American Operator, page 19
part #4 of Tier One Series
May 7
0400 Local Time
Grimes watched the Admiral’s complexion with great interest, wondering just how red a person’s face could turn before he lost consciousness from lack of blood flow to the brain. He was pissed, and she wasn’t exactly sure why . . .
“My first instinct is to throw your asses out of here and let you wait this out in the Dirty Shirt Wardroom up front,” the Commander of the Air Group barked. The sleeves of the CAG’s flight suit were rolled up, displaying thick muscular arms that, she presumed from the winged insignia on his chest, had once expertly piloted some of the most advanced tactical aircraft in the world. Apparently, he did not like being displaced from his SCIF.
“I understand, sir,” Munn said. “And I want to assure you—”
“Shut your cakehole, Smith or Jones or whatever fake-ass, spooky fucking name you’re using today.”
Munn did as he was told, clasping his hands in front of him.
Clearly, the Admiral needed to blow off steam, but now that the Adana rescue mission was complete, she and the rest of Ember desperately needed to get back to their original tasking—finding and rescuing Amanda Allen. Dempsey was alive, that much they knew, but that was all they knew. With the Boeing grounded, their Osprey out of commission, and the Jordanian Blackhawks gone, they were effectively prisoners on the floating city that was the USS Ronald Reagan. This man controlled all the aircraft, and that meant that this man was their only ticket to flying the friendly skies into Syria. She had to try to reframe this situation and win him over.
“Sir,” she began. “If I may—”
“Shut it, Sheila,” the Admiral barked. “I’m up to my neck in combat air patrols and direct air support following an attempt to steal tactical nukes from a NATO base in Turkey. And to make matters worse, we have Russian, Turkish, French, Iranian, Jordanian, and Israeli aircraft, and drones I might add, all flying sorties in Syrian airspace. It is a clusterfuck of epic proportions and one collision away from kicking off a war in the Middle East. Everybody wants a piece of Syria, and now it looks like Turkey might be next. So whatever spook-ass shit you’re up to is a distraction from my mission.” He held his hand up as Munn tried to speak. “However, as this request comes from the DNI himself—a friend and shipmate from the Academy and one of the finest damn human beings I’ve had the privilege to serve—I will permit you to turn my SCIF into your spooky war room.” The Admiral leaned in, and for a moment, Grimes saw a twinkle in the man’s eye that betrayed his bluster. “But don’t fucking push it, son, or you and your merry band might find yourselves traveling by inflatable lifeboat to your next target.”
“Thank you, sir,” Munn said.
The Admiral handed a radio to Munn. “Call if you need anything from me. And give me a heads-up when you need to bolt so I can work you into a very chaotic flight deck schedule.” His gaze ticked to the massive hematoma decorating half of Latif’s face and then to Martin’s blood-soaked shirt. “I’ll send the doc up. That one looks like he needs stitches.”
The Admiral spun on a heel and headed for the door.
“Jeez, what a prick,” Latif said.
“Not hardly,” Munn said, laughing. He shared a knowing look with Grimes.
Munn sat at a computer console, then tapped an access code on the keyboard to bring up the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, the DOD’s top secret version of the internet.
“Is that smart?” Grimes asked. “Who else can see that?”
“Nobody, I hope,” Munn said. “But what other choice do we have? We need a channel to talk to the boss and a portal for Baldwin to send us the latest imagery—provided he has imagery to send us.”
She frowned. JWICS was secure but widely used by the rest of the intelligence community. She hated when they were so damn exposed to the world. Ember worked because Ember was invisible. For now, though, she supposed this was as good as they could do.
“What took you so long?” Baldwin said a millisecond after his face appeared on-screen. “We’ve been waiting for you to initiate a JWICS channel.”
“We’ve been a little busy,” Munn said with a chuckle, “or hadn’t you noticed?”
“Hey, guys,” said Smith, stepping into the frame as Grimes, Martin, and Latif crowded around the computer. “First, JD is alive and still trying to prosecute the package. Long story short, he and his DIA counterpart, Theobold, tried to take the compound and extract Allen.”
“Of course they did,” said Munn, shaking his head.
“And the op went bad,” Smith said.
“Of course it did,” Munn added.
“Theobold was badly wounded, and he and his asset crossed back into Turkey. He’s in surgery now, and last we heard, he should make it.”
“Why didn’t Dempsey EXFIL with them?” Grimes asked.
“Because he’s Dempsey and because he seems to have forgotten the meaning of the word EXFIL,” Smith said.
“Don’t tell me he’s trying to recover Allen on his own?” she said.
“Oh yeah, that’s exactly what he’s doing,” Smith said, and his live video feed was replaced by drone imagery. “The image on your screen shows him fifteen miles south of the Turkish border, traveling on foot west of al-Bab paralleling the M4 Highway. He’s heading into the city of Manbij as we speak.”
“Why?”
“They moved Allen. And he seems to think she’s there, or at least that he can conduct ISR and figure out where they took her after leaving the compound.”
“Do you have imagery to support his assessment?” she asked.
“We reconstructed the terrorist’s escape route as best we could, and yes, the vehicle carrying Allen did appear to travel toward Manbij,” said Baldwin’s voice. “As you know, thanks to a series of unfortunate events, we’ve been resource limited for some time now, but I assure you we are about to solve this problem. I will have a dedicated Reaper in the air over Manbij in one hour. No one can take it; it’s ours. And in eighty-eight minutes, we’ll have SATCOM UHF back up, giving us redundant BLOS comms back.”
“So have you talked to Dempsey?” she asked, her irritation tempered only by the news that comms were coming back up very soon.
“Yes, and he was instructed to hole up and lay low until we can plan his extraction and resume the hunt for Allen,” Smith said.
“Yeah, like that’s going to happen.” Latif laughed.
“Any ransom demand yet on Allen?” she asked. “Any claims of responsibility?”
“Strangely, no,” Smith observed. “We’d expected to hear some chatter on this, and Ian is working with our friends at NSA and OGA, but there’s nothing credible so far.”
“Credible?” Martin asked.
“Glory hounds,” Munn explained. “There’s always some group or individual who’ll step up and claim responsibility. Sometimes that makes it hard to sort out what’s real from what’s bullshit.”
“Precisely,” Baldwin agreed.
“Well, as interesting as this recap has been,” Grimes said, “when are we going to be wheels up to go get JD? Clearly Dempsey is not going to find Allen on his own. We need to regroup and do this right.”
“As soon as we get the Reaper in orbit,” Smith said, “we’ll reestablish comms with Dempsey, validate his position, then get you guys in the air. But understand, the world has gotten exponentially more complicated in the past three hours. Turkey has Incirlik on lockdown and has established a no-fly zone inside Turkish airspace. We’re not sure if we can set up a FARP in Turkey for you guys—we’ll either have to break the no-fly or cash in some chits with the Israelis. Adamo is working all the options, and he needs a little more time. We’re gonna try to get you another Osprey, but no promises. Just hang tight a little longer.”
Grimes looked at her hands. How much more time did Amanda Allen have before her captors decided she had become more of a liability than an asset? How much more time could Dempsey survive on his own in war-ravaged Syria? Time was the one thing neither of them had.
“How are you guys?” Smith asked, scrutinizing them via video feed. “Latif, you’re looking a little rough, brother. Everybody five by?”
“We’re good. The ship’s doc is going to get Martin and Latif patched up,” Munn said. “In the meantime, ping us when you have something. We’ll be percolating in hot standby.”
And with that, Smith signed off.
A perfectly timed knock sounded on the door to the SCIF. Munn closed the videoconference window and said, “Come in.”
The door cracked open, and an unfamiliar face poked in. “I’m Doc Rainey. The CAG said I should drop by, say hello.”
Munn flashed a smile and said, “Nice to meet you. I gotta couple of Smiths here that could use a patch job. Mind if I send them with you?”
The Navy doc’s eyes shifted to Martin and Latif, and he waved a hand. “C’mon, fellas, let’s get you checked out and stitched up.”
Ember’s two newest operators hesitated.
“You heard the man, get moving,” Munn said. Then, with a wry grin, he added, “Don’t worry, we’re not gonna leave without you.”
With the rookies gone, Munn knitted his fingers behind his head, leaned back in his chair, and let out a whistle. “Been a helluva night,” he said, looking at Grimes. “You doing all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said and set to work rubbing her temples.
“You sure? You seem stressed, Lizzie.”
“Yeah, well, this situation sucks. God only knows how much time Allen and Dempsey have left. Seriously, Dan, we need to get our act together and take fucking control. Either you own the chaos, or the chaos owns you.”
He fixed her with a disarming, easy smile.
“What’s that look for?”
“You and I are about a decade apart,” he said, rocking slowly in his chair. “You wanna know what I learned in that decade?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “Knock me out.”
“That people like us, folks psychologists like to call Type A personalities, we’re programmed to think we can control everything. But life doesn’t work that way. At some point, you realize control is an illusion. Once you shed the illusion, suddenly your entire perception of the world changes dramatically. It is liberating, let me tell you.”
She screwed up her face. “That is the biggest pile of horseshit I’ve ever heard.”
Munn chuckled. “How so?”
“It’s the sort of advice I’d expect to hear from a Buddhist monk on a mountaintop, or a surfer dude smoking reefer after an evening set.”
“And your point?” he said.
She laughed at this. “In case you haven’t noticed, monks and surfers do not participate in the world. They’ve opted out. When’s the last time a monk rescued a hostage? Show me a surfer who stopped a terrorist attack. Sure, it’s nice and liberating to take the Chill out, dude approach, but it’s the coward’s philosophy, the quitter’s philosophy. The only way to make a difference in this world, the only way we separate ourselves from inanimate objects, is through agency. It’s why I stayed on at Ember, because Jarvis understood this—hell, he embodies it.”
“Is that why you went to sniper school?” Munn asked, his tone without animus or judgment. “Because you needed to feel more in control?”
She hesitated, caught off guard by the targeted poignancy of the question. Then she rolled her neck and exhaled, as if setting up for her next shot. “When I first came to Ember, I was of the opinion that Jarvis and his band of shadow operators were in desperate need of intellectual supervision. Before our first op, I’d already decided that my job was to make sure the Neanderthals knew exactly which rock to break before they stepped out of the cave. But once we were in the field, I quickly realized that I had grossly misjudged my teammates. Tier One operators might not have PhDs from Harvard or MIT, but they’ve earned the functional equivalent of one—in this world, Dempsey’s tactical prowess, operational knowledge, and strategic insights trump my analytical contribution nine times out of ten. In this world, I was the one who was deficient. I was the one who was a liability to the team, because I didn’t have the firearms proficiency and operational experience to pull my weight on a tactical team.”
“That’s not true,” Munn said. “You’re a badass in the field, as good as any operator I’ve ever worked with.”
“Oh really? Then why was I the only one on the team who got shot in Jerusalem?”
Now Munn was the one who screwed up his face. “Yes, we’re operators, but that doesn’t mean we’re omniscient. It doesn’t mean we’re perfect. This was my point exactly, Elizabeth. There are just some things we can’t control.”
“You’re wrong,” she insisted. “I had a bead on the asshole who shot me in the Midrachov. I fired first, Dan, and I missed. I nearly died that day because I didn’t make a shot I should have made. And if he hadn’t shot me, he would have shot one of you. One of you might be dead today . . . When I came back, I made a decision that if I was going to stay at Ember, then I needed to be better. I’ll never be able to challenge a six-foot-two, two-hundred-twenty pound operator in hand-to-hand combat; it’s just biology, and there’s no wasting time pretending otherwise. But overwatch—now that’s a different story. That’s a function I realized I could perform at a level equal to or better than anyone else on the team. And if we’re being honest, it was a void at Ember that needed filling. That’s why I went to sniper school. And when I’m up on a rooftop, cheek pressed against the WinMag, right eye looking through the scope, I do have control . . . the ultimate control.”
He stared at her, apparently at a loss for words.
“Well, aren’t you going to say something?” she asked, resisting the urge to fold her arms across her chest.
“I understand,” he said, his gaze going to the middle distance. “That’s why I stepped away from the Teams and became a surgeon. I reached a point where enough of my brothers had died from battlefield injuries that I decided to take control of the situation. I was a damn good 18-Delta SOF medic, but it wasn’t enough. No one else was going to bleed out on my watch. I would decide who lived and who died, not the enemy . . . not the Grim Reaper. I would alleviate the Almighty of that burden. I would shoulder that burden.”
“So I have you to thank for cheating death, not God,” she said quietly, meeting his gaze. And when he didn’t say anything, the corner of her mouth curled up. “I knew you were like me, at least a part of you . . .”
They sat in silence for a long time. When Munn finally broke it, he said, “You did good today, Lizzie, up there on the roof. You did real good.”
“‘Good’ might not be the best choice of words,” she said, looking at her lap. “I took a lot of lives today, Dan. Somehow, it doesn’t feel like a whole lotta good.”
“That’s one perspective, I suppose,” he said, reaching out and giving her hand a squeeze. “But it’s not mine. Yes, you took lives today, but the question you need to be asking yourself is this: By being up on those rooftops, by doing what it is that you do, how many lives did you save?”
CHAPTER 23
Manbij, Syria
0430 Local Time
Would I kill for a cup of coffee?
Yes, yes, I would.
Even one of Wang’s foo-foo coffees loaded with whipped cream and sugar . . .
These were the thoughts going through Dempsey’s head as he advanced on the warehouse, trying not to look suspicious. Beneath his makeshift poncho, he clutched his Sig assault rifle, holding it tight against his chest. His helmet and NVGs were clipped to his belt. He was looking for a safe place to hole up, just like Smith had instructed. How long he would heed this instruction was up for debate. He scanned the perimeter and windows of the unlit building for movement. Finding none, he scanned the row of two- and three-story buildings down the street—storefronts on the ground level with apartments above. He saw one, and only one, vehicle, a black BMW sedan of all things, parked on the street. The 7 Series looked to be early 2000s vintage and was beat to hell. The windows and tires were intact, however, despite bullet holes dimpling the bodywork.
A BMW 7 Series in Syria, he thought. Somebody thinks he’s the mack daddy . . .
The blackout tinted windows prevented Dempsey from seeing inside the cabin. Just in case, he pulled the spotter scope out of his kit, switched on the thermal function, and raised it to his right eye. The engine compartment glowed an angry orange, the heat suggesting the car had been recently driven. More interesting, the car was occupied, a single thermal image sitting behind the wheel.
Dempsey replaced the scope in his kit and pursed his lips.
Unlikely this guy was a pastry chef waiting until dawn to open his bakery. Probably local Mafia waiting to confront a local business owner and bully his weekly tribute. Dirtbag or not, I can’t afford to get involved, Dempsey told himself and decided to circle back south around the warehouse and look for a way inside. He was surprised Baldwin hadn’t gotten comms back up yet. What the hell was going on in Turkey, anyway? He desperately needed intel on Amanda Allen. Trying to find her alone had been a stupid idea. Really, what was his plan . . . walk door to door and ask every person who answered, “Hi, I’m John. Never mind the assault rifle under my poncho. Have you seen the kidnapped CIA agent I’m looking for?”
As he rose from his combat crouch and began to back out of his hide, the BMW’s engine roared to life. Dempsey dropped back to a knee and made himself small. Had he been made by the jerkoff in the sedan? But despite the running engine, the driver kept the headlights off and the car idling at the curb. Then, in his peripheral vision, Dempsey noticed headlights approaching from the south.
Maybe this is a meet?
His mind started playing out a fantastical scenario—maybe the dude in the BMW was a sex trafficker. Maybe he’d bought Amanda Allen from the terrorists and this was the swap. Don’t be ridiculous, he scolded himself. This is what happens when you don’t sleep for two days. Besides, coincidences like that just didn’t happen. Yet despite knowing this, his body was creeping forward anyway. He advanced until he reached a large gray power junction box and crouched behind it. He strained to see whether the approaching cars—two of them—were the vehicles that had left the compound with Allen. His right hand found the grip of his Sig Sauer rifle, and his index finger slid to the ready position on the trigger guard.
