Skibicki slipped a shoulder harness over his head, hooking the pistol to the right side and sliding a spare magazine into the open pouch on the left. He took a small cloth brass catcher and slipped it over the bottom ejector, ensuring that his brass would stay with him if he had to shoot.
He removed a second Calico and handed it to Boomer.
“Fifty rounds in the magazine. It operates closed-bolt, retarded blowback, like the H&K MP-5 you use in Delta.”
Boomer slid the magazine on top of the housing and chambered a round.
He checked the heft of the weapon, sighting down the raised sights across the small parking lot where they were leaving Skibicki’s jeep.
“You can fire one-handed,” Skibicki said.
“Real smooth operation. It goes up and slightly right at first, then settles down on target. You can fire all fifty rounds in one burst if you want.” He handed over two additional magazines and a shoulder holster.
“You got a laser sight on top.
Switch is here,” he added, tapping the side of the gun. He handed over a set of PVS-7 night vision goggles and slipped on his own set.
“Ready to go for a walk?”
They’d driven back trails through the jungle north of Puu Makakilo until they were about a thousand meters away from a hill on the northeast side. The side opposite Trace’s house. They left the jeep behind and started through the vegetation, allowing the bulk of the hill to shield them from the site they’d found the previous day. After carefully checking both directions, they scampered across Palehua Road, the same road Trace had used when she’d unexpectedly come upon the men.
As they got closer to the summit, Skibicki slowed down.
Boomer matched the veteran’s pace. They went around the side of the hilltop. When Skibicki went prone, Boomer dropped to his belly also, and they remained frozen for fifteen minutes. Boomer caught a faint whiff of cigarette smoke borne by the landward breeze and his finger curled out and flipped off the safety on the Calico. He tapped Skibicki and then touched his nose. Skibicki nodded.
They began moving down the hillside at an excrutiatingly slow pace, often pausing for five to ten minutes, using the rustle of the wind to cover their movement. They didn’t have to exchange a word, the two men moving as a unit.
An untrained person would have thought their progress unbelievably slow, but Boomer appreciated the older man’s stealth.
After two’hours, they finally reached a point on the edge of the small clearing, slightly to right of the tree that had been marked by the knife throwing.
Boomer scanned the clearing, taking in the two men and the sniper rifle set on tripod. One man was watching the house through the scope on the top of the rifle. The other was lying down, his back against a rucksack. Several cigarette butts were in the dirt next to him.
Boomer and the sergeant major watched them for a half hour waiting to see if there was any change to the routine.
Finally, Skibicki glanced at Boomer, who nodded. He edged sideways until he was about fifteen feet away from Skibicki. When the sergeant major stood. Boomer did also, the pistol held steady in his right hand, muzzle centered on the man at the rifle.
“Just hold it right where you are,” Skibicki said, Boomer was surprised when the one on the right rolled left, reaching for a pistol in his shoulder holster. Skibicki fired a sustained burst, the first round hitting the sniper rifle, ricocheting off, then he walked the line of bullets into the man, hitting him four times in the chest as the weapon the man had been reaching for cleared its holster. It fell to the dirt next to dead fingers.
If the second man had reacted promptly, his partner’s death might not have been in vain, but he froze, caught between reaching for his own pistol and surprise.
“Hands up,” Boomer said.
The man bent forward to stand up, and his right hand brushed his pant leg. Boomer’s training kicked in and he fired, his bullets stitching a bloody trail up the man’s stomach and chest. The man’s arms flew wide as the bullets knocked him backwards. The Calico handled smoothly, the unique balance of weight caused by the nontraditional magazine allowing it to be fired accurately with one hand.
Boomer walked over to the body and checked the hand.
A knife was clutched in the dead fingers.
“Good job,” Skibicki said.
“Damn,” Boomer replied, his fingers gripping the handle of the Calico tightly.
“Why didn’t they surrender? We had them cold.”
“It was us or them,” Skibicki replied. He pointed at the sniper rifle.
“They weren’t sitting here waiting to have a discussion with Major Trace. I’d say they were going to finish the job by putting a bullet in her head to completely erase all the information.”
“But why?” Boomer asked. He gestured around the clearing.
“I don’t understand why that manuscript is so damn important.”
Skibicki was searching the bodies, pulling out their wallets.
“Oh, fuck,” he muttered.
“It just got worse.” He tossed one of the wallets over.
Boomer rubbed his forehead to forestall a growing headache when he saw that the man carried an ID card from the DIA: Defense Intelligence Agency.
“Oh shit,” Boomer said.
“We’re fucked.”
“It was us or them,” Skibicki repeated. He looked up.
“You sure those guys yesterday didn’t try to identify themselves to Major Trace?”
“She would have said something if they had. They didn’t act like they were there on legal business from what I saw.”
“They didn’t act that way here either. They should have talked to us.”
“Maybe not,” Boomer said.
“Hell, if I had two guys draw down on me in the dark, I’d probably go for my gun too. Goddamn,” he kicked the trunk of a tree.
“What’s going, on Skibicki drew a couple of black balaclavas out of the men’s backpack.
“They also have silenced weapons. I’d bet a month’s pay that the ballistics on those guns matches the slugs in the wall down there.”
“That still doesn’t justify our shooting them,” Boomer said.
“They fucking didn’t freeze when I told them to,” Skibicki growled.
Boomer was shaking his head.
“We didn’t identify ourselves.”
He laughed, but there was no humor to it.
“Shit, what could we identify ourselves as?
“We’re two guys with semi-automatic pistols running around in the fucking dark.
Put your hands up’.”
“They robbed Trace’s house,” Skibicki said.
“They shot at you both.”
“Yeah, I know that.” Boomer walked over and put the ID back in the vest pocket of one of the bodies. There was a key in there. He’pulled it out and looked at it in the dim light. Room 456, the Outrigger Reef Hotel. He put the key back in the pocket. The man’s dead eyes were staring at the sky, reminding Boomer of the ambush several days ago in the Ukraine. No matter where he went, death seemed to be following.
But here on a hillside in Hawaii was the last place he’d expected it.
Boomer slowly stood.
“Well, I guess I’ll call our friends in the police department.”
Skibicki nodded.
“You go down to the house. I’ll go back and bring the jeep around by the main road and join you there.”
“All right.” Boomer made his way carefully downslope until he got to Trace’s house. He went inside and pulled out the card he’d been given earlier in the day. He dialed the number and the phone was picked up on the second ring.
“Oahu PD.”
“I’d like to speak to Inspector Konane,” Boomer said.