Leo and Patricia sat at a table in the open air bar of the San Andrés 
Yacht Club, on San Andrés Island, Colombia. The Island was closer to 
Nicaragua and Panama than Colombia, on the Caribbean side. The island 
was destination party central for Colombians. A little slice of paradise 
for the affluent and the backpack bum and slum crowd alike.

Patricia sipped delicately from a large, icy glass holding a frozen 
concoction and festooned with umbrellas and little plastic swords 
spearing a variety of tropical fruits. Leo just drank a Club Colombia 
beer, though the edge of his glass was rimed with salt and there was a 
chunk of lemon in his beer. They languished like leisurely vacationers, 
watching the boats come in and out of the yacht club. The scenery was 
absolutely stunning. No green water off the beach; the water was a pure 
brilliant blue.

Patricia was watching a large luxury yacht/sportsman's boat approach the 
yacht club slips. "Do you think that is him?" she asked.

Leo squinted into the sun behind his shades. "Welp, it surely does look 
like a 52-foot Silverton, white and aquamarine, and that thrumming I can 
feel in my chest from here surely does sound like a trio of MTU 8000 
engines, frustrated at being throttled down, so yeah, I think it's him."

The Silverton hit the no wake zone and throttled way down. The boat 
gracefully did a J-turn and began to back into its assigned slip that 
the harbor master had given the pilot (channel 18 for the San Andrés 
Yacht Club). Two rather fulsome, bikini-clad ladies came up from below 
decks. I heard a man's voice sound off with "Uno! Dos! Tres!" Both the 
bikini girls threw bumpers over the port side of the boat. Then they 
cheered and clapped for themselves like they had just solved for cold 
fusion. The 1-2-3 count went off again and bumpers went off the 
starboard side. After a final countdown, bumpers went off the stern, 
just as the boat reached the terminal end of the slip and, bumper 
protected, gently kissed the jetty at slip's end.

The pilot, a wildman named Coker, jumped down from the cockpit and 
helped the ladies tie off the lines around the slip's cleats, securing 
the vessel to the slip. Coker jumped up on the jetty, and with a 
theatrical wheeling of arms, that left both fingers pointing at the main 
clubhouse, hollered, "All right, ladies, grab your bags and get your 
booties off my boat!"

The girls sped below decks and reappeared a couple seconds later, toting 
one bag each. The honey blonde wearing the black bikini carried a 
backpack. The dark, short haired brunette in the white bikini with a 
full sleeve of ink on her left arm and a lot of tats on her right leg 
carried a sports duffle. They both leapt up on the jetty and, well, 
sorta smothered Coker. Jeez, thought Leo, Coker sandwich. That cat's 
going to be insufferable.

Patricia said to Leo, "Our brave francotirador must have had a nice 
voyage traveling with such beautiful ladies."

"Yeah," said Leo, "I'm sure he had a grand time. Still, he wants to 
equal the fun we have, he'd need three, maybe four more chicas.

Patricia laid her hand on Leo's gnarled forearm. "You are ver' kind, mi 
amour."

Then she looked at him archly over her glass. "And ver' correct."

As the ladies left, Leo and Patricia watched them go. No reason to rush 
the boat and let the bikini babes get a look at them. After a decent 
interval, they stood, Leo threw enough pesos down to cover the tab, and 
walked down the jetty to the boat. Leo couldn't help but lamp every boat 
on each side as they strolled, looking for anything out of place or of 
concern. As they clambered off the jetty and onto the stern, Leo 
crouched and thumped the deck. Three times, fast and hard. Pause. One 
more thump. When they approached the door leading below decks, he issued 
the same series of knocks.

Coker met them coming down the stairs. Bro hug for Leo. Big (but not 
overenthusiastic, Coker had seen Leo flip the homicidal switch too many 
times) "you my sister" hug for Patricia, with her kissing each of his 
cheeks multiple times. They all sat in the great room; Coker provided 
beverages.

Patricia said,"Coker, I have never seen you with a beard. It looks ver' 
nice on you."

Coker grinned, and said, "Yeah, well, I was only back from The Box for 
two days before I got tasked to support this mission, so I figured I'd 
just trim the beard up a little instead of just shaving it all off."

Patricia punched Leo in the arm. "He was only home two days!? How can 
you do this to him? How can you not take care of our brave 
francotirador?"

Leo deadpanned it. "Yeah, you're right. If only someone had given him 
three weeks in Miami to get the boat reconfigured and refitted. If only 
someone had given him explicit guidance to spend enough time lounging in 
sun to even out his tan, so that he didn't look like a farmer or a 
soldier. If only someone had had the first leg of his cruise be to Santa 
Marta to shake down the boat, and then a week to repair any damages. If 
only someone had arranged for a coupla hotties to make the transit with 
him. If only."

Leo and Coker both leaned forward and clinked beer bottles.

Patricia snuggled into Leo, "See, I tol' you. You do love him!"

Leo and Coker both squirmed.

"Yeah, maybe a little bit."

"In a, you know, brother."

"Brother-in-arms kind of way."

"Totally not gay though," they said in unison, and then clinked beer 
bottles again.

Patricia furrowed her brow, "But Coker, I am thinking, in this moment, 
that it was very unsafe for you to go from Miami to Santa Marta to here. 
Especially with those beautiful chicas on board. Who was there to cover 
you? To stand watch when you were sleeping.or otherwise engaged?"

Coker inclined the top of his beer bottle toward Leo. "This one's yours, 
boss."

Leo grunted and said, "Mi corazon, both of those young bikini beauties 
were Master Mariners. What? You think I'd leave a boat this expensive in 
this idiot's hands?"

Coker laughed, "Yeah, I'm feeling the love now."

Patricia snuggled up even harder to Leo.

"And, now that I think about it," said Leo, "If you knocked either one 
of those ladies up, I gotta do a whole lot of paperwork."

Leo grinned. "C'mon, boss. I'm a pro."

"Uh-huh."

A horn that sounded like a freighter's went off, so close that the whole 
boat seemed to vibrate.

"What. The. Heck. Was. That?" asked Coker.

Leo shrugged. "They got a horn attached to a chain at the club. Every 
evening, right at sundown, they pick a tourist to sound the horn. It's 
an attraction, or something."

"Cool," said Coker.

Coker gave them a tour of the boat. He pointed out the upgraded comms 
and anti-intrusion systems, the hidden holding compartments and all the 
upgrades the boat had undergone. Finally, he showed them the smaller, 
port-side stateroom that had been re-worked to unobtrusively be a full 
up Faraday cage stateroom; bottom line, no EMS signals were going in or 
getting out.

After the tour, the three repaired to the great room.

"Okay, boss. The boat is ship-shape. Heh. Now what'n heck are we doing?"

Leo reached down to his modest backpack, and pulled out a stack of 
folders. "Awright, hermano. I'm sure you know that the Administration 
has declared the IRGC a terrorist organization." The Iranian Republican 
Guards Corps ran a not-so-subtle shadow government within Iran. Not only 
were they a big piece of keeping the Supreme Leader and his religious 
regime in place, they were the primary enabler for exporting Iranian 
terrorist activities worldwide.

"What you might not have heard, is that with the defection of IRGC 
General Ali Nasiri, we've had some targeting possibilities open up. You 
probably got some of the benefits of this intel in Syria, but the 
documents he defected with are definitely paying off in this region of 
the world. With the IRGC now a terrorist organization, our authorities 
to act against them have greatly expanded.

"In Venezuela, the Iranians are desperate to help Maduro hold on. Other 
than civil unrest, no effort to dislodge Maduro has caught any type of 
traction. The Iranians are desperate to help Maduro hang on. He's one of 
the few world leaders that will overtly flaunt US sanctions against 
Iran, as they are subject to the same sanctions. So, we have intel 
provided by Nasiri, that we've been able to corroborate, that the Quds 
Force is sending over a heavy hitter to help the locals plan a way to 
support Maduro staying in power.

"Bottom line, we think the Quds Force are sending this cat, " Leo 
flipped open one of the folders and pointed to a surveillance picture, 
"Pezhman Piranshahri, a full-up Colonel in the Quds Force, to lead a 
planning effort here in Colombia, off-site from Venezuela, to coordinate 
operations and activities that'll help Maduro stay in power."

Coker began quickly flipping through the files. "Holy Schmoley, we got a 
full up meeting of the axis of evil, showing up here."

"Yeah," said Leo. "But what they don't know, is with the designation of 
IRGC as a terrorist entity, if they make any plans to conduct any 
actions that might come close to possibly looking something like a 
terrorist act, they are complicit, and suffer the same designation. They 
all become legitimate targets."

"We hittin' 'em, boss?"

Leo smiled, "We're putting some teeth back into the Monroe Doctrine."

Coker whistled. "I'm so in. What are my priorities of work?"

"Spend some time with the target packets. Get to know all these 
knuckleheads. We're pretty sure the top Hezbollah clan on the island.and 
large in Venezuela.the Habkouk clan, is going to host the meet. We're 
trying to refine when and where. Pay special attention to the Cuban and 
the Russian. They're both bad news on steroids. I'll have some second 
story work for you to do tomorrow night to help us refine the target."

Leo handed over a cell phone. "Take this. It's local and it won't raise 
any eyebrows. Keep your cell on the boat. I'll hand over a mission phone 
to you at the hotel tonight." Leo handed over a little cardboard folder 
with a key in it. "Meet us in our suite in three hours. We're at the 
Playa Bonita. Knock first. It'd be a shame if Patricia shot you coming 
through the door."

Patricia pouted, "I would be ver' sad if I shot you, Coker."

"Got it. Don't come through the door like Kramer. What're you guys 
doing?"

"To make your life easier, I gotta go out and be a jerkface."

Patricia cupped Leo's face in her hands, "Mi amour, you are a very cute 
jerkface."

*

Eli Faiyad sat behind the counter at Caballeros Grande Electronics. The 
young 24-year old was miserable. He had come from Lebanon, up the 
pipeline: Brazil-to-Ecuador-to-Colombia. The Habkouk clan had placed him 
in San Andrés, and he'd known he'd have to work for a couple years doing 
vanilla stuff and staying under the radar. Still, he hadn't known that 
preparing to serve the Party Of God would be so.mercantile. He was made 
for better things. He could do more for the Party, and for Jihad, than 
he was doing now. Still, San Andrés was not so bad. And the Habkouks 
were not so bad. He knew if he worked hard, stayed pious and honest and 
kept his nose clean, he would rise up through the ranks. He also knew 
that as the Habkouks gained confidence in him, he would be able to do 
more and more work on the illicit side of the Habkouk businesses. Then, 
he knew, he'd be well remunerated for his efforts.

The bells over the door rang, and the most beautiful woman he'd ever 
seen flowed into the store. Sure, she was a whore, as all non-Muslim 
Colombian women were, but she was graceful and smiling and Eli wanted to 
move mountains for her, despite the whore that she was. She wore an 
open-shoulder sundress, and her smile was brilliant and bright and made 
Eli want to see that smile turned on him.

Before the door could fully close, it crashed open and the bells jangled 
angrily. A brute stalked in behind the beauty.

The brute said in English, "You happy now? Can you get what you want, 
here?"

She cast her eyes down, "Yes, I think so."

"Good. Ima look around. Hurry up. We got stuff to do."

Her smile seemed fragile and long-suffering. "Of course."

She turned to Eli and said, "We will have some people over to the 
apartment we rented to entertain. I am thinking, in this moment, we need 
a better sound system, and a way to run streaming and CD music, can you 
help me?"

Of course. Eli about threw his back out rushing out from behind the 
counter to help her find what she wanted. He walked her up the aisle, 
pointing out the pros and cons of each different system available. He 
carefully tried to nudge her to get the DJ master mix system, the most 
expensive option. She seemed game.

Halfway through his pitch on the DJ master mix, the brute barreled 
around the corner, hollering "Are we done, yet? We been here maybe 
fifteen minutes already. Let's go!"

"Almost done."

She bent over to look at a boom box on the bottom shelf. Eli was 
captivated by her butt. She turned to look up at him, and Eli had a 
straight shot look down the front of her sundress. It about took his 
breath away. "Is this one any good?" she asked, batting her eyes. "Yes, 
very good."

The beauty cast her eyes in the general direction of the brute. "Can I 
come back and pick up my items later? He is very impatient. I do not 
want to cause a scene." Eli said, "Of course."

"May I have the number here, so that I can call before I come to pick 
up?"

Eli jumped at the opportunity to give her his own personal cell number. 
"And could I get an email from you? I made need to get a written quote 
so that he doesn't throw a fit or accuse me of wasting money." Eli 
quickly provided his personal email.

"This email is your own, yes?" At Eli's nod, she continued, "when we get 
back to the apartment I will send you an email requesting a quote." She 
put her hand on his arm, "And you have been so nice, maybe there will be 
a special gift just for you attached to it."

Leo and Patricia left the store, Leo with tight, rigid posture, storm 
clouds brewing on his brow, and his fists very nearly clinched. Leo held 
that affect for a couple of blocks, then sighed and let the tension 
evaporate.

"I hate having to perform in jerkface mode."

"I know, mi amour. But it made me sympathetic, a little, to that clerk. 
He was very forthcoming."

*

Patricia had just finished emailing the clerk when she heard, at the 
door, three hard, rapid knocks, a pause and a final knock. She checked 
her smartphone and punched up the view to the pin camera in the hall, 
confirming the knocker was Coker. She heard the key card hit the lock.

Coker was impressed with the setup for mission control. Because Patricia 
was a foreign national, there was no way The Powers That Be were going 
to let her be in even close proximity to their usual comms and tech. Leo 
had compensated by getting some of the best commercial equipment 
available.

Leo said, "This job, we're going with minimum personnel and maximum 
tech. I got two guys in another suite down the hall. One's a comms guy, 
the other's a network guy. If any of this stuff goes down while Patricia 
is pulling Mission Control, they'll be available to get her spun back 
up. They're both used to handling crypto, so they've also got M4s and 
multiple cameras through the hotel and this hallway. If anything or 
anyone threatens Mission Control, they'll handle it."

"Okay, what about Mission Support?" asked Coker.

"Mission Support is back stateside. They're fully connected to our comms 
suite here." Leo dug two smartphones from a gear bag. "These are our 
mission phones. I've got them loaded up for everything I think we'll 
need, but I want your review and input before we go final."

Coker fired up the smartphone, and used the PIN that Leo gave him. He 
opened his DayTradR app, selected Nuveau Tekk to buy stock from, and 
entered a trade for $57.43. On that a whole new interface opened up. 
Coker began to flip through his options. Imagery for possible targets 
came up. Commercial imagery for the whole island opened up. Full frontal 
photographs of the personnel that might be targets (the app would apply 
facial recognition software to anyone whose face came up in the phone's 
camera app; helped with positive identification (PID)). There were live 
feeds from numerous spycams that Leo had already emplaced on roofs, in 
alleys, and on streets that had a view of possible target sites. The 
mission phone looked good to go.

"Outstanding" said Coker. "Only thing I would add is a topographic map 
of the island. If I got to dive out the back of a warehouse, I want to 
know whether the drop will be three feet or thirty meters." Leo nodded 
and made a note.

Coker looked at some of the unfilled options on the phone. "Why you got 
the empty expansion slots in here, boss?"

"We can't go hot until we've got confirmation that the meeting 
participants are overtly planning terrorist actions or activities. We 
need ears in, so that Mission Support can confirm that they've crossed 
the line. Also, mission support will provide real-time translation on 
this line, so that whatever language they're making their plans in, 
we'll know."

Coker nodded.

"Also, you're installing the on-site ears in all the possible meet 
locations. You can knock that out tomorrow night, while we monitor 
Jaafir and Hasim Habkouk's computers and phones to try to drill down on 
where the meet will be. Best as Mission Support can determine, the 
Habkouks have three warehouses on the island. We assess the meets will 
take place in one of those."

Just then Patricia, who had been on her laptop the entire time Leo and 
Coker were huddling up, broke in, "Leo, the clerk has opened my email 
requesting a quote and downloaded the attachments. The IP address shows 
that he was using the store computer, not a personal." The two 
attachments were photos of Patricia in her bikini, that Leo had taken 
the day before.

"Okay. Now we own Cabellero Grande's computer, and the clerk's phone, 
and it's all also slaved to Mission Support. So tomorrow night, while 
you are playing ninja, we'll be ransacking everything they've got in 
their boxes and refining possible target sets."

Coker sat back, "Okay, sounds like everything is good to go. Let's talk 
about actions after the tripwire's crossed. Let's talk about the 
assault."

"Yeah." Leo scrubbed his face.a stress reaction Coker had never seen Leo 
display.

"You know how I said we were going light on personnel, heavy on tech?"

Coker nodded.

"Me .n you are the ground assault force. That's it."

Coker sat back, closed his eyes, and thought about it. Then he leaned 
forward and placed his hand on the folders that had all the possible 
targets in them. He said, "we got at least three Habkouks we think will 
be at the meet, the IRGC turd Piranshahri, the Russian Borodin and the 
Cuban Abrantes.both of whom, if I remember correctly, you described as 
.bad news on steroids,' have I got that right?"

"Yup."

"We got no one outside, no QRF, no cordon, no sniper providing eyes on 
target, no air. Have I got that right?"

"Yup."

Coker sat back again, closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his 
nose.a stress reaction that he was pretty sure Leo had never seen out of 
him.

"I'm in, on one condition."

"What's that?"

"I'm first through the door."

"You got it."

*

Coker was in the rafters of the third and final warehouse that he had to 
prong. First, he'd gone into the back of Caballeros Grande and hooked 
them up with sound, as well as bugging their landlines. While the clerk 
had been fixated on Patricia and her.assets, Leo had installed two pin 
cameras, which had given him two different angles on the security 
system's control panel, enabling them to get the on/off code for the 
alarms. Coker had recovered the cameras, installed a more robust, better 
hidden observation suite, then checked the tech with Patricia to make 
sure they were good to go.

Coker hooked his legs over the rafter and hung upside down. He carefully 
pulled out small piece of rectangular black plastic and removed a piece 
of plastic over the adhesive strip on one side. He then affixed the 
strip to the small water pipe that ran down to the fire sprinkler. 
Removing the plastic not only activated the listening device in the 
rectangle, it also started the chemical reaction that would power the 
device for about 72 hours. When the power ran out, the same chemical 
reaction would quickly reduce the device to a small dollop of black, 
tarry sludge. At/about another 18 hours after that, the device would be 
almost indistinguishable from a stripe of black mold. It would take a 
forensic specialist with a mass spectrometer to determine that it had 
ever been anything else.

Coker's mission phone was in a clear acetate gauntlet strapped to his 
forearm. He tapped a one-word message that would go to mission control 
and mission support.Patricia in the hotel suite and the brainiacs back 
stateside."check."

He then reached up to the rafter he was hanging upside down on and 
softly wrapped on the metal three times fast, pause, then one more wrap.

MC: Bueno.

MS: 5×5.

He was done. That was the final installment. He pulled himself upright 
on the rafter and began his slow, steady exfil from the warehouse.

*

Coker returned to the boat, showered and put on some comfortable 
clothes, and walked to the Hotel Playa Bonita in the soft pre-dawn 
light. The Army called it Begin Morning Nautical Twilight.BMNT. Coker 
thought that the Army just couldn't leave well enough alone. At the door 
to Leo and Patricia's suite, he knocked; standard three fast, pause, one 
more knock. He thought about mooning the pin camera that he knew Leo 
would've put in the hall. Then he thought better of it. If one of Leo's 
"guys" down the hall were a female, he could get a sexual harassment 
complaint. Heck, thought Coker, the way things are now, it could be two 
dudes and I'd still get a sexual harassment complaint. The door opened 
just in the amount of time Coker figured it would take to check the pin 
cam and pull the door stop out (Coker knew that if Leo were in a hotel 
room, you could guaran-damn-tee that the door would be blocked by a 
little rubber wedge) and Coker smiled at Patricia, "Good morning, 
Beautiful."

Patricia smiled back and said, "Good morning." Coker looked at her and 
made a note to himself to demand Leo count his blessings.

Coker found Leo seated at the monitor station. He had a chat session 
going with the brainiacs. "All right, here's the deal. Right now mission 
support assesses.and I concur.that the meet will be tomorrow night, we 
think about 2200 hours, and we think at warehouse two. We've confirmed 
that Piranshahri flew into Panama City last night. We lost track of him 
after that, but he's either headed this way or already here. More than 
likely, he'll eschew hotels and stay with a Habkouk family or at one of 
their safe houses."

Coker looked at Leo. "Eschew?"

"Eschew."

"Okay. Let's say we get the time or the location or both wrong and we 
hit a dry hole? Do we go into manhunting mode?"

"Negative, for two reasons. First, we are only authorized to hit all the 
other targets if they're with Piranshahri and planning or doing 
nefarious stuff. Second, we can't control or isolate the area if we 
manage to track him down and then we go dynamic. Piranshahri is a badass 
and he'll fight. Too much potential for collateral damage, too much of a 
chance we'll get compromised. Last thing we need to do is blow rapport 
with the Colombians, especially if we have to work together on overt 
stuff in Venezuela."

"So if we're wrong, we're done."

"If we're wrong we're done."

Coker said, "Alright. Let's put our loose course of action on warehouse 
two and tighten it up. Then let's look at warehouses one and three and 
make some notes on how we have to adapt the plan if we're wrong but 
figure out it's one of them on time. Then let's do a talk-through 
rehearsal back on two."

"Let's do it."

"Patricia, my darling and the love of Leo's life, could you please pull 
up all the photos I took when I was inside warehouse two?"

"Of course, my brave francotirador."

"All right, this is what I'm thinking."

*

Coker sat at a little cafe across the street and a little way down the 
road from Grande Caballero Electronics. He sipped an espresso and 
toggled through the comms they'd intercepted from the store, both 
telephonic and computer. He had carried both his mission phone and his 
local, Leo-supplied burner. This was Colombia; carrying two phones would 
raise no eyebrows. He was beginning to agree with the assessment of 
warehouse two. There were a lot of vague references, and a lot of idiom 
that were locally inspired, Arabic/Spanish hybrid words and phrases. But 
yeah, it looked like warehouse two was the meet site. Coker wasn't 
pulling surveillance per se, but he'd wanted to digest all the Habkouk 
intell and figured there was no place better to do it than when being 
able to put eyes on Grande Caballero Electronics.

*

Vasily Borodin moved easily through the street, heading toward Grande 
Caballero Electronics. He had been noncommittal toward attending the 
meeting. The Hez were notoriously bad with their operational security. 
They thought they were smart and thorough, but in reality they were just 
too small to come under scrutiny. If IRGC was showing up, though, he 
didn't trust the Hez in being able to obscure themselves or their 
physical, communications, or digital footprints. However, Vasily had 
been given the address and phone numbers of the Grande Caballero 
Electronics as a place he could make contact and obtain the location and 
date time group of the meet. Attending the meet wasn't imperative to his 
country's objectives. They were confident that the forces they had on 
the ground in Venezuela now with an advise and assist portfolio in 
counterinsurgency, population control, propaganda.basically Tyrant Power 
Retention 101 would suffice. But, Borodin also knew it would be a good 
idea to to have a sense of what the Hez and Iran would be doing. They 
didn't need to collaborate so much as coordinate, to prevent redundancy 
and duplication of effort. Borodin also knew the Cuban, Teniente Colonel 
Carlos Abrantes, would be there. The Russians coordinated closely with 
Cuba, but Borodin didn't trust Abrantes at all. That guy was clinically 
insane, and would pass on only that information that forward his 
personal agenda or maybe, maybe that of Cuba. There were pros and cons 
to attending this meet.

Borodin saw a guy sitting at a cafe, bearded with sunglasses on, idly 
sipping coffee and noodling on his smartphone. He immediately turned 
into the surf shop that was right there. He breathed a couple times, 
then looked out the window of the store, between the Huk fishing shirts 
hanging in the window. Da. He didn't need the photo to confirm his worst 
suspicions but pulled up his enhanced camera app on his mission phone 
anyway.

He knew that guy. That guy was a veritable angel of death. Borodin had 
never gotten a name, a hint, or a clue as to the bearded man's true 
identity during his entire time in Syria. His file just labeled him The 
Killer. The man was responsible for dozens of direct kills on Russian 
troops, advisors and Spetznaz. That was direct killing. No telling how 
many air strikes and mechanical ambushes this man was responsible for. 
The Russians had been fond of IEDs, EFPs, and VIEDs. They had trained up 
the loyalist Syrian forces on improving their production and employment 
of those devices. The Killer had shown up and employed the same 
explosive devices on the Russians, to devastating effect. He always hit 
the Russians in the places they felt the most secure in that God 
forsaken, war torn country. Borodin had dedicated a considerable 
percentage of his assets and capabilities to finding, fixing and 
finishing that son of a bitch, with no joy. Borodin caught a decent 
profile pic of the killer. The beard and shades would skew the facial 
recognition software, but even the best of the haphazard pics they had 
gleaned of The Killer had him wearing a beard and sunglasses. Many 
times, they only suspected it was him; times when he was wearing a 
kaffiyah or shemagh wrapped around his lower face.

Borodin uploaded and sent out his clandestine pic, then pulled up 
another app on his mission phone and set it to vacuum up every cell 
phone number within 100 metres of his current position, and pushed it to 
his mission support, with instructions to track every one of them. 
Vasily Borodin walked back out of the shop and walked away from the 
electronics shop and The Killer. He'd miss the meet, but he'd bag The 
Killer.

*

Coker, Leo and Patricia had had a long and tortured discussion. When 
they hit warehouse two, there would only be the two operators. They 
needed carbines. But, carbines would make getting in and out more 
difficult. They were going to have a hard time making an innocuous 
approach to the target building as it was. 2200 hours was about the time 
that night life in San Andrés was just getting kick-started. The island 
had no real concept of zoning, so there would be clubs and restaurants 
and bars and fast food joints and food carts all over every approach 
route. Leo and Coker couldn't go in fully kitted up. Sure, they were 
both experienced in fighting wearing civilian gear. Still, less than 
optimal. Trying to stay low profile and carry rifles in would be 
difficult.

But, the only reason to employ a pistol in a gunfight was to gain time 
and space to get to a long gun. To abjure the use of rifles in an 
upcoming fight was antithetical to both of them.

Coker leaned back and said, "You know, this would be a whole lot easier 
if you weren't built like the troll that lives under the bridge."

"So says Mr. Spindly. What're you coming in at after slacking off these 
last four weeks? 230?"

"We need smaller guys for this. Where's Little Wilbur? We could send him 
up through the sewers and have him preposition our gack just inside the 
door."

"He's doing a thing over in PACOM."

"Dang. Look, mission support should be able to tell us how many targets 
are actually in the building before the hit. Our camera situation, while 
not great, should be able to tell us how much physical security is 
outside the warehouse. It's doable, it's just if anything goes wrong, 
we're bathing in weak sauce."

"I know."

Patricia cleared her throat, "If only you had a vehicle parked in the 
street next to the street near the back alley. And if only it had those 
M4s that you use, with extra magazines, hidden in the spare tire wheel 
well."

"Yeah," said Leo. "But parking is going to be a pain, and we got three 
hours til hit time. We were both scrambling all afternoon on intel and 
nailing down the target."

"Yes, mi amour, you were. And what was I doing?"

"Uh, you said you were shopping.?"

"Yes, I went shopping. First, I shopped for a rental car." She held up a 
set of keys, dangled them for a second, and threw them to Leo. "Then, I 
shopped on that magnificent boat of yours, where the brave francotirador 
showed us all those lovely hiding places with guns hidden in them. Then 
I put the guns in a duffle, put the duffle in the car, then I went 
shopping for a parking space on the street near the back alley." She 
shot a brilliant grin at them.

"That's it," said Coker. "If you don't marry her, I will."

Patricia looked at Leo. "I remember in Machu Picchu, you had the extra 
car stashed away, and we escaped. I thought that was ver' smart. I like 
smart. I thought an extra vehicle stashed near the alley, with guns, 
would be smart."

Leo asked, "but what if the target wasn't warehouse two?"

Patricia shrugged. "So? It costs us nothing to place the car there. If 
it was a different target, you could have this discussion again. The 
guns in the car wouldn't be missed. Coker has enough guns hidden on the 
boat to.to."

"To take over Nicaragua," said Coker.

"Yes!"

Leo looked at Patricia and said, "Could you please pull up the imagery 
and cameras on warehouse two? And mark where the car is at?" Patricia 
nodded and moved to the monitors.

Leo looked at Coker. "Let's get to it."

*

Leo and Coker stood on the street corner weaving slightly. Each had a 
bottle of beer in one hand and a bottle of aguardiente in the other. 
They drank alternately from each hand, and weaved and smoked cigarettes. 
Two overgrown gringos, overwhelmed by the pleasures of San Andrés.

Each heard, in the blue tooth device plugged in their ears, mission 
support state: Targets present. Targets identified by voiceprint: 
Pezhman Piranshahri, Jaafir Habkouk, Hasim Habkouk, Hussein Habkouk, 
Carlos Abrantes.

Leo staggered and sat heavily on the brick sill of the store they were 
in front of. He put his head down, and mopped his brow, still weaving as 
he sat, looking to the casual observer like he was about to puke. He 
whispered "any sign of the Russian?"

"Negative."

"All right. Doesn't matter. Give us a go when they hit tripwire."

Leo staggered back to his feet and swayed into Coker, both bro-hugging 
each other and breaking into raucous song. Then they quieted a little 
bit and both lit up smokes. Passers-by avoided them since they were 
obviously blotto. Leo began lecturing Coker on some sort of sports 
inanity, along the lines of "the Patriots will keep winning because they 
have a bench. You can have great coaching, great talent, great strategy, 
but if you don't have a bench it doesn't mean squat. Not goin' win."

A couple minutes into his lecture on the virtue of benches, mission 
support chimed in, "targets have effectively begun discussing a kill 
chain, and the order of assassinations most beneficial to the Venezuelan 
regime. Tripwire triggered. I say again, tripwire triggered."

Leo and Coker both knew that a simple "go" would be sufficient, but 
every mission support comm was being recorded, and the geeks back in 
CONUS were stating the obvious for posterity. Coker bent over and 
started laughing, hands on his knees, and whispered, "Status of physical 
security?"

Patricia's voice came over, "Lo mismo. Two personnel."

Coker turned and staggered away, heading for the ally which was the 
approach to warehouse two's back door. Leo seemed to sober up a little 
bit and walked over to a small Toyota SUV parked close to where they'd 
been, to all eyes that cared to watch, getting their drunk on. Leo 
lifted the tailgate door, upended the cover of the spare tire well, and 
lifted out a large gym bag. He closed the tailgate and turned to follow 
Coker, going slow.

Coker turned into the alley and began singing and slurring Cancion del 
Mariachi at the top of his lungs. He lurched down the ally, bumping, 
falling and leaning against the far wall of the ally from the warehouse. 
Two thugs were in the ally already, centered on the warehouse's rear 
door. They both looked at Coker with disgust. Coker noted that they were 
both looking at him. The far side guy should have been looking down the 
other side of the ally, but no. Good. Poorly trained. The near side guy 
approached Coker and put his hand up, Yelling at Coker to stop and turn 
around and go away. Coker drew the suppressed High Standard .22 and 
drilled the guard twice in the chest and once in the face. The guy was 
dead but didn't know that meant he should fall down. Coker pushed 
through him and hit the far side guy the same way. That guy knew how to 
die proper, and immediately sagged to the street. Immediately Leo came 
around the corner bearing a sports duffle on one shoulder. He stopped, 
opened the bag, and extracted two suppressed M4 carbines. Both pulled 
night vision monoculars from the bag and strapped them on. Coker pulled 
up his mission phone in the same gauntlet before and sent "1." It would 
take two to four minutes to shut down the lights; Coker and Leo spent 
the time grabbing and stowing magazines for their carbines. They were 
already wearing their pistols under their lightweight jackets. Both had 
their Glock 21s with the suppressors already screwed on, so they were 
wearing them in shoulder holsters. Neither operators were fans of 
shoulder holsters, but with the cans on, what're you going to do?

The power went off in a two block radius. Leo pulled up the sleeve of 
his jacket, exposing a plastic, mission-phone holding gauntlet like unto 
Coker's, and sent "2." One minute to firecrackers. Meanwhile, Coker had 
slapped a thin sheet of explosive over the door knob of the warehouse's 
back door. They both stepped to either side of the door.

Leo pulled two flash-bangs out, one in each hand. He held out his hands 
and Coker adroitly pulled the pins out of each grenade. The one minute 
clock set by Leo's text ran out, and in two places nearby, fire crackers 
started crackin' off. Not unusual in party-central. As soon as the 
firecrackers started firing off, Coker blew the door. Leo stepped 
forward and threw the flash-bangs and rotated back away from the door. 
Because of the size of the warehouse, they knew the flash-bangs wouldn't 
have their usual devastating effect. The sound and concussion 
might.might.not incapacitate every one in the place, but the blinding 
flash should give them the moment's edge they need.

As soon as the flash-bangs detonated, Coker went in. Carbine up, IR 
light on, night vision tracking his IR laser pointing a straight line 
from the barrel to whatever target he came across. Leo followed 
immediately behind Coker. Coker broke left, Leo broke right. There was a 
cheap card table in the center of the warehouse, with pallets crowding 
all the walls. The individuals around the table were in definite 
disarray. Two had pulled pistols. One of the pistoleers was firing 
wildly toward the door. The Cuban guessed Leo. Leo put a controlled pair 
into the Cuban's chest, traversed up and put one in his head. Cuban 
down. The other that was up with a pistol was probably the Iranian. Leo 
tracked over to him, but saw him go down under Coker's fire. The rest 
were a mess, discombobulated and lost. Coker and Leo ended them.

Coker provided overwatch while Leo photographed each corpse. There were 
a couple laptops and a tablet on the table. There were three cell phones 
on the table; two of the corpses had their cells on them. Leo scooped 
them all into a canvas bag he'd had tucked into his belt. They exited, 
and stuffed their carbines into the gym duffle that they'd left outside 
by the door. Total time of engagement: 37 seconds. Total time inside the 
warehouse: 3 minutes, 52 seconds. The firecrackers were just tapering 
off as they threw the bag into Patricia's rental vehicle. As they drove 
off, the lights in the neighborhood began flickering and turning back 
on.

*

Back at the hotel, Leo and Coker each cracked a bottle of water and 
guzzletld. Patricia had a look of profound relief on her face. Mission 
support, monitoring comms on the island, had not discerned any alerts or 
BOLOs. So far so good.

"If we scarper tonight," said Leo, "it'll be too big a signature. I've 
already pushed the pics of the targets to mission support. So tomorrow 
we'll have a leisurely brunch, then I'll go out and ditch our local 
phones. Coker, you start cracking the tech we picked up on the 
objective. We'll pull out in the boat just after sunset. Good?"

"Good," said Coker. "See you at brunch." He hesitated and said, "So, are 
those Master Mariners still on the island?"

"They are."

"You got their contact information?"

"I do."

"Flip it to my local phone?"

"Done and done."

Coker got up, fist bumped Leo, hugged Patricia, and left.

"He will be okay?" asked Patricia.

"Sure. He just needs some happy-to-be-alive sex right now, is all. This 
went off way better than it should have."

Patricia moved up to Leo, "And what about you?"

Leo considered, "Well, I'm pretty happy to be alive, too."

Patricia straddled him and kissed him gently on the forehead, then the 
lips. "I am thinking, in this moment, you need some happy-to-be-alive 
sex, too."

Leo theatrically considered it, and said, "Yeah, baby. Yeah, I do 
believe I do."

*

Borodin had his mission support screen all the phone numbers he'd sucked 
up the day before. He had tried calling his Habkouk clan contacts, but 
they were frantic and unintelligible. Borodin did the math.

Mission support had three tracks of interest. He immediately knew which 
one was key. He pulled up his map app and found a route to the San 
Andrés Yacht Club. That is where The Killer would be.

*

Leo was off cleaning all the support personnel that had no idea why they 
were on San Andrés island, but were on call should he have needed them. 
His "comms guys" down the hall from his suite were to break down the 
whole communications package, pack it up and ship it out. Then they were 
to change hotels.in order to "reduce signature".and hang out for three 
days. Leo figured that life would suck enough for these kids on down the 
road. Hey, they were military and the military prided itself on the suck 
factor. So, he moved their hotel, gave them three days off, and then 
promised doom and the Four Horsemen upon them if they screwed up. They'd 
be a'ight.

Patricia walked the bag of tech from the targets down to Coker. Coker 
and Leo wanted to exploit as much as they could in the Faraday state 
room. She got to the boat, and knocked out the three-pause-four beat 
that she had realized was an informal near recognition signal between 
Leo and Coker. Coker took the bag and put it in the Faraday room, then 
they chatted for a little while. Patricia understood immediately that 
Coker was stringing her along, and acting like a shallow, self-absorbed 
person. This disturbed her, a little, because Coker was anything but 
shallow. She found him, though, impenetrable, and so after some chitchat 
left to go do some shopping while Coker tried to prong the tech in the 
Faraday stateroom.

Patricia walked up the jetty, toward the club house. As she did, she 
passed a man that gave her pause. Patricia had been in the game more 
than a while, so it didn't literally give her pause. But as she strolled 
by him, her mind raced and she realized that he was the Russian that was 
a no-show at the meet. He had to be heading to Coker's boat. Patricia 
couldn't break stride, couldn't show that anything was amiss. She kept 
up her stroll. Coker was in the Faraday room, she couldn't call him on 
her cell. There were no cables running into the Faraday room; calling 
the boat on the harbor master's radio was useless. Patricia thought 
about pulling her pistol out of her purse and shooting the Russian in 
the back, but that course of action had no good outcomes. Then, an idea 
bloomed in her mind. She increased her pace and stride a little without 
appearing to speed up; that would give the game away.

When Patricia got to the bar, she arrowed straight to the chain to the 
freighter horn that they blew every night. She dropped her purse on a 
nearby table, grabbed the chain, and blew three short blasts out the 
horn, paused, then pulled the chain for a slightly longer blast. Then 
she did it again. And then again. One of the waiters rushed up to get 
her off the chain; that was only for sundown. That was okay, after three 
reps, Coker either got the message or he didn't. Patricia let go the 
chain and gave a brilliant smile to the exacerbated waiter. "That was so 
fun!" she cried. She started walking back toward the jetty and the boat. 
She pulled her small pistol from her voluminous purse and used the purse 
to cover the fact that she had a gun in her hand. Coker either got the 
message or he didn't. Either way, the Russian was dead.

Coker sat in the Faraday room working on cracking the tech they'd 
gleaned from the objective. Any intelligence they pulled could be 
actionable in the near term. He was absorbed in the task, trying to 
ensure he used the right tool to get a righteous crack on the IT devices 
that he had. He noted in the background that the bar freighter horn was 
sounding off. Jeez, that thing was loud. The horn went off again, and 
alarms went off in Coker's head. That was the three-beat-one rhythm that 
he and Leo used, like, all the time. Naw. The horn went off a third time 
and Coker moved fast. That's not a coincidence. He exploded out of the 
Faraday room and swiped his Glock of the table in the great room. As he 
did, he saw the door begin to open and a silenced pistol emerge, 
pointing into the room.

Coker hit the below decks door with his shoulder, pinning the silenced 
weapon and the forearm behind it in the door. He pinioned the arm inside 
the door as hard as he could, put the suppressed muzzle of his pistol at 
waist height a couple inches from the door and drilled three shots into 
the door. The bullets hitting the door made a weirdly subdued "thunk" 
sound, and Coker didn't notice any reduction in piss and vigor from the 
cat on the other side. Oh, yeah, I bulletproofed this door. How did I 
not know that? What a dumbass.

Coker dropped his pistol and grabbed the wrist attached to the gun that 
was trying to put rounds into him. He applied pressure and stripped the 
pistol out the guy's hand. Then he pulled the wrist, let go his pressure 
on the door, and threw the guy into the boat's great room. The guy 
immediately bounced up and came at Coker. For a few frantic seconds, the 
two exchanged egregious blows with knees and elbows and open palm 
strikes. Coker landed a vertical elbow on the crown of the guys head and 
dropped him. The guy immediately, from the ground, grabbed Cokers ankle 
and sucked it into his armpit while he tried to writhe his legs up 
Coker's. Heel hook, Sambo, this guy must be the Russian, thought Coker 
as he dropped his knee into the guy's face, and then stood and knee 
dropped again. The Russian let up, and Coker next dropped his knee into 
the Russian's stomach. The Russian's upper body spasmed up, and Coker 
grabbed the Rooskie's inside arm and levered him over to his stomach. 
Then he sank his choke. Then he held his choke. Then the Russian died.

Coker sighed, and rolled over.to see Patricia pointing a gun in his 
face. "Uh, bad guy dead. Good guy won. Put the gun away?" She lowered 
the gun.

*

As the boat pulled out of San Andrés, Leo, Patricia, and Coker were all 
in the cockpit.

Coker said, "We can do a burial at sea in about 40 minutes. Do either of 
you want to say any words over him before we sink .im?"

Patricia shook her head, and Leo said, "No. I start talking about this 
guy, it'll get really profane really quick."

Coker nodded. "So, we work our way up to Miami, then what's next boss?"

Leo said, "You go back to your unit, I take some time off. Patricia has 
never been anywhere in the US but Miami, so Ima give her a tour of the 
real US, with her looking at it from the back of my Harley."

"Girl, you ain't seen nothin' but the 305? You definitely need to spread 
your wings."

"Yes," said Patricia, "I think that would be a good idea."