Assault Force

3

Michael Charger saw them coming, all mouth and drunken swagger, but planned to sit tight, let events unfold as they would. Come what may, the tab could never be squared from where he sat. Still, all things considered—the coked-out temper tantrums, head-lopping of writers, directors and other key staff who were expected to make gold out of crap, what with the star himself barely able to throw a believable punch without umpteen takes, slow-motion choreography or computer graphics added postproduction—he figured to enjoy a live show where life might well imitate art.

The former United States Navy SEAL captain gave his two twenty-something buddies a grin, shook his head. The two knuckleheads came into focus from the east quad. It was crystal clear where they were headed and the object of their scorn. Roy Barnwell and Jimmy Rosco fidgeted, scowling. Charger could understand their dilemma. It was called job security.

Charger knew life in the fast lane of Hollywood was their only battlefield to date. At their tender age—with their fat paychecks—he suspected they feared the all-night parties with beautiful groupies and noses dug into conveyor belts of cocaine might skid to a screeching halt. Obscure in their profession, at best, he was sure they would be first in line to get kicked off the gravy train if something should happen to Bret Cameron.

The drunks in question cranked it up another decibel, pointing and laughing at Hollywood’s latest hunk as they bridged the gap. Sid Morheim, Cameron’s agent, became a human cannonball, shot out of his leather throne. The local groupies followed his mad dash for the photographers with squeals of delight. The tabloid flunkies smelled blood, no question, ready to cash in from the anticipated fracas.

Maybe the agent had arranged a publicity stunt to sell more tickets for the guy’s latest sequel, Charger thought. As a soldier who knew the score in the real blood-and-guts world, this bunch came straight from planet Phony. In his experience there were no decent human beings in the movie business.

Were it not for who he’d been in real life, it might have bugged him to no end being the guy’s stunt double. He was often mistaken in public for the star by beautiful young barracudas. There was some resemblance in physique, but the faces didn’t quite match other than lean and mean hawkish. Age, for one thing, not so much in years, but wear and tear of grim experience under the fire of live rounds. Scars around the eyes and jaw from the kissing end of bullets were another problem, requiring touching up in the cutting room with computer graphics often switching mugs for any shot other than long. To keep Bret Cameron on top, superhuman tough for the world to behold, took three of them, and he figured they’d shared more concussions, burns, broken bones and torn ligaments, more stitches scalp to foot than many of the surviving war victims he’d seen in both Gulf wars, and beyond.

Charger could see his comrades growing more agitated to help Tyrell and Guamo run interference, but two things most likely kept them glued to their seats. One, they looked up to him, as the right stuff who had actually lived the kind of life the star only portrayed on the big screen. Two, they wouldn’t mind seeing Cameron smeared by some truly righteous press if he got knocked on his can, and let Sid the Squid spin that. Rumors were the movie star had enough skeletons to keep his agent busy greasing tabloids as it stood. The little bejeweled, toupeed agent swept dirt under the rug often over any sordid mess created by their actor.

One of the drunks was out of the agent’s stratospheric reach.

“Hey…movie star! Yeah, you, hero! How about an autograph?”

Charger lifted his beer, sipped, smiled. As the men moved for a close-up, their laughter took on a mocking note. One of them treated Cameron to an up-and-down look of pure contempt, then squeezed his package, asking his buddy in broken English why would such a big man need to pay underaged girls to lie to the tabloids about his sexual prowess.

Cameron looked stunned into paralysis by such disrespect.

The ex-SEAL suddenly wondered about that himself as he recalled whispered rumors how the star stayed so coked up Viagra was his only face-saving grace.

The show went on.

About five hundred pounds of steroid-buffed muscle, the salt-and-pepper bodyguards, made their move. The last of the teenagers, Charger saw, was scurrying off—or did Cameron give the boy a shove? The skinny kid looked flabbergasted, clutching an autographed poster like his ticket to paradise when he was nearly bowled down by Tyrell. One of the female hangers-on started giggling, looking hopeful for bloodshed. Sid Morheim bulled into the paparazzi, pink, diamond-studded fingers swishing away cameras. What Charger hoped would become a full-scale brawl, with Cameron on the deck, ended in only a short pushing and cursing contest. Reflex, though, spurred, no doubt by stung pride and a brain fried on coke, caused Cameron to wrench free of the blond trophies, step up and smash the challenger in the nose. It looked to Charger like one of Cameron’s best shots, an award winner, in fact, that mashed beak, blood taking to the air from the burst faucet all but assuring a lawsuit. Worse still—Tyrell already had the drunk in a headlock, the cheap shot sure to have been caught on film.

Then a riot nearly erupted.

Guamo descended on the other heckler, speared a palm to sternum that sent him backpedaling in a lively jig step. His windmilling arms brought down a waitress with a squeal and crash of glass on the deck. The first drunk was squawking about assault, railing on about cops and lawsuits and sucker punches. Cameron was snarling some tough guy line from a safe distance while Morheim bleated at his meal ticket to stand down. Hotel security came flying into the tussle next from out of nowhere.

Charger looked away. He’d had enough. Money would change hands, the paparazzi film would be seized or they’d be briefed in private how it should play in the papers.

Charger put his full attention back on the blond woman in the white dress and her dark companion. For his money, both of them had stolen the spotlight in passing, moments ago.

Charger’s nameless movie queen was sitting under a thatched umbrella, one long luscious leg crossed over the other, watching from a distance with a neutral look. It was her tall companion, though, who had Charger looking hard and wondering what his act was all about. The sun setting to throw dark shadows their direction, the woman’s companion was all but obscured, nothing but a tall, broad specter. But Charger had seen enough, instinct shouting to the ex-SEAL this man was solar systems different, the way he was from Bret Cameron.

Another warrior, yes, sir, tried and true, in the living flesh.

YZET GOLIC WAS DISGUSTED. An ex-captain in the Serbian army, he was used to giving the orders, followed without hesitation or fail. Once upon a time the mere mention of his name struck terror into hearts, and anyone—Serb or Muslim—paid him due respect, unless they wished to see themselves and their entire families hacked to death or shot without warning. Entire fields and valleys all over Bosnia claimed the bones of Muslim men, women and children who had been shot simply for breathing the same air. Years after they shut down the prison camp he ran, NATO do-gooders were still tripping over skulls around Sarajevo, shouting his name all the way to the Hague like an obscenity. Spineless fools. The war he’d waged, he’d long since decided, was something only a Serb understood. And it had been like that in his country—ethnic cleansing of the undesirable elements—centuries before America had bombed Serbia into surrender. Who was he, only following tradition and orders himself, to question the morality of his actions, much less be judged by the West for trying to save his own kind? Hand himself over to so-called authorities for so-called atrocities, submit, forsake his will? Never.

Life had changed drastically since the NATO peacekeepers had marched in, maintaining what was an uneasy peace, at best, between the various ethnic groups. Someone had once told him change was good. Let that same individual tell him that now and he would pump a 9 mm round from his automatic pistol between the speaker’s eyes. It was degrading enough an officer of his mighty reputation had been forced to become a common gangster in Belgrade, selling drugs, peddling whores, extorting business owners, just to survive. And with a sealed indictment out there, somewhere in Europe, with his and the old man’s names stamped on it, plastic surgery had altered his once handsome face into a stranger he barely recognized in the mirror. As for the old man, nothing could change blubbery girth like a whale, the face of a baboon.

Changes, he thought, sounded like a sad song with an abysmal desperate end.

So, what was he now, he wondered, as he heard the witch demand he refill her glass with champagne. Beyond top lieutenant for the old man, it seemed he was expected to play the gofering eunuch for Mistress of the Month. Perhaps when they served chilled vodka in Hell, he thought. He had her number, thank God, and foresight enough to have filmed their brief but torrid liaison. It was leverage he was on the verge of using, if only to warn her she’d better show him respect.

Flicking cigar ash over the railing, he glared at the scuffle, wishing for his own outlet for all the pent-up aggression that had him seeing red. From the bird’s-eye view twelve stories up he didn’t need field glasses to read the situation. Security goons were dragging off two guests who were still flailing in their grasp, shouting obscenities. Suits from the movie entourage were gesturing all around the gold lion, shrugging at other tuxedoed hotel muscle, big shots restoring calm, ready to grease the right skids so they didn’t get booted, or the incident sully their Star’s name.

Well, he had hassles of his own, he thought bitterly.

A long stare out to sea, unable to count all the vessels, and Golic wished they were back on the old man’s yacht. At least cruising the Mediterranean there seemed far less worry about constant vigilance against foreign commandos or bitter rivals. Any approaching craft was easy enough to spot, blow out of the water, if need be. As he searched the pool and its crowded deck, the vast garden and running bars, he knew any guest masquerading as some playboy could pose a threat. Perhaps the door would crash down with commandos slapping all of them in the face with those sealed indictments. Sure, they possessed bogus ID and passports. Yes, some of the local authorities were bribed into silence and submission, ready to alert them if a raid was being planned. But Golic felt the knot in his gut. Something was about to go terribly wrong.

“Yzet! Where is he?” the woman shrieked.

He clenched his jaw, willing the old man’s return. There was business with some up-and-coming club owner in the city to conduct, a deal that would make the man rich beyond his wildest hopes, while cleaning their cash.

Already galled by what he knew he would find inside the suite, he strode through the open French doors. The old man was probably indulging himself with his whores, staying drunk, but meanwhile part of their duty was to guard the party albeit in envy from the sidelines.

He found her at the deep end of the massive living room, inside the open doors, stretched on her stomach on a padded leather table. Curtains fluttered near the glass in her outstretched hand as she enjoyed the view and the evening breeze. Ilina Kradja was beautiful, Golic had to admit, and as evil as the day was long. She repeated his name like some curse word.

“I need more champagne. In the kitchen. And open a new bottle. Go, damn you! Why do you just stand there like some idiot?”

Golic snorted, puffed his cigar, held his ground. He felt the rage darken and boil, despised, too, the lust flaming in his belly, trying hard not to stare at creamy flesh shamelessly displayed. Whether for the envy of the whores—the scantily clad trollops lounged on the huge horseshoe-shaped tiger-skinned couch, or to amuse herself over the torment his own soldier was forced to endure as he massaged her, it was clear she was charged by showing off her stark nakedness. Having seen such an exhibition before, Golic could already hear her wicked laughter when Nikimko, the masseur, excused himself after the rubdown for a prolonged absence in the bathroom.

When she reminded him of his lowly status, embellished with lying taunts about his manhood and finally calling him boychick, it felt as if the core of his brain erupted with hot lava. He took a few steps her way then stopped and pinned her with a cold stare. “Amazing,” he said.

Through the thunder in his ears he somehow heard the viper spit, “What? What is so amazing, boychick?”

A few of the whores, swiping at their noses, looked from the porn movie on the giant-screen television to Kradja, then watched him closely. Golic wondered why it had taken him so long to work up the courage, as he told her, “You have everything a woman could want, but you are never satisfied.”

“How dare…”

“Shut up! You are a despicable creature, Ilina Kradja,” he snarled, his lust firing to new and darker depths as she lay there, trembling, shocked, speechless.

“You are a bottomless pit of demands. Unless there is endless money you can consume or much social stature to bask in, men are nothing but peasants in your eyes, to be held in your contempt, ignored, or trampled by your wretched existence.”

Golic was moving away as she sputtered, “Come back here! I will have your balls cut off and nailed to the wall for speaking to me like that! Do you hear me?”

He heard the door chimes instead. The old man’s raucous laughter sounded as he came stumbling down the wide foyer, Krysha pawing him upright, brushing the white jacket. Vidan and Radic took up in the rear. Golic waited while the boss and his plaything of the hour moved down the steps. He could feel Ilina’s smoldering fire, but knew she’d keep her mouth shut. Knowing her, she’d scheme of other ways to make his life miserable while keeping Dragovan Vikholic in the dark.

Impatient to discuss business, Golic scowled while the boss launched into a brief tirade about the hotel, cursing its guests and the slow service, but almost in the same breath laughing what a grand time he was having.

“Oh, my little princess,” he said, slobbering all over Krysha’s face, “how I wish I could stay here forever. Kiss Daddy with some sugar, if it so please you.”

Golic tuned out the spectacle, wondering where the hell his life was headed, when he heard the chimes again. Vidan wheeled about-face and headed back down the foyer. Golic hoped it was the new pigeon.

He was moving away from the steps, about to clear his throat and call to Vikholic, when he heard what sounded like a loud thud. Instinct flared to angry life. Visions of commandos storming the suite taking shape in his mind like winged demons, he whirled toward the foyer, cigar snapped off between clenched teeth. He was digging out his pistol when he spied the object, spewing a funnel of smoke, before it arced overhead, sailing on. A glimpse of armed invaders in gas masks, then the acrid cloud swarmed Golic, legs folding as a black veil dropped over his eyes.

HAMID BHARJKHAN CAUTIONED himself against overconfidence. They were in. There was never any real doubt about initial penetration—Spanish operatives had been planted as employees a year earlier with the assistance of their financiers—but this simply started the clock. Head shrouded in a black hood as were the others. He unleathered the sound-suppressed Spanish 9 mm Star automatic pistol from his shoulder holster and marched off the private security-service elevator. The halls were clear, but why wouldn’t they be?

He waved an arm and they raced into action. Two large bellhop dollies, heaped with black bags, rolled off the cage. Assault rifles were set on the carpeted floor, and two teammates went to work. One of them opened the panel, wiring the elevator car immobile, but slated to rise for the south edge of the lobby should the order come down, while the other freedom fighter, he glimpsed, was priming the plastic explosive for his radio remote box.

As he led the armed wave toward the open door of the main security-surveillance room midway down the narrow hall, he knew it was a moment to shine, absorb the divine power of Allah. How many months sweating it out in the North African sun, the endless hours of operational planning, running mock-ups? The forged documents, holing up, a day or so at a time, in cities across France, then Spain, to smoke out any tails. Bribing or forcing key individuals to get the critical wheels turning to pave the way, swearing them to secrecy under the threat of sudden death. Slipping their teams into the hotel as guests, with gear and weapons, two and three at a time.

The future was theirs to seize.

Point men for the dollies, four of his brothers hit the corridor on his right wing, AK-74s poised to blast anyone who wasn’t where they were supposed to be right then. Stairwells, air vents that could double as insertion points from up top, the self-contained plant powering utilities, all were committed to memory from blueprints. The demo team vanished from sight, gone to rig the netherworld. In the event they needed to blow a crater, a series of massive explosions—or so the educated guess went—could take out the entire first floor. There was talk, during the final brief, that the blasts could so damage the foundation, the first floor and walls all but gone as support, the whole building could collapse. Recalling their laughter over what they envisioned as a possible miniversion of the World Trade Center, he only hoped he was clear when the floors began to pancake, shoving the image of being buried alive beneath tons of rubble from his mind as he led his six remaining fighters of Team Black to the door.