Sting of the Wasp

by Jeff Rovin

  The captain considered this, then shook his head. He spoke to El-Hashem, who seemed disappointed.

  “The captain says that if he talks to this person, he will convince him to do something stupid.”

  “Something to help your country,” Williams fired back.

  El-Hashem shrugged. “If the day has come that the royal family needs our help, then the country is already doomed.”

  Williams could not and did not dispute that.

  Besides, Breen had a better idea.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  West Wing, The White House

  July 24, 7:00 p.m.

  It was said that spies knew when some important offensive was being planned at the White House by watching the number of food delivery trucks coming and going. Tonight, Matt Berry would have advised them to watch for unlicensed pharmaceutical dealers—of which there were more than a few—dropping off amphetamines. Even interns were handling crises with the media, every agency including the Department of the Interior and Housing and Urban Development needed immediate funding for added security, and the security organizations were tripping over one another following clues.

  Most of them still had Ahmed Salehi in or having left Antigua—including one rumor that he had been extracted by Iranian submarine. Which would not have been a bad scenario if Tehran were suicidally inclined to be surrounded by American and European sea power and caught, or sunk, with Salehi onboard.

  That was the kind of scenario that precipitated this shitstorm, he thought. Iran, a ship, a nuke, and Captain Salehi.

  His SID sat in his open left hand. Coffee rested in his right. Behind him was an invisible army, troops of hard cash. He had thrown it at every aspect of this mission. That had been easy and effective. But it was crunch time now, with the president set to turn his information loose on the other intelligence agencies unless Berry could give him not just a progress report but, as the president had put it:

  “Something really encouraging, Matt. Something with a clock ticking a very short countdown.”

  The damn thing was, when he arranged for Black Wasp to rendezvous with the Dima, there had been only a faint glimmer of a chance that Berry could finish what he had begun. The oil tanker was a day and a half from Aden. He did not believe, could not believe, that Salehi would stay tucked in some safe house for long. Like bin Laden, he would have to get lost somewhere, not by accident but by design. And if the design were good enough, it would take years to find him—if he could be found at all.

  The reason for the rendezvous was that Berry was beginning to feel the cold breath of failure on his neck. He had stuck that neck out for the first time in a long time—impulsively due to a confluence of the Intrepid attack, Op-Center being shut down, and General Lovett having called the president to implore him to let Black Wasp loose on this. First and foremost, relocating the team to the tanker was about getting them into a position of safety. He had been impressed by their dogged perseverance, especially Chase Williams, who had not been trained or prepared for any of this. He was driven, Berry guessed—and the DCS knew him well enough to speculate—by one part patriotism to nine parts flagellation for the intelligence failure that permitted the attack.

  But their deaths or, worse, their capture on top of the failure of a black ops mission would not only end his career, it would have him on trial for money laundering, suppression of intelligence, and whatever other vindictive charges the Justice Department, January Dow, and even the “I knew nothing” president could hurl at him.

  Berry had not actually used speed since his college days, but he knew he should probably be taking Valium instead of swimming in caffeine. But as much as he wanted to relax, he dared not.

  Better to think in fast motion, he told himself, downing the final gulp of lukewarm black coffee.

  It had also not been since his college days that he wanted a phone to ring so damn bad. Back then it was Patty, whom he stupidly thought he could woo from the team quarterback with the lurid appeal of his off-campus poker games. He was wrong because he did not understand women. He still didn’t, though now he could buy whoever or whatever he failed to otherwise persuade—

  The SID played “Ride of the Valkyries.”

  Williams, he thought, upending the empty mug as he rushed to poke “answer.”

  “Go!” Berry said.

  “We’re going to need a lot of money,” Williams said without preamble. “The tanker has a helicopter deck with a helicopter. It’s the only way we get to Aden while we can be sure—relatively sure, anyway—that the target is still there.”

  That was a lot of qualifiers. And Williams was right: it would cost.

  “Chase, are you and your team even in any condition to continue?”

  “I honestly do not know,” he admitted. “I’m lying down, talking to you. But we are still the only ones in striking distance, yes?”

  “Short of Tomahawk missiles flattening the port,” Berry acknowledged, “which would cause immense collateral damage, including Saudi, and cost us the proof of a body, just scraps of DNA that no one would believe.”

  “All of that,” Williams agreed, “plus your ass on a public griddle for sitting on this information.”

  “Yeah,” Berry agreed. “Yeah. But if you are taken—”

  “Bad PR,” Williams agreed. “And it doesn’t do the four of us a world of good either. But taking the target, getting him so soon—that’s worth the risk.”

  Berry wasn’t about to disagree. Covert ops was always a risk, which is why he had always preferred the safety of money to buy the disloyalty of foreign nationals.

  “Look, I know Kathleen Hays,” Williams said. “Tell her it’s my ass and she has to narrow the target. And thank her, for me. But before you do that, text Captain Al-Sowayel and pay him whatever he wants to buy that helicopter and a pilot.”

  Berry said he would try and clicked off.

  Five minutes later, having spent a half-million dollars of the government’s money, Berry had hired himself an MH-6 “Little Bird” and pilot.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  The Tanker Dima, Red Sea

  July 25, 4:14 a.m.

  While the Black Wasp team recovered in the infirmary, a pair of seamen brought the lockers from the rowboat. They openly expressed surprise and a respectful but clear delight to see Grace with the men.

  “I think we just created a pair of potential émigrés,” Breen said, not entirely in jest.

  The return of the gear proved to be potent medicine for the group. While Williams had called Berry, Rivette had checked the guns and found them in good working order. Grace had discarded her sheaths—taking care to put the forbidden leather items in the locker, so as not to offend any devout crewmembers—and used elastic bandages to hold the blades to her legs. Cotton balls and bandages kept the points from stabbing her.

  El-Hashem came down to inform Williams that they had their helicopter and a pilot. The name of the volunteer was Oudah, a short, round-faced weightlifter who was former Saudi Royal Air Defense. The only English he knew were a few aviation terms. El-Hashem said that Oudah did not have to be persuaded to take the assignment. His younger brother had been a relief worker in Syria when he was captured by ISIS, placed in a cage, lowered by crane into a pool, and drowned. The underwater video was posted on a jihadi website. All Oudah asked was that, in the event he did not return, whatever fee the captain offered him be sent to his mother in Medina.

  Through the second mate, Oudah informed them that the helicopter was compact and maneuverable. It was able to seat six and had a range of 430 kilometers—a little more than enough to reach Aden. At a maximum speed of 282 kilometers an hour, they could make the trip in just under ninety minutes, given the rain and seven-mile-an-hour wind speed coming at them from the Gulf.

  They would have to have a place to land and also to refuel for the return trip and, working through relationships rather than channels, Captain Al-Sowayel had contacted an officer with the Royal Navy who agreed to obtain clear
ance for them to use a helipad that the Saudis had constructed off Sira Island in the Gulf of Aden.

  “But there is a—hitch,” El-Hashem said, after searching for the right word.

  “There is presently a disabled helicopter on the pad, its tail rotor chipped by gunfire. But Captain Al-Sowayel was assured that there is probably enough room to land a Little Bird.”

  Oudah seemed unfazed, convinced that he would find a way to make the Little Bird fit.

  “If not,” Rivette quipped, “we’ll just jump into the sea. Not like we haven’t been there before.”

  With preparations made, the team agreed that they should get to Aden as soon as refueling could be arranged—if it could be arranged. While they waited, Berry called back.

  “Kathleen has a likely target,” he told Williams. “There’s a pickup a few blocks from the dock that seems to match the outline of the one that met the jet in Hodeida. She only found it because one of the wardrobes she was tracking went there from a Sadi Shipping warehouse.”

  Berry sent over a satellite photo of the area, from directly overhead. There was an arrow pointing at the structure.

  “Good map for going in by air,” Williams said. “Did you thank Kathleen for me?”

  “I did not,” Berry admitted. “I got a qualified woman a job—that’s all I’m supposed to do.”

  It seemed odd for an international money launderer and feedbag for black operations to show such precise scruples, but Williams had to accept it.

  “What time did she ID him?” Williams asked.

  “About five minutes ago,” Berry said. “She hasn’t left her post.”

  “If I get stuck here,” Williams said, “you will thank her.”

  “You’re coming home,” Berry assured him. “Because I want you to stay with the chopper.”

  The suggestion was ludicrous. Williams said so.

  “These people have trained for this kind of takedown,” Berry said. “You have not. And friend—you get caught, you know pretty much everything.”

  That was true. But he still had no intention of staying behind. Not on a mission to get Salehi.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I’m going to use just one thing the Wasps have taught me—SITCOM.”

  With that, Williams hung up. The others were all looking at him.

  “Someone tell you to sit this out?” Rivette said.

  Williams nodded.

  “You’re a good man,” the lance corporal said admiringly.

  “Hey, my contact was not wrong,” Williams acknowledged.

  “You’d be a high-value get,” Breen speculated.

  “That’s right. But I won’t get ‘got.’”

  It was the first time Williams truly felt like a member of the team, the more so because no one made a fuss about it—he was the one who had put himself on the outside. The rest just went on with their preparations.

  * * *

  “So, we’ve got our Little Bird,” Rivette said as they rode the elevator to the helipad on the oil deck. “What’s that giant bird they have out here? The one from the Sinbad picture?”

  “A Roc,” Grace answered. “From the Arabian Nights stories.”

  “Right,” the lance corporal said. “So that’s about the only thing we haven’t ridden since we left home. Though I have to say—fishing boat, plane, chutes, tanker, chopper, bus, dump truck. A freakin’ elevator is the last thing I expected to be taking.”

  “Don’t forget the ambulance,” Grace said.

  “The RHIB and LCS 10,” Breen added dryly.

  Williams had not gotten to know Rivette, had spent no downtime with the man, and couldn’t say whether his comments were whistling past a graveyard or represented bona fide astonishment. It wasn’t the first joking remark he had made since they pinned down the passage to Aden. Given the dangers and constant, unexpected sharp turns the mission had taken, it probably would not be the last.

  He was feeling none of that. He was arm-weary, leg-weary, his eyes tired, and jet lag did not even begin to describe his disorientation. At least they had eaten on the tanker, so hunger was not an issue.

  But the dominant feeling he had was a wrathful kind of focus. He saw that image of Salehi in his mind, remembered what the man had done and why they were here, and he knew without question that nothing short of death was going to stop him from apprehending the man.

  And he could live with death, he had already decided, as long as he took Salehi with him. Williams could not speak for the others, but he sensed they would all act first and think about consequences later.

  Except for a generous spin in the dryer, their robes were as soiled and creased as when they had been pulled from the sea. Williams suggested, and the team agreed, that wear-and-considerable-tear would make it easier to blend in with the majority of the dockworkers if necessary. The weapons and SID were in the same places as they were before. Williams and Breen had both gotten used to keeping their right hand in their pocket, where the handguns were.

  The rain added a fresh touch of ruin to the robes as they hurried to the helicopter.

  The chopper lifted swiftly from the helipad, cutting through the low rainclouds but remaining below its flight ceiling of five thousand feet.

  “Steer clear of military traffic,” Breen noted when they leveled off under a sky rich with early-morning stars.

  How many early poets, astrologers, astronomers looked at these very lights, Williams wondered—once more, albeit briefly, contentedly in awe of where he was.

  * * *

  The flight was uneventful and, save for the beat of the rotors, blissfully quiet and smooth. The chopper dropped through the clouds in time to give them a view of the entire port, which faced the very tip of the Red Sea on the west and the Gulf of Aden to the south. This gave the team a chance to peer through the rain-splashed windows and put three-dimensional images on the flat maps and photographs they had seen.

  The port was large and, at least geographically, Instagram perfect. Their approach took them over the Sira Fortress on Sira Island. Lit by the rising sun, the eleventh-century edifice looked particularly photogenic in the rain, its brownish stones standing out on a promontory of green trees and lower foliage. To the southwest, the island was connected to the mainland by a short stretch of highway. Shipping was clustered on the northwest side of the island, on the Gulf of Aden. The primary activity seemed to be among the fishing fleet, which sold their produce—peace permitting—at the fish market, also on the southeastern coast.

  Their destination, the Gulf warehouse area, was new, built and owned by Sadi Shipping. An ambitious port had been under construction when hostilities between Shia and Sunni flared; it was unfinished and marginally accessible to small cargo ships. It seemed to Williams that the tankers in the Gulf were a symbol of the failed state; they frequently bypassed the tortured city for safer ports.

  The helicopter landed artfully on the pad. The helipad crew had maneuvered the grounded UH-1 Huey as far to the side as they could pull it by winch and powerboat. There was just barely enough room to accommodate the diameter of the main rotor; as it was, the backwash against the Huey rocked them when Oudah set down. The helipad was vulnerable to the wake of every ship that came by, making it difficult for the team to cross the rain-slickened surface and adjacent walkway to the dock.

  Oudah stopped Williams and pointed to a small aviation-fuel tanker. It was dwarfed by a ship-fuel tanker that would sail into the Gulf and resupply vessels that were just passing through. Williams nodded with understanding as the pilot threw him a salute and hurried off to see to the refueling.

  Williams caught up to the others and noticed Grace looking at him critically—not directed at him but at the world. To her, Oudah had assumed Williams was the commander. Williams had not walked a lifetime in her boots, had not had to endure ageism, did not want to judge her reaction.

  Only the timing, he thought. Social offense was not something one should nurse before going into battle. Nothing that might impact focu
s should find purchase in a soldier’s mind or heart. In his experience, that was something the younger generation of soldiers had not learned.

  The rain kept activity on the dock limited to the pair of small cargo ships. With so few people—all of whom wore gloves and work boots—mingling was not an option.

  “The warehouse,” Breen said, pointing ahead. “Second of four.”

  The others looked at the row of plain, gray cinderblock structures. They were built to withstand gunfire, possibly an artillery shell, perhaps even a sustained drone attack: heavy cinderblock walls, no windows, and a flat roof of a metal alloy that would probably not become superheated in the sun. There was an air-conditioning unit on the roof of each building along with a generator and a large water collector. No one saw any exterior stairs to the roof; those were probably securely inside the structures. But they did see security cameras in every visible corner of each building. The four of them stood waterside, studying the structure.

  “Built for a siege,” Breen noted.

  “Against the Saudis or antiterrorists?” Williams wondered.

  “You mean Sadi himself?” the major asked.

  “Couldn’t rule that out,” Williams said.

  “Spray paint on the side,” Rivette said. He was at an angle to notice a section of graffiti. “Anti-Saudi or anti-Yemeni, I wonder?”

  “Could be workers angry at their employer,” Breen said. “The Arab Spring unleashed a lot of rage.”

  “Except for knocking on the door, it doesn’t look like there’s any way in,” Williams said.

  “Even if we got in, we don’t know their numbers or how the place is guarded,” Grace said. “We go in there, we have to fight their fight. I was just thinking—surveillance showed they make trips to their vehicle, which would be at the far side of the complex. I wait inside—”