by Joseph Badal
“I agree that U.S. defense stocks will surge after the attack, but I am less confident than you are that the U.S. President will do nothing but talk.”
“That’s been his standard reaction in the past. Besides, we’ve covered our trail. The Americans will see Iran’s fingerprints, not ours.”
“Yes, that’s true. But this will be a wholly different event. This won’t be like Benghazi. The damage and the casualties will be much worse. Remember how the Americans responded after 9/11. They went to war.”
Rastani chuckled. “The man in the White House is no warrior.”
Kashkari smiled, but he shuddered again. This time it wasn’t because he was excited. He had two hopes. One, that Rastani hadn’t underestimated the Americans. A war could bleed IS dry. His second hope was that Rastani would not discover the personal financial transactions he’d made. It wasn’t only the Islamic State about to make a fortune from this mission.
CHAPTER 22
As the DELTA team pulled into the forward operations center twenty miles from Sultanmaneh, it was met by a team of doctors and medics. Michael watched the medical personnel move the wounded to a hospital tent. The dead Afghani troops were carried away on stretchers.
Michael turned away and said a silent prayer for the dead and wounded.
“What about your wound, General?”
Michael turned. An Afghani doctor stood between him and the tent entrance.
“I’ll deal with it later.”
The doctor shook his head. “See that you do.”
Michael suddenly remembered the call he’d ignored on his sat phone during the firefight and checked the number on his phone. He recognized the Central Command prefix, highlighted the number, and hit DIAL.
“Richter.”
“General, it’s Michael Danforth. You tried to reach me.”
“Yeah, Mike. Everything all right?”
“We were in the middle of an ambush when you called.”
“I just heard about it. Casualties?”
“We lost two Afghani Rangers and four men were wounded, including two DELTAs. None of the injuries are serious. I’ll file a report as soon as I get the chance. In the meantime, we need to find a rat. Someone talked to the Taliban about our little goodwill visit today.”
“Bastard!”
“Yeah. Probably one of the town elders in Sultanmaneh. I’ll—”
“Listen, I need you and your team on a plane to Sicily, ASAP.”
“Sicily? Huh. We after the Mafia now?”
“Three guys hijacked a yacht down there. The hijackers are all dead. Your dad thinks something big may be in the works.”
Michael shook his head and wondered if he’d heard Richter correctly. “My father? What’s he got to do with a boat hijacking?” Then he had a sinking feeling. His entire family was on Sicily.
“Your family was on the hijacked yacht.”
Michael held his breath and steeled himself for bad news. “Are they okay?”
“They’re all fine.”
“I’ll get down there as quickly as I can. But why my team?”
“The boys and girls at Langley asked for a Lone Wolf Team. You’re the closest to that location.”
“Okay.”
“One other thing, Mike. Apparently, one of the hijackers was about to shoot your father when your son killed the guy with a flare gun.”
“Holy . . . .”
After a doctor stitched his wound and injected him with antibiotics, Michael ordered up an H-92 troop transport helicopter that flew him and his seven-man DELTA team, including the two wounded, to Bagram Airbase where a C-130 transport plane waited. The pilot met them on the tarmac.
“General, I have orders to fly you to Sigonella Naval Base on Sicily.” He handed Michael an envelope stamped with multiple red SECRET stamps.
Michael pointed at the aircraft. “That’s a lot of airplane for eight men.”
The pilot shrugged. “It’s all that was available.”
The pilot and the DELTAs boarded the plane and were airborne five minutes later.
Michael ripped open the envelope and found a message from General Richter:
Your mission has been tagged “Sea Wolf,” and is off the books. You and your men will operate under non-official cover (NOC) rules. You will be met at the airfield on Sigonella by a Company representative. Laila Farhami. She will provide further instructions.
Good luck!
D.R., MG
Michael re-read the document and had just finished ripping it into tiny pieces when the cockpit door opened and a female captain approached.
“Captain O’Malley, General. I’m your co-pilot.” She pointed at a pile of duffel bags stacked in a row against the fuselage. “Those contain civvies and untraceable weapons. One bag for each of you. You’ll leave your current weapons and clothing on board. Everything should fit.”
“Thanks, Captain. What’s our ETA?”
“Shortly after 2 a.m., local time. We’ve got a range of twenty-three hundred miles and should be able to make Sicily without a refueling stop.”
After O’Malley returned to the cockpit, Michael briefed his team about what he knew, as little as it was.
The second in command, Lieutenant Lewis Campbell, asked, “Since there’s not much info to go on, what’s the conjecture? I mean, why would Central Command send a Lone Wolf Team to Sicily based on so little information?”
Good question, Michael thought. “You know suspected terrorists hijacked a yacht in the Ionian.” Michael made eye contact with each of the men in turn. “The yacht they happened to hijack had my mother, father, wife, and son on board. When I got the news, I planned to go to Sicily alone. Central Command ordered me to take along a Lone Wolf Team. I suspect that decision was based upon a recommendation from my father.”
Michael saw skeptical expressions on the faces of several of his men. One man, Master Sergeant Burt Winfield, the team’s senior NCO, said, “No disrespect intended, General, but why would Central Command commit our team based on a civilian’s recommendation?”
“My father’s retired now. But he was once an Army officer who served a combat tour in Vietnam and for nearly forty years worked for the Company. He headed up Special Operations and had ultimate command over the Lone Wolf Team that took down the Black Gold Brotherhood a couple years ago.” Michael smiled. “He’s not your average civilian.”
CHAPTER 23
The Zoe Mou docked in the Vangelos Charters berth in Syracuse Harbor at 7 p.m. Bob had received a call from Tanya Serkovic on the yacht’s satellite phone an hour earlier. In accordance with Tanya’s instructions, he waited on board while Nick Vangelos escorted Liz, Miriana, and Robbie to the hotel they’d stayed in the night before.
At 8:45, a young woman, followed by two very large men, boarded the yacht.
“Mister Danforth, my name is Laila. You may go to your hotel and join your family as soon as I brief you.”
“Brief me about what?”
“The Director has asked that you take the hijackers’ sat phone with you.”
“Why?”
“You might be called upon to use that phone at 2330 hours tonight.”
Yep, he could almost feel a giant sucking force about to pull him into something that would really piss off Liz. What he wouldn’t admit to her was that he couldn’t have been more thrilled.
Dottore Salvatore Innocenti had been the Perizia di Siracusa for eighteen years. The job of medical examiner paid the princely sum of 80,000 Euros, or about $108,500. Innocenti augmented his salary with speaking fees at forensic conferences and lectures at the Universita di Siracusa. But money was always tight, particularly because his wife, Gina, was a shopaholic.
Innocenti was a hard-working man. But he was also a financially desperate one, who badly wanted to please his wife who was fifteen years his junior and a hellion in bed. So, when a woman called and offered to pay him fifty thousand U.S. dollars under the table for his discreet services, Innocenti agreed to meet her down
at Siracusa Harbor. He had received similar calls in the past. He was always paid well for his services, but never knew for whom he worked. It didn’t really matter. He needed the money.
At 9:15 p.m., Innocenti drove up to the dock at the berth number he’d been given. He saw a young woman on the dock, parked the van, got out, and walked over to her.
“I am Dottore Innocenti. Your name please.”
The woman handed him a large manila envelope. “There’s fifty thousand dollars in there. My name is unimportant.”
Innocenti nodded. “What can I do for you?”
“Come with me.”
Innocenti followed the woman aboard a large yacht where two huge men stood in the shadows. He heard the sound of what seemed to be a generator running below decks. The woman led the way down a ladder to a cabin. When she opened the cabin door, a blast of cold air hit him.
“Are you storing meat down here?”
“Sort of.”
She stepped aside and the doctor saw two bodies on the floor, wrapped in plastic tarpaulins. He shot a questioning look at the woman.
“You ready to earn your money?”
“What do you want?”
“These men were very bad. They killed at least three people and would have murdered even more if they had not been stopped. One was killed by a flare gun; the other committed suicide when he bit down on a cyanide capsule. I want you to perform autopsies, DNA tests, full body scans. I want to know as much as possible about their bloodlines and about the dental and medical care and treatment they’ve received. Is their dental work European, American, or otherwise? You will provide me with tissue and blood samples and a complete report of all of your findings. Is that understood?”
“Si, capisco,” he answered. “What would you like me to do with the bodies after I complete my tests?”
“Do you have a crematorium in your facilities?”
Innocenti nodded.
“Good. There should be no official record of your tests other than what you give me, and as far as your employer is concerned, the bodies never existed.”
Innocenti wondered for a moment if the woman was Mafiosa. But he didn’t have the nerve to ask and didn’t really care. Her money would go a long way toward keeping his wife happy.
CHAPTER 24
“You ready for me?” Frank Reynolds said as he entered Tanya Serkovic’s Langley office at 3:20 p.m., Eastern time.
“Let’s do it, Frank. We don’t have a lot of time to put this in play. It’s now 9:20 p.m. on Sicily.”
“Okay, here’s what we’ve got. The NRO had no ears or eyes over the Ionian when the two calls were made from the hijackers’ sat phone. So, we have no idea about the conversations other than that the duration of the calls shown on their sat phone was extremely brief. A few seconds in each instance. We rehearsed several alternative conversations that could have fit into the time durations of the two calls. If we assume the callers merely checked in, they might have identified themselves, stated their location, and maybe said something about being on schedule.”
“Dammit. If the caller identified himself, either by his name or a code name, we’re screwed. And in what language was the call made? God, what a mess.”
Frank said, “We could have Bob call the number at 2330 hours and broadcast static. The party on the other end might assume all is okay because of the attempted contact but that the phone isn’t operating.”
“I like that. They’d definitely know something’s wrong if the call wasn’t made. If we make the call, we have a slim chance of pulling it off.”
“What can I do for you, Tanya?” Bob answered from the living room in his hotel suite in Syracuse. Liz sat in a chair across from him, her hair covered in a towel, turban-like, her body wrapped in a fluffy white bathrobe.
“I’ve got you on speaker. Frank is here. We believe your analysis might be correct about the calls from the sat phone. We need you to make a call from that phone at 2330 tonight. The call has got to be made from that sat phone, from a number the person on the other end will recognize.”
“Yeah? And please explain why I’m the one who has to do this.” Bob looked over at Liz and shook his head.
Tanya said, “Because you have the phone.”
“And there are no Company assets on Sicily?” When Tanya didn’t respond, Bob sighed. “Okay, but that’s it. You understand?”
“All you have to do is make the call and then hold a hair dryer over the speaker. We don’t know what the real caller was supposed to say, so let’s make the guy on the other end think the phone’s acting up.”
“Okay. Call me on my cell if anything new comes up.”
Bob placed his cell phone on the coffee table and looked at Liz.
“Nice performance,” she said. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Sure, I don’t want to see you involved in Company business anymore, but do you actually think I would throw a hissy fit over you getting involved in identifying the people behind the hijacking? The people who would have been responsible for our deaths?”
Bob tried to smile at Liz but he knew the attempt was weak.
“Robert Danforth, you listen to me. If the CIA can’t do this without you, then that’s the way it’s got to be. And, you know what? I’m proud of you for wanting to help and also because Langley wants your help. So don’t act like you don’t want to be in the middle of this mess.” She took a deep breath, and added, “Just promise me one thing.”
Bob shot Liz an expectant look.
“Help get these bastards before they hurt any more people.” She stood, came over to the couch, and kissed his forehead. “You know you’re my hero?”
CHAPTER 25
“Just checking in, Conrad,” Raymond Gallegos said.
Director of the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations Group, Conrad Demetruk, said, “I called NRO. They’ve re-oriented several of their satellites.”
“And?”
“Come on, Ray. You know changing the course of one of these satellites isn’t easy.”
“We’re on pins and needles over here. It’s already 2230 on Sicily.”
“You realize nothing may come of this?”
“Yeah.” After a beat, Ray said, “I’m in the Special Ops Center with Tanya Serkovic and Frank Reynolds. How ‘bout we keep this line open for the next hour? That way we can react quicker if something happens.”
“Okay. I’ve already got an open line to Marge Brew at NRO. I’ll conference you in on that line.”
Ray put the call on speaker and hit the MUTE button. Then he told Frank, who stood next to him, “Let’s conference in Bob Danforth. If we find something useful, it may come down to the wire.”
For the next twenty minutes, Ray sat down, stood up, paced, sat down again. The silence and tension in the room was oppressive. He felt pressure build in his chest and the beginning of a headache. He badly needed to pee, but he dared not leave the room. He stood again and paced around the communications consoles. For about the thousandth time, he jerked a look at the wall clock that showed Sicily time: 2255.
The seconds ticked away. Ray silently begged the digital clock on the wall to slow down, but its red numbers only seemed to count down even faster. He took his eyes off the clock for a second and met Tanya’s gaze. The hangdog look on her face matched his mood. He continued to pace, and muttered, “Come on. Come on.” The digital clock changed to 2258, 2259, 2300. Ray groaned. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” he whispered.
Tanya shouted, “Ray, call your guy at the NSA. See if they have anything.”
“He’s on an open line, on speaker. If he had anything new he would have screamed it from the rooftops.”
Tanya nodded. “Watching that stupid clock tick down is driving me nuts.”
Despite what Ray had said to Tanya, when the digital clock turned to 2324 he reached to depress the button on the phone console to take it off mute, to ask Conrad Demetruk if he had come up with anything, when “Conrad, it’s Marge at NRO
” suddenly burst from the telephone speaker.
Ray jabbed the MUTE button and listened to Conrad Demetruk shout, “Talk to me, Marge.”
“We just picked up a conversation between a sat phone in a location off the southern coast of Sicily and that number Bob Danforth gave us. The caller said, ‘This is Saber Team One at rendezvous point two. On schedule.’ Do you copy?”
“I copy, Marge,” Demetruk said.
Ray asked, “Marge, what language was—”
“Hold on, Ray,” Marge said.
Ray heard voices in the background but he couldn’t make out the words.
“Come on, Marge; come on, Conrad.”
Two minutes passed. Then Marge Brew came back on the line. “We just intercepted a second call between another offshore caller and the same telephone as before. Same message, except the caller identified himself as Saber Team Two.”
“What language?” Ray shouted.
“Gulf Arabic.”
As Ray whipped around, he saw the digital clock turn over to 2328. He shouted, “Bob, did you hear that?”
“Yeah. We got two calls from men who identified themselves as Saber Team members and spoke Arabic.”
“You need to make a call now. Just say this is Saber Team Three at rendezvous point two. On schedule.”
“What if the NSA missed other such calls? What if a Saber Team Three has already checked in? There may be more than three teams.”
“What’s our choice, Bob?”
“None,” Bob said. “Marge, put your Arabic linguist on the line and have him speak the words I need to say. My Arabic is rusty.”
A woman’s voice burst through Bob’s cell phone. He repeated three times what she told him until she said, “Perfect.”
Bob put down his cell phone and picked up the sat phone. He punched in the number stored there and listened to a series of tones and then a ring. When the rings stopped, no one said a word. But Bob knew from the phone’s digital readout that the connection had been made. It was now 23:31. He said in Arabic, “Saber Team Three. We are at rendezvous point two. On schedule.”