The Enemies of My Country

by Jason Kasper

  I squinted at Langley.

  “Lucky guess.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Langley said, skipping off to the fountain before I could react.

  Laila slid her arm around my waist. “I don’t know why you’re still surprised.”

  “I’m still surprised,” I said, draping an arm over Laila’s shoulders, “because at age six she’s already smarter than I am as an adult.”

  We watched her tossing the coins into the fountain one at a time, then pausing to watch them sink. This was the good life, I thought. The family was together on a perfect summer day, and Laila was in a fine mood. My personal stock as a husband and father was at a dizzying high.

  The moment wasn’t going to get much better than this.

  “Oh,” I said casually, “I got a call from my team lead yesterday. There’s been a bit of a hitch with the Jordan contract.”

  I felt Laila’s body go rigid. Her arm fell from my waist, and she stepped back.

  “Define ‘a hitch.’”

  I quickly explained, “A Jordanian captain got into a somewhat vocal disagreement with one of my instructors. He was in the wrong, but the Arabs treat their officers like royalty, so there was—”

  She cut me off, her eyes boring a hole through mine.

  “You have to go back already.”

  I nodded. “Just for a few days, to meet with my counterpart at the group headquarters and show my face at the training site. Just to get the contract back on the rails. It won’t take long.”

  “When do you leave?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  “When were you planning on telling me about this?”

  I hesitated. “When? I mean, now, I suppose. I just found out yesterday, and you were busy with work so—”

  “So you decided to wait until we’re finally spending time together as a family?”

  “You’re right,” I said automatically. “I should have told you as soon as I heard. I’ll do that next time.”

  She looked away, fixing her gaze at some indiscernible point across the street.

  “Because it’s going to happen again.”

  Implying a future recurrence had been a bad call, I decided.

  “I mean, I’m sure there will eventually be complications. But this will be a quick trip, I promise. I’ll be back by next weekend, and we can—”

  “Spend time together as a family?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s right.”

  Laila said nothing, which was infinitely worse and more ominous than any response.

  I asked, “What’s going through your mind? You’re scaring me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Just that Langley needs you to be a part of the family, and so do I. And I’m trying to get my career off the ground while my parents are two hours away. I’m not running an Etsy shop out of the basement, David. I’m not baking while I wait for my next piano student to arrive. People rely on me. Human lives rely on me. I can’t keep stretching myself thin every time you get another phone call from Jenio.”

  I looked sidelong to the crowds around us, considering a response that wouldn’t dig me into a deeper hole with my wife. Jenio Solutions Consultancy, LLC was a private military company for which I worked, at least in name. It had a website, a corporate headquarters address, and a contact number that would be answered by a courteous, knowledgeable representative.

  Jenio Solutions was also, of course, one of many front organizations covertly owned and operated by the CIA.

  “Look,” I said, “I’m sorry. But this is my new job. They say go, I have to go.”

  5

  Incirlik Air Base, Turkey

  Cancer took a pull of his cigarette, blowing another cloud of smoke toward the chain link privacy fence that blocked any view of his surroundings.

  Above the fence’s barbed wire were ordinary-looking pine trees, and beyond them he could hear the sounds of traffic and aircraft, indistinguishable from virtually any military base in America. There were no obvious visual indicators that he was in Turkey, and certainly none that the fence around him blocked off a small compound reserved for special operations forces passing through on their way to and from Syria.

  Hell, he couldn’t even remember much from the plane ride over: fifteen hours over the Atlantic had passed in the blink of an eye, courtesy of Ambien sleeping pills. With no opportunity for rest once they launched for the mission tonight, they’d had to get their sleep in advance.

  Upon arriving at the air base, the old military axiom of “hurry up and wait” had proved true. An extensive chain of logistics was set into motion to get the team to and from their upcoming objective, and they faced hours with little to do but fuck off in the small area that had been temporarily allocated to them.

  Taking a final drag, Cancer snubbed out his cigarette and tossed it in a trash can.

  He pushed open the door to enter the planning bay and saw David at a desk with his planning materials spread across the surface—operational graphics, satellite imagery, infiltration and exfiltration plans.

  David was looking at none of this. Instead he was ticking off numbers with the fingers of one hand, sounding frustrated as Cancer picked up his words mid-sentence.

  “...the chair and ranking members of the Senate and House, and the lead Republican and Democrat in both the House Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. That’s it. No one’s flying us to DC when they don’t claim us in the first place.”

  Cancer followed David’s gaze to Reilly, seated on a cot and holding a battered paperback.

  Reilly shook his head. “That didn’t stop Mitch Rapp, man.”

  David opened his mouth to reply, but Cancer cut him off.

  “What in the fresh hell did I just walk in on?”

  Leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, David said, “Reilly wants to know why he can’t meet the president.”

  “What?”

  Reilly raised his paperback and waved it emphatically at Cancer.

  “Don’t you read thrillers? The government’s secret super-assassin always reports directly to the president. Why not us?”

  Cancer looked to David with a deadpan expression.

  “He serious?”

  “It’s hard to say,” David said, returning to his planning materials.

  Reilly spoke in a defensive tone. “I am serious. After all we go through, I just want a handshake, man.”

  Cancer fixed him with a stony glare. “You wanna meet a president, join a campaign team. ’Cause he won’t get any updates about us until something goes wrong. That happens, it means we’re probably dead anyway.”

  Reilly shrugged, then opened his paperback to continue reading where he left off.

  Cancer wasn’t worried about him—he was a top-notch medic, and when the previous mission had gone sideways, Reilly reacted seamlessly to the shifting plans with little more than a word or two of guidance from his leadership. If there was one thing Cancer could credit to Reilly besides his medical and workout abilities, it was that he was in no danger of overthinking the tactical situation.

  The same didn’t hold true for the next man Cancer’s gaze fell upon.

  Ian, the team’s little intelligence guru, was stretched out across a cot, any illusion of relaxation betrayed by his clenched jaw as he listened to headphones, his eyes pinched shut.

  Cancer walked over to him and kicked the cot.

  Ian’s eyes burst open and he sat up, meeting Cancer’s eyes in alarm as he removed his earbuds. “What’s up?”

  Nodding to his earbuds, Cancer asked, “What are you listening to?”

  “‘Piano Concerto Number Five in E-Flat Major.’ Why?”

  “Funny.” Cancer grinned. “I took you for a gangster rap kinda guy.”

  “Really?”

  “No. Shouldn’t you be tinkering with some electronics?”

  “Don’t you dare project your technophobia on me, Cancer. I’ve already booted up, tested function, and sh
ut it down on full power. It’s packed, along with all my spare batteries. I’m good to go.”

  “Then why do you look nervous?”

  Ian blinked, responding quietly, “Because I am nervous.”

  “You do share some DNA with your dad, don’t you? Sure you weren’t adopted?”

  Ian bristled at the mention of his father, just as he did every time Cancer brought him up.

  Grant “Mad Dog” Greenberg was a legendary Special Forces soldier whose combat exploits probably would have warranted his own statue at Fort Bragg, with the small complication that far too many of them were classified. Tales of his glory lived on in the spoken heritage of special operators across service branches and even the Agency, where he’d done contract work well into his sixties before retiring.

  So when Cancer learned that his new team’s tech whiz was none other than “Mad Dog” Greenberg’s son, he’d been beside himself with disbelief and, ultimately, disappointment. Ian was technically proficient, but so far the only connection that Cancer could discern between the two men was a vague physical resemblance and a famous last name.

  During the team’s inaugural operation in the Philippines, Ian had to run his electronic gadgets from an offshore boat. And judging by the team’s private accounts of Ian’s abilities on their previous foray into Syria, that was probably the best thing for everyone involved. For all practical purposes, the mission ahead would be Ian’s first real test not just as an intelligence operative, but a shooter—and Cancer was less than thrilled at the lack of confidence he saw in the man’s face.

  Finally, Cancer said, “Listen, Ian. You got nothing to worry about. Just make sure your little robot works.”

  “It’s not a robot,” Ian corrected him. “It’s actually a pretty sophisticated IMSI-catcher called the Manta, which you’d know if you paid attention to my portion of the mission brief—”

  “I don’t care what it’s called. Get it to make all the right beeps and boops to get us to the target, and we’ll take care of the rest. Savvy?”

  “Yeah,” Ian said. “Sure.”

  Shaking his head, Cancer stalked off to find Worthy.

  He heard Worthy before he saw him, a series of metallic scrapes and clangs echoing from behind the door to the hallway bathroom.

  Pausing at the open door, Cancer saw Worthy standing before the mirror, wearing his tactical kit over gym shorts and a T-shirt.

  Worthy raised his rifle to the mirror, pulling the trigger to elicit the hollow click of an empty weapon.

  Before the echo faded, Worthy canted his rifle up and to the side, stripping the empty magazine and retrieving another one from his kit. By the time his empty mag finished its first bounce off the ground, Worthy had reloaded and resumed his aim on the mirror.

  Lowering his rifle, he turned to face Cancer and said, in his Southern drawl, “What’s up, Cancer—you need me?”

  Cancer shook his head slightly. He never ceased to be amazed by Worthy’s endless and obsessive weapons rehearsals.

  A former competitive shooter at the national level, Worthy spent absurd lengths of time in front of a mirror, alternating between reload drills, dry fire drills, malfunction clearance drills, emergency transition from rifle to pistol...when your callsign was Racegun, apparently, the practice never ended. As a result, his hard-earned speed with a weapon was astonishing.

  Cancer said, “Just making sure your trigger finger doesn’t fall off before infil tonight.”

  “Absolutely,” Worthy agreed. “Don’t worry, I’m taking it easy. Bit of practice calms the nerves, you know?”

  “No,” Cancer replied, “I don’t. That’s what cigarettes are for.”

  Exiting the bathroom, Cancer stood in the hallway for a moment, watching David hunched over his planning materials, studying the pages for the hundredth time since they’d arrived.

  Cancer had been surprised when David asked him to be second-in-command of the team. It wasn’t a question of experience—Cancer had more of that than anyone else in their ranks, probably more than any two members combined.

  He’d also fought alongside David twice, both times in the mercenary realm. The first was a multi-day operation in the jungles of South America’s Triple Frontier, where David had first taken issue with Cancer’s personal brand of warfighting. Which was, in a word, ruthless.

  What else could it be? Combat was an unforgiving realm, and nothing was more important than removing as many enemies from the battlefield as possible, whenever and wherever you found them. If not, they would return the favor to you and your teammates at the first available opportunity.

  David understood that much, but just barely. The kid had just enough skills to be good in a fight, but just enough morality to feel bad about the fallout. No matter, Cancer thought, some more experience would harden David into less of a touchy-feely team leader. In the meantime, it was up to Cancer to coach David whenever and however he could, and he intended to do just that.

  “Hey, boss,” Cancer called from the hallway. “Talk to you for a second?”

  David looked up, then quickly rose and approached him.

  “What’s up?”

  Cancer nodded toward a doorway at the end of the hall, and David followed him into the empty room.

  Closing the door behind them, David asked, “How are the guys looking to you?”

  “Fine,” Cancer said. “I’m only concerned about one.”

  David gave an understanding nod. “Ian’s out of his comfort zone, but he’ll deliver on target. I’ve worked with him more than you have. And don’t forget who his dad is.”

  “I’m not talking about Ian. I’m talking about you.”

  David recoiled, seeming uncertain if Cancer was being serious. “How so?”

  “The guys told me about your little Call of Duty sprint to pull that little girl off the street last time we tried to slot BK.”

  “Yup.”

  “Ever think what would happen if you got shot in the face?”

  David’s eyes narrowed. “Ever think what would happen if she got shot in the face?”

  Cancer shook his head. “We ain’t Amnesty International, Suicide. You get smoked taking some dumb risk, and we gotta deal with it. We got one job: killing bad guys. Don’t start thinking there’s any good we can accomplish besides that. You make this morality sideshow too much of a hobby and people are going to get hurt. That girl may be safe, but how many people would die if Duchess couldn’t find BK again?”

  David was unconvinced. “What did you want me to do—let her get killed? We stand by and do nothing, then we’re no better than they are.”

  He shrugged. “We ain’t.”

  “I’m not talking about the civilians; I’m talking about the terrorists.”

  “So am I.”

  David’s face turned to stone, his green eyes going flat. “Care to explain that?”

  “Sure. You care to hear? Because my advice seems to be falling on deaf-fuckin’-ears lately, stopping somewhere short of your officer brain.”

  David huffed a breath, his expression softening.

  “I picked you as my 2IC for a reason, Cancer. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “Those terrorists are the same people as us—ruthless, violent, willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish their mission. They’re on the other side of the ideological fence, sure. But don’t think for one second that we’re different from them. Because the biggest difference between us and the people we’re hunting isn’t our morality, it’s our methods. Remember that.”

  6

  Reilly followed his team into the closed hangar.

  Along with his teammates, he carried his rucksack, weapon, and kit bag with parachute, helmet, oxygen tanks, and cold weather gear. The combined weight was considerable, though he’d be able to ditch most of it in their parachute cache after landing.

  The hangar spread before him, revealing a single aircraft.

  And man, what an aircraft it was.

  The C-17 was a mighty
plane, a bulbous gray giant with four engines and a tail rising fifty feet off the ground. At half a football field long, the massive bird could haul eighty-five tons of cargo just under the speed of sound.

  The sight sent Reilly’s heart racing. It was one thing to view such an aircraft sitting on a runway or even cruising overhead; it was another to see one that would soon catapult you across an international border just below the stratosphere, all while you waited for the order to jump.

  The plane and its crew belonged to the Special Operations Division of the 437th Airlift Wing out of Charleston. While the same aircraft was used by a number of Air Force outfits, the Special Operations Division birds were heavily modified with a number of classified upgrades that allowed them to operate on dangerous missions involving nighttime flying, low-level and bad-weather operations, and anything sufficiently discreet to require top-secret clearances by all aircrew and maintenance personnel. They had a corresponding requirement for no-notice taskings from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, maintaining on-call aircraft at full alert at their home base.

  David set his equipment on the concrete floor, and the rest of the team lined up their kit alongside his before following him toward the people lined up at the aircraft’s tail.

  The three-man flight crew consisted of two pilots and a loadmaster, each wearing flight suits devoid of insignia. None seemed to be strangers to meeting nondescript teams of shooters requiring transport into enemy territory. They knew David’s team as OGA, a designation for Other Governmental Agency that usually signified CIA officers of one flavor or another.

  But Reilly’s gaze skipped past the two male pilots to the loadmaster, who was responsible for securing cargo and passengers before and during the flight. She was an olive-skinned brunette with curves Reilly could appreciate even amid her otherwise shapeless flight suit.

  David and the pilots made a hasty introduction, then began going over the flight route, in-flight checkpoints, mission-abort criteria, airspeeds for cruising and personnel drop, and the location of the exit point based on prevailing wind direction at altitude. The plan had already been established, and the two leads—the pilot in command, and David as ground force commander—were simply confirming what they already knew in case a detail slipped through the cracks along the way.