At touch-down Peri spied children playing cricket on the runway. Police brandishing batons chased the kids into the slums built to the edge of the airfield.
Saanvi Dara fidgeted in the seat next to Peri. The CIA Intelligence Officer was the only member of the team who had bothered with polite conversation during the long flight from Djibouti. She talked with passion about her Mumbai childhood, interspersed with passionate insights into the political, economic, insurgent and military dimensions of the modern India. Yet when Saanvi smiled, it seemed forced. When she answered direct questions, there was hesitation. As the Gulfstream taxied to a private hanger, Saanvi squirmed in her seat.
In time Peri’s patience reached its limits. “What are you not telling me, Saanvi?”
“What do you mean, Ma’am?”
“Your body language. Something troubles you?”
Saanvi looked at her fists, squeezed tight and pressed down hard onto her knees. “It’s nothing Ma’am.”
Peri shook her head. “Nothing?”
Confidence was a trait expected of CIA agents. Field agents doubly so. This was not a trait Saanvi showed. Yet despite her concerns, Peri found she liked the woman, impressed by her intelligence and insights, and the articulate manner by which she had shared information with Peri, helping fill many of the gaps where the mission files were lacking. But Saanvi was also uncomfortable, and Peri was wondering if it was something that would affect her mission.
During the quiet moments when Saanvi wasn’t talking, Peri studied each of her team member’s dossiers, starting with the woman seated next to her. The rest of the team had slept, which was standard practice. Once on the ground they would work twenty-hour days in their focus to hunt down Ashcroft and Skaffen, and there was no knowing when they could rest again. Yet Saanvi had forgone this opportunity, concluding it was a better strategy to befriend her new boss. Peri wanted to know why.
The dossier told Peri that Saanvi had a middle-class upbringing and had completed an honors degree in politics and economics from Mithibai College. She’d spent three years as an economist with an Emirates-owned bank in Dubai, then had applied for and received a fast-tracked green card into the U.S. The reason: for three years’ prior Saanvi had spied for the CIA, providing records of Saudi Government funds transfers to various terrorist organizations across the Gulf, including to Al Qaeda and Islamic State. The volumes of actionable intelligence she had gathered, without ever being suspected as a mole, was phenomenal.
Once in America the CIA recruited her as an intelligence analyst. A year later she met her future husband, Pranav, also from India and a software engineer with the NSA. Within the next year they married with the first of two boys on the way.
Saanvi’s field career post-UAE had then taken a nose-dive into ‘unremarkable’. She’d become an office-bound egghead. Yet her performance reviews and psychological tests rated her skills as an analyst in the top three percent of her CIA peers. For eight years Saanvi seemed to have worked hard and had kept on top of her intelligence briefs and summary reports. She knew her Peshmerga from her Kurdistan Workers’ Party, her VX from her Sarin, and her weekly threat profiles on every major city between Tehran to Dhaka were more often right than wrong — an accomplishment in itself. But, now, she seemed to have lost whatever character strength had supported her while spying inside the United Arab Emirates in the heart of ‘enemy territory’.
Perhaps Saanvi’s timid nature was a product of her being married with dependents. In Peri’s experience children did that to people, dulling their career-focus and dividing their attention. As an unmarried Hindu woman, it would have taken courage to uproot and move to a country like the UAE and then spy for three years on one of the most totalitarian regimes on the planet. A daring deception few mothers would ever consider.
Her husband, Pranav Dara, also worked in the intelligence community, but their connection had come after Saanvi domesticated. Peri couldn’t determine Pranav’s specific role with the NSA because it was classified, other than it had something to do with developing software. There was nothing in the husband’s file to suggest he had ever done anything as daring as his wife. Perhaps he was jealous. Or maybe he didn’t know what she had accomplished, and so was ignorant of what she was capable of?
Pranav seemed the patriarchal, self-important type. In the brief moments when Saanvi wasn’t talking to Peri she was on the secure line back to Maryland, reassuring her two boys she would be home soon. They worried because their father couldn’t do their washing or read them stories at bedtime. Later in the conversations, when Saanvi was talking only with Pranav, Peri had overheard her providing a detailed, step by step, process on how to prepare chicken masala for dinner. Peri suspected he never cooked when she was home or performed domestic chores, leaving them to his mother, sisters and, now, his wife. Saanvi tried to mask her frustration during these calls, yet Peri sensed annoyance bubbling just beneath the surface of her subservient demeanor.
When she had finished with Saanvi’s dossier, Peri asked herself what she had concluded about the Intelligence Officer. Saanvi could answer any question Peri had thrown at her, so issues at home didn’t seem to affect her ability to perform. Under normal circumstances, back in Langley, she was likely up to the tasks that now lay ahead, but could Peri rely on her when they were operational and under threat in Mumbai, and her family were out of reach on the other side of the world? Only time would tell.
And yet, despite the woman’s intelligence and tenacity, she couldn’t stop fidgeting.
Peri took a deep breath and asked, “Saanvi, can I tell you the most important lesson the Secret Service taught me?”
“Ma’am?”
“Nothing is inconsequential.”
Saanvi nodded as if she understood, but then hesitated, “What do you mean Ma’am? I mean, in everything we’ve talked about, haven’t I given you the detail you need? Or is it too much? If there’s another approach you prefer, or some aspects of my briefings you require further detail, I can—”
“Saanvi,” Peri interrupted, annoyed as they veered off topic. “What I’m trying to tell you is, during any mission, any investigation, even during routine day-to-day activities, every detail is important.” Peri’s headache had worsened during the flight, her forehead burned and the fog in her mind wasn’t lifting, but she forced herself to explain her position. “What is most important are any incidents that seem trivial and also seem odd. The Secret Service has shut down many, many real threats against the President that started from odd hunches. So even if you believe something is trivial, if it is playing on your mind, I want to know about it.” She took another breath to gather herself, sensing that her tone sounded too harsh. Antagonizing the woman was not her intention. “Let me be blunt: Saanvi, your body language suggests you’re not telling me something you consider important.”
Saanvi clenched her hands together. She was holding back. “Ma’am, I have no facts to share. Nothing credible—”
“I don’t care. Hunches are good enough.”
This time when Saanvi frowned it was a genuine expression of how she felt. “It’s the drones, Ma’am, at Camp Lemonnier.”
“The drones? What about them?”
“There are too many.”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you see them? Hundreds and hundreds of drones, here and presumably in every other U.S. airbase across the planet. I know for a fact we don’t have enough Air Force pilots to keep even five percent operational at any one time.”
“Why do we need so many?”
“That’s what I keep asking myself,” she rubbed her palms across her knees. “You saw them taking off, one after the other, the whole time we were inside the wire. Who on earth is piloting them all?”
Peri remembered what she had seen. An unrelenting succession of drones taking off and landing the entire day she had been at Camp Lemonnier. Now Peri considered the implications of what she was being told. The scariest scenario was that Simon Ashcroft
and his hacker teams were operating the drones themselves, sending them on missions to eliminate his enemies, not those of the U.S. Government. If that were true, Ashcroft could have drones already tracking her and her team in Mumbai, ready to assassinate them without warning using the deadly Hellfire missiles that most of the Predators were carrying these days.
Then Peri reminded herself, if she thought Ashcroft had unlimited powers to come after her, she might as well give into her fever and give up the chase now. No, Ashcroft was just like everyone else, human, and limited in his capabilities. He would have weaknesses like everybody else. She would identify his weaknesses, then use them against him to bring him down. She was hunting him, not the other way around.
“So, what are your thoughts on all of that, Saanvi?”
“I have no evidence Ma’am, only a hunch that our military has expanded in the last six months. I mean doubled, tripled, even quadrupled in size.”
“How would you even know that?”
“I don’t. It’s a sense, that’s all. I’ve been watching the hundreds of daily operational reports from across the globe, three or four times as many as there were just six months ago. We’re operating in far more trouble spots than we have the resources to support.”
“How can that even be possible?”
“How can the President be both dead and active in office?”
Peri turned away and wiped the sweat beading on her forehead, knowing that Saanvi had used Peri’s own fears against her. “Good point.”
“And then there are the weapon platform drones.” Saanvi added.
“Sorry? The what?”
“WPDs? Full robotic weaponry systems? You don’t know about them?”
Peri shook her head.
“About the size of a car tire, these drones self-stabilize and can fire rifles and grenade launchers while flying. They can replace troops on the ground.”
Peri shook her head. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“They became operational about three months ago. You didn’t see them at Camp Lemonnier?”
It worried Peri that she had not. “No, I didn’t.”
“They’re impressive, Ma’am. You can remotely pilot them. They feature an eight-rotor system that can carry up to three times its weight. They can equip the drones with a variety of different weapons, including machine guns. And soldiers on a tablet from remote locations can operate it.” Saanvi seemed worried as she watched Peri’s frown deepen. “You didn’t know about them?”
“Again, no.” Peri asked herself if Ashcroft could control these weapon platforms. Then reminded herself of her early conclusion — he was just a man. He could only control so much. She shouldn’t give him too much credit.
“I should have shown you. Hundreds of crates back there in Lemonnier. Dozens in each crate. Who might fly all of those?”
Saanvi appeared worried by what she was saying. Perhaps the woman’s unsettled nature wasn’t at all to do with being far from her husband and children. Perhaps she feared a larger, more nebulous threat, like Peri did.
Peri was about to ask more when the seatbelt lights extinguished and the pilot announced they could disembark. Awake, the team leaped into action, securing their packs as they headed for the exits.
Lieutenant Emily Dawson was the first up and moving. She pushed Saanvi out of her way to get to the front exit first. The tall woman’s head turned as she gave both women a wink, showing her childish actions were a joke. She chomped on gum, emulated a masculine strut. But her efforts couldn’t hide her slim and feminine figure.
Peri caught Saanvi rolling her eyes, so she asked, “You two don’t get along?”
“It won’t affect our work Ma’am, I promise you that.”
Dawson was another interesting character assigned to Peri’s team. The woman’s military dossier and psyche profile noted an all-male Army family. Her father was a former diesel mechanic sergeant and her three brothers were all in the infantry. Her civilian mother had been absent since Emily’s thirteenth birthday. Dawson’s mother had feigned a migraine while the rest of the family headed out to a local diner to celebrate Emily’s first day as a teenager. They returned home that night to discover the wife had packed her bags and left with no note to provide an explanation.
Peri wondered whether Emily’s dad had been violent towards his wife, but there was no sign in Dawson’s files he abused her or any of his children. Maybe she was having an affair. Maybe she’d grown tired of the life she had. There were dozens of reasons. Regardless, no one in the family had heard from the mother in two decades. Peri couldn’t imagine what that would have done to a young girl as she moved into adolescence.
What the psych file highlighted was that Emily took over her mother’s role in cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, washing dishes and grocery shopping. Perhaps that was the real reason the mother had left; her family had taken her for granted for too long. Yet the inequality seemed to give Dawson a push into studying hard and applying for officer training. They accepted her because of her exceptional high school exam results. She became the first Dawson ever to enlist as an officer and qualified with an engineering degree. It seemed no one would put Dawson in her place, not even her own family.
Dawson’s dossier also noted a ‘gutter mouth’ and that she picked fights with male soldiers in the bars she frequented. Her longest intimate relationship appeared to have been for no more than a few weeks.
Saanvi and Dawson were as different as two women could be. Peri could see why the two women didn’t get along. They each stood for what the other detested.
“I promise Ma’am, we may not be friends, but when we are on the job, we’re both professional.”
“That’s good to hear, Saanvi.”
As she stepped onto the tarmac, the heat hit Peri like a tidal wave, leaving her unsteady on her feet. Then a second wave hit her harder, filled with putrid sewage and other exotic scents she couldn’t name and didn’t want to. She slowed so that the warmth and stench didn’t overcome her. It would be a major loss of dignity if she stumbled or, worse, fainted.
Inside the customs building, passport control quickly processed their group. The uniformed men didn’t ask too many questions or look at their equipment.
“Are we liaising with India’s Intelligence Bureau?” Peri asked Sergeant Rashad Wilks as they walked side-by-side towards the exit. Wilks was in charge of logistics and interagency liaison. She was sure they had covered this earlier, but she couldn’t remember what the outcome had been. Damn her malaria.
“They’re aware, Ma’am, that we’re here.” His luggage was four times the volume of hers, and likely four times as heavy. He carried it like it was nothing. “Our local CIA Station House is liaising as per protocol, ensuring this is a smooth insertion. Major Fitzgerald set it up, told them we are hunting Al Qaeda terrorists. They do us this favor, letting us bring in our equipment, and we do them a favor later, somewhere else — like looking the other way when they operate in Pakistan or Kashmir. As long as we kill no one friendly to them, we’ll be fine.”
“Appreciate the sitrep, Sergeant.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
She marched with an effort, asking herself if she trusted Rashad Wilks, even though she had no reason not to. An African-American from an impoverished family, he’d started life hanging with Chicago’s worst street gangs, but had been smart enough to avoid a rap sheet. He’d enlisted as soon as he was old enough, stating in his recruitment interview that his motivation was to escape the only other real alternative open to him: a life of crime. The U.S. Army suited Wilks. He’d served twice in Iraq with honors. He applied for and they accepted him into the U.S. 75th Ranger Regiment. A remarkable tour in Afghanistan saw him recruited by JSOC and then Delta Force. What he had done after that was too classified for even Peri to access, but she suspected it was all positive.
His dossier noted that during his military career he had converted to Islam. It did not surprise Peri that Wilks was more dedicated to the faith th
an she was, praying to Mecca every day, but not hung up on the more literal aspects of Islam. She noted with interest that his background offered fluency in both Spanish and Arabic, rare skills sought by the U.S. Army Delta Force. He learned the first language from the Latin street gangs he hung with as a child, the second from his brothers at the local mosque and through studying the Koran.
Peri’s only sign that Wilks had any interests outside of fighting covert wars and his faith was a girlfriend who was Christian. During the brief periods he was awake on the flight he was busy reading a wedding magazine, peering at engagement rings. The man was in love.
Outside, in the congested, over-populated, Indian megacity, Peri and the team pushed past the crowds and street stalls, avoiding eye contact with the many men offering taxis or to carry their luggage for money.
Several black SUVs with mirrored windows were thankfully waiting for them. The first man out of the lead vehicle was Paul Szymanski, Peri’s trusted NSA colleague. He wore a light khaki two-piece suit, tan leather shoes, a blue-collared shirt and a gray Panama hat, making him look like he had stepped straight out of the 1950s. Feeling smothered by smelly, noisy people in a hot country, Peri was glad now that Szymanski had traveled ahead to establish their Mumbai base of operations. With her fever, she knew she wouldn’t have coped with the challenging task.
When Szymanski saw her, he smiled. He moved to hug her then changed his mind and stepped back again. Szymanski was a tall and lanky man, with large eyes, messy hair and an unusual way of gesturing. He was a geek that would have kept to himself through his school years and college, but in this stifling moment Peri couldn’t have been happier to see anyone else on the planet. He was the only person she trusted right now. Hugging would have felt inappropriate and challenging to his sense of personal space, and hers, so she chose instead to shake his hand.
Strike Matrix Page 8