Without Fear

by Col. David Hunt

  The canopy swung out of the way and she shut the jet down, released the seat belt harness, and removed her helmet, running a hand through her auburn hair. It was several inches longer than regulation, but as long as she continued shooting bad guys, her commander at KAF continued overlooking the peccadillo.

  As she stood in the cockpit, her gaze landed on the ground crew, which was staring as if she had landed some alien spacecraft.

  That bad?

  Walking down the side ladder, she reviewed in silence the mess the Taliban had made of her bird. With missing sections of armored skin on the tail and fuselage, it looked as if a pit bull had bitten off quite a few chunks of her Hawg, exposing its complex innards. Plus, what remained of the empennage was charred and scarred. There were countless pockmarks under the wings from small arms fire, like hail dents, and a couple dozen quarter-size holes where larger rounds had punched through. The leading edges as well as the underside were also heavily scored from ground fire.

  Damn, she thought, realizing that this had to be just about the most mangled Warthog ever returned to the flight line.

  As a small crowd of pilots and more ground crew gathered about her, she shrugged, shouted, “You should see the other guy!” and headed to her squadron to get debriefed before getting some chow.

  9

  Battlefield Promotion

  ISLAMABAD. PAKISTAN.

  It was at times like tonight that Bill Gorman wondered what the hell he was doing in this fucking country.

  For a moment he even wondered if he should have followed in his late father’s footsteps and stayed in the New York City Fire Department, like Victoria, his younger sister, an FDNY paramedic.

  Gorman had gone through the training and had just received his probationary status with FDNY Company 10, also known as the Ten House, when September 11 changed his world. Gorman’s young wife, Jeannie, worked on the 104th floor of the North Tower and could not be evacuated. In addition, several members of his team clearing the towers never made it out.

  As he watched his world collapse, Gorman swore to dedicate his life to fighting terror and headed to Fort Benning, Georgia, the army’s Officer Candidate School. He served one tour in Afghanistan and two in Iraq—the last one connected to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the military counterpart of the CIA. And in a bizarre turn of events, the CIA recruited him after a successful DIA–CIA joint mission in Baghdad. Gorman then spent a year at the Farm, in Williamsburg, Virginia, and was assigned to work the New Delhi CIA station before Islamabad.

  Gorman checked his watch and inhaled deeply, wincing in painful memory while staring at the stainless steel Rolex, a surprise present from Jeannie at his FDNY graduation. To this day he wore it as his version of a wedding band, a reminder of the wonderful woman he had lost to the same bastards he’d vowed to fight to his dying breath.

  And speaking of bastards, he had tailed the men who’d left that compound for almost twenty-four hours, using whatever assets he had at his disposal, including one of their getaway RAV4s hidden on the side of Darband Road. He had also used his encrypted satellite phone to signal the Islamabad CIA station of the events that had taken place the night before.

  Gorman had expected to be summoned into the vault—the CIA secure basement room at the embassy—for a heart-to-heart debrief with Langley that probably would have lasted far longer than normal, given the abnormal circumstances. But the reply he had received an hour later had actually surprised him. Instead of the typical anal probe, especially after a botched op, Langley had just appointed him interim station chief, since he was now the senior-most officer in Islamabad.

  He shook his head at the bizarre turn of events while munching on a peanut-flavored PowerBar in the front seat of the RAV4 and peering through the darkness with a pair of Zeiss compact night vision binoculars. In addition to the bars and the bottles of water, Gorman had also changed into his stash of civilian clothes—a pair of black jeans, a black T-shirt, and sneakers. But for effect, he had kept the tunic and the pakol.

  He had selected an ill-lit parking spot near the intersection of Shaheed–Millat Road and Street 58, located across the street and halfway down the block from his mark—and ironically just over a mile from the U.S. Embassy. The pair of white vans had gone through the automatic gate of a chain-link fence enclosing a small compound and had driven straight to a two-story, stand-alone warehouse in the middle. The place appeared newly built, at least relative to the surrounding one-story structures, a mix of private homes, stores, and other businesses. The chain-link was topped with barbed wire angled outward, meant to keep intruders out, as opposed to prisons, which angled the wire inward to keep inmates from escaping. Combine that with the electronic keypad by the gate, the security cameras atop the building, and the lack of lights inside and out, and Gorman felt certain the place was some sort of safe house or staging area.

  At least a dozen men had gone inside. Unfortunately, the vans had blocked the warehouse’s front door, preventing Gorman from seeing whether bin Laden was among them.

  That was three hours ago, and in that time Gorman had issued his first set of instructions to his new team, which consisted primarily of a half dozen analysts. Although only thirty-three years old, he was the only officer with any field experience left until Langley could replenish the men lost in that poppy field—meaning he was alone in this surveillance job.

  Well, not completely alone.

  He lifted his gaze at the star-filled sky over Islamabad. Unlike his predecessor, Gorman had no qualms about contacting some of his former Army Intelligence buddies with the DIA in Bagram to request Predator coverage for the next forty-eight hours. And in the spirit of asking for forgiveness rather than permission, he had not consulted Langley on the decision to bring in its competitor. It was no secret that both intelligence agencies constantly tried to outdo each other to maximize their respective congressional funding.

  And his military pals had come through. His analysts had signaled thirty minutes ago that they now had eyes over him in the control room adjacent to the vault, fed by a lone UAV from Bagram circling the area at ten thousand feet.

  And now we wait, he thought, focusing the binoculars on the vans, which he now recognized as Ford E-350s, and inspecting the metal brackets bolted to the front and rear fenders. That also typically meant composite run-flat tires, transparent armor instead of windshields and side windows, plus ballistic nylon and Kevlar bolstering the chassis and interior surfaces, including the engine compartment. And it all gave even more credibility to Shaw’s claim of having spotted bin Laden. Bulletproofing a pair of Ford vans was expensive business, even for al Qaeda. Heck, not even the CIA had such vehicles at the Islamabad station. The only vehicle with any level of protection belonged to the ambassador, who was currently on holiday somewhere in southern Italy.

  And that all further meant that Gorman’s RAV4 with its sheet metal paneling, tempered glass, and stock Yoko tires would never stand up to those tanks in a gunfight or a street chase. And to put a cherry on his shit cake, the men exiting those E-350s had carried enough weapons—a mix of AK-47s and Russian RPK light machine guns—to start a small revolution.

  Unfortunately for him, all Finkle had approved to bring on this mission were sidearms—his idea of keeping it low-key. Most operations officers in the Clandestine Service preferred guile to weapons, believing that theirs was the business of doing without being seen, changing outcomes without being noticed. Weapons, they believed, were for the military and the police. Intelligent professionals were not afraid of using them; it was just not their first choice.

  Gorman had objected, of course, claiming that pistols against automatic rifles was only marginally better than bringing a damn knife to a gunfight. But he was just told to get with the program.

  So the CIA officer had done the only thing he could: remain within the parameters specified by his boss—sidearms only—while locating the largest pistol he could find in the embassy armory.

  He was basically
alone, with the closest experienced backup at the Kabul station or at Bagram, while tailing what could very well be Osama bin Laden aboard armored vans inside a compound defended by guys armed to the teeth.

  For a moment he wondered if Bagram had deployed the Predators with missiles. But even so, no way he could stretch his DIA friendship to release a Hellfire into a populated area in the middle of Pakistan’s capital—and a mile from the embassy. Hypocrites or not, the Pakistanis were still America’s allies, at least on paper—even if Washington strongly suspected that they were harboring the terrorist mastermind.

  So to make himself feel better, Gorman sought solace in the cold and black Desert Eagle pistol, which he wore on his left side with the handle facing forward for an easy cross draw with his right hand.

  The Israeli-made semiautomatic came in three different calibers, .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, and .50 Action Express. Gorman had opted for the latter, the beasty .50-caliber version, meaning he at least had the ability to discharge in rapid succession seven massive Remington jacketed hollow-point slugs. Each round had enough energy to go through an engine block and then do real damage to any jihadist foolish enough to believe that Allah would protect him from 325 grains of American steel traveling at 1,500 feet per second. And Gorman had also raided the armory to confiscate every spare .50-caliber AE magazine in sight—three of them. Loaded with seven cartridges each and secured upside down and backwards, the backup ammo weighed down the right side of the thick military belt he wore under his loose T-shirt, ready for a quick exchange.

  As he handled the heavy pistol, thumbing the safety off and automatically checking that he had a chambered round, his phone rang in his left ear, where an earpiece coiled down to the vibrating unit on his lap.

  Gorman stared down at the distraction while holstering the Desert Eagle. He had given his analysts strict instructions to hold the chatter unless there was blood or broken bones.

  The caller ID was blocked, which meant that the caller was also on an encrypted satellite phone.

  Sighing, he picked it up.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hey, buddy. How’re you holding up?”

  He dropped his eyebrows at the familiar voice. “Glenn? What the hell are you doing?”

  Glenn Harwich was an old hand at the Agency, having cut his teeth working with the mujahideen in the late 1980s. Almost fifteen years Gorman’s senior, Harwich had mentored Gorman after he’d joined the Agency following his tours in-country. Rumor at Langley was that Harwich had actually trained bin Laden in the use of the Stinger missile system. But very few people—Gorman included—knew that it was actually quite a bit more than just a rumor.

  “Living the dream, Bill. You?”

  “Where are you calling from? It’s almost five in the morning,” Gorman asked, hearing a lot of background noise.

  “Army transport. Middle of nowhere, headed to the middle of nowhere.”

  “I thought you were living it up in Paris.”

  “Yeah. I was, and now I’m not.”

  “Why are you calling?”

  “Had to check in on my favorite understudy after he made station chief.”

  “Interim. And how did you know?”

  “I know everything. Definitely on the fast track, you young piece of shit.”

  Gorman frowned at the Fords, at the warehouse, at the danger within while he was armed with just a pistol and no backup—and at the fact that he’d lost his entire team, and almost his own life.

  “Don’t feel that lucky at the moment. I had to blow up Finkle and his operators last night after the Tallies shot off their heads in a botched op. A hell of a way to get promoted.”

  “What? Bill … I had no idea that—”

  “And now there’s a chance I may be tracking your old mujahideen pen pal in lovely downtown Islamabad.”

  “Who?”

  “Elvis … He might just be in the building across the street.”

  “Stop screwing around.”

  “I thought you knew everything.”

  “Okay. Back up. Tell me everything.”

  Gorman did, taking a couple of minutes to bring his former superior up to date.

  “Okay, listen. First, don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Like tailing twelve armed Tallies in their own backyard with just a handgun and no backup?”

  “Keep your distance and just watch and report, okay?”

  “I can handle that.”

  “Remember that when you’re in-country you’re only one decision away from starring in your own YouTube video.”

  “Thanks for that.”

  “Anytime. I’ll make some calls. See if we can get you help pronto.”

  “Glenn … where the hell are you? Really.”

  “Headed to KAF. Long story. Just lost the entire CIA team there. KIA. Blown up by our own NATO, and I’m their sole replacement.”

  Gorman sighed again. “Yeah, a lot of that going arou—”

  “Gotta make some calls, Bill,” Harwich said. “Just watch and report. Got it?”

  “Yeah, I—”

  Harwich terminated the call and Gorman frowned, staring at the phone before resuming his watch, sensing it was going to be a long night and an even longer day ahead.

  10

  Hunch

  THIRTY THOUSAND FEET OVER CENTRAL AFGHANISTAN.

  Glenn Harwich had pretty much kept to himself the entire flight, his only distraction being that short conversation with Gorman a few hours after leaving Frankfurt. But he could sense the eyes of the young GIs packing the sides of the army transport jet glancing in his direction, likely wondering what that bald-headed civilian was doing among troops that for the most part appeared to be on their first rotation.

  Harwich could almost always pick out the rookies from the veterans. The veterans, like himself, wished to be left alone, unwilling to engage in a conversation that could lead to a friendship. Those veterans had likely already lost more than their fair share of friends, and the pain stemming from those losses—combined with their survivor’s guilt—had a way of stripping any desire to make new friends.

  He frowned, finding it hard to believe he was actually back in this country—and at his own request.

  But what choice did I have? he thought, accepting the bitter reality that he’d had to step away from his relatively easier assignment as deputy chief of the Paris station to come to this shithole—at least until he sorted this out.

  He remembered the intercept from an Agency bot patrolling the ISPs in Islamabad. The image, and the short note—useless to anyone but those who had been in that clearing in the Sulaimans that cold September night in 1988—had been reason enough for him to make a priority call to the deputy director of operations at Langley.

  “Are you shitting me, Glenn?” the DDO had blurted. “Is this why you woke me up in the middle of the night?”

  “It has to be, sir, and we’re partly responsible.”

  “Okay. Okay. What do you need?”

  “A ride to KAF and a good enough reason for being there. This has to be kept need-to-fucking-know until we actually fucking know something.”

  “Well, we won’t need to think too hard to find you a cover story, unfortunately.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We just lost our team there to a misplaced Hellfire.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Not Jesus. NATO. Big screwup, and we need a guy there representing the Agency until we can work out a replacement plan.”

  And less than twenty-four hours later Harwich found himself boarding a C-17 cargo headed to Kandahar Airfield, staring at the image on his phone that had started it all: an old Soviet ring.

  11

  DFAC

  KANDAHAR AIRFIELD. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.

  Tired, thirsty, and damn hungry, Laura Vaccaro finally finished her debriefing and walked up to one of the base’s noisy dining facilities—the DFAC—near the end of the ramp. She still wore her flight suit, zipped down to the middle
of her chest, exposing a pair of dog tags over a white T-shirt.

  The smell of jet fuel mixed with the stench from the water treatment facility, plus whatever they were cooking in the kitchen this evening, hovered in the air like a bad joke. Thunder rumbled in the distance, but not from artillery or bombs. The storm system was almost on top of the base. With luck, it would bring much-needed rain to this desolate and dusty place. Of course, that meant the ground turning to thick red mud, but it was the lesser of the evils.

  There were a number of creature comforts at KAF. Good food, unfortunately, wasn’t among them. But Vaccaro didn’t care. She had grown up poor on the outskirts of Colorado Springs, where she taught skiing for room and board, giving her an appreciation for three square meals a day—even if they were of the deep freezer to deep fryer variety.

  Sometimes the brown trays, paper plates, and plastic cups could seem like fine bone china after coming back from a mission. The food was not as important as sitting down with some sense of normalcy, surrounded by those doing and feeling the same way.

  The sound of hundreds of conversations mixed with the clanging of plastic trays and cups under an ocean of fluorescent lights, but after the long day she’d had, it was also a welcome sight.

  Vaccaro grabbed a tray and got in line, her cheeks still sore from the oxygen mask.

  Ignoring the looks from a handful of grunts at a nearby table, she focused on the hot choices this evening, selecting chicken nuggets and fries, balancing it with a cup of fruit and a chocolate milk—plus two bottles of ice-cold water.

  She walked past several rows of tables packed with an eclectic mix of military personnel and civilian contractors, noticing the heavyset Colonel Paul Duggan of the marines sharing a table with five harsh-looking soldiers. A pair of small, rectangular reading glasses on black wire frames hung at the tip of Duggan’s nose as he glanced at some report while the warriors flanking him pointed out something on the sheet of paper.

  There was sameness to the U.S. military: short hair, mostly fit, same uniform look, same language, rank displayed, and similar weapons. Talk was the same, and they all ate the same way—like someone was trying to steal their dinner. But the guys sitting with Colonel Duggan were different. They had nonstandard and mixed uniforms, longer hair, and a fuck you attitude. She had seen the type before on other tours. War certainly made for strange but necessary friends and coworkers.