The Ethan Galaal Series: Books 1 - 3

by Isaac Hooke

  Three explosions simultaneously rocked the outpost, taking out the remaining active rockets. She felt the shockwave of the closest roll over her, pressing her into the uneven ground. She drew her Px4 and pushed herself up on one elbow, pivoting her torso toward the closest platform to face any survivors.

  The C-4 had ignited the rocket fuel, creating an immense mess where the platform had been. Twisted metal parts from the framework and missile lay everywhere. The Hilux resided on one side, lying about ten meters from its previous position. Its huge tires were on fire and the insides were smoking. Dead bodies lay beside the wreckage.

  She waited a few moments but no one emerged.

  Bretta smiled grimly. "Assholes."

  50

  Ethan crouched behind the desks near the window and defended against the fighters who had managed to open one of the barricaded doors halfway. The attackers leaned past the entrance occasionally to unleash a burst into the room. So far Ethan had shot at least three of them. They hadn't tossed inside any grenades yet because Ethan had them believing he had Al Sifr hostage. Or maybe they simply didn't have any.

  "Stop firing or I'll shoot Al Sifr!" Ethan shouted in Arabic, continuing the hostage charade. He leaned out to return fire and then ducked as more shots came in.

  "Let him talk!" a coarse voice returned from outside. It sounded muted through the ringing in Ethan's ears. "Give us proof of life!"

  Using the desks as cover, Ethan made his way to the west side of the room, then moved past the rows of desks until he was near the rear wall. Rifle at the ready, he gazed past the outermost desk: he had a clear view to the half-ajar door, and the two fighters squatting in the hallway beside it. One of them was looking directly at him.

  Ethan opened fire with his AK, taking out both men, then he ducked behind the desk. Gunfire sprayed the metal beside him in return.

  He thought his encrypted radio went off, but the words were lost to the noise.

  It activated a moment later. "Copperhead, I ask again, are you there?"

  "I'm here," he said into the radio, turning up the volume full blast. "Report."

  "These aren't ICBMs. They're sounding rockets."

  In the sheer chaos of the previous moments, it hadn't even occurred to him that the missiles might not be ICBMs.

  He glanced at the closest terminal operator, who cowered behind the desk beside him. "The missiles are sounding rockets?"

  The engineer seemed puzzled. "What else would they be?"

  Ethan hit the transmit button on the radio. "Roger that." He clipped the radio to his belt and told the man: "I need to make an international call."

  The terminal operator's eyes darted toward the front of the room, where Al Sifr lay.

  "Al Sifr?" Ethan asked.

  The man nodded. "He carries a sat-phone."

  Ethan made his way back to Al Sifr's body. When he reached the corpse, he spotted the top of a sat-phone protruding from a robe pocket.

  The phone was password protected. Ethan was familiar with the model, however, and he held down the power and phone keys for ten seconds, resetting the password. He pulled up the dial screen and entered two zeros, followed by 882, then the nine digit number of Sam's secure sat-phone. He hit the call button.

  One ring. Two.

  She picked up. "Hello?"

  "It's me."

  "Copperhead!" Sam said over the line. "Please tell me you have some news. We've detected a missile launch from the Iceland region. Are—"

  "They're only sounding rockets. No warheads."

  She paused. "You're certain?"

  "Positive. I'm in Al Sifr's control center at this very moment. Standing over his dead body."

  "Thank you," Sam said. "I'll call you back at this number."

  The connection terminated.

  The floor shook all of a sudden and the windows shuddered. He glanced through the glass: outside, a hangar on the outskirts of the outpost had exploded, as had two launch platforms in the clearing beyond. The semi tractor connected to one of the fiery platforms had plowed into a third.

  Good job, Bretta.

  Gunfire shattered the glass and he ducked.

  Damn it.

  He looked over a nearby desk. Three fighters had entered while he was on the sat-phone. Ethan ducked as the foremost unleashed a burst from an AK.

  Ethan lay flat and aimed at the three pairs of boots visible through the narrow gap under the desks. None of the cowering engineers were in his line of sight. Perfect.

  He fired two consecutive bursts, hitting all targets. One of the fighters fell prostrate. Ethan shot him in the head. The other two fighters landed on their knees, upper bodies still concealed by the desks. Ethan shot them in the thighs. The men howled and turned around, crawling toward the door.

  Ethan momentarily left cover and shot both men in the back. Then he ducked as incoming fire came in too late from the ajar door.

  Ethan grabbed the radio at his belt. "Maelstrom, what's your status? I could use some help in the main building."

  A response came a moment later. "Kind of occupied. I'll get there when I can."

  Ethan made his way to the east side of the room, circumnavigating the desks until he resided behind the half-open door and the toppled desks jammed in front of it. He low-crawled underneath the blockading desks, drew the Glock he had kept in reserve at his hip—refilled courtesy of the dead Saudi—and shoved it around the open door. He fired four quick shots without looking and snapped the hand back inside. He waited. He heard a gurgling, then what sounded like a body toppling to the floor. He fired two more shots in the same manner. He heard nothing in response that time.

  He fetched his cellphone, activated video recording, and slid the phone past the door. He reviewed the footage. There was no one in the hall but the dead. He pressed record and shoved the phone outside again, this time pointed in the opposite direction. When he replayed the video, he discovered only two incapacitated men lying in the hall on that side.

  Had he gotten them all?

  Ethan pocketed the phone and slowly peered past the door, handgun at the ready.

  It was at that point he saw another fighter look out from a side office up ahead. A man with a cropped beard, his hair fashioned into a faux hawk.

  The man held a rifle at eye level...

  Ethan didn't have time to reset his aim; he quickly ducked instead. Bullets tore past the door a split-second later.

  Not all of them, then.

  Washington, D.C., White House Presidential Emergency Operations Center

  THE PRESIDENT SHIFTED IMPATIENTLY in his seat.

  "Incoming delivery vehicles have entered terminal phase," the Chairman said.

  "So it wasn't a high altitude detonation," the President said. "We were wrong about the EMP pulse."

  "But it might still contain a nuclear," the Secretary of State said over the vidlink. "If Robert's asset was wrong."

  "If she was wrong," the President said.

  "Launching THAAD interceptors from Fort Bliss," the Chairman announced.

  The National Security Advisor arrived.

  "Have a seat, Jerry," the President told him distractedly.

  "Front row seat to the end of the world," the Secretary of State muttered over the vidlink.

  "It's not too late to fire, Mr. President," the Chairman said.

  Watching the delivery vehicles close with the Midwest, followed by the three ICBMs behind it, the President was considering doing precisely that.

  "I have confirmation!" Sam announced over the teleconference line. "One of my operatives finally reported in. The missiles were indeed launched from Iceland, and they are definitely sounding rockets. There are no warheads aboard. I repeat, no warheads."

  The President felt momentary relief wash over him. But when he glanced at the incoming delivery vehicles on the display, his stomach knotted up all over again. He wouldn't know true relief until the payloads from the so-called sounding rockets had struck.

  The intermediat
e-range THAAD interceptors missed all their targets.

  The President held his breath as the first payloads impacted the Midwest. He waited several seconds, but nothing else appeared on the satellite feed.

  "What's the latency on that display?" he asked no one in particular.

  "About two seconds, Mr. President," a duty officer in the lower row answered.

  He waited longer. Still nothing.

  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs appeared on the videoconferencing screen. His eyes seemed guilty. "Mr. President, the Defense Support Program via NORAD reports no nuclear detonations anywhere in the continental U.S.. I repeat, no nuclear detonations."

  The President sighed in relief. "So far so good."

  All eyes turned toward the remaining three bogeys. The GMD interceptors were still too far away to make a difference, of course.

  "The incoming rockets have jettisoned their fourth stages," the Chairman said. "Multiple delivery vehicles are incoming over Chicago, New York, and Washington."

  The President watched the descent in trepidation.

  When the missiles reached terminal phase, the Chairman announced: "Launching THAAD interceptors."

  Those missed, too.

  The payloads continued their descent. The President held his breath as the one over Washington struck.

  He felt nothing, and instinctively glanced toward the ceiling as if to confirm it was still there.

  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs came on the line. "The Defense Support Program via NORAD reports no nuclear detonations anywhere in the continental U.S."

  Everyone in the room slumped visibly.

  Back from the brink.

  "What a night, boys," the President said, wrapping an arm around his wife. "Move the Global Strike forces to DEFCON-2, and the conventional forces to DEFCON-3. Samantha Rond, I want a full debriefing within the hour." That was when he saw the tears of joy trickling down his wife's face.

  "That should be doable," Sam responded.

  The President hardly noticed. He was too busy hugging his wife.

  Hidden Base, Southern Region Suðurland, Iceland

  LYING ON THE FLOOR, Ethan peered past the ajar door, aiming down the hallway at the office he had seen the tango emerge from.

  "You created all of this," a coarse voice shouted from that office. "You brought it upon yourselves."

  Ethan waited patiently for the man's head to appear.

  "Without you," the hidden fighter continued. "My sons would still be alive. My wife. But you did this. And you will pay. Every last one of you. You killed all our children!"

  The last sentence affected Ethan. He felt strangely remorseful, and his aim wavered.

  The man's head stuck past the doorway, at knee height. He held a rifle to his face.

  Ethan micro-aligned his iron sights.

  But then he froze, because the tango had become the boy from Iraq.

  Ethan was back there again, on the rooftop, manning the mounted MK 43. The boy was in his sights. The shorter sister stood in front of him, urging the kid on.

  The boy turned his weapon on Ethan.

  Ethan's finger trembled, but he couldn't squeeze the trigger. He couldn't. Not again.

  A loud gunshot snapped him back to the hallway in Al Sifr's base.

  Bretta stood near the office entrance, the Px4 aimed down at the head of the dead fighter at her feet. Blood pooled from a wound in his skull.

  She looked up at Ethan but didn't say a word. She cleared the remaining two offices in the hall and then limped toward the control room entrance. She halted just outside, her gaze locked on something behind Ethan.

  When she spoke, her voice sounded muted. All that gunfire in the relatively enclosed space had taken a toll on his hearing.

  "He looks exactly like I remember him," Bretta said. "If I had captured him all those years ago, if I had succeeded in my job, none of this would have happened."

  "It's not your fault," Ethan said from his position on the floor.

  "I know." She smiled wistfully and offered him a hand covered in scratches. Ethan accepted. She pulled him out from under the blockading desks and to his feet in the hallway.

  Not only were her hands scratched, but her face was marred by cuts and nicks, too, and her fatigues were ripped in several places.

  "There are survivors inside," Ethan said. "Engineers. Scientists."

  "All right," she said. "But let's wait downstairs. We'll watch the SUVs, make sure no one else leaves."

  Exhausted and numb, Ethan followed her down the hall. She limped visibly.

  "What happened to you by the way?" Ethan asked.

  She grinned ironically. "Stepped on a nail."

  Her humor hardly registered. Ethan continued onward, and paused beside the bearded man Bretta had shot.

  "Why didn't you fire?" she asked him. "He would have killed you if I hadn't intervened."

  Ethan simply stared at the man.

  The world faded, replaced once more by the scene from the nightmare he had relived so many times.

  The boy was in his sights. Shooting at his team.

  Ethan squeezed the trigger.

  Click.

  The mounted MK 43 didn't fire.

  The boy exhausted his ammunition and retreated down an alley with his sister.

  "The MK didn't fire," Ethan said abruptly.

  "What?" Bretta asked.

  He was back in the hallway. "I didn't shoot them," Ethan told her triumphantly. "I didn't."

  But you meant to, an internal voice countered.

  "You choose now of all moments to crack," Bretta said, wrapping her hand around his palm and dragging him down the hall.

  "I'm not cracking," Ethan said. "I've never felt better. Believe me."

  You meant to kill them, the voice tried again.

  Yes, Ethan told himself. But I didn't. And that's all that matters. I didn't kill them. I don't have to be haunted by that memory ever again.

  The dissenting voice had no answer to that, because Ethan was right.

  The two of them reached the parking area outside. Most of the Hiluxes were gone. Ethan and Bretta took up guard positions, watching the remaining SUVs. They kept their weapons at the ready in case any other fighters decided to introduce themselves.

  Bretta borrowed Al Sifr's sat-phone and called Sam. Midway through the conversation, she turned to Ethan. "The Icelandic Police will relieve us later in the day. Apparently they're firmly in our pocket."

  "Good to know."

  After she hung up, Bretta told him: "The U.S. was this close to launching a retaliatory strike against Russia." She placed her thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart. "The world will never know how near we came to nuclear annihilation. We're heroes."

  Ethan stared at the horizon beyond the canopy. He could only see about a quarter of the sky, thanks to the overhanging fabric. Still, witnessing that bright blue sky, and those white, wispy clouds, put him strangely at peace.

  He felt himself choking up.

  "What's wrong?" Bretta said.

  "Nothing," Ethan answered, reining in his emotions. He blinked the moisture from his eyes and looked at her. "Tell me, have you ever been to the Caribbean, Ms. Storm?"

  "Never," she said. "The Mediterranean is more my thing, Mr. Galaal."

  "But if you've never been, how do you know what you're missing?"

  She pressed her lips together. "That's a good point."

  Ethan grinned mischievously. "I hear the lobster is incredible."

  She crooked a smile. "Are you asking me out on a date?"

  "Not a date," Ethan said. "An adventure."

  EPILOGUE

  Somewhere Off Saint Croix, The Caribbean

  ETHAN BALANCED EASILY on the PowerSki jetboard. The device looked similar to a surfboard, except it was powered by a thirty-two horsepower motor capable of speeds up to fifty kilometers per hour. Ethan gripped a control handle, part of a four-foot long semi-flexible arm joined to the nose of the board, with which he controlled
the speed of the device.

  He truly loved the modern age. There were so many inventions he would have died for in his younger days. Take water sports. There was flyboarding, sea bobbing, hydro flying, the modern jetboard. As a former SEAL, he was truly at home in the ocean, and anything that made his recreation time in the water more enjoyable was high on his to-do list. If he ever retired, he would probably engage in water sports like jetboarding all day.

  The island shore resided far to the west. Ahead, the speedboat was a tiny thumbtack on the horizon.

  Bretta rudely cut in front of him on the left. The wake from her jetboard disturbed his balance, altering his direction.

  "Hey!" he yelled.

  He thought he heard a faint laugh above the roar of the engines.

  He recovered and adjusted his course.

  She wants to race, does she?

  Bouncing over the gentle swells, he up-throttled and approached. He came alongside her and slowed so that they rode nose-to-nose.

  She glanced at him, grinning ear to ear. He couldn't see her eyes underneath the sunglasses, but she was obviously enjoying herself immensely. She stuck out her tongue and increased her speed.

  Ethan thumbed the throttle and the board jerked forward. He ducked low, bouncing over the waves, slowly edging in front of her. He gave her a mocking victory wave.

  When he passed the speedboat he throttled way back and turned around. He headed toward the boat—a Formula 270 Bowrider.

  He met Bretta there.

  "Nice driving," he told her.

  He stepped onto the rear swim platform and carried the PowerSki aboard. She followed close behind.

  After setting down her board, Bretta raised her sunglasses. "You cheated," she complained.

  Ethan laughed. "I don't see how."

  She started removing her life jacket. "You weren't wearing one of these." She indicated the vest. "Therefore you weighed less than me."

  "I doubt that."

  The life jacket dropped to the deck and Ethan couldn't help but stare at the fit bikini body underneath. He quickly looked up, meeting her eyes. She smiled flirtatiously. "Caught you looking."

  "I was merely inspecting the life jacket for damage." He went to the bow area and lounged contentedly on the cushions. Bretta joined him, lowering her sunglasses.