But that was before weapons and ammo. Jonathan had left his M27 back with Striker in the chopper. He expected this op to be mostly CQB — close quarters battle — and the length of the M27’s barrel made it difficult to maneuver in tight spaces. Instead, he promoted his H&K MP7 to be his primary weapon, wearing it battle-slung across his chest, fitted with a suppressor.
A pistol-grip Mossberg 500 12-gauge hung from a bungee under his left arm, fitted with a breacher muzzle, and loaded with five breacher cartridges, whose special-purpose projectiles could concentrate nearly 1,500 foot pounds on energy on an area the size of a quarter. If the Mishins’ cell door was made of wood, neither its lock nor its hinges were likely to survive an assault like that.
He’d shifted his Colt to a thigh rig holster on his right, and just in case every other weapon had run dry, he had his last-resort five-shot Detective Special in a pouch pocket near his right ankle. The pouches of his ballistic vest were crammed with ten spare forty-round mags for his MP7, and four spares for the Colt. Other pouches contained two flash-bang grenades and two fragmentation grenades.
Big Guy had likewise selected a suppressed MP7 as his primary weapon — it looked like a derringer in his hands — but he’d also slung his 7.62 millimeter H&K 417, just in case they needed a bigger bullet for something. With his ruck on his shoulders, the long handles of heavy-duty bolt cutters gave him the silhouette of a giant insect.
“Hey, Sidesaddle,” Jonathan said. “Come over here.”
She hesitated.
“I’m not going to throw you overboard. I promise.”
“I don’t like the name Sidesaddle,” she said as she approached.
“We’re not really going to compare notes on what we don’t like now, are we?” Boxers said.
Jonathan beckoned her closer still. “How many spare mags did I give you back there?”
“Ten, I think.”
“It’d be a good thing to know.”
She squeezed the pouches on her vest. “Ten.”
“Good.”
“You ready, Boss?” Boxers asked.
“Let’s go,” Jonathan said. He blinked against the cold. The wind, even as light as it was, carried ice crystals that felt like as many needles against his exposed flesh. “Just take it slow, and keep the approach wide.”
The boat ran blacked out. He’d intentionally chosen a boat that would not stand out in a crowd of boats, but since it was winter, cold as hell, they were the only boat on the water, and that made them potentially easy to see. The plan was to stay as dark and silent as possible.
Saint Stephen’s Island was likewise dark, except for the lights in the buildings’ windows. If the moon and the stars hadn’t been so bright, it would be the perfect conditions for an assault.
“There’s an eye in the door,” Joey said. He knew that Dad had fallen asleep, but he didn’t want to be alone. After the sun had gone down, their tiny cell had filled with the kind of cold that left you feeling weak. At one point during the afternoon, the heavy blanket had become too heavy. Now it might as well have been a sheet. Even with the heavy sweat suit, he might as well have been naked.
Dad stirred, but he didn’t wake entirely. Joey poked him with an elbow.
Dad jumped, startled and maybe a little frightened. “What? What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” Joey said. “I just changed positions. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
They sat on the floor together, their bodies touching for extra warmth, with double layers of blankets separating their butts from the floor, as well as covering them all over. It was like the world’s smallest tent.
“That’s okay,” Dad said. “I didn’t know I’d fallen asleep.”
“Isn’t it dangerous to fall asleep in the cold? I thought I read that somewhere. Maybe I saw it on the Discovery Channel.”
“Hmm. I don’t think it’s that cold.”
“There’s an eye in the door,” Joey said again.
Moon and starlight seeped into the room, keeping it from being completely black.
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Look at the door. At the peephole.” He pointed with his forehead because he didn’t want to expose an arm. “It’s got an eye around it.”
Dad squinted, and then said, “Ah. I see it. Back in the old days, punishment had religious overtones. I imagine that that was supposed to make people think of the eye of God watching them.”
Joey stewed on that for a few seconds, but the thought troubled him. “Shouldn’t they have put it on the ceiling? That’s where heaven is.”
Dad smiled. “That would make more sense, wouldn’t it?”
They fell into silence again. There’d been a lot of that. Not that there was anything to talk about.
Conversation took some of the edge off his fear, but the only thing he could think to talk about was how afraid he was.
“Did I tell you that Jimmy Feeny got expelled from school?”
Dad rocked back with surprise. “Big Jimmy? The one who used to paint his mohawk? Why does that not surprise me?”
Joey nodded. Jimmy was one of the cool kids — a member of the class that Joey himself could only aspire to — even though teachers and parents didn’t like him very much. Or maybe because teachers and parents didn’t like him very much.
Joey explained. “In the cafeteria, Norman Kwit-niesky walked past him and dumped a thing of chocolate milk on his head, and Jimmy broke his face.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because Norman dumped milk on him.”
“But why would Norman dump the milk?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jimmy’s a big kid. Sounds like Norman has a death wish. Did he get expelled, too?”
“No, and that’s what pisses everybody off. He started the fight, and he only got like a few days’ suspension.”
“Huh.”
And then the silence returned.
Joey shivered, and his dad pulled him tighter. That’s when the tears came. They heaved up out of nowhere, burning his eyes and tightening his throat. It was a flood of emotion, and he didn’t know how to stop it. A squeaking sound escaped his throat, and after that, they were followed by sobs.
He buried his face in Dad’s shirt, and felt fingers gently rubbing the back of his head, the way Dad used to do it.
“I’m so scared,” he said, but the words might have been lost in the cough of a sob.
“I swear to you this will be okay,” Dad said. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The release on the trailer hitch didn’t want to let go. The latch had frozen shut, and no matter how hard David pulled, he couldn’t get the lever to lift. “Unbelievable.” Will anything go right tonight?
He pressed his transmit button. “Hey, Mother Hen.”
“Go ahead.”
“You’re not going to believe this. The trailer hitch is frozen. I can’t release it.”
A pause.
“And before you ask, I don’t have a hammer, and as far as I can tell, this truck doesn’t have any tools on board. Everything that was heavy and solid is out there on the boat.”
When Mother Hen’s voice returned to his ear, he could hear a smile in it. “Wolverine wants to know how full your bladder is.”
What the hell kind of stupid question—
Then he got it. Pee on the latch. Not the most dignified solution, but there was a certain elegance to it. Plus there was the whole thing of killing two birds with one stone.
And it worked. The hitch was still steaming when he used his gloved hand to release the latch. Memo to file: throw the gloves away. That done, the trailer lifted easily off the ball. He gave it a little shove to impart momentum, and then watched as it drifted into the water… and stopped two feet from shore.