Tucker fired again. The third bullet caught the man in the head, causing it to jerk backward as he fell. The body hit the ground.

  Tucker waited. The danger was past. The two were dead. If not, they would be soon. He looked toward the house. The balcony light shined outward, faintly outlining a peaceful backyard for anyone looking this way. He shut his eyes. He’d rest for a few moments and then force his way to the house and call for help. His breath came in rapid, short gasps. He’d be alright. He just needed a short breather to catch his breath and recapture enough strength to make it to the house and the telephone. Tucker faded into unconsciousness. He heard a slight moan from one of the two men he had shot, and then, as his consciousness evaporated, the sound of running footsteps approaching reached his ears. For a fraction of a second, a surge of panic nearly fought through the swirling fall into the darkness, but the loss of blood and the strength used to fight the killers were too much. Tucker passed out just as hands turned him over.

  CHAPTER 2

  AUGUST

  The grinding gears of the heavy truck forced the dockhands to shout instructions and questions. As it inched closer to where the tramp freighter was tied up to the cement pier, the Africans sidestepped gingerly out of its way, shielding their night vision from the glare of the yellow headlights. Several times, the brakes squealed — metal on metal — as the driver stopped. He would then tap on his horn a couple of times, whereupon Jihadist supervisors would shove Africans toward the truck, shouting at them to shift or move waiting boxes and loose gear out of its path. Then, with a smile, the thin reed of a driver would rev the straining engine up again, the gears grinding more metal from the thin teeth, and the truck would inch forward again.

  Mixing with the smell of the unburned oil spewing dark thick exhaust from the truck was the fetid odor of human waste floating in the waters of this hidden African inlet. The pipe leading from the Ivory Coast port city of Abidjan worked its way through the jungle and rain forest of this West African country to pump unprocessed waste into the waters south of it. Tide and current carried most of the waste out to sea, but spin-off currents and high tide kept a large portion of the waste trapped inside this inlet of deep water. Floating on top of the languid water, the waste baked in the sun, soaked in salt water, and eventually drifted down to join the decades-old waste blanketing the inlet bottom. No fish lived in the inlet. They had either died or escaped years before.

  The noise of the pier bothered Abu Alhaul. It bothered his bodyguards also. Standing in the shadows of the dilapidated warehouse, he watched the dockhands load the old freighter, occasionally glancing toward the truck working its way closer to the ship. Silently he wondered what they would do if the truck broke down before it reached the freighter. He reached up and stroked his dark beard, the thin white streak running along the right side hidden in the shadows of the darkness.

  “I think we should return to the house,” Abdo said, briefly touching Abu Alhaul on the arm. “You must eat something, my brother. You haven’t eaten all day, and it isn’t as if you have the weight I do to compensate.” Abdo patted his huge stomach and chuckled softly. He licked his lips, his eyes darting to the dark African jungle that reached the edges of the inlet. “It isn’t safe here.”

  “If it isn’t safe here, Abdo, then it isn’t safe at that hovel you call a house. It’s night. The Ivorians will be sleeping off their drunkenness, and the French will be staggering from bar to bar. The earliest anyone would come to investigate the noise will be morning. By then, you and I will be far away, and the ship will have departed.”

  The grinding of
the driver shifting gears drowned Abdo’s reply. Abu Alhaul dismissed his brother with a wave and stepped away from the warehouse, directly into the faint light of the single bulb burning over double doors that lead into the empty building. Missing glass from windows on each side of the rusted doors told how African dockworkers passed idle time. One of the doors hung precariously from one huge rusty iron hinge, the bottom one missing, either broken off or stolen. Waist-high grass grew along both sides of the disabled door.

  Abu Alhaul reached up and straightened his black headdress. African dockhands moved back and forth across the front of the truck, breaking up the yellow glow of the headlights. The workers, moving crates and boxes by hand, slid like a parting sea to allow the truck to creep closer to the freighter, never in danger of being run over unless they fell and refused to get up, able to wait the few minutes it would take the truck to run over them. Several patted the rusted fenders as they walked across its path to grab another box from the pier, lift it onto their broad shoulders, and with head down, walk toward the gangway leading onto the freighter.

  “What if it breaks down?” Abdo asked. “We’d never be able to push the truck closer.”

  Abu Alhaul, whose Arabic name translated to “Father of Fear,” replied, “No, we would have to shift the freighter backward.”

  “Not right now we couldn’t. The truck needs to make another fifty meters. The water is too shallow to move the ship back. We would have to wait for high tide, and high tide”—he pulled the sleeve back on his robe and looked at his watch—“is three hours away.”