Fists balled under the table, Dempsey growled, “You have a lot of nerve coming here—”
Jarvis raised a hand. “It’s all right, John. Let’s give Simon a chance to speak his mind.”
Dempsey fired Jarvis an incredulous stare, but Ember’s Director turned his full attention to Adamo.
“The interrogation I witnessed in Poland violated the President’s moratorium on torture, as well as the policies that govern agents employed by the United States intelligence community.”
“Gimme a fucking break,” Dempsey said and rolled his eyes. “She dislocated his thumb. Do you have any idea what VEVAK would have done if the tables had been turned?”
“Hypothetical quid pro quo is irrelevant,” Adamo said, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “Nowhere in the Constitution, the legal system, or the charters governing the agencies that comprise the intelligence community is it documented that an agent’s behavior shall be modeled after the predicted behavior of the enemy. That’s nonsensical. We are Americans. Our operations are governed by principles and principles only; that is what separates us from and elevates us above our enemies.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Dempsey said and fixed his gaze on Jarvis. “This is the guy the DNI sends us—a lawyer playing dress-up as a spook? It’s because of guys like Adamo that Ember was formed. It’s because of guys like Adamo that men like Rafiq al-Mahajer are still in the wind plotting terror.”
Jarvis held his gaze, and Dempsey waited for him to lash out at Adamo himself. To his surprise, Jarvis directed his comments to Dempsey instead.
“Mr. Adamo is part of the team, John. That was my decision. The DNI sent him, but I accepted him. He is part of the team now, and we will hear his point of view. Ember works because we are all able to share our views and voice our opinions without fear of retribution or ridicule.”
Dempsey stared back, in shock. This was the last thing he needed. He was tired, he was frustrated, and he was still reeling from Smith’s intervention into what little personal life he had left.
“I thought Ember was formed to get shit done that couldn’t get done by Mr. Adamo and his friends. The only reason I agreed to join Ember and play Robin Hood with your band of merry men is because you told me that we were immune to this bullshit. Well, I see that didn’t last long; back to the same old games.”
“What happened is my fault, not Dempsey’s,” Grimes insisted, her eyes darting back and forth between Jarvis, Dempsey, and Adamo. “The interrogation script was entirely my idea. I didn’t brief JD on what I planned to do. I take full accountability.” She folded her arms defiantly across her chest. “And it worked, by the way. JD supported my approach, but the interrogation was mine and my responsibility. No one told me to snap that asshole’s thumb.”
“Accountability flows uphill,” Adamo fired back. “You might be to blame, but Dempsey, as the head of Special Activities, is the one who should be held accountable. And that’s a cold fact.”
“Fuck this,” Dempsey said, shoving his chair back from the table and popping to his feet. “I didn’t walk away from my wife and kid to be micromanaged by some Dudley Do-Right pogue from Langley. If this is the future of Ember, count me out.”
But before anyone could speak, Baldwin burst into the room with Chip and Dale in tow.
“Pardon the interruption,” Baldwin huffed, “but I think we might have found him.”
“Found who?” Dempsey growled.
A cocky grin spread across Baldwin’s face. “Rafiq al-Mahajer, of course.”
CHAPTER 20
Dempsey’s body was electric—not from his triple-shot coffee, and not from the rage he felt toward Simon fucking Adamo. Baldwin’s news that he’d located al-Mahajer had unloaded a week’s worth of adrenaline into his system. He was ready to kit up and go, right fucking now, and so it took great effort to will himself back into his seat at the table.
Chip or Dale dimmed the lights, and the other used a tablet computer to populate the wall of monitors in the TOC with images. The leftmost screen filled with an aerial shot—from a drone, Dempsey surmised—looking down at a compound built into the side of a lush green mountain and facing outward into a densely forested jungle valley. White walls surrounded the compound, which he judged to be twenty feet high. A large Spanish-style house with a courtyard sat off to the east and was flanked by two long, rectangular buildings. To the north, he saw what looked like a warehouse, to the west a deforested area that formed what looked like tracks.
“This is a drug cartel compound in the Cuchumatanes Mountains in central Guatemala,” Baldwin began. “DEA has monitored activity here for years, but it popped onto NSA’s radar when rumors started floating around that Hezbollah had contracted with the Zetas to lease space for training their jihadi fighters. This is only one of several compounds we believe are leased for this purpose—including one much closer to our southern border, in Mexico.”
“Wait a minute,” Grimes interrupted, “you’re telling us that Hezbollah is training terrorists at the narco camps in Central America? How long has this been going on?”
Before Baldwin could answer, Adamo spoke up. “DEA, The Activity, and the CIA have been following this for some time now. Hezbollah fighters usually arrive at the camps in groups of ten or twenty. Upon their arrival, we typically see a surge of cartel soldiers who carry out the training. They do intensive calisthenics, small-arms training, go off into the jungle for land-navigation training, et cetera. We know they train in night vision equipment, tactical assaults, air assault with helicopter support—it’s like a weapons boot camp, we think for newbies in Hezbollah’s ranks. Typically, we can see the surge. Is that photo the most recent aerial?”
“You beat me to the punch,” Baldwin said, and a new picture of the camp appeared next to the first one.
Dempsey compared the photos and immediately noted two differences. The first was that the camp now had four large canvas tents in the area adjacent to the training ground. The second was a quantifiable bump in the number of people milling about. More men occupied the front courtyard, and dozens more were grouped in pockets across the training grounds. In this particular image, it appeared as though the trainees were lined up for an exercise at the rear of the compound—a shooting range, Dempsey surmised.
“That was taken two days ago,” Baldwin said.
“What made you decide to look at this particular compound?” Smith asked, joining the mix.
“Because it got flagged this morning for an encrypted sat-phone transmission that is a match in our database.”
“Can you narrow it down better than that?”
“Yes,” Baldwin said. He had the excited professor look again, and Dempsey could almost see the mathematical algorithms that floated around in the man’s head. “We have high confidence this is the same phone that has been communicating with al-Mahajer’s proxy as well as the VEVAK operative you have in Poland. And if that’s not convincing enough, there’s always this . . .”
A new image appeared on the first monitor. The photograph was a close-up—tight, grainy, and blurry—of a man standing with his hands on his hips, staring at something in the firing range area. He had a full beard and was wearing a long shirt. He looked Middle Eastern to Dempsey, but the image was far from conclusive.
“This is Rafiq al-Mahajer,” Baldwin said.
Jarvis squinted at the image. “Are you sure, Ian?”
Baldwin looked at his young assistants and they nodded in unison.
“Eighty-seven percent match,” said the one on the left.
“It’s him,” Baldwin said.
“When was this taken?” Dempsey asked.
“Yesterday.”
“It all makes perfect sense now,” Dempsey said. “That’s why al-Mahajer sent a proxy to Iraq, because he’s been in Guatemala all along.”
“Or,” Grimes chimed in, “maybe he was in the Middle East, sent a proxy for security reasons, and fled to Guatemala after the raid. Or, maybe the meeting in Al Qa’
im was about something else altogether. Perhaps we need to sort out what the purpose of that meeting was before we jump to conclusions.”
Dempsey shook his head. “That would be nice, but it doesn’t change where we are. Either way, it explains why our Iranian friend in Poland was in Al Qa’im. VEVAK supports Hezbollah with both money and arms. No matter what the intelligence community has failed to prove these last few years, we’ve all suspected it for a long time. Al-Mahajer was functioning as the intermediary between the Islamic State and Hezbollah to facilitate cooperative training. Why train recruits in Syria, amid NATO air strikes and Russia blowing shit up in their backyard, when they could bring them to Central America instead?”
“Not to mention,” Grimes added, “that it’s a much easier proposition for ISIS to piggyback on Hezbollah’s business with the cartels than to try to create a relationship from scratch.”
“So are we saying that ISIS is now having their new recruits trained in Guatemala by the Zeta cartel alongside Hezbollah?” Mendez asked.
“It would appear so,” Adamo said.
“Holy shit. That ain’t good.” The former Marine let out a whistle.
“No, it’s not,” Jarvis said.
“Then what the hell are we waiting for?” Dempsey said, pounding his fist on the table. “We need to go get these guys.”
“Agreed,” Jarvis said.
“We’ll need more shooters,” Dempsey said, his mind racing, already working out the details of the hit. “And dedicated drone support.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a minute,” Adamo said, waving his hands in the air. “It doesn’t work this way. Like I said before, DEA and partner agencies have been watching this camp for years. There are a lot of very talented men and women who have dedicated years of their lives to the strategic prosecution of this particular target—both the camp and the narco-terrorists, not to mention the global crime syndicates that it services. Just because you have a green spaghetti line and a blurry photo of a suspected terrorist does not give you the authority or the right to charge in and destroy years of carefully laid plans.”
“First of all,” Dempsey said, “Rafiq al-Mahajer is not a suspected terrorist. He’s a real goddamn terrorist, and I know that because he blew up my fucking teammate right in front of me. And second, if the Islamic State and Hezbollah both have personnel at that camp at this very moment, we have a moral responsibility to act before they disappear into the jungle and we lose them forever.”
Adamo started to respond, but Jarvis cut him off. “Enough. I appreciate both your input, but I’ve made the decision. Dempsey, you have the green light to plan the mission, but Adamo is right, we need to stage and coordinate this with DEA assets in country.” He fixed his gaze on the CIA man. “The DNI sent you here for situations precisely such as this, to facilitate cooperation with other agencies so our missions can be effective without stepping on other agencies’ toes.”
Adamo, red-faced, nodded.
“It’s time to earn your paycheck,” Jarvis said sternly. “Go, facilitate. I want wheels up in two hours.”
Adamo stood, and after a beat so did everyone else.
Dempsey walked around the circular table to Jarvis. “There’s a lot of high-speed bad guys in the photo, boss. I could use a few Team guys, maybe a couple of SEAL snipers, to round out our ranks.”
“Got someone in mind? Someone who won’t piece you together from your old life and blow your NOC?” Jarvis asked.
Dempsey nodded. “You’ll have to pull some strings, and we’ll need a by-name request through WARCOM.”
“Easily done.”
“Great. Let me make a call,” Dempsey said. “The guy I’m thinking of should be just up the road.”
CHAPTER 21
Cuchumatanes Mountains, Guatemala
October 27, 1930 Local Time
Dempsey gripped the oversize monocular in his right hand. It was the model of choice for snipers and operators needing to sight in or to take pictures in difficult terrain. He switched on the optical filter. He wanted one final look at the camp from the hilltop before the darkness forced him to switch to night vision mode and the finer details would be lost. The camp was buzzing with activity, but nothing he saw confirmed that Hezbollah and ISIS fighters were present. There were plenty of guys with beards who could be Middle Eastern, but they could just as easily be Latino. The Predator and satellite overflights had not imaged anyone resembling al-Mahajer since that initial photo. But they’d gleaned other details. Three of the four tents that had been visible thirty-six hours ago were now gone. And current manpower estimates placed forty-three tangos in the camp—deemed exclusively male based on size and gait. Most were heavily armed—at least the ones that Dempsey could see.
The encampment was fortified and designed with defense against incursion in mind. The side of the camp was essentially built into the rocky face of a small mountain, making it completely unapproachable from the north. Two towers flanked the southern walls, one at each corner, and both were equipped with .50-caliber machine guns. The DEA task force they were coordinating with had warned that there would likely be RPGs in the camp. To make matters worse, a known Zeta QRF outpost was located thirty minutes away.
“So?” Lieutenant Keith Redman said.
Dempsey glanced at Chunk, who was lying prone beside him in the tall jungle foliage.
“It’s doable,” he said, sighting one last time through the scope before the sun retreated behind the western curve of the mountain. He savored the moment—dug in shoulder to shoulder with a kindred operator, scoping the target before an incursion. It felt damn good playing SEAL again, although he could do without the wet chafing that came with jungle ops.
“See any showstoppers?”
“Nah,” Dempsey said. “Let’s head back.”
They crept silently down the hill to where the rest of the strike team was waiting. Dempsey had selected a site for their base camp far from the local dirt road used by the cartels, but close to a small clearing that could serve as the EXFIL site. The Zetas had quadcopter drones that they used to patrol the area around the camp frequently, but irregularly, so it was imperative his team stayed concealed under the dense jungle canopy until after nightfall. In total, he was leading a strike team of eighteen: Ember SAD, Chunk plus four other SEALs, and a DEA augment team of eight. All of the DEA shooters were former military operators, led by a former Army Fifth Special Forces Group Master Sergeant. Dempsey had the talent and the firepower to take the narco camp; the only question that remained was, should he? Without positive confirmation that al-Mahajer and his men were still here, training with Hezbollah at this camp, should he assault now or should he wait?
Back in camp, he regrouped with his Ember team—including Adamo, whom he would have preferred to leave behind in Virginia.
“Get the DEA team leader up here,” Dempsey said to Mendez, who nodded and moved off to the south in a combat shuffle.
“What do you think?” Smith asked.
“Easy day to take it,” he said.
Adamo made a pfftt sound—a sound he made frequently and one that was beginning to make Dempsey want to choke the fucking life out of him. “Eighteen assaulting forty-plus heavily armed fighters in a walled encampment with gun towers and surveillance. You call that easy?”
Dempsey gritted his teeth and glared. Adamo had just summed up the odds Dempsey’s old unit had faced on practically every Tier One SEAL mission. That was the difference between an operator and an intelligence officer. That was the difference between getting shit done and waiting for shit to happen.
“Sup?” a deep voice said, shaking Dempsey out of his ruminations. He looked up at the DEA strike team leader, a former Green Beret Master Sergeant whom everybody called BT. BT was clad in blue jeans and a black Aerosmith T-shirt under his kit and was barely breaking a sweat despite the sweltering heat and humidity. Now this was a dude who got it.
“So how unusual is it to have forty tangos in this camp?” Dempsey said
as the operator kneeled beside him.
BT grimaced and shook his head. “I know where you’re going with this, man. You wanna know if numbers alone mean that something hot is going on? Does a population of forty-plus mean that the terrorist shitheads you’re hunting have to be there?” BT sighed. “Problem is there’s a huge range. We do overflights constantly. I can tell you from experience that in this camp there’s never fewer than twenty or so guys—what we call the organic guys. Think of them as the permanent staff, guys who live here. Anything above twenty is your surge population. I’ve seen this camp surge to over a hundred, especially when they have new product to ship. They do a lot of combat training here, too—some for the cartel and some contract stuff for whoever. When that’s going on, the population can swell up to a hundred and fifty.”
“How do the numbers now compare to those you saw a few days ago?”
BT pulled at his shaggy beard. “The camp surged a week or so ago, ten days, I guess. Probably close to eighty. Then the numbers fell, then surged again—twice in the last six days—back to about sixty to seventy.”
“What’s your gut instinct?” Dempsey pressed. “Do you think the guys we’re after are out training in the jungle or have they moved on?”
“I just don’t know, man. It could be that your guys have rotated out, which would explain the drop, or your guys could still be there and the drop could be because a couple dozen cartel guys left to do routine shit—check on storehouses, oversee production centers—hell, all kinds of things. Half the population could be your guys and the other half the organics.”
“Or,” Adamo interrupted, “our guys could be gone, or coming back tomorrow, or maybe they’ve never been here at all. The point is nobody knows.”
“Yes, but uncertainty is not a mandate for inaction,” Dempsey countered. “This is an opportunity to gain critical intel. By hitting the camp, we either get al-Mahajer, or we confirm that he’s left. Either way, we know more than we do now.”
War Shadows (Tier One Thrillers Book 2) Page 16