American Operator, page 16
part #4 of Tier One Series
“Thanks,” she said, the corner of her mouth curling up. Then, looking over his shoulder at the still burning hangar behind him, “Now if you don’t mind, what the fuck is going on, Dan?”
“Terror attack,” he said simply. “A big one.”
“They went after the nukes, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, but I just heard on the radio that the offensive has been put down.”
“I don’t understand. The nukes are in a vault. Even with an assault force this big, they’d need artillery to get in there. And even if they got in—”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” Munn interrupted her. “The nukes aren’t our concern. We have direct and immediate tasking from the DNI. There’s a second attack underway right now. A CIA compound fifteen clicks from here. Our conventional forces here on base are tied up, obviously, and the Turks have shut down all US action outside Incirlik—which leaves us. Our tasking is to save the compound and EXFIL the ten-man team pinned down there. They’re rigging their sensitive equipment for destruction, but the situation is desperate. If we don’t hurry, we could have another Benghazi on our hands.”
“What are the Turks doing to help?”
“That’s the problem. Apparently, we neglected to inform them about the existence of this particular facility. Now that they are aware of it, Erodan is irate. His supposed response to President Warner was, ‘How can Turkey help protect a facility that does not exist?’ The DNI did get a back-channel promise from the head of Turkish Counterterror that they would mobilize in an hour—but that probably means five. Our guys will all be dead in half that time. We’re leaving now.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding. “But what about Dempsey?”
“For the time being, at least, Dempsey’s on his own. The DNI made this priority one.”
“He’s alive?”
“Yeah.”
“And Allen?”
“I’ll explain what I know in the air,” he said, looking up and over her shoulder. That’s when she noticed the faint beat of helicopter rotors on the wind. “We have two Jordanian Air Force helos inbound, so I hope you’re ready to kick some more ass.”
The corner of her mouth curled up into a crooked grin, and she tapped her WinMag. “Always.”
PART II
To contemplate is to look into the shadows.
—Victor Hugo, Les Travailleurs de la mer
CHAPTER 18
M4 Highway
Eighteen Miles Northeast of al-Bab, Syria
May 6
2315 Local Time
The horrible rattle that had plagued the battered Peugeot for the last twenty miles was now accompanied by a loud hiss.
“Looks like I’m going to be walking soon,” Dempsey grumbled and then cursed the car and his luck like a proper frogman, using every possible variant of the F-word—noun, verb, adjective, and adverb.
Fortunately, he’d made it past al-Bab, and now he was headed east toward Ar Raqqa. By the time he’d gotten on the road from the compound, the SUV with Amanda Allen was long gone. And since he had no comms, he wasn’t able to validate with Baldwin to see where the target vehicle had gone. His instincts told him Raqqa because it was a vile place occupied by vile men—the perfect spot to torture or trade an American female hostage if you were in the business of terrorism. Picturing the map of the region he’d studied during his pre-op prep, his mind’s eye visualized two possible routes—one going southeast of Lake Assad, the other circling northeast. The former was faster, but the latter went through Manbij, which would give the terrorists an opportunity to swap vehicles or get supplies.
Dempsey had decided to take the road through Manbij for similar reasons. The cloud of steam streaming over the windshield told him he wasn’t going to make it. He felt the car begin to slow, pressed on the gas, and the vehicle promptly coughed and died. Grumbling, he steered it off the road and then, while the diminishing momentum allowed, into the shallow roadside ditch.
“Shit.”
He climbed out of the steaming piece of junk and grabbed his night vision goggles. He scanned the barren, rocky terrain in all directions: no movement, no headlights, no nothing. A dim aura winked on the horizon to the east. Manbij. He sighed and slung his kit over his head, the familiar weight on his shoulders comforting. He tapped a finger on his remaining magazines—four, which meant 120 rounds on top of the magazine already in his rifle. Two extra magazines for the Sig Sauer pistol on his thigh meant another 45 rounds. He had two grenades and one frag in the pouch on the left side of his kit. He slung his Sig 716 assault rifle over his chest in a combat carry and set off toward the lights.
His first priority was to find a place to hole up before morning light. He was deep in “Indian country” now, traversing a dangerous crossroads in the middle of a country embroiled in the greatest war of factions the world had ever seen. The Syrians, the rebels, the Turks, the Kurds, the Israelis, the Iranians, Al-Nusra, ISIS, the Russians, and US coalition forces were all playing in this bloody sandbox . . . and the Syrian people were paying the price. During his two decades in the Teams, he’d seen the type of death and misery up close that would make most Americans vomit, but Syria was spiraling into a tragedy of epic proportions.
His thoughts drifted to Amanda Allen.
“I was so close,” he mumbled. “So fucking close, I almost had her.”
They’re going to kill her. They know we’re coming after them now, so they’re going to cut off her head, make their YouTube video, and scatter like the roaches that they are.
Uncertainty was the worst part of his job. The worst part. Outside the community, people assumed it was the repetitive violence, or the physical abuse, or the emotional trauma, or maybe the impact to personal relationships that was the hardest part of being an operator. Yeah, those things were a bitch, but the uncertainty in moments like this was worse. Everyone on the inside knew it, felt it. That’s why intelligence collection was the cornerstone of special operations—to systematically remove uncertainty. But in the field, at the tip of the spear, alone without comms and without data, an operator had only two weapons to combat uncertainty—hope and instinct—both of which Dempsey was leaning on heavily at the moment.
What he wanted more than anything in the world was Baldwin’s annoying professorial voice in his ear. He wanted the Ember Signals guru to launch into one of his long-winded explanations about how some solar flare had jacked their comms; he wanted to listen to him babble until he couldn’t stand it anymore and then snap at the man to get to the point; and then he wanted Baldwin to say that despite the snafu, they had maintained satellite coverage throughout the assault, had tracked Allen to a safe house just two clicks away, and that Munn and the rest of Ember’s SAD were en route in the Osprey to join the fight and take them home.
That was not going to happen.
He was on his own. He would have to find these assholes by himself. He would have to rescue Allen by himself. And he would have to figure some way to get them both back across the border into Turkey by himself.
Easy day.
Then he heard Munn’s voice in his head—The only easy day was yesterday, dude—and he started to laugh. That was the motto he’d lived by in the Teams. He’d just never believed it could be as true as it was now.
He mulled this over in his mind until a dim light ahead caught his attention. This could be an opportunity, he thought. An opportunity for new wheels. His right hand drifted to the grip of his rifle, ready to bring it up into a firing position in an instant. His finger tapped the outside of the trigger guard as he closed on the light. After a hundred meters, he could make out a small house—more of a hut—surrounded by stacks of wood in a makeshift fence. As he got closer, he saw that the “fence” was little more than an impediment to keep two goats penned in. He peered through a sheer fabric curtain hanging behind an open window and saw an old man asleep in front of a dying fire. He scanned the grounds but saw no vehicles—not even a beat-up farm truck or dilapidated motorcycle. He did, however, spy a bicycle with a bent tire leaning against the fence, and for a moment he contemplated stealing it—but it was such a piece of shit, it would probably slow him down. Anyway, the thought of getting killed while pedaling that ridiculous thing was more than he could bear. There was no question John Dempsey would depart this world in a painful death . . . but not like that.
Dempsey slipped over the pile of stacked wood and moved to the left of the house. One goat ignored him completely. The other looked over, stretched out its long pink tongue, and then farted and turned away. With a wayward scowl at the offensive creature, Dempsey walked around the hut until he spied a tattered square of burlap fabric tarped over a half cord of firewood stacked beside the house. He took the tarp and quietly balled it up under his left arm. Beside the wood pile rested an ax with a burgundy-colored keffiyeh draped over the handle. He grabbed it and wrapped it around his neck, gagging at the smell as he did.
Jesus, this thing smells worse than the goats.
He slipped back over the makeshift fence and resumed his trek toward Manbij. As he walked, he pulled his SOG knife from the scabbard on the front of his kit and cut a foot-long hole roughly in the center of the gray-brown tarp. He replaced his knife and pulled the improvised poncho over his head. There, at least now I don’t look like a kitted-up operator at a hundred meters. Suddenly feeling empowered, he picked up the pace—double-timing it now toward the lights.
“Atlas One, this is Olympus . . . Do you copy?”
Dempsey stopped and took a knee, wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him or if he really had just heard Baldwin’s voice in his ear.
“Olympus, this is Atlas,” Dempsey said. “How do you read?”
“Yes, I know . . . I know they want it back, but tell them we just found our man and politely inform them we need a few more minutes,” Baldwin was saying.
Dempsey rolled his eyes and grinned. “Say again, over.”
“Sorry about that, Atlas. We’re dealing with asset-management issues today,” Baldwin said. “But we read you Lima Charlie. Stand by . . .”
“Atlas—Olympus—SITREP?” said a new voice in his ear. Shane Smith, and he was all business.
“Atlas does not have the package. My assets are both back across the border, or should be by now. I am solo and in pursuit.”
In pursuit? That was probably a stretch . . .
“Atlas, we believe we have you on imagery. Confirm you are twenty miles east of the original target and north of Highway M4?”
Dempsey hesitated a beat, swearing under his breath at how ridiculous his situation and his plan were now that he was forced to report on them. “That is my position,” he said.
“Confirm you have a location on the package?”
“I do not have a confirmed location on the package—yet.” An uncomfortable silence hung on the air. When Smith didn’t say anything, Dempsey said, “Were you guys ‘eyes on’ during the firefight? Do you have imagery you can use to confirm the package EXFIL from the original compound?”
“What firefight? Are you intact?”
Dempsey shook his head in annoyance.
“We confirmed the package was at the compound, but before we lost comms, three vehicles arrived to move the package. We had to act before the window of opportunity closed. We were unsuccessful, but I am intact. Do you have imagery from the event?”
“Negative. There was and is a major situation requiring our imagery assets. We will have to pull historical data and use whatever we can find to reconstruct.”
“Roger. I have a strong lead on the package but need time for ISR to confirm. Headed east of current position.”
There was a long pause, and Dempsey scanned his surroundings in the silver moonlight while he waited for the reply. The night was perfectly still and benign, not even a single vehicle moving on the highway a half mile south of him.
“Atlas, are you five by?”
Was he? Physically he was five by five. He was armed and now had Ember in his ear. Emotionally? That was another matter.
“Yes. I’m five by five. I may be able to confirm package location by next nightfall.” Now that was a complete fabrication. He had no leads other than seeing the target SUV heading east when it first bugged out from the compound. Allen could be anywhere. “Are you keeping eyes on?”
“Negative, Crusader. And we are going to lose comms again.”
“Wait a minute. We’re not back up on UHF SATCOM?”
“Negative. We borrowed a drone from our friends in Tel Aviv, but we spent all the time we had looking for you. Now they want it back. Once the situation in Turkey is under control, we’ll get dedicated satellite or drone coverage back.”
“What situation in Turkey?”
“No time to explain,” Smith said. “Advise you find a location to shelter in place and wait until we contact you. By that time we should have reconstructed data and the QRF stood back up and ready to assist. Good luck, Atlas. Olympus out.”
Dempsey got to his feet and pushed east at a fast clip. What was the “situation” in Turkey that had taken Ember’s eyes and sidelined the QRF? Why hadn’t they scrambled the Osprey when they lost comms? That’s what he would’ve done. Something must have happened.
Something bad.
That was the only thing that explained Smith’s frosty demeanor, and why the Ember Director was seemingly unfazed by leaving Dempsey to his own devices in the middle of Syria.
“Olympus, Atlas . . . Is everyone all right?” Dempsey heard himself say, praying the Israeli drone was still relaying his comms. “Olympus . . . Olympus?”
CHAPTER 19
Lead Jordanian MH-60 Blackhawk Helicopter
Call Sign Sword One
Low, over the Girne Bulvari Highway, Four Miles East of Merkez Park
Adana, Turkey
2335 Local Time
Grimes tightened her grip on the sniper rifle slung over her shoulder as she watched the ground whiz by beneath the low-flying Blackhawk. Despite all her field operations with Ember over the past two years, she’d never fast-roped into combat. Next to her, Munn looked so relaxed, completely in his element. He smiled at her, and for a moment, she saw her dead brother staring back at her. Funny how far down the rabbit hole she’d tumbled. The Tier One massacre two years ago had derailed her life, it had birthed Ember, and now she was an operator. Not a SEAL, but close. If her big brother could see her right now—kitted up for a mission that his unit could have been tasked to fulfill—would he be proud? Would he be mortified? What would he think of her becoming a sniper? Would he look at her differently knowing she’d killed a dozen men in the past twenty-four hours?
“Two minutes,” Munn said in her ear. “Remember, we’re dropping on building three. You’re overwatch, and the rest of us are going in to extract the staff. Can you manage without a spotter?”
“Sure,” she said. I did it before . . .
“Okay, focus on the park to the east—that’s our biggest vulnerability—but also keep an eye on the southern approach. Thermal imagery shows GRS staff has taken a defensive position along the west wall. We’re going in but coming back to building three for EXFIL by helo. If that plan goes to shit, we will retreat west, and you’ll have to follow. Copy?”
She gave him a thumbs-up. “You call the move if you need me to reposition.”
“Roger,” he said. “Any questions?”
“How many of the ten are GRS?” she asked. The GRS, the CIA’s Global Response Staff, was a security team of contractors comprised primarily of former Special Forces operators. They would augment the rescue party—Munn, Martin, Latif, and the Air Force PJ who had insisted on coming along—and help cover the retreat.
“Four. One has a minor injury but is reportedly still in the fight. All of that could change by the time we get there. That leaves six organic CIA personnel who may or may not be helpful in a running gunfight, depending on their background.”
She nodded. This facility was a Clandestine Services compound, so unlike Ground Branch safe houses, it was not manned entirely by former operators. The crew needing to be rescued was a mixed lot—some were shooters, and some were luggage.
“One minute.”
She rolled her neck, aware the motion was becoming a reflexive habit, and took a long, deep breath. Then she leaned out the open door of the Blackhawk and looked at the scene unfolding below. “My God,” she said through her breath. Two of the compound’s three buildings were in flames; the building at the far northwest corner was fully engulfed and belching black smoke into the night sky. A park just east of the compound was packed with rioting demonstrators, burning cars blocking access to the gathering from the street. The southern half of the U-shaped compound was an open courtyard filled with trees and secured along the perimeter by a wrought iron fence. If the rioters decided to swarm the compound, this was where they would do it. Seeing this, she decided she would set up on the southeast corner and cover the mob in the park and the southern approach simultaneously.
She felt the nose of the helicopter pull up as they flared twenty feet over the roof of the southeast building. Metallic pings reverberated around her, and it took her a moment to identify the sound—bullets fired by the mob were hitting the Blackhawk’s fuselage. In response, the Jordanian door gunner answered with a burst of fifty-caliber machine gun fire. She winced, worried at first he was mowing down the crowd, before seeing that his strafe intentionally fell short. It had the desired effect, however, panicking the crowd and causing a commotion.
Munn disappeared out the door, which meant she was up.
Adrenaline surged in her veins as she shifted forward and clasped the thick rope. She twisted her hands to tighten her grip, locked the rope between the insteps of her boots, and slipped out the door. She slid fast, praying a bullet wouldn’t knock her off the rope as she descended toward the roof deck. Another tongue of flame from the door gunner kept any shooters in the park down. A heartbeat later, her boots hit the roof, and she was sprinting toward her corner. In seconds, the entire team was down, and the Jordanian Blackhawks were powering up and away.
