Threat Zero

by Nicholas Irving

  Because this time she had found an angle, which she didn’t have before. While not a novice, she had believed that good old-fashioned hard work and retail politics would propel her to victory. Disavowed of that foolishness now, Brookes knew she needed something else. She had scouts in each government agency and even a few in the White House. The FBI was a particularly easy mark, given the politicization of that organization over the past several years.

  Her tip on Team Valid was solid. Better than solid. It was ironclad. Her contact there would make a good high-level appointee in her White House when she destroyed Smart. She had one mole in the FBI, one in the Director of National Intelligence, the former CIA director, and a prominent journalist. Should she win, she would gladly repay the favor.

  As far as leaving the members of Team Valid out in the cold, possibly exposing them, well, that would be on the current administration. There was no tracing this back to her. By dawn tomorrow morning the world would be breaking wide open with fresh allegations about the president’s private hit squad out for revenge against innocent women and children. The president would be accused of major violations of international law. If he had covered his tracks, then he would hang the Secretary of Defense or some general. But still, the damage could be insurmountable. Benghazi-like but worse and more damning. Provable of positive action taken by a president, as opposed to speculation of passive inaction not taken. Same result, sure, but it was the path that mattered.

  The entire country was Better with Brookes.

  Except, maybe, Team Valid.

  CHAPTER 10

  Harwood, Stone, and Weathers hugged the rock wall. The Shahed had not spotted them yet, but it was only a matter of time. The sun was definitely over the Caspian Sea, but the mountain range still cast a dark shadow over the valley and gorge where they hid.

  “We’re done, man,” Stone muttered.

  “One thing I know about helicopters is they need gas. The question is can we live long enough until they’re gone,” Harwood said.

  “He’s hovering,” Weathers said.

  The helicopter was stationary, the pilots perhaps believing that they had killed the invaders. Its fuselage was nearly at a perfect ninety-degree angle to Harwood’s line of sight.

  “Stand still,” Harwood said. He slid his rifle over Weathers’s right shoulder. The thermal optic gave him a perfect view of the pilot’s head, covered by the aviator helmet. The crosshairs held steady and Harwood squeezed the trigger. The muzzle flashed. The bullet cracked the windshield. The pilot’s head kicked to one side.

  Harwood switched to the copilot as the aircraft began to descend. He tried to lead, firing two rounds that missed their intended target. The helicopter banked hard and lifted into the air, preventing a crash into the jagged terrain to their front.

  “We’re burned now,” Stone said.

  “Hold tight,” Harwood replied.

  “Don’t blow out my eardrum, man,” Weathers said.

  As the copilot leveled the aircraft, Harwood took one final shot. This time hitting the neck of the copilot, who must have instinctively swatted at the wound, because his hand came off the controls and the helicopter bore into the ground. There was no explosion. Rather, the rotor blades kept turning until they were sheared to nubs by the granite walls of the crag into which it had fallen.

  “Good shot, bro,” Weathers said.

  “Let’s move. Not much time,” Harwood ordered. He led them into the road and began jogging. They passed the exploded and still burning cargo truck, its heat licking at their faces and feeling pretty good in the cool morning air. After another mile of moving quickly, they found their drop-off point.

  “See these tracks? This is where Farza dropped us. He said he would be another mile up the road.”

  They continued moving until they found the turnoff and small cave into which Farza had parked his truck. Stacking with their backs to the wall, Harwood was taking no chances. He looked at the tired faces of Weathers and Stone. They were running on fumes, having been in the bullet car wash all morning long. It sucked to be shot at. Naturally it was worse to be hit. So far they had literally dodged the bullets. A few scrapes and cuts were okay, part of the business.

  “Just like the battle drill,” Harwood whispered. He was referring to the squad-level task of entering a building and clearing a room. Each man had done a variation of that drill/task a thousand times.

  Both men nodded, their tired eyes more evident in the morning sunlight. The dawn of day was only a soldier’s friend when it was freezing and the “big heat tab in the sky” warmed his icy body. There were no other advantages to daylight for these men.

  Fortunately, there was enough darkness in the cave where they could swing in using flashlights and remain somewhat obscured. The ambient light from outside the cave would backlight them, but if they moved swiftly to the flanks, if there were flanks, they would be okay. Harwood’s mind buzzed. Something wasn’t right. Multiple combat rotations ingrained in him a sixth sense, an ability to determine if trouble was afoot.

  He looked at the sand leading off the two-track road upon which they had traveled. Tire marks went in, but not out. Good enough. But he also saw multiple boot prints on the tire tracks. Looking back at Weathers and Stone, who were so close he could smell them, he motioned at the prints. Counting at least three sets of boot prints, he held up three fingers then motioned that he would go left, pointed at Weathers to go right, and Stone to watch the entrance. Stone used a hand to lift the body of a stun grenade off his outer tactical vest, in essence asking, “Do we want to lead with this?”

  Harwood shook his head. He didn’t want to risk damaging the only means of transportation out of the valley and back to the Kurds. He mouthed, “Follow me,” and stepped into the cavern.

  Peeling left, Harwood held his SR-25 sniper rifle at the ready. His rail-mounted flashlight poked a strong beam into the darkness. There was the truck. No driver. He was able to move left out of the funnel of the cave mouth. Weathers was moving to the right, his flashlight providing more light in the darkness.

  No sign of Farza.

  The cave seemed deep, like an abyss. The light ended before any cave wall could be seen. Harwood sensed other humans, though. Smelled them. To his left, he saw the beady eyes of a man crouched low. The flashlight caught the glint of a weapon barrel. He wasn’t able to distinguish whether the man was Farza or some nameless enemy, but the movement of the weapon toward him was reason enough for Harwood to snap off two rounds into the man’s face. Harwood’s first thought was that Farza was disposable as long as the truck worked. Though he hoped he hadn’t just killed their guide.

  A fusillade of gunfire peppered the cave wall behind him. Weathers fired from the opposite side and Harwood returned fire at the sparking muzzle flashes deep in the recesses of the cave.

  This was definitely an ambush.

  Stone collapsed into the cave and crawled into the cab of the truck. Harwood shouted, “Crank it!” He continued charging to the back of the cave, returning fire, with Weathers on his flank, hanging in his periphery.

  “One down!” Harwood shouted as he shone his light on the Iranian soldier.

  “Two down!” Weathers replied.

  Three sets of boot prints. Where was the third man?

  Pistol fire erupted in the truck. Harwood shouted, “Cover the rear of the cave!” He ran to the back of the truck and saw Farza with his throat slit lying in the back, blood pooling around his body. Another man was on his back, Stone standing over him with pistol drawn in a two-handed grip. His head split a canvas curtain that separated the cab from the cargo bed of the truck.

  “Bitch almost got the jump on me,” Stone said.

  “Farza’s dead. Let’s go,” Harwood said.

  Weathers collapsed into the back of the truck. He helped Harwood drag the Iranian body out of the bed and dump him on the cave floor. Harwood snatched the keys from Farza’s pocket, along with the man’s wallet and identification.

  �
�I know like five words of Farsi,” Weathers said.

  “Five more than I know,” Harwood countered. They dumped Farza’s body in the cave. Harwood said, “Cover from back here. I’ll take the right flank in the cab.”

  Weathers laid down and extended the bipods on his SR-25. Harwood crawled through the curtain into the cab of the truck and said to Stone, “Let’s go. Make a left and let’s get as far as we can.”

  Stone nodded, cranked the engine, and they began bouncing out of the cave and onto the road. They rode in silence for about an hour, the road straight and narrow. The general sense was as long as no one said anything, then everything would remain the same. No detection. Escape and evade. Mission almost accomplished.

  With every mile, every minute, the tightness in Harwood’s throat eased a fraction, but just a tiny bit because they were a long way from home. They had just ambushed a wealthy Iranian family and fought both the Iranian military and air force. There was no denying that they were deep in enemy territory without any assistance to exfiltrate out of there. No magic Chinook helicopters. No Navy SEALs would be coming to their aid.

  They were Team Valid. Off the books. And in Harwood’s mind, about as invalid as they could be. But still, they pushed ahead. When he wasn’t thinking about the task at hand—crossing the border into Turkey—his mind drifted to the righteousness of their mission.

  Were they killing the right people? Was their mission, in fact, valid?

  The sun was at full bore. Just by looking out the window, Harwood could feel the pressure brought on by the rising sun. The morning haze was burning off and the sun was a stage light following their every move. The deep ravine through which they had been traveling eventually leveled out into a widening riverbed, or wadi, as Harwood and his Ranger buddies called these washouts. Stone drove fast, but with control. Personality conflicts aside, the man could operate. High-risk operations tended to blight even the most adversarial relationships in favor of survival. The truck slowed almost to a stop as Stone navigated through a deep washout in the road. Each tire fell into the rut and then Stone accelerated out, spinning up the opposite side of the ravine. This was nothing but a trill with a little flow of water, but enough to carve away much of the road. Once up and on the other side, Harwood nodded.

  “Good job. About ten miles to the border,” Harwood said, checking his GPS. Whether they should have crushed the TacSleeves or not remained to be seen. Certainly, navigation would have been better with them, but if they had indeed been compromised, then they had made the right decision.

  Stone nodded, focused, eyes on the road, hands gripping the steering wheel at ten and two o’clock, one foot on the accelerator, the other on the brake.

  “Vehicle, six o’clock,” Weathers shouted.

  “Dammit,” Harwood said. Though he knew their luck wouldn’t hold, that they would have to fight at some point in time, there had been a small glimmer of hope blossoming in the back of his mind.

  “Two trucks. Techs. Fifty cals on the back,” Weathers shouted. Harwood stepped through the curtain, saying, “Keep driving and let me know if you need help up here.”

  Lying next to Weathers, Harwood popped the bipods on his SR-25, looked through his scope, and assessed the situation.

  “No shots?”

  “Nothing yet,” Weathers responded.

  The two tan pickup trucks were about a half mile away and had men wearing checkered scarves and flowing white robes. Dust clouds rose behind them like jet contrails in the sky. At these speeds, they could make it another couple of miles before they had to engage. If they could kill early they might be able to prevent any significant reporting to higher headquarters that could muster larger forces. The good news was that so far they had not seen any further aviation since the initial confrontation. The bad news was that could change any second.

  “Bouncing too much for a clean shot,” Harwood said.

  “Agree. Better to wait. Maybe a turn somewhere and get stationary,” Weathers muttered.

  Through the scope, Harwood’s sight picture bounced all over the place. The trucks were in the picture, then out. Dust plumes billowed as Stone spun the wheels through sandy patches. The engine roared at varying pitches. Nothing sounded good. Everything was hanging by a thread. Should they press ahead or should they stop and shoot?

  The truck made a sharp turn and began to climb. This was a good sign. They were entering the mountainous area from which they had descended last night on their infiltration route. The cover and concealment would be more plentiful in the mountains, also. Through the back of the truck, Harwood’s view was blocked by a jagged rise in the terrain as Stone’s ascent along the road continued. Soon, he was able to look down on the road again and could see the trucks.

  They were approaching the trill with the water and the deep cut.

  Harwood jumped up and crawled to the cab.

  “Find a spot here. We’ve got two techs on our trail and we’re going to plink them at the cutout we just went through.”

  “Low on gas and low on time, man,” Stone countered.

  “Just do it. Then we’ll haul ass.”

  Stone nodded.

  The Iranians in the pickup trucks slowed at the trill. Stone pulled over and nosed the vehicle to the west to give Harwood and Weathers better shots.

  “Thirty seconds, then we’re moving,” Harwood said.

  “I’ve got good field of fire and good sight picture,” Weathers said.

  “You take the right and I’ll take the left,” Harwood directed. “Send it when ready.”

  “Roger.”

  Harwood studied his vehicle target. It had pulled behind what was now the lead vehicle as they approached the deep wadi. The individual manning the .50 caliber DShK machine gun in the back was watching the deep cut and was holding on to the grips of the large weapon. Considering him the most immediate threat, Harwood led the man’s head with the retina in his scope and waited for the moment he remembered. The lead vehicle’s front wheels dipped into the cut, causing the vehicle to stop. The trail vehicle paused momentarily, as well.

  “Now,” Harwood said.

  Weathers and Harwood snapped off single shots. Harwood’s target was down and his scope was immediately on the passenger in the cab, who had a radio handset to his mouth. Harwood sent a 7.62 round through the open window, into the handset against his ear, and ultimately into his right cheekbone.

  The driver began spinning his wheels to back the truck out of the ravine. The truck swerved, turning horizontal to the slope. As the driver shifted from reverse to drive, Harwood used that fractional pause to squeeze off two rounds.

  With the three occupants of his vehicle dead or severely wounded, he scanned with his scope to the lead vehicle and found three dead occupants.

  “Good to go,” Weathers said.

  Harwood scrambled back to the cab and said, “Threat eliminated. Let’s roll.”

  Stone pressed on the clutch, grinded the manual gear into first, and gunned the truck out of their temporary fighting position.

  “Just a few more miles,” Harwood said. Stone remained silent. In anticipation of moving quickly at the linkup point, Harwood shouldered his rucksack and clipped his SR-25’s three-point sling into the snap hook on his outer tactical vest.

  As they made the turn toward the pass where just last night he and their Kurdish guide, Monsoor, had watched the truck approach, Weathers tapped Harwood on the shoulder.

  Harwood was watching the ridge. There was a man near the mountain pass. He was barely distinguishable, but it had to be Monsoor.

  “What you got?” Harwood asked.

  He turned toward Weathers, who said, “This.”

  Harwood barely had time to block the knife thrust into his rib cage. He rolled away as Weathers retrieved his pistol and aimed at Harwood, who chopped down on Weathers’s arm. The pistol skittered onto the bouncing truck bed. Weathers planted a kick to the side of his leg.

  The Reaper rolled away, fighting the momentum
of the uphill climb. It was too much, though, as Stone gunned the truck, nearly popping a wheelie. He flipped off the back of the lurching truck. Two shots rang out as he continued moving.

  What was Weathers doing? They were Team Valid. Teammates.

  He slid off the side of the road, clutching his SR-25, found a large rock, and huddled behind that for cover. Two more shots kicked shrapnel into his face. He didn’t return fire, as the truck kept moving.

  Looking over his shoulder, he saw the two pickup trucks in the wadi. Up ahead, Stone continued driving the Iranian cargo vehicle toward the linkup point on the Turkish border.

  Behind him, he saw a convoy of trucks moving toward the wadi.

  Worse, the violent chop of helicopter rotor blades sang through the air, unmasked by the silence left in the wake of the diminishing speck of his getaway ride.

  CHAPTER 11

  Sloane Brookes rolled over in her thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets, no pet, no man, no bother. Just how she liked it.

  The sun beamed through the east-facing window that looked out over the boathouse where she had met Ravenswood last night. She felt a tickle of anticipation at the back of her mind. Had everything she wished for been put in motion or not? As she reached for the remote, the sheer negligee rubbed against her nipples, sending a frisson of pleasure through her body. Still, she kept her hand’s momentum toward the remote instead of the nightstand drawer.

  Flipping on the eighty-inch television on the wall opposite the foot of her bed, a newscaster’s grim face dominated the screen. The crawl read, In wake of Camp David Ambush, president allegedly put in motion efforts to assassinate Muslim family members in foreign countries …