Countdown, page 4
Tyler says, “There’s been a foul-up in Operation Stunner.”
“Which one is that?”
“The team working with the Brits in the Lebanese mountains, near Syria.”
He remembers now. “Right. Two Abu Sayyaf leaders, heading to a summit in Syria. The one led by Captain Cornwall. That…difficult woman. Well?”
“The mission was a success,” Tyler says. “Both targets eliminated. But it looks like the British team has been captured, possibly by a Hezbollah-related militia.”
Ernest doesn’t like the sound of that. “I thought our latest intel was that the place had been swept. No hostiles in the area.”
“Obviously an error somewhere.”
“Obviously,” Ernest says. “Our folks?”
“Sir, that’s where it gets…odd.”
“Define odd.”
“A stealth air platform from the Night Stalkers was at the rendezvous point to exfil both teams. Our crew showed up, but they didn’t board the helicopter.”
“How do we know our folks were there? Was there radio traffic?”
“No, sir. The Night Stalkers saw them.”
“Doing what? Taking fire?”
“No…just standing down. Not moving. The Night Stalkers followed their orders. They took off. The last they saw, the three-member squad was returning to the mountains.”
Ernest puts his teacup down. “That Cornwall…” He pauses, shakes his head. That woman. Talking to her, working with her, planning with her, trying to make her just shut up and understand the Agency’s position on intelligence matters…some days it’s like trying to stop a spinning buzz saw with your fingers.
Still.
An opportunity has just arisen for him, and Ernest is always one for seizing such occasions when he can.
“All right,” Ernest says. “It looks like she’s run off on a rescue mission. See if we can’t get a communications drone overhead. Those mountains can play havoc with receiving and transmitting.”
“Yes, sir,” he says. “Do you want to talk to Horace Evans, then, to see what he might know on his end?”
Ernest nods. “Do it. Soonest.”
Tyler goes to the door and Ernest says, “Tyler, let’s set a deadline.”
“Sir?”
He carefully thinks through his options. “If we don’t hear anything positive in the next twenty-four hours, put out a leak to one of our friendly reporters covering national security. Just a whisper—an indication that a contract force working on their own has lost a team working inside Lebanon.”
“Plausible deniability,” Tyler says.
“Of course,” Ernest says. “If we have to cut them loose to protect the Agency, so be it. As of now, they’ve gone rogue. I won’t stand for it.”
Tyler bites his lower lip for a moment. “Don’t you think you might be acting…hastily? Sir? I mean, twenty-four hours…”
Protect the Agency, Ernest thinks. Both he and Tyler know what’s really going on here, not daring for it to be mentioned, but what’s really happening is that Ernest is protecting himself and his career, and his boss’s career.
Among other things.
The Agency can take a hit.
But Ernest refuses to let that happen to him.
“Tyler?”
“Sir?”
He picks up his teacup. “Make that twelve hours.”
Chapter 10
AT THE second thirty-minute mark of our slog up the narrow and winding trail, I call for a break.
It’s been a long, grueling hike, and I think fondly of growing up in Maine and going with my parents for weekend tramps in our stretch of the White Mountains. Here there’s nothing but rock, fissures, boulders, and the occasional winged creature flying overhead, and the distant bare ranges covered with snow and ice.
Jordan has Ollie’s weapon and is taking lead, and Santiago is now bringing up the rear. I’m in the middle with Jeremy, and he’s been one closed-mouth son of a bitch ever since leaving the farm and his dead comrade.
His clothes are a mess, one eye is swollen, he’s limping, there’s dried blood on his face—a mixture of his and Oliver’s, I’m sure—but I’ve yet to hear, “Thanks for saving my ass back there.”
Which isn’t surprising. Special Forces soldiers and sailors operate on a different plane than us regular grunts. They are incredibly competitive and have tremendous endurance—and most have all the conversational skills of a brick.
So Jeremy is typical.
But I know something else is going on.
We’re on the edge of a small plateau, with another long climb about fifty meters ahead, and I fiddle with the radio strapped to my waist. The resulting squeal of static in my left ear nearly makes me jump.
“I got a strong signal here, guys,” I announce. “Hold on.”
I start flipping through the various frequencies I’ve memorized when Jeremy appears next to me, limping and then slinging his H&K MP5 over his right shoulder.
“Amy, please,” he says. “Can I borrow your gear for a moment?”
“For real?” I ask, surprised.
“Please,” he says. “Just for a moment.”
I pause, but he looks so serious and determined that I undo my earpiece and pass it over to him. Jeremy stands close by, inserting the earpiece in his right ear.
I unclip my lapel microphone and hold it out to him. He works the frequencies on the radio, then nods and calls, “Crown, Crown, Crown, this is Scepter Four, Scepter Four.”
Santiago and Jordan see what’s going on, step in closer.
“Crown, Crown, Crown, this is Scepter Four, Scepter Four.”
I feel closed in with Jeremy standing so near me, smelling his sweat and grime, and I’m about to grab my radio gear back when I hear a voice come through the earpiece.
Jeremy grins. “Crown, Scepter Four.” He digs out a folded-over topo map from a coat pocket and says, “Requesting pickup. We’re at map coordinates—” He reads off a series of grid numbers, then repeats them and says, “Thanks awfully, Crown. Scepter Four, signing off.”
He hands me back the earpiece and microphone and says, “Always have a plan B, am I right? No offense to you and your wonderful Night Stalkers, but I think our airborne asset is just a bit closer.”
“How close?” Jordan asks.
“How does twenty minutes sound?”
Santiago grins. “Sounds excellent, Bro.”
I give Jordan and Santiago a stern look; getting the message loud and clear, they both walk back to their original positions.
I ask Jeremy, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Arranging a pickup.” He gestures to where Jordan is standing. “About twenty meters along this plateau, that’s where we need to be.”
“I should have known,” I say. “This is my operation.”
“You know how it is,” he says. “The way we do things.”
I step closer to him. “I don’t like secrets.”
His face—bloodied and beaten as it is—remains calm.
“That’s my business, Amy,” he replies. “Killing people and keeping secrets.” He tightens a rucksack strap, takes his weapon off his shoulder. “And that’s your business, too.”
We stare at each other, and then I start moving along the rocky trail and everyone else joins me.
Jeremy is 100 percent absolutely right. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to tell him that.
Chapter 11
TOM CORNWALL is walking along Broadway in lower Manhattan with his eleven-year-old daughter, Denise, next to him, keeping pace among the morning crowds. A block away is their destination, Olson Manhattan Preparatory School, and he feels a touch of sorrow walking with her.
Two weeks ago, Denise had said with great solemnness and dignity that she no longer wanted to hold her father’s hand as they walked to and from her school. Tom knows this is all part of the growing-up process, but still, it’s yet another clear signal that his and Amy’s little girl is on her way to leaving little-girl status behind.
It’s a beautiful May morning, and Denise looks ahead as they walk, expertly keeping pace with Tom. He is still impressed at how well Denise has adjusted to big-city life: just over a year ago, the three of them had been living in a pleasant little cul-de-sac in Virginia, with lots of open areas to play around in and practice her soccer.
Here, green space is at a minimum. The city is large, loud, and always on the go, but to Amy’s surprise and his, Denise had taken right to it.
“I can’t believe it,” Amy had once told him. “It’s like somebody came in the other night and swapped out our little girl with a city slicker.”
This particular city slicker has on a school uniform of black shoes, white knee socks, a dark blue skirt and matching jacket, and a plain white blouse. A Vera Bradley knapsack is on her back. When they come to the intersection with Pine Street, the familiar three-story brick building with a wrought-iron fence stands directly across the street. Morning rush-hour traffic roars, rumbles, and honks by as they wait for the light to change.
As he spends these precious moments with his daughter, two things are rattling around in his reporter’s mind, one being the story that he’s working on. There are just hints and whispers so far from his sources—unexpected movement of military units, meetings of intelligence officials—but Tom believes he has grabbed hold of something. If he keeps tugging, he believes it will lead him to a story about a terrorist attack being planned somewhere here or in Europe.
“Dad?” Denise asks, raising her voice to be heard above the traffic.
“Yes, Hon?”
“Where’s Mom?”
Ah, the same old question, with the same old disappointing answer. After Amy had taken her new job, the two of them told their inquisitive and smart little girl that her mother was a traveling consultant who helped governments research and purchase military-related hardware. Based on Amy’s years of service in the Army, it was the best they could do.
“She’s on a business trip. I hope she comes back soon.”
“Why doesn’t she call? Or email?”
“Well, sometimes Mom’s in a place where she can’t make a call or use a computer.”
Denise sighs. Horns sound up the street. An MTA bus grumbles by, soiling the near air with its diesel exhaust. A distant siren wails from an FDNY fire engine. And among the mass of people waiting for the light to change so they can cross the street, Tom is sure he senses one of his watchers.
That’s the other thing on his mind. For the past few days, ever since Amy left for her latest overseas trip, Tom has been convinced he’s being tailed. Nothing blatant—no, whoever’s doing this is pretty professional—but the sixth sense that has kept him alive while reporting from combat zones has told him folks are out there. A city sanitation worker staring at him for a second too long. A young woman paying undue attention to Tom’s reflection in a shop window. An unmarked white van that deliberately runs a red light so it can pull ahead of Tom’s place of work and stay there.
“Daddy?” Denise asks, interrupting him.
“Yes, Hon?”
She speaks louder. “Polly’s dad is in Brazil working for an oil company. In the middle of a jungle! And he FaceTimes her every night. Why can’t Mom do that?”
The light changes, blinking white for the pedestrians to move, and he and Denise join the crowd as it surges across the street. Tom reaches down to take his daughter’s hand.
She brushes it away.
“Because she just can’t,” he says. As the crowd surges past him, there—a familiar face passes by: the sanitation worker from two days ago.
Now dressed in a fine suit and a tan London Fog topcoat.
Chapter 12
I HEAR the hum of an approaching helicopter and take out my binoculars for a look-see. Even though we’re minutes away from the pickup, we haven’t let our guard down. Each of us is responsible for a compass quadrant of 90 degrees, so we’re lying down, weapons out, making sure nobody comes up and surprises us.
My left ear is still throbbing from the quick and brutal radio exchange I had a few minutes ago with a CIA communications officer overseeing our operations in this part of the world. If one cuts out the code words and phrases and obscenities, it reminds me of the fights I used to have with Dad back in Maine:
You were supposed to be back at eleven! It’s almost midnight!
Something came up. It’s the truth.
And what was so important that you didn’t come back at eleven like you promised?
Dad…
I have an idea that when I get back to the States, I’m going to lose a lot more than just my driving privileges.
The sound of the helicopter grows louder.
So what?
I got Jeremy back. And to my bosses, our primary kill mission was a success. And we got some intelligence along the way.
But poor Ollie—poor Oliver Davies. Sometime in the next twenty-four hours, a couple of somber men in dark suits will knock at a young Englishwoman’s door to tell her that she is now a widow, and that her love—her husband, the father of her children—is not coming home.
Some success!
And I feel a tinge of guilt, knowing that at some point soon after, I’ll be getting home to my beloveds—my Tom and our daughter, Denise—safe and sound once again.
“There she is,” Jordan calls out.
I squirm and aim my binoculars on the approaching helicopter as it flies close to the mountain peaks and the jagged ridgelines. I focus in and see that it’s a Sikorsky S-92 chopper. But it’s not military, painted in camouflage or olive drab; it’s bright yellow, with blue stripes.
Santiago says, “Where the hell is that thing from—Disney World?”
Jeremy grins. “British Petroleum, friend.”
Jordan says, “What? BP?”
I stand up and the others do the same. Jeremy says, “Haven’t you ever heard the sun never sets on the British business empire?”
My two Americans laugh and Jeremy laughs with them, but I don’t like his attitude. I don’t like what’s going on with him.
Something just isn’t right.
Even though our mission is over and we’re seconds away from being exfilled out of here, I sense something else is going on with Jeremy.
It’s like he’s looking beyond the here and now, to something else down the road.
I don’t like it.
The helicopter comes right in to our little rocky landing field, and I can just imagine what the pilot and crew must be thinking: pulled away from a standard civilian flight in the Mediterranean, then dispatched to this piece of rocky moonscape to pick up a squad of armed and nameless fighters?
I hope they get hazard pay.
I turn and crouch as the helicopter roars in for a landing, landing gear extended down from the large side nacelles, dirt and pebbles striking the back of my neck. When it touches the rocky ground, the near side door slides open, and I don’t have to say a word.
Jordan and Santiago race ahead, heads lowered, carrying their gear and weapons.
I join them, and Jeremy is right behind me.
Jordan goes in first, helps Santiago in. A crewman in a blue jumpsuit and wearing a large helmet takes their gear.
I toss in my rucksack and Santiago pulls me in.
I turn.
Jeremy is coming right behind me.
He’s coming right to the door.
He smiles.
Salutes.
Turns away.
The helicopter starts to lift up and I make a snap, crazy, and probably deadly decision.
I jump out.
Chapter 13
I HIT the ground and muscle memory from my Ranger training takes over, and I duck and roll like I’m landing after a parachute drop. The helicopter dips and increases its speed, and as I get up, Jeremy is standing right next to me, his face red and twisted with anger.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?” he screams.
I check myself and my gear, which isn’t much: just my MOLLE harness, radio, pistol, small water bottle, two spare magazines, and my MP5 over my shoulder. I take that off and say, “Pretty obvious, don’t you think?”
“You…you get on that radio and you call for someone to pick you up! Now!”
By now the helicopter is gone. “You don’t get to order me to do shit, Jeremy. According to both of our respective agencies and paperwork you signed and swore to, I’m still in charge of this operation.”
“This operation…” To see a rugged, determined, and armed SAS trooper search for words on other days would be amusing. But my sense of humor isn’t up and playing right now.
He grimaces. “Our operation is over. Completed. You have no right or purpose to be here. Call your CIA, your military, your goddamn JetBlue or someone to retrieve you, Amy. You don’t belong here!”
“Our operation is over when I say it’s over. And whatever you’ve got going on, you’re going to tell me, and if I think it’s appropriate, I’ll assist.”
“You…”
“You’re limping, you’ve been beaten up, you can barely see out of one eye,” I say. “Now, Jeremy Windsor, you have one minute to tell me what the hell is going on, and then we’re going to start moving, with me in the lead.”
He stares with fury and anger at me, his dirty, torn, and bloodied clothes flapping a bit in the mountain breeze that has come up.
“Pretty soon bad guys with guns in those hills are going to start talking to each other about a BP helicopter that flew in and then flew out,” I say. “Those were civilian pilots. You think they know how to do evasive maneuvers or flying? No. Nice job retrieving Santiago and Jordan, but they drew a very long arrow to where we’re standing.”
Jeremy’s still not talking. I say, “Meaning, someone might be hauling ass up here. And when they get here, it’s going to be just you and me.”
Now he speaks. “You don’t know that for sure.”
“Perhaps,” I say. “But I know something else.”
“What’s that?”
“You and Oliver, you wanted to get captured. Why?”
