Neutron Force

Lightning flashed in the sky as the five men climbed on board the fishing trawler without a hail, or even the common decency to ask permission. This was a major breech of nautical etiquette anywhere in the world, and a fighting offense in most French dockyards. Nobody but a fool, or a lunatic, ever did it twice.

As the deck rose and fell to the rhythm of the waves, two of the strangers stayed near the open gate of the gunwale, while the others labored to extend the corrugated steel gangplank to the dock. They moved awkwardly, as if unsure of exactly what to do, but it only took a minute before the task was accomplished.

Pulling a cell phone from his coat pocket, one of the men hit a speed-dial button and spoke briefly. Immediately, there came a soft beeping from the land and a big Volvo van began driving backward along the wooden dock, the boards creaking slightly from the unaccustomed weight.

Startled by its arrival, the angry fishermen scrambled out of the way of the vehicle, vehemently cursing with their gloved hands as only the French can do really well.

As the beeping van rolled onto the gangplank, the strangers opened the rear doors and exposed a large canvas-wrapped object strapped tightly to a bright orange shipping pallet. The rest of the interior of the vehicle was filled with loose blankets and foam to cushion the bulky cargo.

On board the Souris, a young crewman raced up the exposed stairs to the bridge.

“Skipper, we have guests!” he exclaimed breathlessly.

Smoking a briarwood pipe, the captain didn’t look up from studying a chart of the ocean currents. “Guests?” he muttered around the worn stem. “What the devil are you talking about, lad?”

“Them!” the lad declared, pointing down at the middeck.

“Them who?” the captain demanded, leaving the chart to stride over to the aft window of the bridge.

The front windows were equipped with wiperblades, but the rear weren’t, and the captain squinted through the rain. Dimly, he could see people moving around. “Did we order anything?” he demanded suspiciously. “Extra ice, perhaps? In case the refrigeration unit breaks again?” The refrigeration unit was almost older than the trawler.

“No, sir,” the lad replied, catching his breath. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Strange,” the captain mumbled. “Maybe they have the wrong ship.”

“I tried to ask who they were, Skipper…” the lad began.

But the captain had already slipped on his slicker and marched into the downpour. Time was short, the fleet would move out soon. As with anything else in life, it was always first come, first served. And after some unexpected repairs to the navigational equipment, he needed this catch to be huge. The sea bass were running exceptionally rich these days, and an early start held the promise of beating the corporate vessels to the day’s catch. Timing was everything.

Keeping a firm grip on the railing alongside the perforated stairs, the captain clumped down to the deck and approached the strangers. He knew instantly they weren’t sailors. The men kept trying to regain their balance, instead of moving with the motion of the sea.

Elegantly raising a single eyebrow, the captain crossed his arms and glowered at the landlubbers. “What is going here?” he demanded loudly. “Who are you people?” The man was furious at the interruption. He had no time for government inspectors or lost tourists.

There was no response from the strangers.

“I asked you a question!” the captain roared. “And this is my ship, so you damn well better answer fast, or by God—”

Turning slightly, one of the strangers pulled a Browning .22 automatic pistol from within his overcoat and fired. There was barely a sound from the acoustical sound suppressor, barely a muted cough. But the captain recoiled, a neat black hole in the middle of his forehead. He stumbled backward, and then tumbled over an electric winch to hit the deck. He shuddered once, then went still.

“Skipper!” the young crewman screamed from the doorway of the bridge, then started to rush down the stairs.

Looking up, the gunman fired again and the lad doubled over. Clutching his bloody stomach, he pitched off the stairs to hit the deck in a ghastly crunch of breaking bones.

“What was that, eh?” a crewmen shouted from the stern of the boat, his outline blurry from the combination of rain and salty spray.

Calmly, the rest of the strangers pulled out Browning .22 automatic pistols, the hexagonal shape of the sound suppressors giving the weapons a futuristic appearance.

“Is somebody hurt?” a different crewmen asked, placing a hand above his eyes to shield them from the blinding downpour.

Another of the strangers fired this time, and the sailor was slammed backward, crimson spraying from the ruin of his throat. The rain washed it away, but more kept pumping in a geyser of red life.

“Zoot!” a huge crewman shouted, dropping a coil of rope and pointing with a massive hand. The man stood well over six feet in height, and his slicker seemed barely able to contain his muscular frame.

The five strangers fired in unison at the giant, red blood puffing from his slicker as the barrage of .22 rounds hammered into him, forcing him constantly backward until he went over the side with a horrible scream and disappeared into the storm. But his death cry alerted the rest of the crew, and a dozen more men climbed from the hold and hatchways of the Souris.

Quickly reloading, the strangers opened fire, driving the fishermen under cover. Starting to realize that something was horribly wrong on board their beloved ship, the sailors frantically scrambled for anything to serve as a weapon: boathooks, an ax, a length of steel chain.

Two of the strangers took up defensive positions near the van, while the others spread out in an attack formation and advanced, their guns at the ready.

Shouting a rally cry, the fishermen charged, waving their weapons with grim intent. But they never even got close. The strangers gunned them down without a qualm, putting an additional bullet into the left eye of each fallen man to make sure he was dead. Nobody was spared.

The strangers began a systematic sweep of the deck, killing everybody they found. An elderly man raised his hands in surrender and was shot in the heart, his twitching body tossed over the side while he still gasped out his last breath.

Hearing a faint shout for help from above, one of the strangers near the van tracked the noise, then aimed his pistol high and emptied the clip. There came an answering cry of pain and a body fell from the crow’s nest to impact on the main winches that operated the heavy nets. The results were ghastly.

Smoking a cigar, a fat man wearing a grease apron appeared in a hatchway holding a Veri pistol. At the sight of the bloody corpses sprawled on the deck, the cook raised the flare gun and fired. The magnesium charge shot across the Souris like a comet, but the strangers expertly dodged out of the way and the sizzling flare ricocheted off the van to disappear into the sea.

A man working on nearby trawler saw the flash of light and tensely waited for a cry for help. Had somebody fallen overboard? Was there a fire in the engine room? When nothing happened, the fellow dismissed the matter and went back to shifting bales of nets. Somebody had to have accidentally shot off the flare gun. That’s how people get killed! Wasn’t anybody concerned about safety anymore? The fisherman wondered.

On board the Souris, the strangers finished the reconnoiter of the catamaran, removing the last few crew members hiding in the bilge, then reloaded their weapons, smashed the radio just in case they had missed somebody and finally returned to the main deck. Time was short, and there was a precise schedule to keep today.

Now that they had some privacy, the five men started to release the chains from the trawler’s boom arms normally used to haul aboard the heavily laden nets full of wiggling fish. Carefully, they attached the array to the orange pallet, and gingerly hauled the bulky mass out of the Volvo, and maneuvered it to the middeck. When it was in position, they pulled out pneumatic guns, firing steel bolts though the flanges on the pallet to permanently attach it to the wooden deck. Then the chains were removed and used to secure the pallet to the mast and several stanchions for additional security.

At last satisfied to the security of the pallet and its precious cargo, the men tossed the bolt guns overboard. In the heavy downpour, the canvas-covered pallet was merely a dark lump set among the other irregular shapes of the boat.

Checking his watch, one of the strangers went to the bridge and started the engines. Meanwhile, one man attached a strong rope to the bumper of the cargo van as the other rolled down the windows of the vehicle, released the hand brake and deliberately set the transmission into neutral.

Returning to the Souris, the strangers replaced the gate in the gunwale and started casting off the mooring lines. With a sputtering roar, the diesel engines came to life belowdecks and the little trawler began to move out to sea.

As the rope attached the van grew taut, the vehicle began rolling backward along the dock and dropped into the choppy waters with a tremendous splash. Ready at the gunwale, a stranger waited until the water started to pour into the open windows and the vehicle started to sink before slashing at the attached rope with a curved knife. The taut rope parted with an almost musical twang and the sinking van was soon left behind, the salt water efficiently removing the last traces of their presence from the stolen vehicle.

Dimly heard through the storm, shocked voices could be heard from the other trawlers, and people started running on the dock. Flares were fired into the sky, but their brilliant light was consumed by the torrential rain. Life preservers were tossed into the sea in the mistaken belief that people may have been in the van. But the only passenger was the dead owner, who had made the foolish mistake of stopping at the wrong parking lot in Paris and politely offering a stranger a lift.

Holstering their silenced weapons, the killers in control of the Souris gave no notice of the growing commotion while they pulled out assault rifles, the barrels tipped with bulbous 37 mm rifle grenades. Warily, the team watched the storm for any signs of the local police, or the much more dangerous French navy.

But the coastline was clear, and soon the frantic dockyard faded into the rain. Slowly building speed, the trawler chugged into the raging storm, heading across the channel toward England. Muttering curses, the big man at the controls tried to coax more speed from the old diesel engines. There was an important rendezvous to keep, and nothing could get in the way.

CHAPTER FIVE

Logan International Airport, Boston

The huge C-130 Hercules transport lightly touched down on the asphalt, the tires squealing at the contact. It rose slightly, only to touch down again, skipping along the runway until finally rolling along the pavement. Reaching a cross strip, the huge military aircraft paused, the propellers spinning with a subdued roar, then it turned and moved along the ground, heading for an isolated hangar at the extreme edge of the airport.

“Another one,” Matthew Liptrot rumbled, lowering his binoculars. The Transportation Administration Security guard was frowning deeply. “I don’t like unscheduled arrivals. They make my ass itch.”

“Then get some salve, buddy,” Jason Kushner replied gruffly, his voice rising in volume as a 757 thunderously took off into the sky. The two members of the TSA waited a few moments until the wash of the colossal jet dissipated. Dimly, in the parking lot, car alarms were starting to bleep and keen, their owners having set the sensitivity of the sensors way too high, in spite of the clearly marked posted warnings at the entrance kiosk.

“Every one of them is probably a BMW.” Liptrot sneered in disdain, hitching back the cap of his blue uniform.