State of Honour

by Gary Haynes

  After they had decided that gathering intel from Pakistani assets and sources was their best bet, the door opened and a young Special Forces officer with red hair came into the room without knocking, his face flush with excitement.

  “You better have a real interesting thing to say, captain,” a broken-nosed colonel said.

  “I’m sorry, sir. But we’ve located Lyric,” he said, his arms barely able to refrain from punching the air.

  “The GPS,” the colonel said, excitedly.

  Everyone in the room now knew what Tom had always known. Apart from the tracking devices hidden in her specially made jewellery – her necklace and ring – she’d agreed to have one implanted under the skin of her upper left arm. But due to its sensitive location, it wasn’t large or sophisticated enough to prevent jamming.

  “Yeah, our techs designed them,” Crane said, preferring to lean against the beige wall rather than sit at the table. “But don’t hold your breath.”

  “Where is she, son?” Houseman asked.

  “Upper Kurram Valley, sir. We lost the signal for a while there, but, hell, we’ve found her now.”

  “Federally Administered Pakistan Tribal Area. A stronghold of the Leopards,” Crane said, soberly. “It’s picture postcard. Northern Af-Pak border country. Less than a hundred and fifty klicks away, which means it’s easily accessible by stealth helos. The two major tribes are the Bangash and the Turi. In Upper Kurram, the Bangash are Shia. The Turi are all Shia. They’ve both sent alotta young men to join the Leopards.”

  The assembled men nodded, all tacitly accepting that Crane was the expert in such things.

  Tom held back from saying that they had to act fast. It was as obvious to everyone concerned as saying a diet of fries and pizzas wasn’t a great idea if you wanted to lose weight. So he kept quiet and did his best to fade into the background, hoping that his presence would be accepted, even though in truth he had no right being here, at least as far as the president was concerned.

  He watched Houseman report to the POTUS on a secure video link. After the input of more than a dozen people, including the Director of the CIA – who everyone knew was actually coordinating matters at Langley – a process that took forty-five minutes, the president decided that the National Security Council would consider a rescue plan.

  The chances of finding bin Laden in the compound in Abbottabad had been estimated to be forty per cent when a similar sounding had been taken. The chances of getting the secretary out alive were deemed to be half that at best. But no lines of communication had been established, and every minute that passed meant the chances of getting her out alive were diminishing. There really wasn’t any other option, despite the odds.

  Houseman turned to Crane. “Go along with Lieutenant Sawyer. He’ll liaise with JSOC. Give ’em the benefit of your local knowledge. I want a plan ready to go in two hours.”

  Crane looked aghast. “That’s not enough time. Even if we’ve got UAVs sending back photos of the brand of toothpaste they prefer,” he said, referring to the unmanned aerial vehicles used for reconnaissance.

  “I think we can do it in the timeframe, sir,” Sawyer said. He turned to Crane. “Two hours is standard prep for a mission.”

  Tom saw Crane’s pale-blue eyes bore into the lieutenant.

  “Yeah, for a kill or capture mission. Lyric’s life is at stake here,” he replied.

  “We haven’t got time for a red team analysis, or for this. Get to it,” Houseman said.

  Tom left with Crane and Sawyer, figuring everyone was still too preoccupied to care.

  17.

  In a similarly secure, adjacent room, Tom, Crane and Sawyer were hunched over a large stainless-steel table, doing final checks on the rescue site via the twenty printed satellite photos spread out before them. The site was an ochre-red fort abandoned by the Frontier Corps of the Pakistan Army three months previously, after it had been almost overrun by the Leopards, and all supply routes had been cut off. Black-and-white drone feeds were playing on laptops either side of the photos.

  “I count at least thirty pax,” Sawyer said.

  Tom frowned.

  “That ain’t disrespectful,” Crane said to Tom. “It’s military speak for people.”

  Sawyer looked quizzical.

  “Tom’s sensitive about such things,” Crane said, turning to Sawyer. “He thought you were calling the locals Paks.”

  Tom shook his head, thinking that Crane was baiting him deliberately, but let it go. He looked back at the photos. A few hundred metres beyond the fort there was a makeshift town, which all but surrounded it. A ragbag collection of awnings, thin sheets of battered-out metal containers, and mud and stone and wooden structures. Home to four thousand Shia refugees from ransacked and burnt-out towns and villages further south and east. Innocent civilians who’d escaped from the sectarian tyranny that was blighting the country. As a result, the helicopters couldn’t land far enough away to enable an approach on foot, which Sawyer favoured. There’d be no element of surprise, or the advantage of sneaking up on the fighters before they had a chance to arm themselves. So a creep in, creep out mission was out of the question. They’d have to go in shooting from the off.

  Sawyer had spoken with the JSOC Commander already. If the plan was a goer, it had been agreed that two Black Hawks from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment’s Night Stalker Unit, stealth helicopters fixed with anti-radar cladding, which could fly as low as thirty metres and at a hundred and thirty miles per hour, would carry the Delta troop as the first wave of attack. An MH-47E/G, multi-mission Chinook with terrain avoidance radar would transport a platoon of Army Rangers from the 75th Ranger Regiment, a light-infantry-combat formation, which was part of the US Army Special Operations Command. The Rangers were carrying out weapons training for their Afghan counterparts alongside the Delta troop, most of whom were ex-Rangers themselves. They would secure the immediate perimeter. Despite the ban on armed drones, Reapers loaded with Hellfire missiles would protect the assaulters from above, backed up by a couple of adapted AH-64 Apache attack helicopters.

  A second Chinook would carry the civilians and double up as a flying ambulance for any wounded. Crane said he’d travel in the rear Chinook, together with a back-up interpreter and five CIA counterterrorist operatives whom he’d handpicked already. The entire search and rescue operation would be relayed in real time to Houseman, the Director of the CIA and the White House Situation Room via state-of-the-art surveillance equipment: a squadron of MQ-1C drones, infrared cameras secured outside and onboard the gunships, and robust video cameras fixed to the lead operators’ Kevlar helmets.

  Tom had kept quiet about going along at this juncture, but he was desperate to be in on the action.

  Crane scratched the back of his head. “I’m still not sure about it.”

  “With respect, sir, this is special ops not covert ops,” Sawyer replied.

  “You don’t say. There was me thinking we could dig tunnels under them and pop up wearing Halloween masks and then blame it on… Who? The freakin’ Chinese? Of course I’m aware it’s a special ops, I’m just saying I’m not sure about it.”

  “If you would like to put forward an alternative, sir, I’d be happy to consider it with JSOC.”

  “What, in about two minutes? It takes me longer than that to make sure I’ve shaken all the drops off when I take a leak these days,” Crane replied, stretching his back.

  “He’s right,” Tom said to Crane.

  “Is he, now? So you’re a trigger-happy Leopard and you see Sawyer here and his buddies arriving like the Seventh Cavalry. What are you gonna do, huh, feed the secretary grapes?” Crane gripped his forehead, clearly frustrated.

  “They could move her any time. They could kill her any time. You want that on your conscience? Besides, JSOC know what they’re doing, so why don’t you ease up on the lieutenant here?” Tom said, feeling that Crane was being overly obstructive.

  Truth was, the CIA’s ultra-secretive Spec
ial Activities Division, the most elite section of which was the Special Operations Group, had worked in tandem with Delta since their inception in the late 1970s, and regularly recruited operatives from the squadrons. But it was obvious that the CIA had the upper hand, and Tom had heard rumours that Crane headed the Special Operations Group, or had done.

  Crane seemed to relax. “Sure. What the hell do I know anyways?” he said, although not without a hint of sarcasm.

  “We’ve successfully carried out eight similar hostage recues over here,” Sawyer said, still apparently unfazed. “That’s why POTUS wants to go for it. But if the NSC judge it’s totally off the wall, they’ll say so. I know there’s only a twenty per cent chance of success, but we’re ready and able to give it our best shot. If we don’t try it, we’re likely to be too late. Now I’m no politician, that’s for certain, but why wouldn’t they have made a demand already, if they wanted something?”

  “Why wouldn’t they have killed her already, if they wanted her dead?” Crane replied.

  Tom thought that that was sound reasoning, although it made him shudder to think it could end that way. But you could bat this one back and forth for days, and you’d still be left with the same dilemma. He guessed that was why those who had to make such decisions would go for it. The alternative was inertia. And if the secretary died while they were procrastinating, well, that could be political suicide. Besides, although it wasn’t a perfect plan, no plan was, especially with what they had to work with. But it was unlikely to be any different in a week’s time, and with the passage of time came an increased likelihood of a leak.

  “Are we done?” Sawyer asked.

  “Yeah. Run it past Houseman,” Crane said.

  Sawyer headed for the door, a laptop and a bundle of photos under his arm. Tom saw Crane glance at him, although he looked preoccupied.

  “I’ll see what I can do, Tom. Just stick around for now.”

  18.

  Tom hadn’t wanted to push his luck, thinking that if he kept in the background Crane might be able to get him to go along on the mission. He got a cup of coffee from a vending machine in the lobby, and sat on a pleather chair. He thought about those who’d died already, and those young men who might lose their lives in the next few hours. He just hoped that their sacrifices would lead to a worthy outcome.

  He sensed someone behind him and twisted around. It was Steve Coombs, holding the extended handle of a small suitcase on wheels.

  “The hell you doing here?” Tom asked.

  “Benazir Bhutto got a bomb threat. It’s closed till further notice,” Steve said, referring to Islamabad’s international airport, named after the assassinated female politician. “I’m flying home from Kabul. The CIA said they had a couple more questions; asked me to come in on my way to the airport.”

  Placing the cup on the floor, Tom stood up. “Good to see you, Steve, anyhow.”

  They shook hands.

  “And you, Tom?”

  “I’m staying put for now.”

  “How’s that?”

  Tom shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. You get home safely, you hear. And give Page my love.”

  Tom hadn’t seen Steve’s wife in maybe two years, but he admired the woman, and he knew that his friend was devoted to her. Steve was a lucky man in many respects, he thought. His parents farmed three-hundred acres in Eastern Pennsylvania spit into cattle and soybeans. He had six siblings, all of whom were married and doing well. Steve had told him that growing up on a farm was like he imagined heaven to be.

  As they parted company Tom thought his own early life couldn’t have been more dissimilar. Up until he was eight, he saw his father about once every three months, if he was lucky. He gave him a toy or twenty bucks. He looked handsome in his Army officer’s uniform. He was six-two with a natural muscularity, his black-onyx-coloured eyes and hair marking him out like a movie actor. He’d never married his mother, and Tom didn’t have his name, Dupree being her surname. His father was uneasy around him, avoiding physical contact, and there would be long silences between them. He was Louisiana Creole, his forefathers being colonial French who’d settled in the southern states. Tom excelled at French at school; did it, he supposed, to make his father proud in some remote way.

  He clenched his jaw muscles now and tried to focus on something positive.

  “Tom.”

  It was Crane’s voice. Tom looked over towards the row of elevators and saw him walking across the tiled floor, his big legs striding out, his confidence restored. Tom stood up.

  “It’s a goer. You ready for this?” Crane said, excitedly.

  “Hell, yeah” he replied, thinking Crane’s mood had turned a full one-eighty.

  “We don’t land until the Rangers have secured the site. You realize that, right?”

  “How did you pull it off?”

  “Apart from Houseman being sympathetic, which, I have to say, ain’t his natural disposition, I told him that you were the only man suitable to go along who she’d feel instantly comfortable with.”

  “Thanks, Crane.”

  “You know how to use an MP5?”

  Tom nodded.

  “I’ll make sure you have one.”

  “You getting paid to keep me alive?” Tom asked.

  Crane grinned. “If I was intent on keeping you alive, I woulda made sure you went home on that plane.”

  19.

  The capital lay in a narrow valley of the Hindu Kush on the banks of Kabul River. The convoy of adapted Land Cruisers moved at speed, Tom sitting in the second vehicle beside Crane. Both men wore fatigues and body armour, their Heckler & Koch MP5 9mm sub-machine guns upright between their legs. They were fixed with suppressors. Crane had explained that all of the assaulters’ weapons were suppressed, so if they heard a round go off from a firearm that wasn’t, it meant it was from a hostile source.

  The distance to Kabul International Airport was ten miles, the North Side Cantonment of which housed the command centre for the Afghan Air Force. They would utilize the seven helipads there for the mission, although the Afghans had been told an elaborate lie. Crane had told Tom that if they knew what they were up to, they would’ve all been arrested. Bagram Air Base, which had been used as a staging point for Special Forces’ missions along the northern Af-Pak border, was so depleted that it could no longer be used safely.

  Kabul International was connected to the capital by a four-lane highway, shared with domestic traffic. As Tom stared out he saw the heat haze rising above it, the tarmac melting from the hours of intense sunlight.

  “You wouldn’t believe this was Afghanistan, would ya?” Crane said, smiling.

  “No. It’s changed a lot since I was here last.”

  “Don’t get me wrong—you get outside the ring of concrete and steel and it’s still a Third World hellhole as bad as any I’ve seen.”

  “You think we were right coming here?” Tom asked.

  “It was a hornets’ nest. But staying as long as we did, hell, no. They sit down and talk, but you can’t tame these people. They’re tough, goddamn it. Toughest people I’ve ever met.”

  “Nothing tough about IEDs,” Tom said.

  “A necessity. They couldn’t fight a hundred thousand well-armed troops face-to-face.”

  “So that’s all gonna be forgotten about now, huh?”

  “Look, I do my job. Damn good at it, too. You know why?” Crane said, rhetorically. “Cuz I don’t hold grudges. That gives you ulcers. I got enough bad habits as it is.”

  “That’s not what you said about the Pakistanis,” Tom said, massaging an aching bruise on his thigh.

  “Always gotta have exceptions, Tom.”

  Tom glanced at him. “How will they’ve treated her?”

  “That depends,” Crane said, his voice serious.

  “On what?”

  “If she’s been compliant, they’ve likely just ignored her most of the time. But if she’s acted like the US Secretary of State, they’ve probably treated her w
orse than a stubborn goat.”

  Tom watched Crane staring into space now, and wondered what was going through his mind. He hadn’t held back. He wasn’t the type. Fingering his Buddha in his pocket, Tom just hoped she’d acted as he’d instructed her to if the worst happened.

  The military terminal was marked by a ring of black, red and green Afghan flags and what looked like relatively newly built redbrick buildings. As the Land Cruisers passed through the heavily guarded checkpoint, Tom felt a knot in his gut. He was both a part of it and a bystander; a voyeur, even. But as Crane opened the door and the sticky heat hit him he consoled himself by knowing that if she was there, she would be glad to see a friendly face at least.

  Let her be there, he thought. Let her be alive.

  20.

  The sound of the twin engines and huge tandem rotor blades scything the cold air was near-deafening as the special ops Chinook flew at almost two-hundred miles per hour. The Black Hawks had silenced rotors and engines, but by the time the Chinooks got there it would be game on. Dusk had fallen now and the clouds were high and wispy, the skyline above the mountains the colour of hacked strawberries.

  Tom had been told to wear a seat belt and helmet to stop himself from knocking himself out if the helicopter had to take a sharp turn or got caught in downdraft. Although the cabin had been fitted out with padding, it still looked as if it was weeks away from being finished. But anything that wasn’t functional was left out, especially on a mission. The operators called the helicopter the flying school bus, which Tom thought inappropriate.

  He sat on a red canvas, aluminium-framed seat, his feet placed firmly on the metal decking with exposed rivets. Crane, wearing a clear earpiece attached to a PTT radio, sat beside him, talking to one of the other CIA men who were in flight. An iron-pumper with a black beard and square face, a real Cro-Magnon hard case, who was nodding as Crane talked in short loud bursts like a drunk in a noisy bar.