Oceans Of Fire

“You hiring?” James countered.

Forbes’s laughter rumbled in his chest. “Well, now, I’ll tell you. I got this town shit-scared. These Tajiks never seen a soul brother, much less soul brother SEAL. Shit, two of us? We could take this whole cracker-barrel country for every last somoni they got.

“Somoni?”

“Yeah, it’s the currency they replaced the Russian ruble with around here.” Forbes shook his head. “I wipe my ass with it.” He dug into his pocket and held up a gold money clip thick with U.S. one-hundred-dollar bills. “The good news is this gig pays in long, cool green.”

One of the security men nodded respectfully at the big man. “Mr. Forbes.”

One of the monitors showed Encizo lurching to his feet. His turban was askew and his eyes rolled dazedly.

Forbes lifted his chin. “You want me to jack him up?”

“I already did.” James flashed his smile. “And I took him for 10 K.”

Encizo staggered away into downtown Dushanbe, bleeding and mumbling.

“Well, brother, I feel the love. I surely do.” Forbes loomed forward. “But you are going to need references, and then you are going to have to meet the Man.”

“CALVIN’S IN.” McCarter confirmed.

“Excellent.” Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman said over the satellite link. “How did the initial insertion go?”

McCarter looked across the table to where Encizo sat holding a chemical ice pack against his lumped and purpled jaw. “Smoothly.”

Kurtzman’s brow furrowed at McCarter across the Web cam. “He’s not wearing a wire, is he?”

“Calvin said to get the love he’s got to show the love, and with a SEAL running security, wearing a wire would be suicide. I agreed with him. T.J. is watching the casino and will engage in a loose tail when he emerges. Rafe and I are ready to move on word go, and Jack has a helicopter hot on the pad with a full war load at the Dushanbe airport. Any other action is Calvin’s call.”

Kurtzman scratched his beard. “You know you’ve put that man out on a limb.”

“The good news is that he has the best cover in the world, and that is his cover isn’t a cover. He is who he says he is. The head honcho over at Knight Securities is a former SEAL, knows Calvin and was happy to back up his private contract story. Anything else Calvin can ad-lib as the situation warrants. Also, Special Forces groups are clannish, thick as thieves. Forbes is a United States Navy SEAL, and he’s got to be as giddy as a schoolboy to suddenly have a fellow SEAL as a partner in crime. On the criminal front, Forbes has done yeoman’s work decimating Zhol’s enemies, so Zhol has every reason to want to double his fun.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“You get paid not to like it, Bear, and we appreciate that.”

Kurtzman sighed. “When does Calvin have his interview with Zhol?”

McCarter glanced at his watch. “He should be meeting the man as we speak.”

“AN AMERICAN SEAL?” Aidar Zhol’s eyes looked Calvin James up and down. The crime lord sat in the casino office. The walls were covered with crushed-red velvet. His thronelike chair was red leather, and the wood of his desk and the carpet matched. Zhol was dressed from head to toe in black. He sat in his blood-red room, draping himself elegantly across his chair, and looked positively satanic.

“Man, did you see the security tape of him whipping that deadbeat’s ass?” Forbes waved a hand. “What else could he be? Besides, I’ve checked his references. He’s who he says he is.”

“Indeed, I do not doubt you.” Zhol leaned back in his chair. His deep voice and accent made him sound like Dracula. “Though he seems a bit small to be a bouncer.”

“I’m not suggesting you hire him as a bouncer, and you aren’t thinking it.” Forbes leaned his massive frame against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. “The brother has skills, know what I’m saying?”

Zhol lifted a sculpted eyebrow. “As good as yours?”

“Well, he is old-school SEAL,” Forbes conceded with a grin. “But I can bring him up to speed.”

Zhol’s eyes were unreadable. “And you, Mr. James. What kind of employment are you looking for?”

“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.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“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.