Choke Point

by Tom Clancy

  ‘Come on, bro, let’s go,’ said 30K. ‘Don’t blow another second thinking about this scumbag.’

  Kozak wished it were that easy, that he could be that cold. Other times he’d look at 30K and hate what he saw: a dark vacuum in the man’s eyes that allowed him to operate without feeling, passion, or judgment.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Prior to becoming a Ghost, Alicia Diaz had won the Service Rifle category of the National Long Range Rifle Championship at Camp Perry, Ohio, for two years running. Her record on the Ghost’s shooting range for longest bull’s-eye still held, and her reputation and exploits on missions in China and elsewhere with then Captain Scott Mitchell had been analysed and discussed for years after by men like Pepper, 30K and Kozak. Why Ross hadn’t told the team that she, a legendary Ghost now retired, would be getting out of that sedan was a mystery. Maybe the captain didn’t know? Or maybe he didn’t consider that information important?

  Pepper sure did.

  He couldn’t wait to shake Diaz’s hand, hoping some of her marksmanship would rub off and that she’d offer a tip or two. Share a secret. Let him buy her a drink.

  A man must have his dreams.

  After leaving the Army, Diaz had taken a position as a paramilitary operations officer with the CIA’s Special Activities Division. She engaged in covert intelligence gathering with people like herself, former Special Forces operators from all branches of the service. Given the team’s most recent ‘encounters’ with her agency, Diaz’s presence was long overdue. Pepper hoped she could shed some light on Delgado’s position, motives and whereabouts, and restore their faith in an agency whose unwillingness to cooperate seemed to be undermining national security (in Pepper’s humble opinion).

  Admittedly a little starstruck, Pepper shifted past Ross and was the first to greet the former Ghost. ‘Hello, ma’am. I’m Master Sergeant Robert Bonifacio, but they call me Pepper. I don’t want to sound cheesy, but this is a real honor.’

  Diaz had remained fit, only a streak of gray near one temple betraying her age, the rest of her jet-black hair pulled into a ponytail. She could star in a Nike commercial. She looked part embarrassed, part flattered by his comment. ‘Nice to meet you, Pepper.’

  ‘Let me introduce you to the team. This is Kozak, 30K, and that’s our Ghost lead, Captain Andrew Ross, who used to be a command master chief SEAL. How do you like that?’

  Kozak and 30K gave Diaz awkward nods while, behind her, two men dressed business casual and easily mistaken for locals came forward to stand near Takana.

  Ross shook Diaz’s hand and said, ‘Ms Diaz, your reputation obviously precedes you.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain. I’ve had a chance to work with a few of your colleagues, real first-class operators.’

  ‘I’m sure they are. Now would you mind telling me what the hell is going on?’

  Diaz’s grin evaporated, and Pepper, too, was taken aback by Ross’s tone. Pepper wanted to say something, but he’d catch hell for it later.

  ‘Captain, I understand your frustration.’

  ‘No, ma’am, you don’t. If I’m going to put my people in harm’s way, I want to know why. If we’re here to clean up your mess, then at least have the decency to admit it.’

  ‘I promise you, we’ll talk. Right now we’ll take Takana off your hands. Your team rides in the taxi. We’ll begin tracking the arms.’

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but you didn’t answer my question.’

  Diaz moved up to Ross and lowered her voice. ‘Look, as one old Ghost to another, don’t ask that question.’

  ‘The major told me you’d be an ally.’

  ‘Langley doesn’t even know I’m here. I owe your boss a few favors. Now, if you and your team will get in my car, we can talk and monitor the shipment at the same time, instead of standing here, choking our chains.’ Diaz whirled and headed back toward her car.

  Diaz’s men escorted Takana over to the taxi cab.

  Ross jogged over to the taxi to intercept them, and Pepper couldn’t hear that exchange. He headed over to Diaz, who turned back and said, ‘I used to envy your job. Then I had it. Now I’m glad I’m out.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Long story.’

  ‘Over beers tonight?’

  She sighed then looked away. ‘If you’re still here.’

  Pepper felt his cheeks warm.

  Ross returned and said, ‘Everybody? Let’s roll.’ He faced Pepper. ‘What?’ Then he looked to Diaz. ‘We good?’

  ‘Yes, Captain. We’re fine.’

  Just before they got in the car, Kozak leaned in to Pepper and whispered, ‘I think you got a shot with her. Pun intended, ha-ha.’

  ‘Shut up, asshole.’

  Diaz promised that Takana would be transferred to one of the Agency’s private jets and flown down to Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport. At a facility near there, the CIA ran a counter-terrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives. The program was aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted ‘combat’ operations against Islamic militant groups like Bedayat jadeda. When she wasn’t out in the field, Diaz taught classes there.

  She had guaranteed that Takana and his family would be protected but said that relocating them would pose some challenges. She’d asked Ross why he was so concerned about helping a drug and weapons smuggler, and he’d just shrugged and said, ‘Good people in bad situations … sometimes they just do bad things. You change the situation, and sometimes you fix the problem.’

  ‘Be nice if it were that simple,’ she said. ‘I think your faith in Mr Takana might be a little misplaced.’

  ‘I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met just like him, people caught up in the shit with no way to escape. They don’t even remember how they got there. I haven’t given up hope yet.’

  ‘Wow, and I thought being cynical and pissed off came with the territory.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Ross warned her. ‘I still feel that way about you … and your people …’

  She rolled her eyes.

  He glanced out the window. They were headed north toward the port, following a strip of paved road running through rolling desert hills as mottled as tanned leather. 30K drove, with Kozak running shotgun. Ross, Pepper and Diaz were crammed into the backseat. Pepper had made sure to sit next to Diaz, his ‘fascination’ with her schoolboy-obvious and stronger than his resentment for her employers.

  ‘Looks like they’re still heading toward the port,’ Ross said, studying a map of Sudan with the tracking beacon’s location superimposed with a flashing red dot and data box displaying latitude and longitude. In another window flashed satellite photos of the tractor-trailer as it moved up the highway, passing beneath a broad stone archway.

  ‘I have another car at the port that’ll pick them up, so no worries, Captain, we have backup,’ said Diaz.

  ‘Must’ve been something big,’ Ross said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The favor you owe Mitchell.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because you’ve got, what, two teams already helping?’

  ‘Three, actually. All local informants employed by me, all unknown to Langley.’

  ‘So what do you know?’

  ‘That’s the thing. Not much more than you. This one’s completely compartmentalized. And to be honest, that scares the shit out of me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it means they’re trying to plug a leak.’

  ‘A mole? Rogue? Double agent?’

  She took a deep breath, clearly disgusted. ‘Delgado is a wild card. They put Tamer on him, even though I warned against it. I worked with Tamer once before, and I told them he couldn’t be trusted.’

  Ross stiffened. ‘You know the whole story?’

  ‘If you’re talking about the boy in Tobruk that he recruited and killed, then yes. Wouldn’t be the first time he’s terminated his own informant.’

 
‘Son of a bitch.’

  She shifted in her seat to face him. ‘Ross, let me tell you something. It’s a lot different on my side of the fence. They tell you to gather the intel. They tell you not to break the law. But they don’t ask questions.’

  ‘And you’re okay with that?’

  ‘No, I’m not. But sometimes I have to be … if I want to stay alive.’

  Ross swore under his breath. They were both caught between duty and politics, between doing what was morally correct and what would best keep the country safe. If making those decisions had been easy, neither of them would have been there …

  ‘All right, you’ve been around this block a few times and so have I,’ he said. ‘So what do we got? SAMs smuggled out of Libya, flown down to Sudan, and off to where? Afghanistan?’

  ‘Maybe. Or the missiles could stay right here in Africa. You know, I could rattle off twenty other places they could go – Basilan, Chechnya, Syria …’

  Ross felt her frustration. ‘Here’s something else bothering me. Why are the FARC being used overseas? Why doesn’t Hamid use his own people?’

  ‘Our intel on the Bedayat is still fragmentary and evolving. His al Qaeda allies are dead or in prison, so he’s developing a new network. He’s still recruiting the bulk of his force now. Maybe he’s just brought over the FARC to bolster his numbers.’

  ‘Either that or he’s not wasting his people on these security missions because he needs them someplace else.’

  ‘And where’s that?’

  Ross glanced at his tablet computer. ‘I’m just a guy following a truckload of SAMs. You’re the intelligence agent.’

  She snickered. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be more … intelligent.’

  ‘I was going to say enlightening.’

  ‘Look, once we get to the port, we’ll figure out what these bastards plan to do with the SAMs, then I can tap a few more resources if I need them.’

  ‘I’m willing to bet our boy Delgado has all the answers. You guys need to find him.’

  ‘Oh, trust me. We will.’

  THIRTY-NINE

  Soon Port Sudan and its environs rose out of the ancient sands of the coastline desert, and Ross had never seen so many cargo ships gathered in one place, with forty-foot-long intermodal containers stacked like colorful pieces of Lego across their decks. The deep, coral-free harbor allowed those vessels to arrive with imports of machinery, cars, fuel oil and construction materials, while cotton, gum arabic, oilseeds, hides and skins and senna were shipped out. Behind the port lay the oil refinery receiving petroleum from onshore wells and piping more oil down to Khartoum.

  They followed the GSIC tractor-trailer to the south side of the harbor, where the truck vanished down a road leading through a vast shipyard of cargo containers stacked in a labyrinth of rows and avenues. Diaz suggested they hold back there.

  Within minutes the truck passed under a network of blue scaffolding as large as any major bridge Ross had seen, but that framework was actually part of the elaborate container crane system that traversed the quay and was equipped with a moving platform or spreader. The spreader lowered down on the container, fitting into the container’s four corner castings, then twistlocked into place.

  Ross watched as the spreader descended now toward a container positioned at the edge of the yard. He tugged out a pair of binoculars, rolled down his window, and turned his attention toward the cargo container ship being loaded. She belonged to the Maersk Line out of Liberia, the word ‘MAERSK’ prominently displayed on her hull. Diaz was pulling up data on the ship since the tractor-trailer was now parked, the pallets being offloaded into a container whose number – 11132001 – Ross forwarded back to Fort Bragg.

  ‘Okay, I’ve got it,’ Diaz said. ‘That ship’s the Ocean Cavalier, Liberian registry.’

  ‘Bound for –’ Ross began.

  ‘Bound for a number of ports, any one of which could be our transfer point. Her first stop is Massawa in Eritrea, followed by the Port of Aden in Yemen.’

  The latter struck a nerve with Ross.

  The very first attack ever carried out by al Qaeda occurred in Aden back in late December ’92. A bomb had been detonated at the Gold Mohur Hotel, where US troops were staying while en route to Somalia. Thankfully, the troops had already left before the explosion, but years later other American servicemen were not so lucky:

  On 12 October 2000, the USS Cole, an Arleigh Burke–class destroyer, was moored and refueling at the port when she was attacked. The bastards came up alongside the destroyer in a small craft carrying four hundred to seven hundred pounds of explosives molded into a shaped charge. At 11:18 a.m. the bomb went off, blowing a gaping, forty-by-forty-foot hole in the Cole’s port side. Seventeen crew members were killed with another thirty-nine injured. The current rules of engagement at the time had prevented the Cole’s guards from firing upon the small boat as it approached, and even after the explosion, as a second boat neared, guards had been ordered to stand down.

  Never again, Ross thought, gritting his teeth in anger. ‘So Aden’s on their list,’ he said. ‘But what if the SAMs never get there? What if they’re transferred at sea?’

  ‘No way,’ said Diaz. ‘Certainly not without us knowing about it.’

  ‘Can we get on that ship?’ Ross asked.

  ‘I’d advise against it. I’ll see if we can put up a long-range drone to shadow her.’

  ‘The beacon’s still good,’ said Ross. ‘But for how long? And good luck getting a drone up in this airspace.’

  ‘Sir, may I interrupt?’ asked Kozak from the front seat. ‘The tracker’s signal is clean, and for now the ship’s not out on the ocean, so it’s pretty doubtful we’ll lose contact. Maziq and the ISA are still tracking as well. Let’s just fly ahead of her. Get down to Massawa and wait. No chance of being spotted in a boat while trying to tail her. We know where she’s going, so we should have the advantage.’

  ‘I can get you a flight down there,’ said Diaz.

  ‘Let me clear it with Mitchell,’ said Ross, trying to ward off his skepticism.

  Diaz booked them passage to Massawa via one of the Agency’s Gulf Stream jets. She told them not to bitch, as they were flying first class, and the jet was, in a word, sweet. There in Massawa, holed up in a hotel near the airport, they continued to track the Ocean Cavalier, and when she came into port the next day, they waited with bated breath while she unloaded.

  The missile container was not moved.

  With impatience clinging to them like napalm and igniting their tempers, the team got back on another jet, this one a Yakovlev Yak-40 three-engine airliner provided by Mitchell’s contacts with the Yemeni Air Force. They flew to the Port of Aden, landing approximately eighteen hours before the ship was due to arrive.

  On the tarmac they got a better look at the ancient city that lay in the caldera of an extinct volcano. Behind them rose the Shamsan Mountains, and farther off towered the lattice-work of cranes at the Aden Container Terminal on the north shore of the Inner Harbor.

  They were met at their jet by a man pushing seventy who looked more like a sorcerer than a van operator. He ambled up to Ross and grunted in Arabic, ‘Are you trying to find your luggage?’ He stroked his wispy beard as though it helped him to think, and when he smiled, his picket fence of broken teeth made it difficult for Ross to return the same.

  ‘Are you trying to find your luggage?’

  That was the challenge question the major had given to Ross, and this old man knew it.

  ‘Yes, we’re looking for our luggage,’ Ross told him.

  The driver nodded and said, ‘Then come with me, lads.’

  He spoke perfect English with a British accent.

  They climbed into the van – a Mercedes whose seats were worn to the springs and whose engine gurgled as though it were running on mouthwash. The driver handed out small branches with dark green leaves.

  Pepper and 30K had tentative looks on their faces, and Ross gave them a nod of reassurance. Kozak leaned ov
er and whispered, ‘Some kind of gift?’

  ‘They call it khat,’ Ross explained. ‘You pluck off the leaves and chew them. Numbs your mouth a little. Tastes good.’

  Kozak was about to pluck a leaf when Ross stopped him. ‘Gets you high, too.’

  ‘Okay, boss,’ Kozak said, then tucked the branch into his pocket. He winked. ‘I’ll save it for later.’

  ‘You’ll throw it away, thanks,’ snapped Ross.

  ‘Uh, okay. No getting high while on the clock. I see how it is now …’

  Ross grinned and thumbed on his tablet computer. He checked the map, along with their current GPS coordinates and accompanying landmark photographs.

  Aden was shaped like a ladle whose handle was an isthmus connecting it to the mainland. The region was divided into a number of subcenters, with the original port city appropriately called Crater and comprised of tiny homes and apartments jammed along narrow streets leading to a central marketplace. The area had once been part of the British Commonwealth, clearly evidenced by the clock tower known as the ‘Big Ben of the Arabs.’ The tower, whose bell rang every hour, had been constructed of black brick and stood some twenty-two meters, with a brilliant redbrick roof that dominated the harbor’s skyline.

  The driver navigated through the warren of both dirt and asphalt roads, taking them into the heart of the city, to a six-story apartment building abutting the steep walls of the caldera. The building’s perfectly square balconies formed a patchwork of chipped plaster railings festooned with multicolored laundry lines and dotted by portable air conditioners dripping with sweat. More residences had been built within the caves of the craterside above, and Ross imagined that if the volcano ever became active, Aden would become a modern-day Pompeii, leveled by a lake of lava.

  The van pulled up outside the apartments, and standing in the shadows of an alcove before a pair of warped wooden doors was a bony man with a square jaw and narrow mustache. If this weren’t Yemen, Ross might mistake this man for a carny working the Ferris wheel at Saint Matthew’s annual picnic back in Virginia Beach. He raked a hand through greasy hair and wiped sweat from his brow. He was probably Ross’s age, his temples as gray as hot briquettes. Although he was dressed in civilian clothes, Ross recognized him from the intel photo Mitchell had provided. This was Naseem, a colonel with the Yemeni Republican Guard and a paid informant working for the CIA. His gaze lifted to the street beyond them, checking with an almost mechanical precision for observers before he left the alcove and hustled down to the van, opening the sliding door.