SAFE HAVENS: Shadow Masters (A Sean Havens Black Ops Novel Book 1)

by J. T. Patten

  The contractors would be in the infirmary for the next few weeks, but at least they would be out of the picture and do no further damage in this country.

  Havens tried to stay in some mental character while attacking his fellow countrymen, however stupid and juvenile they were. He recognized that this attack was rather unconventional even for his taste, but he was going for effect and these oafs were perfect scapegoats at the perfect time. Not his greatest performance, but perhaps enough to get a little something going and salvage his outing. It might even save their lives. Hopefully, it would save his.

  As Sean Havens spun towards the previously approaching authorities, he noticed they were now confined by a crowd of people rushing to gawk and put out a fire that had caught a shanty stall ablaze from the grenade’s flame and high heat detonation. The authorities were still trying to part the crowd and break free towards his position.

  Oops, didn’t mean to toast that shop. Looks like you guys are jammed up for now while I scoot. Exit stage left.

  Havens turned his attention back to the contractors. As they were dazed and a little slow on the draw from Havens’ shock and awe combination, Havens directed a low volume but audible statement to the men, delivering perhaps the greatest shock yet to their system.

  “Sorry, dudes, but you were in the wrong place. Don’t make a move. Believe it or not I just saved your lives. Sorry about your new boots.”

  In the bloody mess, the whites of their surprised eyes looked almost cartoonlike to Havens, popping out. Aooga! sounded in his head as Havens recalled the familiar sound that accompanied shocked animated Saturday morning characters with their eyes shooting out of their heads in astonishment.

  Pull smoke, Havens. Time to bail.

  Havens started to make an exit dash towards an adjacent alley when he literally ran into his originally intended mark.

  Still moving with conviction and thinking in rapid adaptability mode, Havens said quickly in Yemeni Arabic, “Help these men,” and he handed his target the bloodied knife while wiping his bloodied hand on the mark’s shirt.

  The mark, stunned, stood with his arms now widening open in utter confusion but nonetheless took steps towards the men just a few feet away.

  Another man from the crowd pointed to the mark and yelled out to others, “That man. There. He has stabbed those men.”

  The crowd shouted at the authorities now making their way out of the crowd into the space of the scene with weapons drawn.

  “This man has tried to kill us all with his bombs. He is Aulaq! He has stabbed them. Shoot him!”

  Like good public servants in a hostile crowd, despite knowing this man was innocent, they opened fire to the demand and jeers of the crowd. On the other hand, he did look like he was from the Aulaq tribe who was granting safe haven to AQAP mujahideen.

  The report to their superiors would be of a crazed jihadist attacking the capital’s market in a separatist rebel act, and despite a threat to their own lives, they confronted the man and were forced to kill him.

  They would be heroes.

  Others could then start rounding up the usual suspects and engage the military to head to the Aulaqs.

  As the innocent mark fell back riddled with bullet holes, he dropped the knife and looked up to the fine wisps of clouds, still not comprehending what happened before he died.

  Havens felt some remorse for the man who was supposed to be scared, not killed. Scared was the plan. Havens shrugged and continued on his way.

  Do I smell pancakes?

  Ugh, need to see what is up at home too. Hope it isn’t the air conditioner or something expensive like that. I wanted to buy that BMW SUV for Christina. So close.

  Bet she keeps calling because I left a dirty coffee cup and sandwich in the basement that started to smell. Crap, I promised I would try harder to clean up.

  Did I pay the bills before I left or are they still on my desk? Shit.

  Take your pick, Sean; it ain’t going to be pretty.

  Chapter 5

  Havens got to the safe house with minimal street interactions. He cut into the dank alleyway between earth toned brick buildings tightly nestled together. A slight glimpse of a figure in a black burka caught his eye. He entered the rustic wooden side door. The loud creak had been welcome days before as an economical anti-personnel warning. He could hear the creaking from his apartment above. The noise was a vulnerability now that he was unsure if someone knew of his temporary lair.

  He paused in the hot musty entryway at the bottom of the staircase to get a sense of his environment.

  The sounds and smells were the same at this point.

  Havens climbed the old stairs slowly and opened the door to the apartments’ shared hallway. A dusty long handloomed rug lined the hallway with numerous small unlit sconces mounted along the wall. The trapped heat in the hall burned his lungs. Everything appeared to be in place. His tradecraft counter-penetration traps and tells along the route and around his door remained untouched. Havens looked down the hall again and seeing that all was clear he pulled out a small ultraviolet light. He shone it up to the overhead panel that opened to a small segment of the rooftop. The panel’s orientation and screw head positions were designated with an ultraviolet marker. No one had entered from this point either. It appeared safe to enter his apartment. After a quick glance around the inside, it was the first good thing of the morning.

  Havens walked to the window for a small breath of any fresh airflow. He peered from a crack in the closed window coverings first. The surrounding outside area seemed relatively calm. Normal traffic, normal loitering, normal patterns of life for this third world country. It appeared safe to open the window and curtains a bit. Maybe he would get a slight breeze. Doubtful, but he hoped.

  He would wait a few hours to unwind, change, and get out of Dodge. Now was an opportune time to dial his wife’s dedicated throw away mobile phone.

  Sean Havens’ tradecraft was exceptional for a man who was not officially trained in the same CIA Farm-type field tradecraft that stood out to other operators and foreign intelligence services. He had more of the old school spycraft traits of Cold War days over today’s more tactical operators. Like other skilled operators with years of tradecraft and kinetic targeting experience in country, Havens’ mind was honed. His senses alert. His emotional intelligence could be as one with his surroundings. But on this temporary duty assignment his wife kept calling, and that above all things was really what was irritating him and causing such distraction in his day.

  Maybe his tradecraft was not so exceptional carrying a personal mobile phone on a field operation that could reach his wife’s location directly, but he was contracting now, and his wife was really being a pain in the ass about this trip. To a degree he was able to incorporate this into his cover . It was real life. Not a poorly fabricated cover legend secured to be vetted only one layer deep and glaringly sterile to anyone with an ounce of counterintelligence experience.

  Havens couldn’t put his finger on the situation. His marriage was solid—or as solid as it can be for those deploying with a moment’s notice while keeping secrets at all time. His daughter was not giving him the problems that were forecasted to him about having a teenager. Everyone in the small family of three knew the routine when he traveled and could fend for themselves. The family was in a domestic battle rhythm that was working, contrary to the lives of similar men and their families in this line of work.

  Still, he wondered why his wife was so irritable and on edge. Then again, when he was last in Somalia running a discrete operation, his wife was constantly trying to get in touch when their refrigerator had been moved for a counter top repair. The move subsequently broke the water coil that leaked onto custom Brazilian hardwood floors which had to be torn up along with the subfloor and drywall ceiling in the basement—all while he was away. She blamed him for not being there to handle the situation. After all, she had a job too, a house to take care of, and everything else.

  Life doesn
’t just stop for the family when Dad is away going after bad guys playing David Bourne all around the world, or at least that was how Christina once described it. He corrected her saying, “Jason Bourne is the operator, and David Webb was Bourne’s real name.” He should have shut up. He was right, but she defeated him with a look regardless.

  Sean found it all so frustrating. It was as if he was expected to have a list of home improvement contractors and plumbers in his back pocket while staying in a filthy safe house in a hostile country trying not to get killed. The rant was always the same, adding in having to stay at a safe house that some shitty young DC case officer who couldn’t get promoted or screwed up in clandestine service probably set up for him. Did she think he was hunkered down at a fancy Westin with internet service at his fingertips after his day stopped at 5PM? Did she really think he could just make all the domestic calls from his plush hotel suite to fix the warped floors while he had room service bring in a French dip with a liter of seemingly complimentary water that would cost $7 on the checkout bill? Maybe he would just have to skip the OnDemand movie in the room tonight. What the hell did people think while they were tucked away in bed, safe from the real world?

  With the tirade ending there, she would calmly say, “If you are so worried about not getting killed and living in unsafe environments, maybe you should stay with us to ensure we are safe and taken care of. Maybe your priorities should be reviewed. Why don’t you think a bit about that?”

  When the arguments happened at home, she would then walk away to do something upstairs knowing there was nothing else he could say. He, in turn, would retreat down to the man cave where he could pour himself a slow stream Guinness in a pint glass. In Havens’ view, all would be right again in the world for just a moment in time and then he would go up and apologize.

  Shit, I forgot to return the Red Box flick before I left. Now a one dollar movie that sucked anyway just cost me ten. Bet that’s what this is all about.

  All right, Sean, let’s get this over with.

  Sean’s wife, Christina, answered on the first ring with the requisite “Hello?”

  He noticed the subtleties in tone, volume, and intonation. Whether an operator or an attuned husband, her voice sounded off. Less cheery. Less multi-tasked. She was waiting for a call. Apprehensive. His mind processed everything said and not said. Every pause, every enunciated word.

  “Hey, Christina, what’s up babe?”

  “Where have you been?” her speech rose. Intensity was increasing. “You need to get home now. Right now! Sean, didn’t you get my messages? Where were you? I have been texting and calling you for two days. What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you check messages or carry your phone? What’s the purpose of the phone if I can’t reach you?”

  His wife started crying, escalating into a complete breakdown of emotion.

  This was not normal. He had misjudged this one.

  Havens ruled out the sandwich in the basement and floor guys. He knew this was dialed up a few notches on the drama meter and was fearful to hear what this was going to be. This was code orange for sure. Swearing, yes. Blubbering, never.

  “What’s going on? Why are you so out of control? Just relax. Talk to me.” He tried using some of the same techniques his wife used to help him cope back to reality when operational stress returned home with him like a shadow.

  “You relax!” She screamed. “Your daughter has been raped and is now being stalked by the psycho that did it! Don’t tell me to get control! You…f…fucking…asshole!” Christina was full out sobbing now.

  Havens’ stomach had dropped. His throat was tightening. He felt a bit out of body and light-headed. He found himself biting his lip near to the point of pain.

  The best he could muster was, “What?”

  “She was raped. She was raped, Sean. Raped! You got it now? Raped while you are running around who knows the hell where. Raped and now this son of a bitch is after her because we talked to the police.”

  She paused, but he didn’t know what to say. “Where were you, Sean? Where are you? You better fix your priorities back to us right away. Don’t give me any mission bullshit either.”

  “OK, OK, OK, I am so sorry.” Tears welled in his eyes. “Can you please tell me is she OK? What happened? Who is after her? I assume that if they are still after her she is OK?”

  Christina knew Havens’ daughter was everything to him. Despite their personalities being so different, there was the undeniable bond between father and daughter, and this was no exception. Her empathy for her husband’s emotions now was the only thing that settled her. She had had time to process this all and realized the shock that was hitting him. She would be there for him now. It was his turn to absorb it all and deal with the feelings of helplessness, sorrow, and guilt.

  Ever since Maggie was born, Havens had his daughter in the jogging stroller all along the lakefront and anything else with a path or pavement. He would push her in the stroller to the store, to restaurants for evening carryout, and take her to sports events she was too young to understand or care about. Christina knew her husband was broken now and her anger quickly turned to calmly informing him and assuring him of her improving condition.

  She knew his mind was reeling and detailed what the police had shared.

  She expressed their current state of concern with the text threat that they had received. The threat element broke Havens out of his helpless trance. He watched a spider crawling up the cracked plaster wall. He could hear his wife’s voice but didn’t know what she was saying. His daughter was hurt. Hurt by another man.

  “Sean, we need you home right now. When can you be home? Get those people to get you home now. I know you will do whatever you can, but get home now.”

  Still in utter shock, Havens assured his wife he would start his journey back immediately and would keep her posted. He was concerned that the police were not keeping a closer eye on his family, but evidently their concern did not warrant a protective detail. It occurred to him that in the entire special mission unit and intel entities’ OPSEC they didn’t consider the families left behind while the husband was away.

  Havens would make a few calls and get his own protective detail over to the house. He would call some hunters to get started on the rapist. His fears turned to fury. Sean Havens flipped the switch back from father to hunter and the predator would become the prey.

  I am going to turn the whole motherfucking world over on you. You’re dead. You’re fucking dead! I will fucking rip you apart. Kick in your door and fucking tear you up, motherfucker.

  Havens dialed another number. The line picked up.

  “Get me out of here NOW!”

  Chapter 6

  Havens waited alone with his thoughts, fears, and guilt for about a minute before he broke out paper and a pen and started outlining what Christina had shared with him.

  Three hours had passed before there was a knock at the door. In that time he had detailed the scenarios by which he could kill the rapist and lend plausible deniability to himself. It was a good plan. He just needed to learn who did it or get a whiff of a trial. The rest could be augmented and modified on the fly.

  The original exfiltration plan was to use the same false persona cover legend as when he entered the country from Saudi Arabia to Yemen, but now departing from the new Sana’a International Airport in Yemen. The logistics plan would preserve continuity of country customs entry and departures. It would also harden his cover for his next trip to the region, should one be required.

  Havens, holding an 18 round Russian 9mm OTs-27 Berdysh pistol as he approached the knocking, coughed twice out loud and uttered, “Two seconds, please.” It was audible enough to be heard on the other side of the door, but while doing so he was crouched low and to the side of the door in the event he was blasted by a bullet assault from the hallway from an uninvited party anticipating someone approaching the door.

  “I am sorry, sir, but there is no tour today,” the Arabic reply stated
in response to the cough.

  Havens called out to the closed door. “Can you accommodate me for next week?”

  “Certainly, sir, but perhaps we can discuss the details for a different tour activity.”

  Havens opened the door to see a thirty-something-year-old light-skinned Ethiopian man standing before him in local apparel. Sean’s gaze met the Ethiopian and gestured to his left and right with his eyeballs. When he received a negative nod, Sean felt things were clear and summoned his guest to come in.

  Havens extended his hand to the Ethiopian, “You are not quite what I expected. I am Mick.”

  The Ethiopian shook it vigorously. “Not expecting? What did’ja expect…uh, Mick, a white dude in a pin stripe suit and bowler hat with a big booty bitch on each arm?”

  “Whoa,” Havens offered a smile, “Where are you from? You’re American.”

  The Ethiopian, who introduced himself as John, laughed. “Yeah, I’m Americano. I get that a lot. From DC originally. Moved to Maryland later, came back to DC area, went to school at Georgetown. That’s the story and that’s all you get. I’m just the bridge between you and my guy.”

  “Understood.”

  John threw a twined cloth package on the small dining table, which Havens knew would be a new set of clothes.

  Still amused, Havens was ready to transition from personal to business. He had things to do. “Well shit, had me fooled.”

  “Yeah, that’s the point, right?” John looked around the room. He started walking towards the bedroom where local news radio was playing from somewhere in the back to drown out and confound potential audio surveillance.

  “Whad’ya have for me?” Havens was anxious to get on his way. He knew John was just doing a cursory check and paid it no mind.

  John called back, “I have a ticket, few credit cards, passport…”

  “Whoa, buddy. Passport? I don’t need one of them.” Havens cut John off and grabbed the small leather fanny pack that John had thrown on the clothes package.