Jeffrey Higgins

Chapter One

DEA Special Agent Adam Locke stared out the naval ship’s open hull door and across the dark Caribbean at Haiti, a sliver of terra firma on the horizon, but the cloudy night obscured the island and hid predators above and below the surface of the rolling sea. His target lived there, in the shadows, and from his lair, he spread poison and death around the world.

“It’s dark as fuck,” Brian Moore said. Adam’s assistant team leader whispered even though the ship lay miles offshore.

“Good,” Adam said. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

Adam had planned to launch their mission under the cover of a new moon, and the clouds were an unexpected benefit. Darkness aided both monsters and the men who hunted them.

Adam grasped the bulkhead’s coaming and leaned out the ship’s port beam, fifteen feet above the waterline. A cargo net hung from clamps and almost reached the water. A three-foot chop roiled the sea, hopefully enough to deter lookouts who usually buzzed around in motorboats like green flies feasting on a carcass.

The USS Minuteman, a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, had departed Norfolk three days before to deliver Adam’s FAST team of twelve special agents to Côteaux, a small commune on Haiti’s Southern claw—the home of Jean Laguerre.

Laguerre controlled a massive transnational criminal organization and had been a DEA high-value target for years. He imported Colombian cocaine and Mexican heroin into the US, but worse, he used his smuggling routes to traffic young girls, condemning hundreds of women to the flesh trade. Until recently, Laguerre had used the corrupt Haitian government as protection from American law enforcement, but then he had made the fatal mistake of transporting materials for Hezbollah across the US border. Narco-terrorism was the nexus between law enforcement and the military, and the justification DEA needed to access naval assets.

“Agent Locke?” an unfamiliar voice called out.

Adam turned back to the passageway bathed in red light, as a sailor stepped off a ladder.

“I’m Locke.”

“Phone call for you, sir. It’s patched through from the DEA Command Center. They told me to tell you it’s Ms. Hope.”

Effie? Why was his girlfriend calling when he was deployed on an operation? She knew better than that.

“Take a message. We’re about to launch.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” The sailor climbed the ladder.

“It could be an emergency,” Brian said. “Want us to hold?”

“The mission comes first,” Adam said. A knot formed in his stomach. “We’re on a timeline, and we have to follow protocol. I’ll call when we’re safely back aboard.”

Adam faced away so Brian could not see the worry on his face. Effie had not been feeling well, and he did not want to ignore her—but rules were rules. Shit. They needed to wrap up this mission so he could get home to her.

Adam pivoted on the rubber mat, already wet with salty dew, and swung his leg through the door. He stretched his leg along the gray hull to the life net, which was constructed of rough-hewn rope and designed as an evacuation ladder. He hooked it with his toe then grabbed the thick rope with his gloved hand.

His Colt M4 carbine bounced against his chest as he moved. He wore a ballistic vest with SAPE plates in the front and back to prevent rifle rounds from penetrating. Eight Velcro pouches attached to his MOLLE cover contained a radio, smoke grenade, GPS, ten thirty-round magazines of 5.56mm ammunition, medical kit, and a Glock 22 .40-caliber handgun.

Adam glanced at the black water. This far off the coast, the ocean floor probably lay forty fathoms below. His gear weighed fifty-two pounds, a light combat load, but if he fell into the sea, he would go straight to the bottom, despite two tactical inflatables attached to his utility belt. And then there were the sharks. Those silent beasts had terrified him since he roamed the beaches of Cape Cod as a child.

He released the bulkhead, grasped the net with both hands, and shifted his weight onto it. He swung onto the ship’s hull. His arms strained under the weight of his gear, and he squeezed the rope tighter.

Water splashed against the hull twenty feet below. He crouched and found the next horizontal strand with his boot toe. He transferred his weight into it and descended.

The low hum of an engine drew his attention to two Naval Special Warfare RHIBs—rigid-hull, inflatable boats with twin 470-hp engines—maneuvering toward the ship from their staging area. The RHIB’s boat teams were each comprised of three Special Warfare Combat Craft Crewmen and would deliver Adam’s team to a remote cove, five kilometers from Laguerre’s residence.

Adam paused ten feet above the water as the first RHIB moved beneath him. Its rubber sides rubbed against the steel hull, and a childhood memory flashed in his mind of playing on an inflatable raft off Nauset Beach.

The RHIB’s engines purred as it rose and fell with each wave. The thirty-six-foot boat had a cockpit near the bow and mounted fifty-caliber machine guns fore and aft. A radar and communications array jutted above the cockpit and offered the latest classified technology.

The boat team leader waved him down, and Adam took a deep breath. He needed to land near the stern, where eight members of his Alpha team would stand against padded backrests. The last two members of his team would join eight agents on loan from Bravo Team in the second RHIB.

Adam had to time his drop perfectly or risk being crushed between the boat and the Minuteman’s hull. He climbed down two more rungs and waited.

The RHIB dipped into the trough of a wave, then rose again.

Adam stepped off the net and released it. He plummeted into space.

The boat crested a swell as Adam’s boots collided with the deck. A crewman grabbed his shoulders and steadied him as they dropped into another trough.

Easy.

Effie waited for him at home in their bed. She had not sounded well the last time they spoke, and dread had tinged her voice when she mentioned her abdominal pain. Had she had made it to her doctor yet? The long absences required by DEA were hardest when things happened at home. He should be with her right now, not floating beside a naval ship in the Caribbean.

Adam lowered his AN/PVS-15, dual-tube night vision, off his helmet, and it clicked into place. He turned the dial, and through goggles known as “nods, “the world glowed green. He looked up at Brian, who peeked out the hull door. Adam waved him down. They had to hurry to their target, find Laguerre, then return to the ship before the sea came alive with commercial fishermen and compromised the mission. If they missed him, Laguerre would go underground.

They had one shot to cut off the head of the snake.

Chapter Two

Adam crouched on the beach and pointed his M-4 carbine at the rear wall of Laguerre’s compound while the rest of his team disembarked from the second RHIB and plodded ashore. Alpha Team’s eight agents would make the entry, while eight members of Bravo Team would cover the perimeter and two Alpha agents would hold the beachhead. The jungle was quiet at night, except for the lapping of waves behind them and the occasional chirping insect or croaking frog.

His men moved into a semicircle and lay prone, their weapons pointing out. They had practiced this assault dozens of times on the Lunga Reservoir beside the DEA Academy in Quantico, Virginia.

Intelligence from Adam’s human source indicated Laguerre would be home with two or three bodyguards and possibly a girlfriend from his harem. Video from a DEA overflight had confirmed three vehicles in the circular driveway in front of the residence, including Laguerre’s Escalade.

Adam scanned the wall. No cameras. That was sloppy of Laguerre. The protection money he paid to Haitian officials had given him a false sense of security. He must feel untouchable.

The commune of Côteaux lay on the southern coast, 250 miles west of Port-au-Prince. The island of Hispaniola was shaped like a lobster claw, and its southern pincer had been strangled by poverty and disease. Far from the power of the central government, it had become a perfect haven for Laguerre. Most of the commune’s nineteen thousand residents lived in two-room hovels with mud walls, thatched roofs, and shuttered windows—but Laguerre lived in luxury. His domicile lay halfway between Côteaux and Roche-à-Bateaux, in the Côteaux Arrondissement. His two-story, eight-bedroom residence had concrete construction, a tiled roof, and a satellite dish. A Haitian palace.

Unfortunately, it also came with ten-foot exterior walls topped with concertina wire, armed guards, and possibly an attack dog.

Laguerre’s residence faced the only road, Route Departmentale Twenty-Five, which paralleled the coast. According to satellite imagery, which Adam had meticulously studied, Laguerre kept his armed guards at his main gate by the road. His backyard extended to a dock on the sea where a forty-foot yacht floated in darkness. The walls kept his property safe, but an approach by water appeared unguarded.

Two members of Bravo team moved up the beach, then followed the west side of the walled compound toward the front, and two others mirrored them on the eastern side. Two pairs of agents positioned on the southeast and southwest corners of the compound and stayed behind cover. The last two Alpha members remained on the beach and covered the rear.

Adam released the foregrip of his M4 and keyed the microphone attached to his ballistic vest.

“Alpha Six, Alpha One,” he said.

“Six, go,” Special Agent Dean Rafferty responded.

“Breacher team up.”

Rafferty, Alpha team’s demolitions specialist, crept forward with Brian at his hip. Rafferty aimed at the door while Brian scanned the top of the wall.

Adam watched Bravo team focus outward, ignoring the breach team. Human nature made it difficult to look at nothing when something exciting was happening behind you, yet every agent aimed his muzzle at his individual area of responsibility. True professionals. Adam smiled.

Rafferty shrugged off his pack and knelt beside the wooden door. Brian stepped aside and trained his carbine on it. He grasped the door handle and jiggled it. The door remained closed. Brian looked at Rafferty and shook his head.

Rafferty unbuckled a flap on his pack, dug inside, and carefully removed a linear breaching charge. The device comprised three tightly coiled detonation cords wrapped in electrical tape, with a small square of C-4 high explosives in the center for insurance. Rafferty affixed a blasting cap to the exposed pigtail of detonation cord and attached two leads. Rafferty had built a replica door in Quantico, based on surveillance video footage a source had taken from a passing boat. It should be enough to breach the thick door.

Rafferty unraveled double-sided tape, ran it down the hinged side of the door and affixed the charge. He held the initiator and spool of wire as he backed down the wall. Brian walked with him, keeping his barrel pointed at the rear door. They stopped twenty feet away and Rafferty looked across the beach in Adam’s direction.

“Alpha One, Alpha Six.”

“One,” Adam said.

“Primed and ready.”

“Standby. Entry team, Alpha One. Form up on me.” Adam stood and moved to the opposite side, twenty feet from the door.

His team moved from the beach into their positions around him. They formed a staggered column, each pointing a carbine to an alternating side. As team leader, he would be near the back of the stack. He wanted to be first through the door, but those days were over. He needed space to manage his team, like a coach on the sideline.

Adam reached his AN/PRC-163 radio strapped in a pouch on his left side and turned the knob from his VHF/UHF tactical channel to the SATCOM link. He needed to reach his intelligence cell on the USS Minuteman to see if they had any intelligence updates from their telephone intercepts, their confidential source, or the quick reaction force’s advance team. Laguerre had at least 130 armed men in the Côteaux Arrondissement, and if DEA’s infiltration had been compromised, Adam needed to know. They could still signal the RHIBs and retreat. He waited for the radio to beep in his headset, and when it did, he transmitted.

“Delta Base, Alpha One.”

Nothing.

“Delta Base, Delta Base, this is Alpha One, come in.”

Static.

“Shit.”

Brian glanced at him.

“Delta Base. Do you copy?”

Silence.

Adam shook his head. Why did technology always fail at the worst time? A dog barked in the distance. Adam listened. No sound from Laguerre’s residence.

DEA rarely acted without host country permission, and missions like this were rare, but the attorney general himself had signed off on Operation Lobster Boil. The Haitian government did not know they were there, which meant the Haitian National Police would not help. That agency had been far too corrupted to trust with this mission. DEA’s FAST Charlie and Delta teams had surreptitiously infiltrated Haiti under the cover of a State-Department-funded training mission, and they waited in three vans, halfway to Les Cayes, but it would take their quick-reaction force at least thirty minutes to arrive.

Half an hour was an eternity in a gunfight.

Having to make these decisions was what it meant to be a leader. He switched back to the tactical channel.

“Alpha Six, Alpha One.”

“Alpha Six.” Rafferty’s voice sounded tight.

“Execute.”