Man of War

by Sean Parnell

  They all have a price.

  After a lifetime of service to the good ol’ U.S. of A., all it had taken to turn Daniels was a million cash. West might have even let him keep it if the man hadn’t fucked everything up and allowed Ali Breul to take a pit stop in Algiers.

  “That fat piece of crap,” Villars began, taking his foot off the gas while pointing repeatedly at the other vehicle, “works for the bloody CIA?”

  West agreed that the guy didn’t look the part, but his intel was solid. Daniels was the man who could get him into the CIA computer system. The problem was that Villars was beginning to make a scene and there was no way the fat man wasn’t going to eventually notice the dark-colored SUV and Villars pointing at him.

  “Just stop the car.”

  That was all he had to do, and West would handle the rest, but Villars seemed unable to stop pointing or put his foot on the brake.

  “I just . . .”

  They were five feet away when West lost it.

  “He’s a fucking slob, I get it. We all get it, Villars,” he said with a sweep of his arm that encompassed the four men inside the Pathfinder. “Just stop the fucking car.” The men in the backseat sputtered and made no attempt to control their laughter. All this did was make the big South African more angry, and West realized they were about to drive right past their target.

  “For Christ’s sake.” West reached over and pushed the wheel hard to the left. The Pathfinder smashed into the side of Daniels’s vehicle, pinning him inside. “Go!” West yelled. The men burst from the backseat, rifles in hand. West slammed the SUV into park, yanking a knife with a white handle from his belt.

  Outside there was a muffled yell, followed by the sound of glass shattering. West ignored it—his hand closed around Villars’s hair. He got a good grip and slammed his head against the window. He moved so fast that by the time the South African went to swallow there was a blade at his throat.

  “If you ever,” he hissed, “undermine me again I will cut your head off and use it as a hood ornament. Do you understand?”

  Villars nodded and West slowly pulled the knife away. The truck bounced and his men threw Daniels in the back and jumped in behind him.

  “Drive,” West growled.

  “Which way to the safehouse, Daniels?” he asked, tossing the knife into the air and catching it by the handle.

  “Wh . . . what?”

  “The safehouse!” West yelled. “I think his ears are clogged, can you guys help him out?”

  One of his men smiled and then slammed his fist into the fat man’s gut. Daniels deflated like a bad tire, and spent the next few minutes gasping and wheezing for breath.

  “Number 12 Chemin Al-Bakir.”

  “Much obliged.” West pointed the knife at Villars and said, “Driver, if you please.”

  West had been a believer once, and before his wife and son were killed he realized that if he made it to the end, all he was going to get was a shitty gold watch and a laughable pension. Just before he met Ali Breul, he was preparing to retire, and the only reason he stuck around for six extra months was to train Eric Steele. When Breul showed up, so did the heat.

  Maybe I got sloppy?

  I bet ol’ Eric doesn’t have a fucking clue.

  The thought of his old protégé walking into an ambush in Beirut made him chuckle. West was confident that Steele could handle himself, but wished he could see his face when he realized that someone was pulling his strings. Rule number one—don’t get played. That was what he had told him their first week together.

  Villars turned onto the upscale street and hunched over the wheel searching for the address. West already knew where they were going, but he’d learned to take joy in the journey. Plus, it was good practice for what he had in store for his men later.

  He was in his element, and just had one more detail to take care of before it was time to have some real fun. And that meant he was going to have to make Daniels talk, either willingly or by force.

  Chapter 17

  Eastern Turkey

  Eric Steele was strapped in and rubbing a rag over his father’s 1911. Demo had brought the pistol with the rest of Steele’s gear on board the C-17. In the cockpit, the pilot pushed the throttle forward, shoving Steele back in his seat. He barely noticed because he was thinking about the first time his father let him hold the pistol. It had felt so heavy in his hands back then.

  So much I never got to ask him.

  He ran his thumb over the spot where the serial number should have been. It was silver and all traces of the file marks were smoothed out by years of use. The pistol was one of John Moses Browning’s masterpieces, the same design that the American infantryman had carried in the Battle of Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Korea, and Vietnam. It was the only thing he had to remind him of the father he never really knew.

  Steele had made the pistol his own by modifying it to shoot 9mm, adding a threaded barrel, and installing suppressor sights, which were taller than the factory ones. It was his gun now, and he slipped it away before taking an amphetamine tablet out of his pocket and downing it with a sip of water.

  Once the C-17 leveled off, Steele checked his watch, unhooked himself, and went back to the Pelican case on the floor near the ramp to retrieve the rest of his gear. He took the tan plate carrier, checked the magazines and frags that were preloaded in the pouches and the Thales MBITR radio. He turned the radio on and conducted a check to make sure he was up on coms. The last piece of equipment in the box was the AN/PRQ-7 Combat Survival Evader Locator, or CSEL, radio. Steele called it his Amex card, because he never left home without it. The radio was small enough to fit in his chest pocket but powerful enough to call for help if things went sideways. With his gear ready, Demo helped him rig up for the fun part.

  An hour later his throat was dry and scratchy from the pure oxygen coming through the hose attached to the Mark XI Advanced Jumpers Helmet. The helmet was a gift from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. The oxygen was to keep him alive. There were no time outs at 30,000 feet, and with no doctor on board, Steele had to check himself for signs of decompression sickness and hypoxia.

  Nothing ruins a mission faster than an unconscious free fall.

  Demo stood at his left typing on an iPad. He was in his late fifties, short and built like a fire hydrant, with thick wrists and short hair that sported spots of gray. His right hand was scarred and missing its middle finger. A white cord stretched from the bottom of the tablet to the USB port in the side of the Mark XI.

  “I am uploading the drop zone info into the navigation computer. Right now the DZ is clear, but . . .” Demo shrugged.

  “I get it, I get it. If it was secure I wouldn’t be conducting a HALO jump in broad daylight.”

  “Exactly,” Demo said, closing the iPad case and pulling the cord free. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. We have no idea what is going on down there, mano. The last cables from the State Department said the Algerian police had a legit insurrection on their hands.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “That’s my boy. Did you pack your lunch?” Demo asked with a smile.

  “Shut up and give me the count,” Steele said, laughing.

  “Ten minutes.”

  Demo placed the iPad in the Pelican case, replacing it with an oxygen mask that he pulled over his head.

  Steele disconnected from the C-17’s internal oxygen and snapped the silicon hose into the thermos-sized bottle of O2 strapped to his side. An icon appeared on the bottom edge of the Mark XI’s heads-up display telling him that he was on auxiliary oxygen and that he had thirty minutes of air.

  Demo walked to the ramp and clipped his safety harness into the metal ring dangling next to the control box.

  “Can you hear me?” he asked.

  His voice was crystal clear through the Mark XI’s internal comms.

  “Got you,” Steele said, tugging on a pair of thick gloves in preparation for the temperature drop that would come as soon as the
ramp opened. Right now it was tolerable inside the bird because it was pressurized, but outside he knew it was freezing.

  “Remember, no matter what happens your mission is to find Breul’s dead drop and get your ass to the Gatehouse. The only thing that matters is securing that bomb before the bad guys do. Comprende?”

  Steele nodded and watched his handler slam the flat of his hand on the red plunger sticking out of the control box. The ramp cracked open and with a whir of hydraulics began a slow yawn.

  The jump light over Demo’s shoulder switched from red to amber and Steele toddled toward the ramp. The cold air whipped at Demo’s jacket and Steele felt a dagger of frigid air cut under his pants legs. His visor immediately fogged up, and when it finally cleared Demo was holding up two fingers.

  The view from the back of the bird was hazy and thick graphite clouds obscured the ground. A HALO jump was a bitch in the best of circumstances. A daytime jump into a possibly hostile drop zone was like playing Russian roulette with a Glock.

  At least I look cool, he thought, checking his reflection in the circular window. The helmet reminded him of something from Iron Man.

  He checked his gear one final time and made sure the heads-up display was tracking with the altimeter and GPS on his wrist. He took the final two steps to the edge of the ramp and when he was in position turned to look at Demo.

  His handler held up one finger, followed by the verbal command of “thirty seconds.”

  Steele was ready, and when Demo shot him a quick salute, threw himself out of the C-17.

  Chapter 18

  Washington, D.C.

  Rockford grabbed the binder and walked across the room to one of the isolation cells built off of the main floor. The rooms were known as “tanks,” and were designed to give the men and women who ran the TOC a place where they could decompress. Each one had a table, overloaded with phones, a secure computer terminal, and a matching couch and recliner.

  Rockford closed the door behind him and dropped the heavy binder, but instead of taking a seat he used the remote to activate the privacy shade. Behind him the window quickly transitioned from clear to opaque.

  Man, Emma would get a kick out of that.

  Boeing had similar windows in all of their 787s, but they took longer to transition from clear to dark green. The ones in the TOC used electrochromic material and the change was immediate.

  Rockford slipped out of his suit coat and draped it over the chair. He checked his watch before sitting down, noting he had less than thirty minutes to devour the data before he had to brief President Cole.

  It wasn’t enough time to get a full picture of Stalker 7, but it was all Rockford had. The binder catalogued Steele’s military history, Program recruitment, and operations. A tab separated each section, and the first thing Rockford noticed was that there was nothing about Steele’s childhood.

  Rockford had been a leader long enough to know that it was his job to learn as much about Stalker 7 as possible. He knew the binder wasn’t the best way to do this, but it was the only option available. Like every Alpha recruit, Steele had begun his training at the Program’s facility in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The site was located in an area of the installation that was secure and remote, literally in the middle of nowhere. They called it the Salt Pit, a name that, oddly enough, came from an accountant.

  Even secret sites had to be paid for, and the Salt Pit was no different. During Vietnam, the Johnson administration decided that the Alpha Program needed its own training site. All the president had to do was sign a piece of paper and it was up to his staff to make it happen. The project was slipped into the Department of Energy’s budget and designated a salt mine, hence the name.

  Rockford knew that training was broken into four phases. Phase 1, or Indoc, was at the Salt Pit and had a staggering attrition rate of eighty-seven percent. Making it to the end didn’t mean a candidate got to continue, and many a heart had been broken after the review board deemed them unsuitable for the job.

  Rockford skimmed the bullet points of Eric’s final review, hoping to get a sense of the man.

  Candidate Steele is a natural leader and is fluent in Arabic and French. His German is passable and the board recommends additional language training upon completion.

  Candidate showed superior skills in weapons, communications and demolition. On training exercises he was cool under fire and has extraordinary ability to task organize and work on his own or as a member of a team. Cadre counseled candidate on 2011/07/21 after candidate halted operation to assist injured teammate. His willingness to put himself at risk to help others could have negative effect in real world operation(s).

  Rockford reread the last line aloud. “Could have negative effect in real world operation?” That’s strange.

  He wondered how much Steele’s altruism had led him to join the military in the first place. Not important, I guess. After all, he made it through.

  Rockford skipped ahead to Phase 4 and the main reason he’d requested the file. A year ago, President Cole had mentioned an incident that he had forgotten about until Steele advised him that he was heading to Algiers. Rockford didn’t remember how it had come up, but during the conversation Cole had made a casual remark about an incident that almost made Steele quit the Program.

  He knew that there had to be something about it in the file and found it in the form of a psychological report with the heading 24 Dec 14—Algiers Debrief:

  EYES ONLY

  SAP (Alpha)

  From: Station 1–11

  To: Cutlass Main

 

  On 24 Dec 2014, Stalker 7 (Steele, Eric) was conducting phase 4 operations under Stalker 2 (West, Nathaniel) in AO Algiers.

  : What happened that day?

  Steele: We had just finished up and West said that he was retiring. It was the first I had heard about it, but he said that he had bought a boat.

  : A boat?

  Steele: Yeah. He bought a boat and flew Lucy and Able out to meet him.

  : For the record you are talking about his wife and son?

  Steele: Yes.

  : What happened then?

  Steele: I took him to the marina and he asked if I wanted a beer. I had to sanitize the site and finish up some paperwork so I said no. I headed up the ramp and that’s when I saw the motorcycle and the shooting started.

  : What happened after that?

  Steele: I dumped the guy on the bike and headed back. There were four or five shooters, which I engaged, and then there was an explosion.

  : The boat exploded?

  Steele: Yeah.

  : Did you recover West’s body?

  Steele: The water was on fire. I saw him floating there. He was dead.

  : Tell me about the connex.

  Steele: Do we have to talk about this now?

  : Yes.

  Steele: Shit, you guys . . . There was a humming sound and then I smelled the blood. They had her strung up like a piece of meat. I could tell they had messed with her.

  : What do you mean?

  Steele: They raped her.

  : What made you cross the border?

  Steele: I knew Nate had brought his son Able but I couldn’t find him. I spoke with one of the survivors . . .

  : Spoke with?

  Steele: Yeah, I got him to talk. He told me that someone named Ali Habib was behind the hit and had taken Able.

  : And that’s when you decided to ignore the recall order and go after him.

  Steele: (Silence) Yeah. I found him a few weeks later . . .

  As a father, Rockford had to stop reading. The details of what had happened to Nate’s son were too graphic and made him want to rush home and hug his daughter. Rockford was no stranger to the violence men were capable of, having seen it firsthand in the desert of Saudi Arabia, but this was different. Horrifyingly so, and he was relieved when he realized it was time to leave.

  He returned the binder to the battle captain before stepping into the hall and the ele
vator. While he waited for the car he mentally switched gears.

  The situation in North Africa wasn’t the only burden he had been forced to bear, but as with the missing nuclear weapon, there were only a few people he could share it with. The elevator arrived with a ding and Rockford stepped inside, preparing for the part of his day he had been dreading.

  President Cole wasn’t out of pocket at all. In fact he was on the next floor.

  The elevator bumped to a halt and the doors slid open. Rockford stepped out and immediately took a right, finding himself in another hallway. Near the end, a Secret Service agent stood near a nondescript door. The agent nodded to the VP as he approached.

  “William, how are the kids?” Rockford asked.

  “Growing like weeds,” the agent replied, smiling as he opened the door.

  Inside, the room smelled of antiseptic, which, combined with the white floors and cream-colored walls, gave the area a clinical feel. Fluorescent bulbs burned bright in the ceiling, illuminating a mat that read: white house medical unit.

  The WHMU was responsible for the medical needs of the White House and its visitors. The doctors and nurses were the best in the business, and besides staffing the White House clinic, they ran a full-service medical suite aboard Air Force One. Rockford took the first door on his right, where he found the First Lady seated on a small tan couch.

  Nancy Cole was a stunning woman, and by far the classiest lady Rockford had ever met. She was the kind of woman who’d put on makeup before going to check the mail, but today she looked terrible.

  “Nancy, what is it?” he asked.

  Her eyes were red. It was the most distraught Rockford had ever seen her. He tried to hide his concern, but must have failed, because Nancy’s lip began to quiver, and the tears rolled down.