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  All of the men were glued to the screen which showed a big boobed girl—wearing a skimpy halter top, short shorts, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat—walking down the hallway of what appeared to be a prehistoric palace scene right out of Conan the Barbarian. Following the girl was a little kid wearing a bright-orange, hooded parka. “Takin’ a Ride” was playing in the background and the big-boobed gal’s boobs were swaying to the beat as she walked along.

  Honey laughed out loud and then said, “What the hell are y’all watching?”

  All of the men in the room turned around to look at Honey, and Rusty paused the show with his remote.

  As Honey stood there with her hands on her hips—in her very skimpy bikini halter top, cut off blue jean short shorts, her favorite pair of cowboy boots, and a Stetson cowboy hat—Billy turned to Reb and said, “You’re right. There’s definitely a resemblance.”

  Rusty turned to Honey to answer her question and said, “Have you ever seen the ‘Major Boobage’ episode of South Park?”

  “As a matter of fact, Rusty, I have,” Honey said. “And I get how you boys just might see some slight resemblance.”

  “Hell, Honey, even a blind man could see that big boobed gal looks an awful lot like you and I do mean that as a compliment,” Reb said with a great deal of sincerity.

  Honey, who had been raised with three brothers and had gotten used to being ribbed by the opposite sex about her big boobs ever since she had started developing the necessity for a bra, smiled. “Reb Rogers, as my boyfriend, I think you would have to admit I have a much nicer rack than that big boobed cartoon gal.”

  “Darling, I’ll be damned if that’s not the honest to God truth,” Reb said.

  All of the men started laughing. Honey got tickled and started laughing, too.

  When they all finally stopped laughing, Honey said, “I came over here expecting y’all to be playing poker and here you are sitting around watching cartoons.”

  “We decided to call it quits early and Rusty had DVR’d this South Park episode and he wanted us to watch it with him.”

  “So, it wasn’t your intent to poke fun at my awesome rack then?” Honey asked good naturedly.

  “Hell, no, Honey,” Rusty said, glancing sideways and winking at Reb. “Actually, speaking for myself, I can honestly say I am a great admirer of your awesome rack and would never say anything disparaging about it. Furthermore, I think your rack complements the rest of you right nicely.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, Rusty,” Honey replied.

  Billy looked at his watch and stood up. “Gotta run guys.”

  “You’ll miss the rest of the cartoon,” Rusty said.

  “I’ll have to catch it some other time,” Billy said. “Got stake out duty tonight.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Sailor Creek Road

  Lillian, Alabama

  Wednesday, April 28, 2010

  11:30 p.m. CDT

  One week after the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig sank off the coast of Louisiana, Ramon Vicario, the man who was in charge of the Vicario drug cartel’s operations in the southeastern United States, accompanied by 13 of his henchmen, exited the rear of his large two story, brick colonial home, walked across the brick patio, and then walked down the gently sloping lawn of his backyard to his equally large boat house.

  Ramon’s house was situated on twenty acres of land that backed up to Sailor Creek. Sailor Creek was a wide—150 feet wide where Ramon’s property was located—and deep creek, which flowed into Perdido Bay. From Ramon’s boat house, the Gulf of Mexico was only about a twenty-minute boat ride.

  A section of creek bank 75 feet deep and 125 feet in length had been excavated to build the boat house so it wouldn’t protrude out into the creek. Concrete bulkheads had been installed to prevent the bank from eroding. The boat house had dockage for five boat slips and each boat slip had its own overhead roll-up door to keep prying eyes out.

  Ramon and his men entered the boathouse and quickly boarded the boats docked there.

  * * *

  There were a total of five boats in the drug convoy that left the boathouse. Ramon was in the lead boat, the Easy Money, his Donzi R-80 sportfishing yacht. The other boats in the convoy were three Fountain 38 CCs—thirty-eight foot long center console sportfishing boats powered by triple 300 horsepower Mercury Verado outboard engines—and one custom-made, semi-submersible, drug sub.

  The drug sub had been built in secret at a shipyard in Veracruz, Mexico and had cost the Vicario cartel more than $750,000. The structural framework was made of aluminum and the hull was made of Kevlar. The drug sub was 60 feet long, had a beam of 15 feet, was capable of carrying more than 5 tons of illegal drugs, was powered by twin diesel engines, and was capable of a top speed in excess of thirty knots when fully loaded. The drug sub had a slightly curved, almost flat deck with a freeboard of just 24 inches. The deck and the sides of the drug sub were painted a shade of blue, which made it almost impossible to distinguish the drug sub from the water surrounding it. The only items visible on the deck of the drug sub were a pair of inverted J-shaped snorkels in the rear section that supplied the air necessary to run the diesel engines, and, just forward of the midpoint of the drug sub, there was a plexiglass canopy covering the pilot’s cockpit.

  After leaving the boathouse, the five boats traveled down Sailor Creek and entered Perdido Bay. From there, they headed in a southwesterly direction toward Ono Island. When they reached Ono Island, they steered around its northwest side and entered Bayou St. John. A short distance later, they passed by Walker Island on their starboard side and then they cleared the northwestern tip of Ono Island on their port side. From there they could easily make out the bridge spanning Perdido Pass, with Alabama Point on the west side and Florida Point on the east side.

  Thirty minutes after leaving the boathouse on Sailor Creek, Ramon was standing in the cockpit of the Easy Money as it entered Perdido Pass at the head of the small convoy heading out into the Gulf of Mexico in the early morning hours.

  Unlike the previous week’s trip out to meet up with the cargo ship making the drug delivery, it was a clear night. Ramon was looking back at the drug sub, which was following directly behind the Easy Money about twenty feet back. He could just barely make out the face of the man piloting the drug sub sitting behind the plexiglass canopy. For some reason, the clear plexiglass canopy reminded Ramon of a jet fighter plane.

  One of the Fountain 38 CCs brought up the rear of the convoy just a few feet behind the wake of the drug sub. The other two Fountain 38 CCs were running alongside the port and starboard sides of the drug sub. The job of the escort boats was to prevent other boats from inadvertently running over the almost invisible semi-submersible and to try to block it from the view of any boats that might be passing by.

  As the Easy Money passed under the bridge overhead, Ramon was so busy keeping an eye on the drug sub that he was completely oblivious to the man standing on the bridge above, who was looking down at the convoy through night-vision binoculars.

  * * *

  Almost three hours later, the Easy Money, the drug sub, and the three Fountain 38 CCs returned from the Gulf and made their way back through Perdido Pass on their way back to Ramon’s compound on Sailor Creek. The convoy had rendezvoused some 30 miles offshore with the Veracruz Lady—a cargo vessel owned and operated by the Vicario drug cartel—where the drug sub had been loaded with enough heroin, crystal meth, and cocaine to easily bring 200 million dollars on the street.

  As the convoy passed under Perdido Pass Bridge, no one noticed the lone figure standing on the bridge, who watched them pass and noted the time.

  CHAPTER 6

  Jihad Brotherhood HQ

  Dubai, United Arab Emirates

  Thursday, April 29, 2010

  4:45 p.m.

  “You have a call on line one, General,” Tariq’s personal secretary, Abdul, announced. “It’s Colonel Bitar.”

  In Tariq’s last posting in the Saudi Air Force
before retiring, Colonel Ahmad Bitar had served on Tariq’s staff as his Chief Intelligence Officer. In his current position as Deputy Chief of Intelligence for the Saudi Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colonel Bitar was privy to all of his nation’s military intelligence information.

  “Ahmad, my friend,” Tariq said when he picked up the handset, “I hope you are calling with the information I requested.”

  “General, I put out some feelers and what I discovered is that this Hassan Younis you inquired about was involved with an Islamic group that was plotting an act of terrorism inside the United States. The information I have indicates Hassan Younis is now a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.”

  “And the woman?” Tariq asked.

  “She is there, also,” Colonel Bitar answered.

  “Thank you for your help in this matter, Colonel,” Tariq said.

  “It was my pleasure, General,” Colonel Bitar said. “Please don’t hesitate to contact me again, if I can be of service in the future.”

  * * *

  Tariq checked his wristwatch and saw that the local time in Dubai was 5 p.m. In Washington, DC the time would be 9 a.m. and the person he needed to speak with should be in his office. Tariq dialed the number and waited for the call to go through.

  “Hello, General. What can I do for you?” Sam Butterford—a principal in the Washington, DC lobbying firm Bishop, Butterford, and Furman—said when he answered his phone.

  “I need your help on a matter of grave importance to me,” Tariq replied.

  “Okay, General, tell me about this matter you need my help with,” Sam Butterford said—he had already clicked on the start billing button for the software that kept track of his hours at a billing rate of $1,000 an hour.

  “There are two individuals currently being detained at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp whom I wish to have released as soon as possible,” Tariq said. “Is that something you can help with?”

  “As you are probably aware, the current administration is keen on shutting down Gitmo,” Sam Butterford answered. “So, the odds are in our favor that we can get these individuals on one of the lists of prisoners to be released from Gitmo at some point in the future. But you said you wanted these individuals released as soon as possible and I will tell you that getting someone released as soon as possible will be expensive.”

  “How expensive?” Tariq asked.

  “Well, when it comes to this sort of thing, I prefer dealing with the charitable foundation that specializes in these kinds of things and they don’t come cheap,” Sam Butterford replied. “A donation of a million dollars to a million and a half is probably what it will take for them to intervene in your behalf. They won’t intervene directly, of course, but I happen to know they work closely with Henrietta Sudd—someone who has access to the President—and she has represented the foundation as an intermediary for this sort of thing in the past.”

  “I’ll have my bank transfer two million dollars to you immediately. Use the extra money as you see fit, Mr. Butterford. Just get the job done,” Tariq said. “I’m sending you an email right now with the names of the two individuals I would like to see released and the name of the country willing to take them in while they are being rehabilitated.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Reb Rogers’ Condo

  Seaside Beach, Alabama

  Sunday, May 2, 2010

  9:15 a.m. CDT

  Reb Rogers and Honey Brown woke up later than usual on Sunday morning. The previous evening, they had hosted a going away party. The occasion for the party was Honey resuming her modeling career. After taking two weeks off from her busy schedule to help Rusty recover from the gunshot wound he had suffered when the jihadi assassin had tried to kill Reb, Honey had taken an assignment to model swimsuits in Cancun, Mexico.

  The party had been a small gathering, just the regulars from Rusty’s Tuesday night poker game and their significant other or, in Rusty’s case, current lady friend. Billy Morris and his wife had been there, along with Dave Foster and his wife, and Rusty had brought a date.

  After answering nature’s call and putting on a pot of coffee to brew, Reb and Honey returned to the bedroom, jumped back into bed, and fooled around, while waiting on the coffee maker to finish brewing.

  Afterwards, Reb pulled on his boxer shorts and Honey got into her night robe and they went back to the kitchen to get some coffee. Reb poured each of them a mug—Honey added cream and sugar to hers, Reb drank his black—and they took their coffee outside with them onto the balcony.

  Reb’s balcony overlooked the sugar-white sandy beach and the blue-green waters of the Gulf of Mexico that Seaside Beach was famous for. It was a beautiful day to be outdoors and Reb and Honey sat down underneath the umbrella at the patio table. For several minutes, Reb and Honey sat silently drinking their coffee watching the waves rolling in on the beach down below. There were already a few people out frolicking in the surf.

  Honey noticed Reb had a faraway look on his face that told her he had something on his mind.

  “What’s bothering you, Reb?” Honey asked.

  Reb smiled wistfully and said, “Oh, it’s nothing important.”

  “Don’t give me that, darling,” Honey said. “I know when something’s bothering you, it must be important. So, tell me what’s going on.”

  “Okay, I’ve had a couple of calls from customers who wanted to cancel their upcoming fishing trips on the Revenge,” Reb said.

  “Did they say why?” Honey asked.

  “They didn’t come right out and say it, but I know the reason is because of the oil spill out in the Gulf,” Reb said. “I’ve talked with some of the other charter boat Captains who keep their boats at Rusty’s Marina and they’re starting to get cancellation calls, too.”

  “But that spill’s way out in the Gulf nowhere near here,” Honey said. “And the other day at the press conference in Washington, the government spokesman said that only about 1,000 barrels a day was leaking into the Gulf. We’re not getting any oil washing up here. Not yet anyway.”

  “You haven’t seen the article in the Lower Alabama Times about the confidential NOAA document that just got released?”

  “I’ve been so busy getting ready to go out of town I must have missed it,” Honey admitted.

  “Well, as it turns out, the leak is a whole lot worse than the government has been letting on,” Reb said.

  “What? You’re saying the government has been lying to us?” Honey asked in a sarcastic tone of voice.

  “It never stops with these bastards,” Reb said. “After all, these are the same politicians who told the American public we could keep our doctor and our insurance under the new health care legislation they foisted on us. And they are the very same ones who told us it was a case of ‘workplace violence’ and not terrorism when the soldier running around shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ shot his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood. And for crying out loud don’t get me started about how the main stream media has been lying and covering up for these sleazy ass politicians.”

  “So, how much worse is the leak than they’re saying it is?” Honey asked.

  “Instead of 1,000 barrels daily, they’re saying the leak is more likely in the range of 50,000 barrels daily. That’s over two million gallons of oil a day gushing out into the Gulf,” Reb said. “It’s all over the internet and the news. And I’m sure my customers know all about it.”

  “Be optimistic about it, Reb. Maybe they’ll be able to cap the well in the next few days,” Honey said.

  “I prefer to operate on the hope for the best, but prepare for the worst way of thinking,” Reb said. “I sure hope they cap the well head in the next few days, but I know that ain’t happening. And the worse that oil spill gets out in the Gulf, the fewer customers I’ll have for my charter fishing business.”

  The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “Reb, I don’t think that’s all that’s bothering you. Ever since you got back from your trip to Washington with Jake a co
uple of weeks ago, you’ve been acting like you had something on your mind,” Honey said. “You want to tell me about it?”

  “It’s no big deal, sweetheart. While I was there, Jake took me by to see my old boss from my time in Afghanistan, General Davidson,” Reb said. “He basically offered me a job in the FBIS. Said I could pretty much name my terms.”

  “What’d you tell him?” Honey asked.

  “I pretty much told him I’d think about it,” Reb said.

  “My stomach is starting to growl,” Honey said. “Let’s go to the kitchen and you can help me fix some brunch. We can finish this conversation some other time.”

  * * *

  When they finished eating brunch, Reb asked, “So, what time did you say we needed to be at the airport, sweetheart?”

  Honey’s modeling assignment was in Cancun Mexico. It was scheduled to start on Monday and would last through noon on Friday. She was flying out of Jack Edwards Airport in Gulf Shores on a private business jet later that day.

  “I’m supposed to meet them there at three,” Honey answered.

  Reb looked at Honey over the top of the coffee mug he was holding and said, “I guess you’re ready to get back to the normalcy of your regular work routine after all of the mayhem we went through with the jihadis, their Imam, and that batshit crazy Megan woman.”

  Honey looked at Reb and said, “I do want to get back to work, Reb, but I’m going to miss being here with you. It’s a good thing this assignment is only for a week and nothing’s scheduled for the following week so I can spend it with you.”

  “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you, how are you holding up with all of what happened?” Reb asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Honey, you could have been raped and killed by the three jihadis, you could have been killed by that Islamic assassin, and Megan came that close to killing us all. Plus, you shot the assassin.”