Rex Dalton Thrillers: Books 1-3 (The Rex Dalton Series Boxset Book 1)

by JC Ryan

  Just like Roman times when the satirist, Juvenal, wrote about the same phenomena 2,000 years ago, “Panis et circenses, bread and circuses. Two things only the people anxiously desire - bread and circuses.”

  It was in this political environment that some of those in the security community, who really understood the threat against not only the US, but the entire free world, realized they could no longer sit by and watch how their countries were committing suicide. They understood they had to do something. Their solution was to launch various top-secret initiatives, some of which established small, highly efficient, highly secret hands-on intelligence units consisting of highly trained professionals to take the fight to the enemies of the United States.

  The politicians were not consulted about this. They would not want to know about it – they needed plausible deniability – a politician’s creed — like the three wise monkeys. I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear anything, and I didn’t say anything.

  CRC was one of those secret units, consisting of a small group of former spies and spy masters, a psychologist or two, and an undisclosed number of field agents. A few of the top people at the CIA, at the directorate level, knew about their existence, because they used them to get jobs done that the rest would or could not do.

  Director Carson was not in the group who took the initiative to protect America. Instead, he was in the group who adhered to the insight of the three wise monkeys.

  Carson had risen through the ranks of the Company by doing exactly what those reformers so despised: trying everything in his power to be always politically correct.

  ***

  UPON TAKING OFFICE, he had to be briefed about the organization’s various operations, past and present. Inevitably the briefing had to cover outsourcing. In other words, work undertaken on behalf of the CIA by private contractors. He was okay with outsourcing tasks such as building maintenance, paint jobs, repairs, food catering, gardening, and the like to properly vetted private contractors. However, when the briefing eventually got to outsourcing to top-secret contractors undertaking top-secret missions on behalf of the CIA, such as CRC, Carson nearly succumbed to a heart attack.

  If he’d had enough hands he would have, in typical wise monkey style, covered his ears, eyes, and mouth simultaneously.

  As it was, he had only two and used them to cover his ears, “Stop! Right there, right now,” he shouted.

  Sarah Brittle, the Deputy Director National Clandestine Service (NCS), the lady who had the unfortunate privilege of briefing the new Director, stopped talking and turned her gaze from the PowerPoint presentation on her laptop screen to Director Carson. Seeing him with his hands over his ears she immediately knew, they had a problem to deal with. Fortunately, she had not divulged too much at that stage.

  Carson had learned a few things in his years of accommodating and placating superiors. That’s how he got to where he was. Now he was in charge of the CIA, but he had higher ambitions. A Cabinet position next and from there, the White House someday? After all George H. W. Bush sat in this chair once and later became President.

  However, the fact remained, despite his current position, he still had superiors to please before he would reach the top of the ladder. He was not convinced that outsourcing intractable issues to private contractors would keep him in the good books of his superiors. Especially if he kept the information from them.

  It took the combined effort of Sarah Brittle and the division head of the Counter Intelligence Center to persuade the Director to not immediately issue an embargo against the use of private contractors.

  Very gently, and slowly the three of them took the Director on a guided ‘sightseeing tour’ of the western world’s and America’s security dilemmas. At the end of their tour, which lasted a little over a week, they covered not only the covert operations conducted by private contractors, but also gave him an apolitical view of the real state of the union in terms of its security.

  At the end of it, they were certain, the man would not have a good night’s sleep in a very long time.

  Finally, reality managed to take precedence over the Director’s political dreams, and he agreed not to shut the private contractors down, but he insisted on being kept informed, and he wanted to meet the CEOs of all of them. By now the Director also realized that the whole concept of plausible deniability was just phantasm for him. He would never be able to claim it if any of those outsourced operations went south. He also had the predicament whether to break the news to the Director of National Intelligence, his superior.

  ***

  JOHN BRANDT, LIKE all the other CEOs of private contractors working for the CIA, had gone to meet with Carson and made sure he gave away as little as possible. Contrary to Carson, Brandt, the Old Man, as his underlings called him, when he was not within earshot, was a former warrior of the Cold War era. An experienced spook with more missions under his belt than the Director had citations on his wall. He knew how this game was played. So, he managed to make Carson understand that CRC was a highly effective unit, could get things done without the Congressional oversight that plagued and hindered the CIA, NSA, and other agencies, and that CRC was his – Carson’s – to wield as necessary.

  Brandt was also a man who called a spade a spade, so he didn’t hesitate to tell Carson to go and perform an anatomically impossible sexual act on himself, when the latter demanded Brandt provide a list of the names of his agents.

  Carson was visibly shocked and enraged at what he thought was insubordination, until he remembered Brandt was not his subordinate.

  Brandt saw Carson’s fleeting rage and poured a bit of water on the fire, “It’s better you don’t know. You might just have some plausible deniability this way.” Brandt knew those words were always music to the ears of ambitious politicians and officeholders.

  Carson backed off.

  Carson had tried again to get more information out of Brandt. “Tell me about your best agent.”

  “In some circles he’s known as the Ghost,” Brandt had said. “I prefer to keep him that way, a ghost, nameless. It’s part of the reason he is so efficient.”

  “Tell me about some of his exploits, then,” Carson said.

  Brandt saw no harm in regaling his host with some of Rex Dalton’s old missions, minus certain details that would have allowed Carson to put two and two together. At the end of the account, Carson backed off and Brandt thought he’d enlisted the Director to the cause.

  Chapter Eight

  Bethesda, MD, June 21, 2014 2:30 a.m.

  CARSON HAD A secret. He shared a vice with Hathaway’s pet Senator, and in fact belonged to the same secret club to indulge it. The Senator had been instrumental in getting Carson nominated for the position as Director of the CIA and then pushing his nomination through Congressional confirmation hearings. The senator owned him. Another mutually-assured destruction situation, but Carson preferred to think of it as a mutually beneficial situation.

  At precisely 2:30 a.m., Carson’s secured personal cell phone rang. He’d been in bed for about half an hour, having spent too much of the previous evening at his favorite club. He reached for the phone, squinting to see who was calling, and became instantly alert.

  “Senator, what is it? How can I help?” He had the idea that he was going to have to go and pull the senile old man out of a dicey situation, though he hadn’t seen him at the club earlier. The nature of the entertainment meant the members often could spend an entire evening without knowing a friend was similarly occupied elsewhere on the premises.

  “Call off your dogs, you bastard,” the Senator barked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The Afghanistan mission. Who authorized you to declare war on the opium trade? I thought we had a mutual understanding of what a delicate position we’re in vis-à-vis their government and their source of income?”

  Carson was stung. Of course, he knew of the delicate balance. His organization was deeply involved in ensuring it remained balanced. He
personally had ordered many studies with the unambiguous instructions that the findings should show how important it was that the Afghan opium industry should not be touched. Therefore, the reports showed that opium was the livelihood, directly and indirectly, of many Afghan people. Taking it away would have dumped them in poverty and desperation, which would make them flee right into the waiting arms of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or ISIS.

  Carson steadied his thoughts and remembered that the only CIA sanctioned operation in progress at the moment that had anything to do with the opium trade in Afghanistan was the fact-finding mission outsourced to CRC about a year ago. However, the mission parameters were clear: gather information, send in your reports and do nothing else — no action.

  “Senator, I can assure you, I haven’t issued orders to that effect.”

  “Then who is it, and why haven’t you reported their actions? Your outfit is supposed to know what’s going on over there at all times.”

  Carson had read the reports coming in from the nameless CRC agent. It was clear the man was a bit worked up over there and wanted to see some action, but the directive from his side remained clear. No action. Was it possible that the agent could have…?

  “What exactly have you heard? It may be that something’s been brewing and blew up unexpectedly. Maybe its tribal warfare. After all, it’s been their favorite pastime for thousands of years.”

  “I doubt it very much. The fact is a large storehouse of heroin was blown up last night. The Afghan government is livid, because they counted on the taxes from the sale of that heroin to fund their army to fight against the Taliban.

  “And that’s not all, it seems as if this phantom force has been doing this for a while now. I just can’t believe you don’t even know about it.” The senator continued and rattled off a long list of dates, places, quantities of drugs destroyed, and people killed over the past few months.

  “When the President hears about it, he’s going to be pissed. We’re supposed to be de-escalating the war, pulling out of there, but we can’t if they don’t have enough defense to keep their own civilians safe from the insurgents. You know as well as I do they need the opium money to keep their government and military going.”

  “I understand,” Carson mumbled.

  “Do you? Well, then make this problem go away, pronto.”

  “I’ll shake some trees and see what falls out,” Carson answered. “I’ll get back to you as soon as humanly possible,” he added.

  When the call ended, Carson took a vial of white powder out of his bedside table drawer. He carefully spilled a little onto the top of the table and used a pocketknife to line it up just so. The same pocketknife sliced an ordinary drinking straw at an angle, and Carson inhaled the powder. The rush was instant, and he felt omnipotent. He was ready to devise a plan and have it in place by sunrise.

  ***

  CIA headquarters, 3.30 a.m.

  CARSON WAS IN his office at the George Bush Center, at the headquarters of the CIA in Langley, Fairfax County, Virginia by 3:30 a.m.

  He had pulled up on his computer the mission reports provided by this CRC agent in Afghanistan. He had seen these reports before, but that’s exactly what it was, he saw them, and he filed them away. Now, for the first time he actually read them and paid attention to the contents. It was the first time he noted this agent’s report writing style. It was intriguing, short, to the point, and very informative; names, associates, addresses, GPS coordinates, even military satellite maps. Over time, the agent’s requests for action had become more frequent and more passionate, but then abruptly ended. Reports were still coming in but were now much shorter, repeated known information and didn’t have any requests for action anymore.

  Carson had never seen such a comprehensive and, admittedly, honest account of the Afghan opium industry. Detailed information from the producers to the labs, to the warehouses, the distribution routes, distributors, and much more. Even the number of people killed by drug overdoses in the US and Europe. All of it, and much more, was there.

  Carson was wondering if this agent was this terrifying ‘Ghost’ Brandt had told him about. He’d thought Brandt had been exaggerating when he talked up this ‘Ghost’ and his abilities. It sounded so James Bond-ish that Carson was certain Brandt had been spinning tall tales. At the time, very entertaining, but impossible to believe it was all true. Now he wasn’t certain.

  Whether it was the ‘Ghost’, or not, this agent knew too much. If he was responsible for the havoc caused among the Afghan drug lords, as alleged by the senator, they had a headache, which would soon turn into a crippling migraine.

  It was an untenable situation. The agent had to be recalled or eliminated, without delay.

  It didn’t take Carson more than a few seconds to discard the recall idea. The information in that agent’s head was just too much for comfort. Apart from being a user of the Afghan product himself, Carson knew it was going to be extremely counterproductive to have an agent with that kind of knowledge arrive in the US and tell anyone the real story about Afghan opium.

  The agent had to disappear — permanently.

  ***

  CARSON CALLED SARAH Brittle and the head of Counter Terrorism to his office and read them in on the details of the reports provided by the CRC agent in Kabul and explained that he thought it was time to do something about the situation.

  Brittle and her head of Counter Terrorism were quietly thrilled about the Director’s display of backbone and were more than happy to give their input to his plans. Two hours later they had the first target selected. It was a compound located in a place known as Koh-e Shir Darwaza, a very poor area on one of the highest peaks of Kabul. It was a known trouble area with basically a hundred percent of the residents in this area sympathetic to the Taliban, according to the agent’s informant. The agent had been unable to visit the place yet.

  At best, the information was scanty and unverified. However, the location of the target was known and pinpointed on a satellite map. According to the informant, this location was the regional headquarters of the most powerful drug lords. It also served as the venue for their meetings. According to the agent’s mole, it was from this location where they planned and coordinated their business.

  Carson’s take on it was that if the informant’s report was correct and this was indeed the HQ, demolishing it would leave the drug lords’ operations in shambles, rendering the warehouses and labs as sitting ducks, which could easily be picked off afterwards.

  “Like shooting fish in a barrel,” he said.

  Sarah Brittle and the head of Counter Terrorism were pleased that they had brought the Director around to their view of the security problems and how it should be addressed. The Director’s plan made good sense, they were happy with it and told him so.

  It was agreed that the Director would personally brief John Brandt at CRC about the new mission.

  Chapter Nine

  CRC Headquarters, Arizona, June 21, 1:00 a.m.

  SINCE THE FORMATION of CRC, years before, John Brandt had gone about recruiting the crème de la crème from all branches of the military’s Special Operations elite. When recruits arrived at his Arizona headquarters, an area so remote that not even rumors leaked out, he always gave them the same message, and it was only the worst part of the story, before demanding that they make the choice to stay or leave, on the spot.

  “You will disappear from the lives of your friends and loved ones. They will assume you are dead. Chances are they’ll be right within only a few years. To say that our missions are dangerous is like saying a cougar might eat a bunny. As tough as you are right now, make no mistake – you are the bunny.

  “Before we will trust you with any mission, we will do our best to kill you right here. Those of you who learned spycraft will now learn hand-to-hand combat and weapons expertise. And vice-versa. You will be required to learn at least two other languages, and you will learn those that we need, and it might not be the ones you were interested in. When
we’re through training you, you will each be a one-man army and intelligence unit.

  “Despite the danger, your missions may require months of boredom. They will certainly require moments or hours of sheer terror. If you are not willing to take on all that I’ve just told you and more, you will be returned to your units, but if you decide to leave, take note, any mention of this unit to anyone, even in your sleep, will be your death warrant. My agents will find you and frag you, and your death will be made to look like an accident.

  “Now, who wants out?”

  In the years he’d been giving that speech, Brandt had never had to return a man to his unit on the first day. One reason was that before recruitment, each man had been discredited prior to graduation from whatever unit they were in at the time. Another was that his selection process involved psychoanalysis from the moment the man entered the military.

  At the Arizona location it was all men. There was another division of CRC that trained and employed women, but its very existence was unknown to everyone at the Arizona base except John Brandt. CRC Arizona’s missions were mostly in countries where women were treated horrifically. Just being a woman in those countries would have been such a hindrance it would have placed the mission in jeopardy.

  Of all the men he’d recruited over the years, Rex Dalton was the best and arguably the brightest. He wasn’t the biggest, but he’d take on anyone, regardless of size, and he’d win because of his brains and his Krav Maga skills. His natural coloring allowed him to pass for native in most of the countries where CRC operated, and such a camouflage was an asset. His talent with languages bordered on supernatural. And he’d sent the man on the most boring assignment CRC had ever accepted – nothing but intel gathering. He did it on advice of the unit’s resident psychologist who thought it was necessary to give Rex a mission that would be less stressful than his previous ones and allow him to unwind a bit. The shrink was convinced Rex was a walking nuclear weapon, just waiting for a button to be pushed.