Whack Job Read online

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

  CHAPTER NINETY

  CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

  CHAPTER NINETY-TWO

  CHAPTER NINETY-THREE

  CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR

  CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE

  CHAPTER NINETY-SIX

  CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINETY-NINE

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED

  About the Author

  A Thriller

  Mike Baron

  Book Description

  When world leaders burst into flame like a string of firecrackers, the President calls on a renegade former agent with a history of mental problems. Otto "Aardvark" White possesses a unique quality. He's lucky. What Otto discovers in the mountains of Colorado will blow your mind and change the way you look at the world.

  ***

  Digital Edition – 2013

  WordFire Press

  www.wordfire.com

  ISBN: 978-1-61475-087-1

  Copyright © 2013 WordFire, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  A Mike Baron Book

  www.bloodyredbaron.net

  Cover by Jeff Herndon

  Book Design by RuneWright, LLC

  www.RuneWright.com

  Published by

  WordFire Press, an imprint of

  WordFire, Inc.

  PO Box 1840

  Monument CO 80132

  ***

  Electronic Version by Baen Ebooks

  http://www.baen.com

  Dedication

  To everyone who ever helped me write.

  And my lovely wife Ann.

  ***

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Libya”

  The mission was FUBAR from jump street. Two SEALS, two Rangers and three spooks so that Ghaddafi’s assassination would reflect well on at least three branches of service. Otto White looked around the cramped interior of the SH 60 Seahawk. It was crammed with men and equipment. Sound and vibration served as a constant reminder that they were carried aloft by a crazy machine that grappled with the laws of physics. The constant vibration felt like a passing freight train.

  They’d been working on the intel for months. Ghaddafi was hiding out in one of his sixteen presidential palaces, the one at the Sarir Oasis one hundred miles from the Egyptian border. The seven heavily outfitted men hunkered in the belly of the stealth-equipped chopper, its McDonnell Douglas turbine muffled so that from a hundred meters it sounded no louder than a stiff wind.

  Inside the helo was as loud as a boiler factory. There was nothing to see through the heavily tinted windows save the endless Sahara. The pilots saw a vast green ocean with frozen waves through their infrared. They flew beneath an overcast sky into the teeth of a 30 kph wind kicking up sand, the helo bucking and groaning like a ghost of the deep. Ghaddafi’s Russian-trained pilots weren’t good enough to fly in this weather.

  The Inuit spook Ray Benson sat butt cheek to butt cheek on Otto’s left, an Old Testament under his arm. He squeezed Otto’s knee, turned his freaky blue eyes on him and carefully enunciated, “With a donkey’s jawbone I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey’s jawbone I have killed a thousand men.” He grinned like a motherfucker.

  Otto thought he was crazy. Everyone called the Inuit spook Quinn.

  The satellite photo showed Ghaddafi’s “palace,” a concrete monstrosity covering 8,500 square meters, ten-foot walls enclosing what had once been the only available water for fifty klicks. The photo indicated the sad collection of stone and concrete buildings that comprised the village, the makeshift landing strip on which sat an Ilyushin Il-96, a gift from Vladimir Putin.

  SEAL Master Sergeant O’Hern bopped Otto on the knee. They were over the drop-off. Otto gave a final screw to each earplug with his index fingers. He touched the crucifix tattoo above his heart and said a silent prayer. Quinn did likewise.

  Otto was the bomb guy. It was his job to clear their infiltration by dismantling any booby-traps that lay in their way and use explosives to effect an entry, if necessary. Once inside Otto would plant the homing device the Navy would use to launch its tomahawk. Lt. O’Hern was the Ranger in charge. T
he other Ranger was Sgt. Tyrell Hathaway who clenched a Costa Rican cigar in his mouth. The SEALS were Lieutenants Osima and Al Dweeb and the other ops were a young spook named Hornbuckle and chisel-faced spook Ray Benson. Otto had met all six for the first time 48 hours ago. Three white guys, a black guy, an Eskimo, a Japanese-American and an Arab-American. All they needed was a lesbian dwarf.

  Hornbuckle was after intel. Benson was a cypher.

  At O’Hern’s signal they formed up. Al Dweeb pulled the door open and deployed the ropes. As the helo hovered ten meters above the sand tossing dunes into the air the six operators fast roped down to the desert floor. As soon as the last man touched down the helo rose, the co-pilot hauling in the lines. The entire insertion took less than thirty seconds. The sound of the helo disappeared quickly in the blowing wind.

  The land was not as flat as it appeared from the air but consisted of a series of gentle undulations stretching into the distance, cutting off the horizon, and providing cover for their infiltration. O’Hern shinnied to the top of a shallow dune and turned on the SOFLAM AN/PEQ 1 laser range-finding device. Putting on goggles to keep the sand out of his eyes Otto shinnied up next to him. Ghaddafi’s palace gleamed dully through the blowing sand three klicks to the southwest.

  They could have used a drone but the CIC insisted on eyeball recognition. No more aspirin factories. Hornbuckle was after intel. The men followed O’Hern in silence over the dune and up the next. It was 0330 Zulu time. The shallow dunes stopped a half klick from the palace. They would have to cross that space with no ground cover save a handful of malnourished fig trees. The wind picked up whipping pinpricks into every square centimeter of exposed flesh. Only Otto’s chin remained uncovered.

  They grouped along the last sand ridge each man deploying his night vision scope. Ghaddafi’s so-called palace looked like a concrete warehouse from the outside. The walls canted in toward the top at a ten-degree angle. The only concession to architecture was a lone minaret poking up from inside the near wall. A massive double steel door, closed, offered the only break in the featureless slab. Along the top Otto picked out one sentry hunkered down against the wind trying to light a cigarette in his cupped hands. After a few failures, he disappeared below the rim seeking a pocket of still air.

  O’Hern signaled and they broke into two groups, O’Hern, Hathaway, Osima and Benson, and Al Dweeb, Hornbuckle and Otto. Otto’s group circled the palace counter-clockwise, bringing them through a series of ruins, mostly abandoned cinder block shops and homes but also the remains of a Coptic Church. Those who chose to remain in the forlorn village had been forced to relocate 500 meters from the palace. Ghaddafi had had a single water outlet installed in the village center connected by pipe to the palace. He could turn it off at any time.

  Otto took point fifty meters from the nearest ruin, his camo causing him to blend in. A minute glow lit the ruler-straight eastern horizon, but was cut short by the low-hanging blanket of sand. He crawled on his belly cradling his carbine in his elbows. The nearest ruin was a gutted shell with scorch marks. It could have been ten years old or two hundred. Peering through a gap in the wall with his night vision Otto saw shifting green sands.

  He made a circular motion and within seconds Al Dweeb and Hornbuckle had joined him. Spread out, they circled the palace, climbing over blasted sills or shifting rubble, the wind a constant presence whipping up little sand devils in the corners and peppering the skin.

  The sentry on the south wall was more diligent but he didn’t look down. Otto, Al Dweeb and Hornbuckle converged at the south gate. While Hornbuckle and Al Dweeb hugged the wall, Otto got down on his knees and inspected the steel door, slightly inset due to the sloping walls. He pulled out a tiny battery-powered sniffer and waved it around the rim. He used a pen light to examine the gap between the door and the frame.

  Satisfied, Otto removed a can of WD-40 from his pack and squirted the door’s hinges. With a gloved hand, he pushed it open. It was unlocked, as their mole had promised. There was a minute squeak instantly lost in the wind. They slunk inside. Otto closed the door. Tinny Egyptian pop played from a tabletop radio next to a soldier in military drabs dozing in a tilt-back chair, feet up on a gunmetal desk.

  The three ops entered a large dim cavern, the motor pool. The Agency had paid a million dollars for the intel and the open door. No one knew who the mole was. The room smelled of petrol, cleaning solvents and some exotic spice. Save for the dozing soldier they had the room to themselves. The room contained a Mercedes limousine, an ancient Cherokee, a Russian Tiger with a roof-mounted .50, and an old olive drab bus. Intel estimated two dozen soldiers in the palace plus Ghaddafi plus “wife” and maybe one of his sons, all of whom the ops had learned to identify on sight.

  Hornbuckle signaled them to cross the floor and form up by the door leading into the interior. As Al Dweeb was halfway across the floor, a dull thump resounded causing the earth to shift and dust to rain down.

  A Team had detonated their distraction.

  With a shout, the sleeping soldier came awake, slammed his feet to the ground and ratcheted his AK-47.

  ***

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Tomahawk”

  Otto gripped his Sig and set. Without sighting, he envisioned a triangle between gun, eyes and target and squeezed the trigger. His first four shots ripped through the sentry’s tunic and sent him sprawling. Hornbuckle was already through the door, gas mask on as he rolled a smoke bomb down the corridor. Their intel put Ghaddafi on the top floor in his “presidential suite.”

  Otto pulled on his mask and followed Hornbuckle through a steel door into a cinder block corridor with vinyl floor and acoustic ceiling. Hornbuckle stood sentry as Otto planted the homing device at the juncture of floor and concrete pillar. On their signal, USN Corregidor would launch a Tomahawk missile from the Mediterranean. The Corregidor remained submerged waiting for their sixty-second window of opportunity.

  Hornbuckle and Otto ran past an open door glimpsing hallucinatory marble floors and a big indoor swimming pool glowing cerulean from underwater lights. A wave of obscene moisture struck them as they passed. They heard muffled shots and men shouting in Arabic. Hornbuckle paused at the next door to roll a smoke grenade into the big room. He and Otto followed splitting left and right. Through smoke Otto saw a Libyan soldier, pistol drawn, leaping down the broad marble steps three at a time. Hornbuckle drilled him with a head shot. The stairs ascended around the polished bronze doors of an elevator. The elevator doors were open revealing a space that would not have been out of place in a Las Vegas hotel. Gilt-tinted mirrors above a brass rail. Parquet floor. Hornbuckle tossed an illumination grenade through the open doors and bolted. The grenade exploded with a dull whump, belching smoke and fire into the room.

  Hornbuckle and Otto took the steps two at a time, Otto’s carbine banging against his side. The O’Hern-led ruse had succeeded in drawing the defenders to the north side of the building but Ghaddafi was never without his personal guard. They’d heard rumors that the Strong Man of Libya had hired lethal blond Belarus beauties whom he dressed in black leather outfits of his own design.

  A hand grenade bounced merrily down the marble stairs and stopped at Otto’s feet. Without thinking, he scooped it up and hurled it as far as he could across the marble lobby, falling to the steps beneath the fluted balustrade. The grenade detonated with an ear-puncturing report, metal shards pinging off the walls onto the floor for several seconds. Otto’s earplugs protected him. He was up and following Hornbuckle as the staircase corkscrewed clockwise around the elevator shaft. Smoke rose with them, not all of it from the grenades.

  They reached the fourth floor without resistance. Either they’d caught the guard napping or their intel was wrong and this was a skeleton crew. The intel could not be wrong. COC never would have signed off on the mission if he hadn’t known for a fact Ghaddafi was in the building. A broad marble corridor led the way to the Presidential suite, double red leather doors with gold buttons set in a bronze
frame.

  A soldier in desert khakis lay on the floor outside the door, crimson pool the size of a garbage can lid beneath his head. His black beret and been knocked off and he clutched a Makarov MP-71 in one hand. He’d blown off the top of his head through the roof of his mouth.

  Hornbuckle paused five meters from the door, hand up to pause. It was not supposed to be this easy. Hornbuckle motioned Otto to the other side of the door. Otto examined the door and frame, got down on his hands and knees and peered under. The door was cracked open a quarter inch. From beneath the door he saw Persian rugs extending to a massive marble desk, a pair of black boots planted on the floor behind the desk. Otto could not see any higher. The feet repositioned themselves.

  Otto signaled Hornbuckle that someone was in the room. His heart raced in anticipation.

  Don’t anticipate, he told himself. Be the mission.

  Hornbuckle stood on the other side of the door with his pistol in both hands. He stepped back and kicked the door, spiraling out of the way as soon as he made impact. The door swung back and smacked into its stopper. Hornbuckle rushed the room at an angle cutting away from the door. As soon as it was clear, Otto did the same going to the other side. They took position behind furniture and drew down on the figure behind the desk.

  Not Ghaddafi.

  The dark, thin, elegantly groomed young man smiled at them. It was Ghaddafi’s son Malik. Every member of the team knew the entire Ghaddafi family on sight. The room was decorated like the office of a successful but eccentric CEO. A copy of the Venus de Milo rested on a plinth. A gilt-framed poster of Anna Nicole Smith hung over a credenza topped with action figures including Conan the Barbarian. There were signed photographs of Michael Jackson and Snoop Dogg on the wall.

  A big-screen TV, several generations old with a massive picture tube sat on a media stand. The east-facing windows showed the rising sun peeking over the horizon. A curving concave metal sheet mounted in native rock displayed an elegant Qalicheh. The room smelled of hashish and patchouli. There was a large brass hookah mounted on a delicately carved cedar table inlaid with mother of pearl. An open laptop faced Malik on the desk.