by Carr, Jack
They hit hard but not hard enough to do any real damage. Reece scrambled to his feet as his target struggled to untangle himself from his sling.
Reece was on him in a heartbeat, forcing him onto his back. The human body can take a lot of abuse and Reece’s initial strike was not enough to kill. As much as the primal side of him wanted to end it, he needed information. The former SEAL trapped the AK-type rifle with his left knee, crushing the windpipe with his left arm, tomahawk at the ready in his right.
“English?” Reece hissed, glaring into the eyes of the man beneath him.
The eyes betrayed recognition and revulsion, but nothing more. Reece had seen eyes like that before. Eyes that revealed such burning hatred that the threat of death had no effect; death only delivered them to salvation.
With a possible chemical weapon attack on a civilian population imminent, Reece wasn’t about to wait for direction. Take charge and lead.
“How many men are in the tunnel?”
This guy wasn’t going to say a word.
Knowing that he had been an active participant in a WMD attack made Reece’s next decision an easy one. He didn’t have time to take this guy apart piece by piece in the hopes he’d paint a clearer picture of the opposition awaiting him in the catacombs. A city of innocent men, women, and children needed him to finish this, and it didn’t matter how many enemy combatants were in the tunnels, Reece was going in. He pulled away from the man who had moments before had him pinned down with bursts of AK fire and swung the spike on the hilt of Freddy’s tomahawk down at an angle, through his temple into his brain. The body shuddered as Reece removed the hawk, spun it in his hand, and drove it blade-first through the skull to finish the job.
Reece removed and inspected the AK from the dead man. No magazine. He checked the chamber. Empty. He removed the last magazine from the shooter’s chest rig, pushed down on the top round with his thumb to ensure it was fully loaded, inserted it into the mag well, and racked the charging handle before moving back up the shoreline to a cement bunker with a rusted metal door: the entrance to the catacombs.
CHAPTER 84
THOUGH AKRAM COULDN’T BE sure, he thought he heard gunfire outside. If true, that meant that local police had made a move toward the beach and Ziad had killed them with his AK. Well, maybe not all of them. Ziad was the youngest of the group, and he was nothing if not enthusiastic. In all likelihood, reinforcements were being called in, and soon Ziad would be dead. Martyred for the cause. He would hold them off and buy the team time to complete their mission. It was too late to stop them at this point. As the most senior member of the team, and with his years of experience in the Syrian Army and then the military side of the Mukhabarat, Akram was the only one who knew how to mix the binary compounds to create the Novichok nerve toxin.
His most recent posting had been to the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center in Masyaf. Located on the eastern side of the Jabal Ansariyah mountains in northwestern Syria, it had somehow managed to escape targeting by the latest round of attacks from the West; air strikes launched by the British, the French, and, of course, their American masters. It was not lost on Akram that it was in Masyaf that the Islamic sect known as assassins were formed in the eleventh century. General Yedid had paid him well, looked over him, and ensured his upward trajectory in the Mukhabarat. Now, just like the famous fida’i from centuries past, Akram was being passed the torch. The four other men and one woman who made up the team were there to get him to this point; they were there to protect him.
General Yedid did not give Akram the exact target but had said enough for him to believe it was someone important, perhaps even a leader from one of the countries responsible for the cowardly attacks on his country. He was to be the personal scepter of President Bashar al-Assad and strike back against the West. They had targeted his homeland with sanctions and the might of their military.
Unfortunately for them, they’ve missed the chemical research center built into the mountain that had been the birthplace of the assassins, he thought. Today they will reap what they’d sown.
Launched from hundreds of miles away, missiles could miss their targets. The white powder he had just mixed by combining the two Novichok binary compounds would not miss. This weapon did not need to be as precise as a rifle’s bullet or a smart bomb dropped from above—this was a weapon of terror. Unseen and unavoidable, it would not discriminate.
They had successfully tested it in a minute portion in the rebel town of Douma and seen its effectiveness firsthand. One touch of the toxin on the skin was enough to cause violent convulsions, followed by paralysis and then respiratory and cardiac arrest. Western intelligence agencies had misinterpreted it as a chlorine gas attack when it had in fact been a test of the Novichok that had been moved to Syria from Nukus, Uzbekistan, after the fall of the Soviet Union in advance of UN chemical weapons inspections. There, it had been studied and improved upon. Now it was ready. Safe in its binary components, the mixture of the two substances created the deadliest nerve toxin known to man. Most people had heard of sarin gas and had a healthy fear and understanding of its devastating power, but until recently Novichok had remained a mystery. While it was a similar class of toxin, Novichok was over a thousand times as potent as sarin, rendering any antidotes completely ineffective. A microgram of exposure was lethal and would, in the amount ready to be unleashed onto the streets of Odessa, render the entire area uninhabitable for generations. The perfect substance for terror’s lasting legacy. It would be the most severe blow to the West since the attacks of 9/11 and would be the revenge that President Assad had publicly promised his people. General Yedid had even passed along blessings from the president himself.
I will not fail.
It had taken some effort to carry the equipment into the tunnels, but they were able to do it, moving to their set point ahead of schedule. Faya and Tawfiq had taken care of the two men guarding the entrance without much trouble. That was the benefit of having a female on the team. It gave them the ability to close with an unsuspecting male target. It was rumored that President Assad had mandated the creation of the all-female commando battalions himself. These Lionesses of National Defense now made up a battalion of the elite Republican Guard. After five years as a Lioness, Faya had been recruited into the Mukhabarat following her performance on the front lines subduing insurgent forces in Damascus in 2015, and General Yedid had been paying her a retainer ever since. That she was also attractive didn’t hurt. In this case it allowed her to hold hands with Tawfiq as they walked the beach, stopping to ask the two local police officers guarding the catacombs what all the commotion was about in the streets above. Lovers looking to spend some time alone by the sea, oblivious to the world around them.
Their stab wounds were savage and lethal as the counterfeit lovers went right for the throats of the unsuspecting police officers just as they had been trained to do in service to their country. A whistle brought Akram and Hassan down from the trail above; Akram carrying the fan in a large backpack while Hassan carried the two small canisters that would forever change the world. Ziad was set up with his AK on the hillside with a clear view of the entrance to the tunnels.
Now, deep in the tunnel system, it was time. Condensation had built up inside the protective clothing and soaked Akram in a layer of sweat. He knew the others were in a similar condition, the thin plastic suits designed as airtight barriers against the evil they were unleashing. They had secured the cylindrical tube leading off the fan directly to the side shaft with a combination of tape and rubber cement, forming an airtight seal leading to the street above. Originally constructed and connected to the catacombs as drainage to allow water trapped in the colonnade to find its way to the ocean, it was now a conduit of death.
Each member of the team worked for the military side of Syria’s famed Mukhabarat, and each also worked for General Yedid. He had chosen to activate them for this mission because they all had extensive training in unconventional chemical munition deliv
ery systems. The thin plastic suits would serve their purpose. All they needed to do was carefully pour the mixed compound into the yellow tube, then attach the fan and turn it on. So simple. So effective. There was no stopping them now.
CHAPTER 85
DARKNESS.
No NODs. No suppressor. No team.
Reece slipped inside and began to work his way down the tunnel. That he wasn’t killed right away told him whoever was ahead had been counting on the rear security he had just eliminated to cover their six. That, or they had someone barricaded deeper in the tunnel.
He had what was probably twenty-eight or thirty rounds in the AK, his SIG P365 in the ankle holster, a SureFire flashlight from Agent Scheer, and the tomahawk.
What lay ahead in the blackness? One man? Two? A squad of heavily armed terrorists? Had they already mixed the binary components of the Novichok? Were thousands of Ukrainians already dead and dying from the deadly compound? Reece pressed on.
Reece remembered stories of the tunnel rats in Vietnam from his father’s unit, descending into the subterranean labyrinths carrying nothing but a flashlight and a 1911 handgun. And, he remembered his friends and teammates going into tunnel complexes in the mountains of Afghanistan at the start of the war.
He refrained from using the flashlight as he didn’t want to telegraph his arrival, though it was in his left hand pressed against the stock of the AK. He was one man against an entrenched enemy force, with an unknown number of weapons, in possession of a deadly nerve toxin, hidden somewhere ahead in complete darkness, beneath the streets of an ancient city in what amounted to an unmapped labyrinth of caves and tunnels three levels deep.
The passage began to narrow, the air cold and heavy. Reece used his left shoulder to guide him forward along the corridor, the cold damp limestone walls bearing witness to yet another battle in a new war.
Reece heard them first. Coming to a stop, he listened.
Did they have night vision and IR lights? Reece was about to find out.
Like he had done as a bow hunter making the final approach on his prey, Reece removed his shoes to quiet his movement as he inched forward.
A light began to illuminate the tunnel and Reece worked his way toward it. As much as he wanted to sprint into the breach, he knew he wouldn’t do anyone any good if even one of those he pursued lived to launch the toxin.
A new sound made Reece freeze in his tracks. What was that? It sounded like a vacuum. Then it went silent. Reece moved forward more quickly, the light ahead getting brighter.
He was close and could hear a strange, almost computerized whispering in Arabic. Taking a knee, Reece leaned to his right, away from the wall, to get a better angle on his target.
Twenty yards down the tunnel was a puzzling sight that turned to horror as Reece’s brain processed the scene. A lantern illuminated a man standing guard with an AK similar to the one Reece now carried. His attention wasn’t on security, though he did look in Reece’s direction every few seconds. His focus was on his companions.
Three people wearing white chemical suits with respirators were working to attach what looked like an industrial fan to a bright yellow tube, the type used to ventilate sewer systems through manholes or construction tunnels that could be maneuvered in and around corners like an oversized vacuum. It was fixed to the wall of the cavern. It took a moment for Reece to process what was happening, but then it all came together. Designed to ventilate small spaces, the fan and its attached tube had been turned into a weapon of terror. The high-powered fan was on the floor of the tunnel, plugged into a mobile battery pack. Strewn around it were two discarded plastic containers with Cyrillic writing. They were in the final stages of setting up their system designed to blow the lethal Novichok down a side tunnel and into the colonnade above. It was ready to go. Just as Dr. Belanger had briefed, the toxin was inside the mazelike catacombs, and the fan was set to blow it into the crowded streets of Odessa.
“Ziad?” Reece heard the digitized voice-altering challenge through the respirator from the guard with the AK, who now peered attentively in Reece’s direction.
The fan started to turn.
Shit!
Reece answered with five rounds from the AK, but without illumination to line up his sights in the dark his shots went wide. The guard immediately began firing on full auto in Reece’s direction, forcing him back and out of the cone of fire. The rifle fire was deafening inside the confines of the cave, and the muzzle flashes were blinding.
Fortune favors the bold.
Reece depressed the button on his flashlight and dropped it to the ground, at the same time moving to the opposite side of the tunnel.
With his enemy’s attention on the bright light, Reece stitched him up with another ten rounds from the rifle and charged forward toward the fan.
• • •
As their accomplice dropped dead on the floor of the catacombs, one of the conspirators reached for an AK as two others retreated into the darkness, disappearing down the tunnel complex. Rounds from Reece’s AK found their mark in the upper chest of the chemical-suit-clad terrorist, and two more exploded through the respirator’s face mask, dropping him in a bloody heap. Reece resisted the urge to pursue and instead stopped in front of the large fan, the high-pitched whine of the electric motor pushing the chemical agent toward daylight. Within seconds, the deadly vapor would reach ground level, killing hundreds if not thousands of civilians, transforming the entire area into a toxic wasteland.
Reece’s finger began to take the slack out of the heavy trigger as he aimed at the fan’s motor. Then he stopped and released the pressure.
Think, Reece. Adapt.
Fuck it!
Reece couldn’t read whatever language was on the dial, but it was as intuitive as could be. Reaching down he cranked the dial to the left and felt the fan switch directions, pulling the Novichok back into the ventilation tube, returning it to the catacombs.
Turning to run, Reece stopped and directed the fan deeper into the tunnel system toward those who had unleashed it. As it sucked the deadly nerve toxin into the underworld he sprinted back the way he had come.
CHAPTER 86
BY THE TIME REECE emerged from the depths of the catacombs, the beach was teeming with local police, Ukrainian military, and a few Secret Service agents left behind to coordinate with the host nation.
Reece spotted CIA case officer Douglass and briefed him on what he’d seen in the tunnels, stressing that two terrorists in white chemical suits were contaminated with a nerve toxin and needed to be shot on sight if they made it to an exit. Dr. Belanger had sounded the alarm after his call to Reece, which set off a chain reaction and triggered the Ukrainian Ministry of Emergency Situations WMD response protocol, which was on its highest level of alert, due to the high-profile event in Odessa. HAZMAT teams were already sealing off the catacombs, while the military coordinated an evacuation of the immediate and surrounding areas.
“How’s Scheer?” Reece asked as soon as he was able.
“She’s going to make it, Reece. But I do have some bad news. It’s about your friend.”
• • •
By the time Reece made his way back to Freddy’s last position, Alpha Group had secured the scene. The wounded Secret Service sniper had been transported to a local hospital where U.S. medical personnel were fighting to save his life. There were black tarps over two bodies on the roof. Reece knelt at his friend’s side and pulled back the dark plastic. Tears welled up in his eyes as he cradled the head of the devoted husband and father of three who had given an entire career in service of his nation and now his own life to protect its president. After the shock of losing his entire troop in Afghanistan and his pregnant wife and child in his own home, Reece didn’t think he could feel any more grief. He was wrong.
Reece’s world went into slow motion as activity swirled around him. The Ukrainian reaction force efficiently maintained security while doing their best to protect what was now more than a crime scene. This
had been an act of war. All Reece could manage was to stare into the lifeless face of one of the best men he’d ever known.
CHAPTER 87
Ramstein Air Base, Germany
October
FREDDY’S BODY HAD BEEN bagged and was surrounded by ice to keep it as cool as possible. Reece accompanied his friend’s remains on the C-17 that also carried the Secret Service’s vehicles from the president’s motorcade. The Air Force loadmasters had carefully and respectfully secured Freddy’s body bag to the aircraft’s metal cargo floor. Reece sat next to it.
When they’d landed in Germany to refuel and link up with the president and the rest of the Presidential Protection Detail, an agent approached Reece with an offer to ride in Air Force One at the president’s invitation. Reece politely declined; he wasn’t leaving his teammate’s side. The NCIS investigation in Afghanistan had robbed him of his duty to accompany the fallen members of his troop home, and he wasn’t about to let that happen again.
Reece had spoken to Vic Rodriguez on the sat phone and helped him coordinate the notification of Freddy’s family. When Joanie Strain’s bedroom light turned on in Beaufort, South Carolina, at 6:13 a.m. the following morning, Rodriguez knocked quietly on the front door.
The knock sent her heart racing as she realized that the dreaded moment that every military wife fears had come, a nightmare from which she would never awake.
Joanie didn’t know Vic, so she didn’t recognize him when she cracked the door in a light robe, but she knew the master chief in dress blues from Freddy’s last military command who accompanied him. Her eyes moved from his ribbons to the Trident to his sad eyes; her knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor.