by Carr, Jack
Mo briefly wondered if Landry would survive the journey; it was a long distance to travel wrapped up in a rug with feet, hands, and mouth secured with duct tape, and decided this was an appropriate time for an Inshallah.
The Agency operated with absolute autonomy in Kurdistan, even during the Saddam years. They had organized a coup there in 1995, one that was thwarted not by Hussein or his secret police, but by the national security advisor in the White House. The CIA and Iraqi dissidents had planned the coup early in 1995 but, at the last minute, the White House lost its nerve. Despite having two divisions and a brigade of the Iraqi Army ready to defect to the anti-Saddam forces, Agency personnel received a last-minute cable from Washington ordering them to stand down. Mo had no idea whether the plan for a coup would have succeeded, but having seen far too much bloodshed in the chaos that followed Saddam’s removal in 2003, he believed the risk would have been worth it.
He briefly wondered what his life would be like had that coup succeeded, but quickly brushed the thought aside. He had work to do in the present, an assignment to break and question his treacherous cargo. The tables were turned, and soon Landry would answer for his sins.
CHAPTER 52
Aboard the USS Kearsarge (LHD-3)
Adriatic Sea
September
THE CHINOOK LANDED ON the deck of the amphibious assault ship under the cover of darkness, the only illumination on deck coming from a strip of green landing lights. Reece, Strain, Ox, and Django climbed out of the Defender through the top of its roll cage and down the helo’s rear ramp while the aircraft and deck crews worked swiftly to move the MH-47 onto the elevator that would take it to a hangar belowdecks. A desert-cammie-clad Marine first lieutenant from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit led the men across the deck and inside through a steel hatch. All four commandos squinted as their eyes adjusted to the bright fluorescent lights of the ship’s interior while their escort led them through the labyrinth of corridors. Members of the ship’s crew stepped aside to let the visitors pass in the narrow space, eyeing the mysterious armed men with curiosity. The beards, nylon chest rigs, and salt-stained MultiCam combat clothing worn by the Agency men contrasted sharply with the blue and gray “Aquaflage” worn by the clean-cut sailors of the conventional Navy.
Wonder what admiral ever approved that uniform, Reece thought.
Reece hadn’t been able to catch up with Ox much during the flight due to the noise. Now he was directly behind the Army legend as they moved through the bowels of what Reece often termed a “big gray ship” due to his mysterious inability to tell them apart.
“Aren’t you getting too old for this, Ox? Happy seventieth birthday, by the way. Sorry I missed it.”
“Easy, Reece, I’m not even sixty! Besides, the way my wife spends money, I can’t afford to retire. I can still drive and shoot as long as I don’t forget my glasses.”
“Well, you must be the Dorian Gray of XXXXX.”
“Who?” Ox asked.
“Never mind.”
“Just don’t ask him how to work the comms,” the usually stoic Django deadpanned over his shoulder.
“Yeah, I need to start bringing one of my grandkids along to work the radios,” Ox shot back at his partner. “Why do they make those things so complicated?”
Their Marine escort motioned to a closed hatch and the men shifted to a more professional demeanor as they entered the room for the mission debrief. The room was fairly large by ship standards and was one of the ready rooms for the LHD’s helo pilots. A Marine helicopter squadron logo adorned the hatch as well as the podium at the front of the room, where two men and a woman, all dressed in civilian clothes, waited.
“Great job, boys, fantastic work. Mr. Strain, you and your friend here are going to make me take back all of the bad things I’ve ever said about SEALs. Mr. Reece, I’m Vic Rodriguez, very nice to meet you.”
Reece was never a great judge of height, but he guessed Rodriguez at five feet six. He was a handsome man with short salt-and-pepper hair and olive skin that made his age hard to guess. Dressed in khaki pants, hiking boots, and a black polo shirt, he was fit and had an energetic air that made him immediately likable.
The two men shook hands, Rodriguez smiling warmly. He motioned toward the other individuals in the room and introduced them. Reece recognized Nicole Phan, the analyst from the videoconference in Istanbul; she looked even younger in person.
“Guys, this is Major Dave Harper. He’s a liaison from XXXX,” Rodriguez said, introducing the thin man with the high and tight haircut.
“Great job out there. I’m just here to coordinate the air, ground, and sea assets for this. Here to help however I can.”
“Those helo pilots were nothing short of incredible,” Reece said. “Please thank them for us.”
“Will do,” the Army major said with a nod.
The ship’s galley had the room catered and the food, true to Navy form, was actually not bad, though Reece hadn’t forgotten the differences between eating in the officers’ mess and the enlisted one. Night and day. Reece and Freddy ate like they’d been shipwrecked for weeks before beginning the hotwash. He led them through each phase of the mission, answering questions from Rodriguez, Phan, and Harper as they went. The UAV images were displayed on the room’s LCD screen, and the men gave play-by-play narratives from their perspective on the ground. Reece had been through hundreds of similar debriefs during his time in special operations, though none were as sensitive or as classified as this one. Following the three-hour meeting, Harper called for an escort to show the men to their assigned sleeping quarters.
Rodriguez shook Reece’s hand on the way out and spoke in a muted voice. “Great work, Reece. Get some sleep. There’s something I want to discuss with you in the morning.”
Reece bid him good night, wondering what the morning’s conversation would entail.
CHAPTER 53
REECE SLEPT WELL; THE ship’s gentle roll a muted reminder of his time at sea aboard the Beneteau. That voyage seemed like years ago now. He dreamt of the ocean, how it offered him refuge, tested him, and delivered him, to what, he wasn’t yet sure.
Voices passing outside the hatch of the small stateroom rousted him from a deep slumber. Reece stared silently into the pitch-black darkness and tried to remember where he was. After realizing that he hadn’t failed BUD/S and been assigned to the fleet, he swung his feet onto the deck and felt for his Navy-supplied “shower shoes” with his toes.
The ship’s company had left a package of new white T-shirts and a blue coverall jumpsuit for him on the bunk. He couldn’t bring himself to put on the coveralls but he put on one of the fresh T-shirts and pulled on the Crye MultiCam pants that he’d worn on the Albania op. He brushed his hair back with his hands as best he could and put on a sweat-stained Padres cap he’d found under the bed. Heading out into the passageway and into the bustling heart of the ship during the morning watch, Reece asked directions to the wardroom and wandered in that direction. Navigating the internal passageways of a ship had never come easily to him.
Reece eventually found it with the help of a seaman apprentice who looked about twelve, and he wasn’t surprised to see Ox already there when he arrived. He caught some strange looks from the khaki-uniform-wearing officers seated at one of the tables and begrudgingly took off his hat. He wasn’t sure why he worried about it, the normal decorum of the officers’ mess having already been shattered by the pasty-white former Army NCO clad in a tight T-shirt and a pair of black “Ranger panty” PT shorts, far too much of his anatomy on full display. The ship’s officers apparently knew better than to say anything to the barrel-chested operator sitting by himself.
“Ox, you still wearing those Speedos in public? I think there’s a regulation of some sort against that in the twenty-first-century military. You realize there are women on Navy ships now, right? You remind me of the old chiefs at Coronado who were still rockin’ UDT shorts when I showed up as a new guy.”
“Nothin
g more comfortable, brother. I’m not giving these things up. Get some coffee and come join me.” Ox motioned to an urn full of the Navy’s best jet fuel on a table nearby.
Reece filled his cup and doctored it carefully with sweetener and milk, a bit disappointed at the lack of honey.
“Good thing they do have women on ships now, Reece; otherwise you’d have to drink it black, like a man.”
Reece gave his friend the one-finger salute over his shoulder, then took a seat at the round table, where his friend read a computer printout of a news story through a pair of half-glasses.
“What’s happening in the world today, Ox?”
“Well, it says here that some Albanian commandos killed the most wanted terrorist in the world in a firefight last night.”
“No kidding? Good for them.”
“Yeah, pretty crazy. Says here in all that chaos somebody put a single round through his lungs.”
“Wow! Kinda sounds like when Colombian forces killed Pablo Escobar,” Reece said with a conspiratorial smile.
Ox looked at Reece over his glasses: “Very similar, my friend. Very similar.”
“Are we the only ones up? What time is it?”
“Ha! It’s 0930, Reece. Everyone has been up for hours. Freddy and Vic are off somewhere doing admin, and Django is in the gym, staying huge. He must have eaten a dozen eggs this morning. You need some chow?”
“No, I’m good with coffee for now.”
Reece drank his java in silence, still trying to clear his mind from the fog of sleep while Ox droned on about something. Twenty minutes later, Vic Rodriguez walked into the wardroom dressed in pressed casual clothes: showered, shaved, and looking sharp.
“Good morning, Mr. Reece. Ox, glad to see that you haven’t moved in two hours.”
“Just catching up on the news, boss.”
Rodriguez rolled his eyes.
“Reece, is this a good time for us to talk?”
“Good a time as any, I guess.”
“Let’s head topside. Top off your coffee if you’d like.”
Reece nodded to Ox, who flashed him a grin as he refilled his coffee and followed the Agency man toward the upper deck. The irony was not lost on him that, as a career naval officer, he had to follow a former soldier to find his way through the ship. Vic led him through a hatch and onto the windswept flight deck. A crew member nodded to him and pointed toward the stern; this had obviously been arranged ahead of time. The two men stopped aft of the ship’s superstructure, a few feet from the deck’s edge, the chained railing the only thing between them and a long drop into the Adriatic Sea below. They were mostly out of the wind, but it was still present enough that no one standing more than ten feet away would be able to eavesdrop on their conversation, and no member of the ship’s crew was within anything close to that distance. They had complete privacy. Rodriguez got right to the point.
“Reece, I want to thank you for what you’ve done; because of your efforts, the most wanted terrorist in the world is a corpse. Global markets are reacting to the news as we speak. We had a deal; as far as the U.S. government is concerned, you’re a free man.”
“I appreciate that, Vic. I get the feeling there’s a ‘but’ here, though.”
“You’re right, Reece, there’s a ‘but.’ You don’t owe us a thing, but we sure could use you. I am offering you a job, no strings attached. You’d be a green-badger, a contract guy. You know what that means. It’s not a bad deal. And you get to see this thing through.”
Reece took a sip of coffee and stared out at the choppy green water on the horizon.
Rodriguez continued: “Okay, I guess you’re going to make me sell it. You know what kind of evil is out there; you’ve been in these countries. Amin Nawaz was a big get for us, but someone is going to take his place tomorrow, smarter and even more determined. We need people we can count on to hunt these assholes down to the ends of the earth. And here’s the other part: that plan that you came up with to flip Mo and use him as a ‘pseudoterrorist’? It’s brilliant, but I need you here to run it or else it’ll get fucked up; you know that. Major Farooq, Mo as you call him, is on his way into Iraq with Landry right now. This isn’t over by a long shot.”
Reece nodded and took another sip of coffee, glad his friend was still alive and well.
“Listen, Reece, I don’t know you personally, but I know your reputation. I’ve read all your EVALS, FITREPs, and medal citations, but more importantly, Freddy and Ox think the world of you. Come work for me. You do what you’re good at, and I deal with the politics and the red tape.”
Reece looked Rodriguez in the eye: “You really think they’re going to let me go? They’re just going to forget about all the people I killed?”
“Reece, all I know is that I can’t protect you if you’re not under my wing. Give me a few months on the job, focus on the mission, and I’ll provide top cover. If you decide later that you want to walk, I won’t try to stop you.”
Reece was silent for a full minute as he weighed the different scenarios. He started to say no but stopped himself, looking out to sea, remembering the voyage from Fishers to Mozambique, his family, the tumor, and Katie. In the end, he made the decision for Mohammed, his friend with whom he had shared the bond of combat. This wasn’t over. Mo had been played. He’d been played by a sociopath who had found his way into an intelligence agency that gave him the freedom to feed his sick fantasies. And somebody, possibly in the Agency itself, was running that sociopath. This wasn’t over, and Reece couldn’t walk until it was. He couldn’t leave Mo halfway through the operation. To Reece, that was the same thing as leaving him behind on the battlefield. Vic was right, Reece needed to see it through.
“You forgot to mention something, Vic.”
“Oh, what’s that?”
“That you read my psych eval; that you knew I’d say yes.”
Vic smiled. “Well, true, there is that.”
Reece paused. “I’m saying yes to finishing this operation and then I’m out.”
Vic Rodriguez smiled again and extended his hand.
“Welcome to the team, Reece. Surgery is planned either at Bethesda or at your clinic in La Jolla as soon as this is over. And by the way, you’ve got some money coming your way. We made it a condition of you coming on board that you got to keep the reward money for Nawaz. It was coming from the British government, so we worked it in as a term of your employment. It’s a sizable chunk. Figured you could use it to get a fresh start.”
“That might just about cover my old Land Cruiser, and I owe more than a few people beers. I do have one request to make, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I need you to track down a phone number for me.”
• • •
After a pause and some clicks and beeps as the Iridium satellite phone connected, Reece heard it begin to ring. He was more nervous than he thought he would be. He hoped she’d answer the strange number.
C’mon, pick up.
He thought of all the times he’d called Lauren on the same type of phone, the same clicks and beeps followed by the strange satellite-transformed voice that made loved ones sound like aliens from another world. He’d always told her that everything was okay and not much was going on, even as he looked up at the night sky following a mission in which everything was not okay. No matter how tired he was, he always made time to call, feeling it was his responsibility to use the technical advantages afforded him that were not available to his late father in Vietnam or his grandfather in World War II.
“This is Katie.”
Pause.
“Ah . . . Katie?”
“Yes?”
“Ah, it’s um . . .”
“Hello, anyone there?”
Even through the Iridium satellite link he could detect her slight hint of an accent that most people wouldn’t even notice.
“It’s um . . .”
Shit! What am I, in junior high?
“Hello?” she said again.
Reece, how did you know Ben didn’t have that detonator connected? How did you know he wouldn’t blow my head off?
“Shit!” Reece said out loud, hitting the END CALL button.
I didn’t.
CHAPTER 54
Kurdistan, Iraq
September
LANDRY THOUGHT HE WAS going to die. As whatever drugs they’d given him wore off, panic began to set in. It didn’t help that he was beginning to experience withdrawal symptoms from the cocktail of recreational and prescription drugs that had become his mainstay. His wrists and ankles were bound, there was tape over his mouth and eyes, and he was wrapped in something heavy. The heat was stifling, and the pillowcase over his head only exacerbated the claustrophobic conditions. The only sounds he could hear were those of tires on various combinations of asphalt, gravel, and dirt as the vehicle traveled for what seemed like days, his brain having no reference points to maintain his sense of equilibrium. He dry-heaved repeatedly from motion sickness, his clothing soaked in sweat and urine. His brain raced to process what had happened; he lived a paranoid existence as it was, expecting betrayal at nearly every moment. He struggled to make sense of what had gone wrong.
Betrayed by Mo, but to who and for what? Had Mo found out he wasn’t really a CIA asset continuing his work for the United States government he’d started in Iraq?
This was more than misery. This was pushing Landry into the land of the insane. He squinted his eyes shut trying to make this nightmare end, only to open them to the darkness of the tape and hood, his muffled screams the only outlet for what had turned into an anxiety attack without end.
The van accelerated over gravel, made several sharp turns, and finally came to a stop, brakes squeaking. The driver was speaking to someone outside, and Landry heard the doors open. Whatever he was wrapped in was jerked from the vehicle. He landed on the ground with an unceremonious thud and rolled sideways as the rug unraveled. The effect was dizzying. Landry attempted to gasp for air, thwarted by the tape across his mouth.